The pressure of Hate from Quazulin nauseated Melsuria, and she knew that he would feel just as sickened if she stopped suppressing her Lust aura. She waited, wondering whether his all-consuming Concept would cause him to attack her immediately. Instead, she felt the stirring of demonic telepathy in the local mana.

Melsuria.

She shivered, but made herself respond calmly. Quazulin.

Diavla gripped her spear and moved to the front of the wagon. "Where is Tom? You see Tom?" she urgently asked their human driver.

"I don't know," Summer answered. "I don't see him."

Why are you here, Melsuria? This is MY domain.

"TOM!" Diavla yelled."TOM!"

Someone—not Tom—shouted, "He's here! He's down!" Diavla promptly exited the wagon.

I'm trying to leave. I want to go far away from here. Far away from you, and from Arthalax.

"Kervan, Varga, Arven, protect Diavla!" Orvan called. "The rest of you stay here and defend the wagons!"

What of the others? Quazulin demanded.

The old elf turned to Melsuria. "Sheema, they might need you." She nodded in response as the named elves started jumping out of the wagons with their weapons.

"I'll wait until we know," she told the old elf. "I don't want to be seen."

To Quazulin, she sent, Still imprisoned. The humans know about us, know that three of us escaped. They may have gotten all of our true names as well.

The wave of Hate redoubled, and Melsuria winced under the onslaught. Core burn them! How?

I've been trying to find out more, but I haven't been spreading my influence much. I wanted to get much farther away first.

"Why is Forester just standing there, I wonder?" Summer muttered. "He's looking this way, but he isn't doing anything."

Quazulin commented, Arthalax said the same when we separated. I thought if he had fled, I would start my empire here. How did you get out?

"SHEEMA!" Diavla yelled. "Tom is hurt, and a mage here is dying! Come quickly!"

Shit. They're right under the ward. There's no way I can get anywhere near them. Think, Melsuria, think! Inspiration struck. "Drag them over here!" she yelled back. "If I cast too close to that ward, it will just suck away my Healing!"There, that should be plausible enough. She grabbed a blanket from their supplies, then turned to Kevin.

"Please," she begged in Western, "Help...them...go...here!"

"At once, My Lady." The smitten human took the blanket without questioning, jumped out the back of the wagon, and ran to help.

What was Quazulin asking again? Right, how I got out. I was nearly free already, and a bump in the road did the rest.Melsuria climbed down from the wagon with difficulty, careful to keep out of direct sight of Quazulin's host, and waited for her patients to arrive.

There were a lot of people milling around, separated into two groups. Quazulin's shards presumably formed the group farther from the ward. But closer to the gate was a crowd of people who wanted to leave town and couldn't with the gate closed. The wagons were closer to the former than was preferable, but at least she wasn't burning directly under the ward.

I could destroy you easily right now, but we are both trapped. Help me to break the wards, and I will let you go.

Melsuria scowled. He's gathered a lot of power in the town, but he dismisses me too easily. I won't say so, of course. He doesn't know my host is a powerful spell caster. Agreed. Ugh, I need a minute to deal with my servants, though. They're being annoying.

The day was clouding over, and she clutched her cloak tightly around her, shivering in the harsh, bitter wind. She watched as Kervan, Arven, Varga, and Kevin emerged from the gate crowd and quickly carried a bleeding woman over to her, each holding a corner of the blanket. They lay her beside Melsuria and the wagon, in the middle of the street. The victim was face-down, with a crossbow bolt sticking out of her back. Melsuria reached out with a combination of demonic and elven senses.

Shit. This is going to take a lot of power I can't really spare right now. I'll just stabilize her for the moment. At least she's not wearing a fucking amulet. She got to work, while the others rushed back to Diavla and presumably Tom.

Orvan had climbed out to watch over her with his spear, which she appreciated. It would be really pathetic to lose this host to a dagger from a random pickpocket. "I'm just trying to keep her alive at the moment," she explained. "We can't pull the bolt out yet."

Several people approached, carrying Tom between them. "Sheema, I can't tell what's wrong with him, I can't find more than a few scrapes!" From the sound of her voice, Diavla was clearly working hard not to panic.

"Switch!" Melsuria ordered, and knelt beside Tom. Diavla called for physicker supplies as she crouched beside the wounded mage. Melsuria made a quick scan of Tom, and almost rolled her eyes.

"Diavla, he's physically fine! His soul is just drained at the moment." How did that happen, though? She frowned and picked up his hand, looking at the still-wet ink on his fingers. Then she looked at the ward suspiciously. There did appear to be an ink smear at the very edge of the magical diagram. Oh. That's how. Fool of a human could have killed himself.

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Diavla stared at her in surprise. "What?"

"He powered the ward with his own magic, but he didn't know what he was doing, and the ward sucked him dry. Give him some of your magic—in fact, kiss him while you do it. Put some passion into it, it should help." It should help me, at least. My fire is on its last log here. Somebody start having sex!

They switched again, and Melsuria went back to stabilizing the mage. Diavla knelt over Tom and closed her eyes. Seeing her struggle to focus, the demon leaned closer, and murmured, "It's all right. You can focus. It's time to dream. Focus now on Tom's soul. Share your soul's strength with him, passionately."

Her gaze fell on Tom's sword, which Kervan had laid beside him. Wait, is that...? Hesitantly, she reached out and touched it, then pulled it closer to inspect the markings on the blade. It is! The blade had Quazulin's true name etched on it. It was far from complete—there was no way to charge it, for one thing. But if I kept pouring power into it...

Melsuria caught herself before trying it. I shouldn't warn Quazulin that we have this—he might not realize, since it isn't charged. Wait for the right moment. She returned her attention to the wounded mage.

"Charlie?" Arven called suddenly. "Are you hurt?"

She looked up in surprise. The human boy from earlier was leaning against a shop wall, holding his side and breathing unevenly. Impatiently, she scanned him and found two broken ribs and serious bruises on the way. He stood with obvious effort and started coming over.

Oh, what am I, a street clinic? I'm about to fight another demon! I don't have the time or the mana for this shit! But it would be completely out of character for Sheema not to help. Reluctantly, she beckoned to the child. Oh, and he's wearing an amulet. Great.

"This is going to hurt. Hold very still," she told the boy in Elvish. Kervan gave a rough translation and Charlie nodded. She held her hands as close as she dared to his skin, and pushed out more healing energy. She tugged the ribs back where they belonged, and fixed the tears the jagged ends had made in his tissues. The boy did a surprisingly good job of not flinching, and Melsuria didn't lose any more of her strength from an accidental touch.

What are you doing? Quazulin demanded.

Trying to keep my idiot supporters alive. This is your town, so I can't just grab new ones. Almost finished. What do you want me to do?

Take the south side of town, hunt down any mages you find, and either control or kill them. I'll do the same in the north. If they don't have any spell casters outside the Temple, they can't close the trap. Then we can take our time breaking the wards.

What about the Keep?

The Keep is under my control. Don't worry about it.

Melsuria felt a trickle of strength returning from Diavla's impassioned mana transfer, a bit more so when Tom began to stir and reciprocate. Those two souls really do blend marvelously well, she noted. With room to grow, as well. Varga might fit in a triad, though she's possibly more of a—

"Sheema, is she stable enough to bring her to the Temple?" Arven asked.

"Mmm. Mmm. Diavla?" Tom muttered past Diavla's kisses.

"Yes, but carefully," Melsuria told the scout.

Tom grunted. "Diavla. Diavla! This is wonderful, but where is Quazulin? What happened to the ward?" Diavla blinked, coming out of her trance.

Melsuria cleared Sheema's throat. "Tell him the ward is active, he almost killed himself powering it up, Quazulin is almost certainly still inside the city, and we need to move." Diavla stared at her for a moment, then started translating.

"Where are we going?" Kervan asked.

"South, and then east towards the Temple. If the demon wants to kill spell casters and can detect them, I'm probably the strongest one in the area. If I'm going to be hunted, I might as well be bait and lure him closer to the Temple where it will be easier to kill him," Melsuria declared, using Sheema's history of arrogance to help sell it. "We'll have to move very slowly. I'm almost spent and need to recover, so I can't do much more for this woman right now. I need sweets, and a little time to hide from the world, just a few minutes...preferably with Kevin."

Kervan raised an eyebrow, and Melsuria just shrugged. "He's got a crush on me, which is flattering, and he's exotic, and I could really use some simple, non-bonding hugs and kisses from a stranger about now. Believe me, I'd prefer a nap," she lied, "but we don't have time."

"I guess I can understand that," Kervan conceded with a slight blush.

Tom Walker got to his feet, reclaimed his weapon, and hurried over to Eubexa, who was not far away, still sitting on the driver's seat of the second wagon. "Did you get all that?" he asked.

"Yes, Tom." Eubexa proceeded to translate just the earlier parts of what she had said. Good work, my succubus.

"Tom, have you seen Piper? She was supposed to find you at the Temple."

"No, I missed her. I got chased here and ended up defending the ward." The human looked back and forth, seeming torn. He muttered, "if Ward could use it, I'd leave him the sword. Maybe I should stay on guard duty here..."

"You need to protect us," Eubexa reminded him. He sighed and nodded.

Tom did the bulk of the lifting, to settle the mage in the wagon. Rather than getting shoved into close proximity with crowded people all wearing amulets, Melsuria got Kevin to lift her up and join her on the driver's seat of the second wagon, with her sitting on the outside, away from the others.

The got the wagons turned south and started rolling away from the crowd clamoring to leave and the handful of people holding them all at bay. Their leader, a man named Ward, seemed to be making some converts in the crowd, pointing out that standing under the ward meant they were safe, and if the gates opened, pretty soon nowhere in the kingdom would be safe. It was a heroic, noble, and impassioned speech, which Melsuria mostly ignored, beyond feeling some grudging respect for the mortal.

While she tried to come up with a plan of her own, Melsuria leaned against Kevin, resting one hand on his thigh, tasting his lust and "innocently" inflaming his passion, giving him shy looks and fleeting glimpses under her cloak. The boy might well be a virgin—his reactions to her flirtations were almost as good as sex. Melsuria gained some desperately needed sustenance and worked on rebuilding her strength.

I need something better to wear than these rags. I should be stirring up waves of Lust wherever I go. Holding my aura back all this time is wearing me down. I really need an orgy if I'm going to fight another demon and win. If there's one thing I envy Quazulin for, it's the way he can easily hide a hate-filled riot as having a non-demonic cause, while orgies are rare enough that I have to invent fertility rituals, holidays, and other special occasions as excuses while I'm still getting established.

Was starting out this difficult before? Or am I simply having abyssal luck this time around?

Every so often, she sent out a pulse of mana, listening for the echoes of attuned souls. There weren't many, and none strong. Most of the spell casters in town were probably already in hiding at the Temple or trying to get there. Scholars tended not to be physically brave.

How were the humans planning to close the trap and make the kill, I wonder? A second set of wards, to box us in further? If they manage that, I could probably kill Quazulin with mana just like Sheema almost did to me, but I'd need to be guarded or he'd cut me to ribbons before I finished, and he could always jump to a different host if I came close to succeeding. He appears to have dozens of shards ready.

I need to be stronger by the next time we meet.

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