Jason stopped as the demons behind him looked around in bewilderment. He wasn't the least bit confident in his ability to maintain the invisibility illusion let alone do something as complicated as hide his footsteps and the movement of the grass.
"Keep your voice down," he whispered to the girl in his arms.
She opened her mouth like she was going to argue, but stopped at Jason's gaze. Wasn't she handling this a little too well? Her family had been murdered just a few minutes earlier and she seemed more determined than scared.
"What do I do now," he thought to the sparrow who he couldn't spot at the moment.
"Now you want my opinion? You seemed intent on ignoring me back when I had ideas."
"Was that sarcasm?" Jason asked, surprised in spite of everything. "I didn't think you were even capable of that." The sparrow had been quiet for a while but now that it was talking to him it seemed different somehow. Less like a computer program with an objective and more like a human.
"I didn't realize you thought so little of me," the sparrow responded.
Jason's response was cut off as the female demon, Vanya, ran past where he was standing calling for him. "There won't be any more problems my lord, Nishith will fall into line." She scanned for him calling again.
His ruse must have worked better than he had thought, but what to do now? They seemed sure that he was something that he wasn't and if he tried to run they might just be persistent enough to pursue him, and if that happened they might not be quite so friendly. Then again, the alternative would be trying to keep pretending that he was this powerful lord that they thought he was.
Jason wasn't sure what it was that made up his mind, but he did so quickly, letting the invisibility fall. "Stop running around and tell me what you've decided," he said, hoping he could get a little more information.
Vanya turned at his voice. "Apologies my lord, you masked your aura so expertly, I wasn't able to find you."
Masked his aura? Expertly? He hadn't even realized that he had an aura to hide. He couldn't afford to look confused though. "That's hardly worth mentioning. Hurry and report what you have been doing here."
Vanya had run back to him, and Jason reluctantly began walking back to the rest of the huddled demons. What was he getting himself into? "My lord, we've been searching for you of course."
"And how did you know that I would be here," he asked, hoping that he wasn't looking too ignorant.
"We've been searching for days around this area. Please, you must tell us why you chose to present yourself to us in this horrid land of all places, and with that body." She did a poor job of hiding her disgust at the latter. Was he really that ugly?
He needed some kind of reason for being here, but how could he think of anything when he didn't even know what he was supposed to be to them? Hunting humans maybe? No, that didn't make any sense. He needed to explain the girl so that they wouldn't kill her didn't he? How could he…He remembered what the sparrow had told him when he first appeared here.
"It's been little more than a day since I was summoned here and…"
"Did he say he was summoned?!" Nishith bellowed. "Only the human's hero is said to be summoned. I knew that it wasn't possible…"
"I will not be interrupted again," Jason said, trying to force power into his voice. It came out deeper and far louder than it should have and even Nishith shuddered. "If I was the hero," he spat trying to fill his voice with disgust, "I would have killed the lot of you without a thought." This was what he was betting his life on. "The hero has already appeared to the humans, I have come to destroy him."
The demons began murmuring amongst themselves. It was almost comical seeing the gigantic creatures gossiping amongst each other like school children.
"We have never had a champion that could match the hero," Vanya said, silencing the mutterings. "Can you tell us how you were summoned here?" She looked as deeply disturbed as the others. Had he played his hand too forcefully? There wasn't time to think about it though. He had to convince them.
"I cannot answer that," he responded, hoping it sounded like he was irritated at the question and not simply ignorant.
"And what of the girl?"
"The girl is the key to everything," Jason said, improvising. "Her life is as vital as my own." It looked like Vanya was going to bring something else up and Jason was getting more and more worried that he couldn't keep this up. "Enough talking, I don't have time for this."
"Yes, of course," Vanya said quickly, cutting off whatever she was going to say. "I will open the gate right away."
The gate? What was she…?
Jason stood in stunned silence as a hole in the air as tall as a horse opened up in front of Vanya.
"Gates are a type of spatial magic that allows instant teleportation," the sparrow said in his head.
Nora had wriggled free from his arms and was staring at the gate in awe. She had obviously never seen anything like this before. Jason, however, was far too concerned to be awestruck. Was he being taken back to a demon stronghold or city or whatever they lived in? He may have made it this far on pure luck, but he had no illusions about being able to keep it up. Maybe if he could master what magic he could use, but that was a big if, and he doubted that a civilization of demons would just sit back and give him time to prepare.
Nishith looked at Jason in what had to be a mix of disgust and anger, but reluctantly led the rest of the party of demons through the gate. Jason couldn't see through it, so he had no idea where it might be leading to. It just looked like a small storm cloud swirling in front of him.
Soon it was just Jason, the girl, and the female demon. Could he try to fight off this one demon and make his escape now? Would the other demons just come running right back through or were they as blind to what lay on the other side as him?
Before he could make up his mind, the portal winked out of existence. He turned to the female demon in bewilderment and found her crouching on the ground a small distance away from him. She looked like she was struggling with something that she didn't know how to say.
It didn't look like the face of someone who was about to murder him, but that face was on a bloodthirsty demon that apparently had been at war with humans basically forever. Should he try to continue his façade or had she already seen through it?
He was saved the need to respond by an unexpected source. "What did you do? You have to take us through with you," Nora spoke up, looking intently at the demon. Vanya didn't respond instantly, so she continued impertinently. "I want to go with you! You demons are even stronger than my dad always said you were. You killed those bandits and now you need to take me with you."
There was still no response and Nora looked back at Jason expectantly. What in the world was going through this girl's mind? She hadn't once tried to run back or even look back at her parents' bodies and now she wanted to run away with a bunch of demons?
Vanya looked at Nora as well, no doubt nearly as confused as Jason was. She looked back at Jason again with a tired expression, and finally opened her mouth to speak.