Moxie led Noah over to Lee, who was keeping watch over the demon that they’d captured. The demon in question was only a little taller than Aylin. He had three nubby horns sticking out of the top of his forehead amidst a bed of wispy black hair that really should have been shaved off.

A set of large spectacles rested on his nose, which was far too small to keep them properly held up, causing them to slide down his face until they only covered the lower half of his eyes.

It also seemed that Moxie and Lee had forgone even bothering to trying to bind the small demon. He sat in the corner of the room across from Lee, nervously fiddling with a ratty tweed suit.

Did they catch him or just put him in time out? He looks like a guilty schoolkid more than a demon.

“You smell like death,” Lee said, pointing a stick of jerky in her hand at Noah as he let the tent flap flop shut behind him and Moxie. He nearly went to sniff his armpits before he realized she wasn’t being figurative.

“Ah. I was just doing some killing. Needed some more runes and there were a few dozen demons in the way,” Noah said with a wave of his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Nothing to be concerned with.”

The demon in the corner tried to shrink in on himself. His glasses slipped down his pale face and he shoved them back into place with a finger. Normally, a demon’s claws probably would have scratched a pair of glasses, but his were so short that they were barely anything more than fingernails.

Noah let his domain brush across the demon. He certainly didn’t feel very strong. There wasn’t much runic pressure coming off him and he had no domain of his own — not that he’d expected him to.

Definitely not even a Rank 3. I wonder what kind of feeling a demon like this would feed on. The mild annoyance of having to crunch a bunch of numbers in excel?

“Are you going to introduce me?” Noah asked Lee.

“Oh, sure. I didn’t give him a name yet.” Lee looked down at the strip of meat in her hand with a thoughtful expression. “I think this is Joe. That feels like a good name. I like it.”

The demon in the corner glanced at Lee. It almost looked like he was about to say something for a moment before his mouth snapped shut and he thought better of it. He swallowed heavily and pushed his glasses back up his face.

“Am I remiss in assuming you’ve just named the jerky you’re eating rather than the demon I was actually referring to?” Noah asked, resisting the urge to rub the bridge of his nose through the storm wrappings on his face.

Lee studied the jerky. A small frown crossed her face. “I kind of regret naming him now. Now this just kind of feels weird.”

“The demon, Lee,” Noah said through a sigh. “Tell me the demon’s name.”

“Sorry, Joe.” Lee ate the jerky in one bite. “And I haven’t figured the other one’s name out. I was busy.”

I’m glad we’re giving this little demon the impression that we’ve got a very organized and well put together structure of command. I’m sure I look very competent right about now. Oh, whatever.

Noah knelt in front of the demon, who had scooted back until his back pressed against the tarp of the tent.

“My friend is a little preoccupied. Perhaps you’ll be so kind as to tell me who I’m talking to?”

“Joe,” the demon said weakly. His voice was somehow even more nasally than Noah had expected it to be. It was reminiscent to a stream of air escaping a deflating balloon.

Noah stared at him. “Are you trying to make a joke?”

“No, sir,” Joe said with a firm shake of his head that threatened to send it flying straight off. “That — that’s my name. Your friend, ah, stole it.”

A demon called Joe? Seriously?

“Lee?”

“I may have heard it elsewhere before,” Lee admitted. “I thought it tasted pretty good. It did, in case you were interested.”

Joe’s skin paled another shade. He nervously adjusted the front of his jacket. His eyes darted around the room in search of an escape that wasn’t there.

“Let’s just cut to the chase, Joe,” Noah said, trying not to sound like too much of an idiot as he spoke. It was difficult to seem intimidating when saying Joe, but the best solution was just to barrel through it as quickly as possible. “You were snooping around my camp. I’m not a huge fan of spies. I also happen to want to meet with your boss. I think I can see a way we’re both happy when the night is done.”

Joe’s glasses slipped off his face. He snagged them before they could hit the ground in a practiced motion that showed this was far from the first time it had happened. He slipped them back over his nose and cleared his throat.

“I can take you to him, Spider, sir. That’s why I’m here. He sent me.”

“He sent you to spy on me.”The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“No, sir. He sent me to get you.” Joe adjusted his glasses even though they hadn’t even started to slip off yet. “He wants to talk. A normal talk. Not an official one.”

Huh. That makes things surprisingly simple if it’s true. I’m not so sure I believe this guy only wanted to talk to me, though. Why send someone to snoop around instead of just a normal messenger?

“Well then. It looks like we can help each other,” Noah said. “Lead the way then, Joe.”

The demon cleared his throat. “I — I’m only supposed to bring you, sir. Nobody else. It’s a meeting between you and Pirren.”

Noah tilted his head to the side. He hadn’t really been planning to bring Moxie and Lee along in case things went south and he had to kill himself, but it was a little odd for Joe to be making any sort of demands in his current situation.

He’s nervous, but not as nervous as I would have expected. Does he think he’s safe, or is he more scared of this Pirren than he is of me? Both are probably equally possible. I suppose there’s no reason to waste time thinking when I can find out for myself.

“That suits me just fine. I prefer working without witnesses,” Noah said with a one-shouldered shrug. He took the sword off his waist and handed it to Lee. Moxie still had his gourd, so he didn’t have to worry about anything other than his grimoire if he got killed. Considering it could make itself as heavy as it wanted, Noah was fairly confident he’d be able to get it back if things somehow went poorly. “Let’s get on with it, then. I don’t have all night.”

Joe nodded hurriedly and scrambled to his feet. He brushed the dirt off the back of his aged pants and stood with his hands crossed behind his back. “I’m prepared to lead whenever you’re ready to leave.”

Noah and Moxie exchanged a glance. It was definitely a bit odd, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen stranger things. She gave him a small nod and Noah walked over to the entrance of the tent, holding the flap open. “After you, Joe.”

***

“This, uh, this is it,” Joe stammered, craning his neck back to look up at the teetering mansion before them.

After they’d left the market square, Noah had followed the demon for about forty-five minutes until they’d arrived before the mansion.

It was mostly made of a pale, bone-colored stone that yellowed and cracked with age. It vaguely reminded Noah of a pile of stained teeth. The mansion was three stories tall and, for some reason, was wider at the top than it was at the bottom. It was vaguely egg shaped and tapered to a point at its peak.

Metal supports had been erected all around the building to keep it balanced. The mansion had probably once been quite intimidating in its prime.

That wasn’t to say it wasn’t intimidating now. The type of intimidation had just shifted. Before, Noah suspected it had been scary. Now, he was scared the building would fall down on top of him.

A cobbled path broke away from the main street and ran up to a stone door in the mansion’s front. It was already open, revealing a hallway floored with a dull red rug beyond it. The rug led up to a stairwell that ascended up toward the bulbous top of the mansion. Noah squinted at the building’s bulbous top.

This is a butt plug. Someone modeled their house after a butt plug. Why would you do that?

Joe scurried into the house without giving Noah any more time to stare. Resisting the urge to shake his head, Noah followed after him. The two ascended the stairs of the mansion, following the spiraling stairwell past several doors until it came to a stop somewhere around where Noah estimated the middle of the building to be.

A pair of double doors stood open in wait. Beyond them stretched a meeting room. Old, unused chairs made from the same material as the house itself made a large ring around a huge throne in the very center of the room.

Sitting in the throne was an eight-foot-tall demon. His fingers were interlaced on his lap and his face was covered with a pitch-black mask. If it weren’t for his size and skin color, he could have easily passed for a human. He had no horns or other bodily modifications.

Joe didn’t make any move to enter the room. He didn’t leave, either. He just stood there. Noah glanced down at him. Then, with a shrug, he entered the room. They were clearly trying to put on a bit of theatre for him and he had no issue playing along.

“Spider,” the blue demon said, his voice like a grindstone. “We finally meet.”

Finally is a bit of a stretch, mate. I literally wasn’t even on the Damned Plains a day ago.

“I take it that you’re Pirren, then. It seems we want to speak with each other,” Noah said evenly. He extended his senses, letting his domain pass over the room as he approached the huge throne. Noah’s eyes narrowed as his domain brushed across the demon. Pirren wasn’t a Rank 4, much less a Rank 5.

Don’t tell me there’s another guy lying their way through everything. I thought I had that move patented, but this is either that or a test to see what I’m capable of. I’ll have to see how this guy handles things. I can respect a fellow bullshitter, but I won’t let myself be made a fool when I’m trying to keep the Spider persona’s reputation up.

“Feel free to go first. I’d love to hear what it is that you want from me.”

Pirren’s laughter echoed from behind his mask. “Do not presume to speak to me as if we are equals. Kneel at my feet.”

Noah tilted his head to the side. “No. Tell me what you want. One chance. Do anything else and I’m going to get annoyed.”

Pirren pressed a hand to his mask. A dull hum buzzed through the room as a crackling blue Shield spun to life around him. Noah almost blinked in surprise. It had been some time since he’d seen a proper mage shield — and longer still since he’d seen one that was just permanently active.

Like the shields that Arbitage has in the training arena. Good defense… but they need a lot of energy. Interesting. I wonder if the demons made it or if they took it from someone in the mortal plane.

“Kneel,” Pirren thundered as he stepped forward to loom over Noah like a wall of blue flesh. “Then we will—”

Noah lifted a hand. Spider wasn’t going to keep his reputation if he let someone talk to him like this.

I’ll just destroy the Shield to show him I mean business, then figure out if this is actually the real Pirren or if some idiot is testing me.

Perhaps Pirren was too confident in his shield. Perhaps he simply didn’t have time to react. Whatever the reason, he didn’t so much as move as Crumbling Space’s power arced free of Noah’s palm. Cracks of white light webbed out and passed straight through his shield and into his chest.

There was an instant of silence. Then the magic detonated with an earsplitting crunch. Pirren’s chest caved in on itself. Blood spurted from his body together with bone and viscera as he let out a choked wheeze, clasping at the massive crater where his heart had been.

The Shield didn’t so much as flicker. Pirren pitched back, crashing to the ground and cracking his head against the front of the throne and lying still. Noah stared at his corpse in disbelief. If the demon hadn’t been dead before, he definitely was now.

Noah barely even cared. He was far more concerned with what he’d just done. Just when he’d started to think he’d figured out how his new Rank 4 Rune worked, he’d been proven very, very wrong.

What the fuck? Crumbling Space can pass through other magic?