Chapter XXXVI

“If that thing has any magical sense at all, the moment I start casting, it will notice,” Silas muttered. 

Carrot glanced up at him, eyes as guileless as usual. 

“That means that the moment I start, you need to be ready to cast yourself. I’m going to try for a hard-hitting, high penetration spell. Try to lock the dog daemon in place. If it breaks free, then we figure something else out, alright?”

“Okay, yeah, I can do that,” Carrot replied with a quick nod. She took in a deep breath, then nodded again. 

Silas knelt down, then slowly stretched a hand out. There was a door between him and the daemon, so his spell would have to punch through that. Fortunately, it looked like it was cracked already. A swift kick would probably shatter the glass, and he was planning on hitting it with something a little harder than that. 

He took a few breaths in, then let them out. He wished he knew more spells, but given that all he had access to were those he had properly memorized, he’d just have to work with what he had. He gripped the magic he had within himself and pushed it towards his hand, twisting it into the form of the spell.

In the room beyond, the dog Daemon paused, then raised its head and sniffed at the air.

The magic in his hand grew, then rushed past what he would ordinarily consider the safe limit for the spell. It formed, then started to squirm and wriggle. It was as though he were trying to keep a firm grip on an oiled-up squid that didn’t want to be held, and yet he pushed more magic into it.

The daemon turned, lowered its head, and locked eyes with him.

“Exterminator Art: Thadeus’ Frosty Fang!”

The icy spell shot out with so much force that Silas found himself pushed back. Frost spread out from his hand, burning his fingers with their icy touch. 

The spell itself rammed through the glass, then sped across the room. The daemon dog leapt to the side, but that only meant that the Frosty Fang stabbed it in the haunch instead of in the chest.

“C-carrot, now!” Silas said as he tried to catch his breath.

“Okay!” Carrot replied. She gestured through the air before her. “Super Cool Dark Magical Girl Spell: Chains of Darkness!”

He was very much certain that half of that encantation wasn’t necessary. Still, it worked well enough. Chains made of thickened shadows whipped out of the darkness and flung themselves across the room. The daemon dog, set off-balance by his attack, only managed to avoid the first of those. The rest wrapped around the dog’s trunk and legs and then tightened.

“Got you!” Carrot cheered.

The daemon’s eyes blazed. “Get them!” he barked, very much literally.

The pigeons spread across the room cooed and jumped about rather uselessly for a moment before taking off with a multitude of flaps. They rushed towards where Silas and Carrot were in the stairwell.

He raised a hand and quickly worked through the incantation for a Flame Bolt. The spell caught one daemon bird in the face and sent it spiralling down.

Carrot’s next spell, a volley of dark, twisting arrows, slammed into the rest, smashing them into the ground or against desks and office furniture. “Oops, sorry!” she said. 

“Don’t be,” he said as he squinted at the nearest bird. It looked properly knocked out. So, not particularly strong daemons. Probably on the level of what he should have been sent after, in a more fair and balanced world.

“Daemon Art: Zoomies.”

The daemon dog disappeared. 

Silas was just trying to find out where it had gone when an excruciating pain blossomed in his left calf. The next thing he knew, the dog was next to him, teeth sunk into his leg, and entire body shifting to the side.

He was thrown into the room, shoulder clipping the broken door before he crashed into the floor and rolled. 

The daemon dog disappeared again, but this time Silas, even through the pain, felt where it was going to reappeared. “Executioner art!” he snapped. “Flame Bolt!” 

He fired just as the blur that was the dog rematerialized into the full daemon. It growled as the underpowered and rather poorly cast spell splashed into its face. “Frustrating humans!” the daemon said as it backed off. “You trespass. This will be why you die.”

“Mister daemon dog,” Carrot said as she stepped into the office proper, glass crunching underfoot. “You... are a bad dog.”

She said that with great finality, as though expecting the statement to go somewhere, but the daemon just stared at her. 

“Who are you?”

“Uh,” Carrot said. She glanced down at Silas. He shrugged back, then winced and reached down to touch his leg. It was, obviously, bleeding. Not too profusely, but the bite had been deep enough to ruin his pants and maybe his ability to walk for a while. The fall and bump against the doorframe didn’t help. He wasn’t in his teens anymore. 

“Carrot, no fooling around, take it down!” Silas snapped.

The dog growled, shifted, then took a deep breath. “Daemon Art: Great Bark!”

The woof that came out of the dog was hard and strong enough to rattle the windows in their frame and had Silas rolling across the floor.

Carrot was flung backwards, but halfway through her flight she summoned a smaller version of her all-black shield. It didn’t stop her from bumping into the far wall, but it helped. 

Loose papers came raining down as the bark finished echoing. “Who are you?” the dog asked. “Wizardlings? Enemies?”

Carrot’s shield dropped. She immediately glanced at Silas, but he waved her off even as he started to try and find his feet.

“You could say that,” Carrot said. “I’m sorry, mister Dog, but we’re kinda here to stop your Master, because he’s been doing some naughty things.”

“Bah! I knew it! I could smell it on you.”

“I... stink?” Carrot asked. She very slowly lowered her head towards her armpit and sniffed. “No I don’t! I put on deodorant! And I showered today! I smell like lavender!” 

“He was being metaphorical,” Silas groaned as he climbed to his feet.

“The taller wizardling is right,” the dog said. “That was hyperbole.”

“Oh.” Carrot scratched at her chin. “Can we convince you not to fight?”

The daemon shifted. “If you are enemies, then you die. The Master made me his most loyal, his first, because I do as he wills.”

“That sucks,” Carrot said. She quickly raised her hand. “Black Petal Thorns!”

It was a quicker cast, so she only managed to summon three of her petals, but they nonetheless shot out, spinning through the room on a course of the daemon. 

The dog leapt to the side, then kicked a loose office chair out and into the path of the nearest petal. It detonated while the other two missed outright and thumped into the walls. “You smell stronger than this,” the daemon said. “But if you want to treat me like a pup, then I will only thank you for it, even as I put my teeth to your throat.”

Every alarm bell in Silas’ mind went off all at once as the magic in the room shifted, pulling in towards the daemon dog. “He’s doing something big!” he shouted.

“I can tell!” Carrot replied. “By the power of the moon and the dark stars! I cast Black Petal Thorns!”

The dog grit its teeth and recast that same movement spell, only it used it to duck and weave away from Carrot’s attacks even as they spun through the room like crazed arrows. 

“I vow, that the loyalty of my covenant will be stronger than the faith of my blood. My fang, tooth and claws are my Master’s! Vow of the Loyal Hound.”

The daemon dog exploded, magic rushing away from it, then back, throwing up dust across the room and flinging office supplies all over. 

When the dust settled, the dog was standing in a low stance. Its matted fur was replaced by bone-like plates that ran from the top of its head down to the tip of its tail.

“Is that a thagomizer?” Carrot whispered.

“Not the time,” Silas mumbled back. “We need to hit it, hard. Can you use your vow?”

“Yeah, I ca--”

Carrot went from standing a few paces behind him to flying across the room. He caught a glimpse of her surprised expression for just a moment before she was thrown into a bookshelf across the room. She came crashing down, loose books and magazines tumbling down onto her.

“Enough,” the daemon dog growled, its voice far lower and far more threatening now. “It is with me that you will fight, trespasser. I will give Master your head, and he will reward me for it.”

***