The Riddle Of Magic

Chapter 64: Tanged Choices

Alastor the Radio Demon was a being who was intimately familiar with pain. He had been dealt his fair share - through the orchestrations of an unfeeling universe, and through the machinations of men and angels and demons alike. He'd been dealt enough to kill him - more than once, in fact!

None of those wounds had ever fazed him more than a fleeting glance to his pride - a failure to dodge in time, or to turn a blow, or watch his back, or mind the company he kept. He could heal most injuries he received, erasing any trace of them, and over the years needed to heal himself fewer and fewer. And none of the wounds he received he took personally; he could walk away from them easily enough, keeping the occasional scar and story as a lesson on the kind of world he lived in.

He'd been dealt his share of pain, and dealt it back in kind - gleefully at first, as the thrill of the hunt and the surge of power bolted through his veins. But as the deer demon's days in Hell bled into each other, the excitement of the sensations of battle had all faded to a background hum, like so much static; the sounds and stench and feelings blending into a dimmed buzzing in his senses as they became routine and just plain boring. Pain received or pain dealt - it was just another facet of eternity, as sure and meaningless as the sunset. It was the fate of all beings at some point, irrelevant in its sheer inevitability.

The sound of his beloved's screaming would haunt him for the rest of his days.

The Radio Demon's hands were shaking almost as badly as they had the night of his first kill as he Invoked the Sleep rune, and the Princess of Hell collapsed limply onto the soaked floorboards.

"The fuck was that?" Vox asked.

Alastor gathered Charlie into his arms, which helped hide his quaking fingers as he lifted her off the cold floor. "I don't know."

Vaggie knelt at Laurence's side, checking the crumpled Overlord as he tried to sit up. "Her eyes," the moth demoness murmured, "Is she-"

The Radio Demon kept his grin carefully neutral. "I don't have any answers, dear," he replied, balancing the blonde demoness against his chest. "Right now she goes to rest; we'll have to sort out the details after that."

There were so many questions regarding the extent of his partner's injuries - horrifying questions he didn't want to ask regarding just what their hideous alters had subjected her to. But knew he needed those answers, for Charlie's sake.

"Go on, then," the Ink Overlord huffed, his trunk quivering in pain. "Take care of her."

Alastor thought of Phasing upstairs, but didn't want to risk any more runes, saving everything he had left for being able to heal his partner if she needed it, or protect her if - spirits forbid - his alter was laying in wait to strike again while they were still reeling from this. Granted, that seemed unlikely at this point.

This was what the azure Radio Demon wanted, the outcome of whatever the Other Princess had done to her.

Still, his shadow understood his reasoning, and used some of its own energy to help them glide them upstairs, skirting him up to the penthouse as if he and the demoness he carried weighed nothing.

It opened the door ahead of him, and Alastor strode into the room, bringing her to their shared bed.

The sheets were still tidily made up from the last time they were here together, and with Charlie damp from her alter's magic, he bid his shadow to fetch some towels for her. It trailed off, bringing them back with relative ease, and tossing them down on his side of the bed.

He laid his partner down carefully on top of them, examining the dress as he pulled off the remaining damaged sleeve, feeling around for the zipper on the foreign garb, though he couldn't find one.