[Clare is coming back, better leave in five minutes as she looks a bit pissed off now - Joseph.]
The man read the message once more and sighed, then put his hand next to his right ear and after a beep he said. - We've got five minutes, if you don't find the kid we've lost this chance. - After the man removed his finger from his right ear, he jumped up and from his back two spare parts detached, then something similar to a hologram of wings appeared, after they appeared the parts that had detached returned, but they looked like a kind of liquid, the liquid covered the hologram and soon metal wings with several small turbines took shape, the man then glided and looked around, soon the sign that was always red turned green and underneath the mask a happy, somewhat debauched smile formed as he flew to Arthur's position, 'I should have flown from the start, we'd be far away by now' the man thought as he slowly approached.
- Shit... did they really have to be in these outfits? - Maria smiled wryly as she looked at Arthur who didn't understand what was going on, Maria looked at him and sighed shaking her head as her once wry smile turned sad, she grabbed Arthur's shoulders and looked into his eyes. - Arthur, you must stay close to me at all times, understand? - Maria asked as she looked into his eyes with a serious expression, the sad smile had already left her face and all that was left was a serious and serene expression on her face.
- Yes!" Arthur replied, nodding positively at Maria.
- If I tell you to run, just run. - Maria said in a lowered tone as she looked up, in her vision she could see the man approaching calmly, and although he was wearing a mask, she could tell by the tilt of his helmet that the man didn't take his eyes off Arthur for a moment, at least not while he was within her range of vision.
- Oh, is Maria here for the party too? - The man's voice rang out, and its carefree tone might have made Arthur think that he and Maria were friends if it hadn't been for her hostile expression at the moment.
- Fuck you, asshole. - Maria replied as she hid Arthur behind her.
- Kind as ever, I'd like to talk as usual, but... - The man cut his own sentence in half and jumped back. As he walked away, black smoke billowed out of his hands and towards Maria and Arthur.
- Disgusting as ever. - Maria looked in disgust at the approaching smoke before grabbing hold of Arthur and jumping backwards, during the jump her blonde hair began to shine and her once brown eyes turned yellow and began to glow, along with the change in her hair and eyes, a kind of golden smoke began to surround her and Arthur, and as soon as this smoke solidified into a kind of golden circle that enveloped them both she stretched out her left hand and spoke. - In the name of Apollo, God of the sun and patron of light, I command all light to obey me! - After this sentence, the light around Arthur became more intense, and in the same way that when you turn on a light switch, the bulb drives away the darkness, as soon as the intensity of the light became so strong and touched the smoke that was advancing towards the two of them, it caused this black mist to dissipate, it seemed to have been blown away by a breeze in the same way as any smoke.
- Tsk - Seeing that even his abrupt attack had been canceled, the man clucked his tongue in disgust as he stared at the sphere of light. - You're going to be quite a target for all of us like this, don't you just want to hand over the brat? - After the man had asked, four more people wearing clothes identical to his appeared, two of them appeared to be men, and the rest were two women, Arthur could tell the fact that their clothes highlighted their curves.
- You've never won in five years of combat; I don't think you'll be able to pull off a miracle today... - Maria's voice sounded from the sphere of light that was being watched by the four of them.
- That's true, but there are five of us here... Are you sure you don't just want to hand the boy over? - The man tried not to let on that he was out of time and tried to persuade her again, after all, he had fought with her for more than five years and knew how difficult it was to face her.
- I don't need to win, just hold you back, I'm sure Clare will be back in an hour at most? - Maria said pretending to be calm as much as possible, she couldn't let it show that she was anxious and afraid to sadists like these, she knew from experience the terror that a demon or its followers can cause when they feel afraid of them, the moment that happened protecting herself would already be impossible, let alone protecting Arthur.
- Sigh. - The man sighed, despite knowing a little about Maria's personality he still hoped he could intimidate her, or at least scare her into taking the boy and running away in as little time as possible, unfortunately he wouldn't be able to spare this time.
- We'll finish in three minutes. - The man said aloud, and the others nodded. 'We have a little over three minutes, regardless of the outcome I have to get out of here in three minutes' the man thought to himself, but said nothing, if he were altruistic or cared about the lives of people other than his own, he wouldn't be here, he wouldn't even have made a contract with a demon in the first place.
Maria was in a panic when she heard this man's voice, he was known by the nickname of Coyote and was responsible for trafficking humans for the sacrifices that some organizations made to demons; this man wasn't remarkably strong, but he was almost immortal as long as he had a shadow in place and he always took several people with him which made her believe that there would be dozens of enemies, but seeing only five she was very relieved, so she smiled at Coyote and asked. - Do you think three minutes is enough? Or...
"This is already the second chapter where the last paragraph has disappeared when viewed on cell phones. To avoid this, I've decided to duplicate this message at the end of each chapter, hoping it will resolve the issue. If you're reading this, I apologize if it's intrusive, but it's a better solution than leaving the chapter incomplete."