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He lurched forward a step, then stopped. Tried to move again, but this time stumbled. He lifted his head and snarled, and I growled back with my fangs bared for good measure. Mayhew rose to one knee. After a split-second pause his body fractured, splitting open at seams I couldn’t see. Only then did I understand what releasing the demon meant.
The blade didn’t send him home.
The blade gave him back his true form.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Mayhew the identity-stealing demon was gone.
When the real Mayhew straightened his posture, he was something different and too terrifying to comprehend. I’d fought scary monsters in my time. Vampires, weres and a tidal fae I thought would never be topped on the creepy scale. Boy was I wrong.
Mayhew’s demon form was easily twelve feet tall. His skin was solid black, a leather-like hide over his whole body. With legs as thick with muscle as tree trunks and arms bigger around than any part of my body, I was pretty sure hand-to-hand combat was out.
Two huge blood-red horns jutted out of his forehead, wrapped around the back of his bat-like ears, and curved back along the path of his jaw, forming points near his mouth as if directing my vision to the teeth within. I didn’t need any help noticing the teeth. They were massive, exaggerated versions of his former shark teeth. Those had been intimidating enough. These looked like they could saw through bone with one snap of his hideous jaws.
Worse still, he was smiling at me.
The demon cracked his neck and rolled his giant shoulders. The talons on the end of his fingers were the same dark red as his horns. Must be handy to avoid unsightly bloodstains. He shook himself like a wet dog, and just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, it got so much worse.
Two leathery wings unfurled off his back. They were too big to be compared to a bat’s. They were what I imagined dragon wings look like. They spanned so wide he couldn’t stretch them out across the observation deck between the building and the ledge.
“Crap.”
“Little girl,” he boomed, his demon voice resonating like thunder trapped in his enormous diaphragm. The cement beneath my feet rumbled. “You have released me.”
“Awesome. Do I get three wishes?”
“Secret,” Desmond hissed. “Shut up.”
He was crouched next to one of the viewfinders. I don’t know when he scuttled past Mayhew, but I was grateful he wasn’t too injured to move. I could smell fresh blood on him, but now wasn’t the time to check battle scars.
Mayhew as a demon apparently found me way funnier than Mayhew trapped in human form. The beast boomed out a laugh that made the metal bars hum and would likely be mistaken for a freak thunderstorm all over the city.
“Why don’t you rub me and find out?” He chuckled.
That was the first time I noticed the demon wasn’t wearing a lick of clothing.
“Ewww,” I managed, raising the sword in case the demon had any intention of putting his twisted, corkscrew, barbed penis anywhere near me. I didn’t think that sucker would hurt so good. I know I should have been happy he was in high spirits, but I didn’t want him in too chipper of a mood.
He flexed his wings, turning sideways so he could stretch them to their full width, nearly clipping me in the face with one taloned wing-barb.
I swatted him with the sword. “Watch it.”
“You have a very…open mouth for a woman.” He folded his wings and turned to face me directly again, looking mystified and a little bemused.
“Is that a polite way of saying I talk too much?”
The demon chuckled, and this time I could see how many rows of those nasty teeth he had in his mouth. “Because you have freed me and have amused me, I believe I will overlook your trespasses against me. You are lucky halfling. I will let you live. Just give me the sword.”
“What is it with you and the stipulations? Give me the girl. Give me the sword.”
“I only ask for that which is yours to provide. I did not say, give me the vestigial virgin, or bring me the blood of twenty oxen.”
“Who’s being funny now?”
“Secret,” Desmond warned again.
“Give me the weapon before I grow bored of you.” The demon crooked his claws at me.
