"I didn't think of that," the psycho smiled awkwardly and took a step back, and the crowd of human monsters moved forward. - But it doesn't really matter. I remembered that I'd forgotten to turn off the iron when I left the house.
"Mr. J, how can you be so absent-minded?! - his companion exclaimed emotionally. - What if there's a fire?! We have to go back now! - The blonde quickly made her way to the closed door and tried to open it. Exactly tried, because despite the fact that she was much stronger than a normal person, the obstacle remained completely immobile, like a monolithic wall. In her attempt to open the door, the girl even pushed her foot against the neighboring door.
"Looks like it's jammed, now I'm..."
The handle couldn't take the abuse and snapped off with a loud crack. Harley started to fall on her back, but Joker moved to her instantly, picking her up in his arms like a princess.
"Careful, my love," he gently fixed his disheveled hair.
"Ah, Mr. J," the stars shone in her eyes, and the couple merged in a passionate long kiss, which smoothly flowed into something more, because the former supercriminal began to caress the body of his faithful assistant, without shyness.
"Ahem," the demon leader coughed delicately, removing the creepy grin from his teeth. - Are we disturbing you?
"Um," the green-haired hero briefly interrupted his undoubtedly important occupation. - To be honest, you're in the way. Could you..." he made a vague gesture with his hand.
"Oh, sure, sure, we'll leave now," the man nodded vigorously. Some of the demons began to turn around. - Freeze! Where do you think you're going? - The black eyes, black with anger, fixed on the shaken subordinates.
"Sir... You said yourself we were leaving..." one of the devils replied uncertainly.
"Why do I always get idiots to help me? - He muttered thoughtfully, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. A dark haze enveloped his silhouette, revealing black growths and powerful muscles, damaging the elegant suit in places, and a pair of bent horns growing on his head. - It seems you've spent too much time on Earth to let go of your rightful prey so easily. Remember, from now on, we no longer need to hide our identity for fear of mage attention. Our lord already stands at the gate! Today we can finally cast off our masks and become what we are - demons!
"Yes!!! - exclaimed the crowd in one accord. The figures of some of the fanatics began to change right before their eyes, transforming them into the likeness of their leader.
"Now I want you to finish these pathetic people off and..."
"Hey, black-eyed bastard," Joker suddenly interrupted his speech. - Here's your present!
A small cylinder with the pin pulled flew into the demon's palm.
"Do you really think the weapons of mortals can harm us in this place?"
"Ha ha ha, and we're about to find out!"
There was a soft pop, followed by the wild shrieks of dark creatures engulfed in flames. Maybe ordinary fire was harmless to most kinds of demons, but the sanctified napalm was devoid of this disadvantage.
***A few moments ago***
"They have a fucking altar!!!" - That was the thought in my head as the air in the hall thickened and all the mana in my cane disappeared. I'd originally intended to blast the square with Purifying Light to incapacitate the pseudo-demons and then finish off the disoriented possessed. Who would have guessed that a "weak" cult would have such a thing in its possession?
In the end, they had to stall for time, looking for ways to retreat, which, to be honest, weren't there at all. Constantine and Zee were wary of Melholm's fanatics for a reason, for within the radius of the altar its owner could set restrictions greater than Taboo magic. One could say that the whole territory of the mansion is a pseudo-domain with its own laws, and the energy spilled around with demonic coloring, which I had not seen until the moment of crossing the concealing charms, hinted that the regeneration of other-worldly creatures will be like Wolverine's.
No running away, no hiding, at most a little bit of stalling time due to energy-saturated illusions, light spells and the help of an air elemental.
Now the million dollar question, how do we get out of this asshole?
My brain was sharing all the accumulated information about demons and altars, but the only chance to save myself was to somehow impose my own rules or weaken someone else's. In one of the books I've read, there was information that some powerful wizards are able to project their inner world outside, but I'm still hard to put into this category. The situation is about the same with weakening the influence of others, because it requires a long training and a huge amount of mana.
The epiphany came as I stared at Harley's ass in tight leggings while the girl tried in vain to open the sealed doors.
Delirum! No, not by appealing to the Eternal (a vestige of pride simply wouldn't allow it), but by harnessing her energy. The only thing left to do was to interest the powerful cutie, and I knew a foolproof way to do it.
Kissing with Harley, who had been rescued from the fall, I'd forgotten why I'd even started all this, fully committed to the process, but the demon reminded me of himself and ruined the intimate atmosphere.
Huh, he shouldn't have. My patroness is a very emotional person. It was as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, and my active gaze noted the dark space struggling with the pinkish haze.
The first to go was a grenade with consecrated napalm, followed by a couple more, creating a kind of wall of fire, which I partially controlled with elemental magic. And while the frantic demons were trying to put out the flames, and the satisfied Harley was spending expansive ammunition on an industrial scale, accompanying each successful shot with joyful laughter, I was pumping the cane with energy. Thanks to the diamonds installed, the complex weave had survived, so now it was a matter of little else.
Suddenly, one of the demons from the back rows built up a huge amount of pseudo-flesh, transforming into a four-meter tall humanoid with a fire whip as a weapon and huge bent horns on his head.
"Ra-a-a-ah!" he screamed in pain and rage and ran straight at us through the consecrated fire, turning some of his kin into mincemeat.
"Mr. J! - The girl exclaimed fearfully when she realized I wasn't going to back down.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! - In a flash of illusion, a gray hoodie with a pointy hat and a long green beard appeared on me. - You. Nah. You'll pass!
~Bah~
As soon as I hit the floor with the cane, it sent out a wave of light, instantly burning away all demonic matter, including the Balrog, which was left with only a small gray homunculus. I punched him in the skull for fear of repeating the performance.
As I suspected, the demons with more pseudo-flesh were the hardest hit. The Purifying Light had successfully cleansed them, leaving small, mangled bodies protruding from their receptacles. The regular possessed were also affected, but felt a little better, though they rolled around on the marble floor, howling in rage and pain.
"You were worried they wouldn't be able to do it," the detective's tired voice suddenly came from the stairs, followed by the bloodstained Simon.
"Joker, Harley, are you all right? - a concerned guy came running up to us. - We hurried as fast as we could, but there were too many enemies. And this place... It's like another world with its own laws.
"Forget it, we've done it, and now let's go to beat the magister's face... Only first we'll finish them off, so they don't stab us in the back, - my gaze lingered on the one-horned leader, who began to rise slowly from the ground.
"I won't let you," the demon said with difficulty, shoving away the half-dead relatives he had shielded from the spell.
A dark red haze began to concentrate around the infernal creature again. Some of the wounds closed with a hiss, and even the broken horn grew back a little.
"Uh-huh, very interesting," I yawned, pulling out my revolver.
~Bah~
The shot was supposed to hit the demon in the head, but he refused to die normally again, instead putting out an arm that had grown dramatically in size, which the expansive bullet with a speck of light mana turned into a mess of bone and flesh.
"Ag-ho!
Black blood was oozing from the gruesome wound, mixed with puffs of dark smoke. I loved the revolver, because it was so stylish and fit the image of a psychopathic clown, but it didn't have enough killing power against fat enemies. And this despite the fact that the cartridges were loaded with light energy, and the demon himself is greatly weakened after the previous spell. But it's not the most suitable materials, and it's too compact in size. I've already mentioned that when complex weaves are heavily charged, their contours can close in on each other, leading to unpredictable effects. A similar story happens with artifacts, so mages for really powerful spells prefer to use mediators. And the latter can be both banal staffs and multi-meter ritual drawings on stones.
In principle, I already have a suitable weapon in my arsenal, which can be pumped up with magic, which I demonstrated a couple of minutes ago. The modification of the cane was done almost on my knees while I was waiting for the girls to arrive, and although the charms were disposable, as the cracked diamonds hint at, but I like the concept very much. Besides, there's a harpoon hidden inside, which, unlike small bullets, can be used to make something really killable and reusable by using something like magical silver for the tip. Although at first it will be enough to calculate the damage-increasing rune complex correctly and invest more mana.
I didn't have time to fire a second shot, but the demon didn't hesitate. He whistled loudly, realizing that he couldn't stand up to our company, and in a moment he fell through the floor. I could only catch a glimpse of a pair of thick, purple tentacles from below.
Simon was the first to get to the pile of half-dead bodies, and after a short search he reported that he couldn't locate the exit point, and it was obviously some kind of demonic portal. However, even without the leader of the demon gang gone, we had plenty of work to do to clean up the survivors, but even here the guy decided to demonstrate his extraordinary abilities.
"Don't be frightened, I want to try something," he said, spreading his arms wide apart as if trying to hug a very fat man. - Omnes convertemur in pulverem, nunc fies me*.
Our company was not laughing, because from the figure in Freddy Krueger's sweater shook such a concentrated demonic energy, which I felt only near the altar of Melholm during the parade of planets!
There was more. Simon's body was enveloped in huge black-and-white tentacles that appeared out of nowhere and lifted him off the floor. My true sight was slow to reveal any otherworldly creatures, as if they were beyond my perception. All I could see on all available layers was thick black and white smoke, the source of which was the chimera's body.
"Caro inimici, mea facta est*."
With the last words, the tentacles abruptly lengthened, and the demons lying on the floor turned into a gray suspension, which was promptly drawn into the guy. A few seconds later, deformed human bodies of varying degrees of integrity and miraculously surviving suits with canvas bags and shoes were lying in the hall.
Honestly, there are no words.
There were a suspicious number of tentacles in my life. First a Mind Eater, then an obscure "portal," and now Simon was dismantling the hell out of it. At this rate, I'm not even close to Cthulhu. The only good thing is that this is DC's universe and ancient deities from Lovecraft's universe have no place here.
But, to be serious, our Harley and I have demonstrated something forbidden. It was clearly an appeal to someone of the archdemon level, but Simon didn't even think to show signs of possession or change of character, remaining the same young man with a little brutality and a little more outlook. And this once again confirms my theory that the chimera was created for a reason, but if earlier I considered it an excellent guardian, now I think of it as a comparison with the Rat Lion or Rat Boy.
There is a tale that ancient seafarers caught a rat, starved it, and then forced it to eat its kin: first dead, then wounded, and then alive. Allegedly, from such a diet the rat became stronger and smarter and began to favor the rat diet, ridding the ship of parasites. Now we could observe something similar, but in the case of infernal creatures.
"Finished, now we can move on," Simon said, having completely cleared the hallway of demonic filth.
"Okay, wait," I slowed my comrade down. - Couldn't you leave a couple of creatures alive next time?
"Why?"
"I am very interested in the charms that kept demons in ordinary soap. I want to make an effective trap."
"I have a rough idea of what we're talking about," he rubbed his temples thoughtfully. - But it's unlikely that ordinary soldiers know about such complex enchantments.
"There were no charms," said the detective, who, seeing the hiccup, began searching the pockets of the most intact corpses to replenish his ammunition. - The members of the Geo Populus are hell spawn themselves, and it's not hard for them to order the little demons to stay put until the time is right. You can try torture to get a demon to sign a slave contract, but trust me, he's bound to find a loophole.
"Are you sure? You don't look like you know magic."
"I may not be able to create enchantments or enchant a Vision Stone to kill demons, but that doesn't mean I'm down for a magical education."
"The Stone of Visions?"
"Oh, you'll see now," the man smiled slightly.
The Stone of Visions was the same stone that Simon had recently picked up in the forest and cast a spell from the grimoire. As it turned out, it was used to send telepathic messages to the recipient, a kind of analog of magical writing, but the guy had somehow managed to change its nature, and a rather harmless thing now, like Yondu's arrow from Guardians of the Galaxy, could fly around, piercing through the bodies of opponents. Let's just say that demons, of course, are much stronger than humans, but even they have a hard time surviving with huge holes in the place of the heart and head.
Given the rather sluggish resistance, our advance was rapid, and we reached the basement in a couple of minutes, tearing down all the obstacles on the way like a multi-ton bulldozer. Simon and his miracle stone were at the forefront of the attack, Harley and I were next, dealing with the rare survivors and controlling the situation, and Detective Kirk was the last, because he was not much of a combat force. Well, as it was, he occasionally fired a pistol, and the local energy had no negative effect on him, but ordinary bullets could kill infernal creatures only when shot in the head, and not all of them. It is desirable to destroy the hearts, which are also a concentration of their powers.
A short descent downward brought our group not to a banal basement, but to a huge gut-shaped cavern whose walls were lost in darkness. It was clearly not without playing with space, because earlier scanning charms did not reveal any large voids. They hadn't picked up any demonic magic, either, despite the fact that the fanatics had a full-fledged altar at their disposal.
* We'll all turn to dust, but you'll be me *
** The flesh of the enemy will be mine **