Night Witch (Book 1) ✔️

11 - The Demon Lawyer

The world I step into is very different from the one I left. No sun graces the sky as an eternal sunset lights the world in a purple glow and rather than a sun crossing the sky the light increases and decreases in intensity to mark the flow of time. Each demon city has a different colorscape, but Midnight's purple has to be my favorite. By the fact that my eyes can still easily see I mark the time as half to dark.

The pavers are made of a black material and the buildings of a grey stone, but with the purple horizon everything takes on a haunted cast. We emerge from a small alley set between two five story buildings onto a busy street.

Midnight is one of the larger Demon cities with only Twilight having a higher population, so it's no surprise to see so many people out and about. Unlike Twilight, which sits at the intersection of the demon and the demi-human realm, midnight is solidly ensconced in endless red rock plains so the risk of running into something that wasn't a demon was low.

Yet even here, most demons kept their human forms. I'd asked Mex about it once, and he'd given an off the hand answer about practicing for traveling to the human world but I knew there was something more.

They wore dark colors, mostly because here the purple cast kept other colors from being seen well anyways. My black leather jacket and army boots blend in well to the crowd of people wearing blacks and grays. Mex, his form fitting black shirt molded to his form like a second skin, takes a deep breath before giving me a warning look.

Demons play by human rules in the middle realm but here, a human is fair game. No one in their right mind comes here. Well, almost no one possesses the correct innate magic to make the crossing to begin with but even those few who do don't come. Except me. So my presence is something of a secret to the everyday demon.

We weave our way across the street to cut through a park. The trees, tall and skeletal, have small purple leaves and I snag a few as we walk by ignoring Mex's glare. Devil's thorn leaves are almost impossible to come by in the middle realm.

Mex glares at anyone who approaches us, and I have to stretch my strides to keep up with his pace. Honestly, we're attracting more attention in our rush than had we slowed down but this is how he always is when he escorts me here. We practically jog through the city for what feels like an hour, though time moves differently here so I can never be sure.

The city just continues to sprawl, with tall grey buildings of various sizes surrounding us as we march onward, the occasional park being the only thing that adds breaks to our journey.

We're heading towards the city center, so the streets get wider and the buildings taller and more ornate the farther we go. The people change too. Everything from the rough leather jackets to the molded black dresses improve in cut as if personalized for each demon while everything starts to scream sex and sensuality as the quality increases.

Mex sheds a layer of his glamour and suddenly his arms are covered in glowing red demon runes in riotous patterns. His eyes glow red and when he snarls at people who don't move fast enough I know I catch a glint of a lengthened incisor. Everyone skitters in fear from him as the saying might is right rules here. He could kill them and no one could claim retribution. They were in a Demon Lord's way, after all.

I just roll my eyes and keep stride, though etiquette would state that I should walk two steps behind him as a guest or vassal. But, I ignore them because screw that I'm no one's sidekick.

We arrive at a tall manse covered in Gothic columns and gargoyles with a sprawling lawn and fenced in grounds. It likely houses at least a hundred demons which means this is a large and powerful House. I pull out the list I shoved in my back pocket when I left the office.