147 - Abyssal Touch

Arielle was more concerned about Vittoria’s absence than she was about a demon potentially being outside their home.

Vittoria had been gone for nearly thirty minutes, which meant that whatever they were facing was more than just a random demon or minion of some sort. Though the demonic presence Arielle sensed had only been faint, maybe it was a measure of distance rather than intensity.

“Vittoria?” she called, trying to summon her with the invisible band on her arm, but the portal bird didn’t materialize. Neither did Vittoria's face.

Arielle tried again, artificially speeding up her heartbeat, but nothing happened.

She gnawed at her inner lip and glanced out her window again. The wind was increasing in intensity, picking up the sand, tossing it against the windows. The sunlight had dimmed, the clouds shifting over the sky.

Was that the demons’ doing? An Overlord?

Was it trying to start a whirlwind to blow the house down and destroy Vittoria’s protection spells?

It wouldn’t work. The home, much like the cells below, was made of unbreakable living wood that would respond to attacks in kind. Arielle wasn’t worried about the home being compromised.

She was worried about Vittoria, who wasn’t even responding to her calls.

“Is Ms Vittoria okay?” It seemed Ari wasn’t the only one worried about her, because Inara came up beside Ari, with Sir Spendulon waddling up beside them.

“I don’t know,” Arielle responded truthfully. “She’s not responding to me.”

“Do you think she’s hurt?”

Arielle shrugged. It was hard to think of anything hurting Vittoria. She was so powerful, but demons were tricky, particularly the demon lord Vittoria had fought to rescue Arielle. She had been hurt a little after that, and she had looked worn after that fight.

What if she was facing up against another one right now? What if it was multiple demon Lords and they had trapped her?

“Perhaps I should go check on her,” Arielle murmured, but she was conflicted. Vittoria had told her to stay indoors, and she didn't want to leave Inara and Sir Spendulon on their own.

Not to mention, there was still a demon below them who might pose a significant threat if this were an ambush.

Speaking of which…

A light went off in Arielle’s mind. Maybe the demon in their basement would give her a hint on how much danger Vittoria was in.

No. That’s a bad idea.

Arielle dug her teeth into her inner lip until it hurt.

She felt caught between a rock and a hard place. She very much did not want to speak to the creature, after what had happened the last time she’d let herself get manipulated by a demon. She knew there was a chance the same thing would happen again.

However, the alternative was standing around doing nothing, which was growing more and more intolerable as the time passed.

Vittoria would not approve of Arielle trying to help her, even if she was in trouble.

But Arielle could not let Vittoria die either.

Besides, she did need to check on the demon to ensure that it wasn’t doing something to cause all this trouble. Maybe she would see or sense something useful.

She would need to tread with extreme caution, and assume everything the demon told her was a tool for manipulation. She had to attempt to find the truth within the lies.

“I’ll be right back,” Arielle said, and took the stairs down to the basement and into the last cell where the demonic imp hybrid resided, suspended with his hands manacled above his head.

He was awake, glaring at Arielle as she approached. Good.

Or maybe not.

Arielle struggled with finding the right words, but she decided to be as plain-spoken as possible.

“There’s a demon outside,” she told him. “Vittoria went out to fight it, and she hasn't returned."

"Good," he said. "I hope the witch is dead."

"She's not," Arielle said firmly, mostly because she refused to accept that outcome. "But she might be in trouble. Tell me what's happening."

"Why should I help you?'

"Because I'm asking nicely." Arielle tried to make her voice sound intimidating, the way Vittoria often did during interrogation, but the demon merely scoffed at her.

"How would I know anything that's happening out there while I'm trapped in here, as I have been for days?"

Ari wished she had enough skill to tell if he was lying to her, but she didn’t. As it were, she had to rely on her lie-detecting spell and study his body language.

Animosity oozed from him, and while that didn't mean he was lying, it did mean that he was unlikely to intentionally be of any help to her.

The dean would probably advise Arielle to glean information from the things he didn’t say, to look for what the imp cared about and use that somehow. But she didn't have much time for a lengthy study, nor did she have the experience to be subtle about it.

What she did know about the demon was that he hated humans and likely wanted to escape from his current predicament, but he didn't have the power to do so.

That's not enough. Arielle could hear the dean's voice in her head. Look below the surface. Who is he at the core?

He was an imp hybrid, which were the lower creatures of the demonic world. Vittoria had said that he was fairly insecure about his heritage and constantly needed to prove himself.

He wanted the other demons to acknowledge him. Did they? It didn't seem like it, given all the comments Vittoria had made, which seemed to strike a soft spot within him.

So why did he continue working for them when they didn't care about him?

Was he stuck with them due to his heritage, or did he simply not have anything else to live for?

More importantly, what did she do with this information?

Though she had pieces of the puzzle, it was hard to form a coherent path to useful facts.

Arielle was forced to take the most obvious approach. “Tell me what’s happening, and I might convince Vittoria to show you mercy.”

The demon scoffed again. “You mean you’d tell her to kill me faster.”

“Is that what you want?” Arielle said.

"Obviously not. Are you stupid, human?"

"No," Arielle said. She considered other options because she doubted Vittoria would let him go. After all, then he would be able to lead other demons back to her abode. Although it seemed like at least one of them had found them now.

"Don't even bother making any offers," the imp said. "I will never help humans."

"Really?" This was an interesting contrast from the other demon Ari had spoken with. That one had been almost overly eager to help, promising her everything she wanted.

For some reason, the imp's reluctance made Arielle feel better about this conversation, although she was still cautious. She had been tricked by a demon before, and she knew she probably shouldn't be attempting to even talk to one now, but she needed more information.

Find out what he cares about.

"Why are you so against humans?" she asked the demon.

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The demon pressed its lips together, disinclined to respond, but in the end it couldn't resist.

"Why wouldn't I be?" The demon snapped. "Humans are stupid, vapid, greedy, and disloyal."

"Greedy?" Arielle said. "That's rich coming from a demon."

"Of course, demons can be that way too, but at least we have a reason for it. Humans have had to suffer nothing, nothing, all their lives. They have Guardians who protect them and Primordials who bear the cost of their crimes. They got a second Earth, yet they remain weak and weak-minded. They have nothing redeemable about them, yet they believe they have the right to judge our actions. At least demons are loyal to our bloodlines. You lot can't even manage that."

"Is that so?" Arielle raised an eyebrow. "If humans are so bad, why do you all want to come to Earth so much? Why do you continue to interact with us?"

The demon didn’t answer that, shaking its head. "I will not help you. Everything that witch has taken from me has been against my will, and if she is dead, then I will be happier for it. I would never willingly betray my brothers.”

“Why not?” Arielle said as she thought about all the things that Vittoria had told the demon the last time, to get a reaction out of him. Perhaps she should do the same. She didn’t know to what end, but Vittoria had managed to get information using that method, so maybe it would work for Arielle too. “They left you here to die, didn’t they? They could have attempted to negotiate your release with Vittoria by offering us something we wanted, but so far none of them have done that." Not that Arielle or Vittoria would take them up on the offer, but it seemed like the logical path to take when one's loved one was in danger. "They’ve just left you here, abandoned.”

The creature didn’t move, but Arielle shifted closer to the cage. “Is no one awaiting your return? Is there no one that cares that you're here?”

His expression twisted into what Arielle recognized as clear hatred, but she thought there might be some devastation underneath that as well. Or at least, sadness.

So she was right. There was no one out there for the demon, and that may be unusual. She didn’t know how demonic familial structures usually worked, but the other Overlord had had brothers that had at least tried to find him. One of them had nearly killed Arielle as revenge.

But for the imp hybrid, no one was doing anything of that sort.

Arielle almost felt sorry for him...

Almost.

"They are not loyal to you," Arielle said. "So why would you remain loyal to them?"

“What do you know about loyalty, human?” the demon snapped. “Your kind destroy each other for triviality.”

"Yes, but demons are no better. You have been abandoned. So help me, and I will help you."

The demon stared at her. “I will not help you, human. Kill me if you must, but I will not betray my brothers.”

Frustration lashed out at Arielle, but desperation kept her in place. “What is it you want? To live? Help me help Vittoria, and I'll find a way to make that happen.”

“You cannot help her.”

“Why not?”

He closed his eyes and looked away.

Arielle stared at him. She could maybe attempt to torture him for information, but she had never deliberately tortured anything before, and she didn't know if she would be good at it. Besides, the thought made her sick, and it would waste her time.

This entire conversation had been a waste of time.

Arielle stormed back upstairs, even more worried and more conflicted than before. She picked through the conversation she’d just had with the demon, trying to glean something from it, trying to think of whether anything he’d said was designed to drive her to one decision or the other. He didn't seem like he was trying to manipulate her, but it would be foolish of her to think once more that she could easily identify covert manipulation.

So she had to make her decision regardless of the conversation, making her earlier actions pointless.

To go or to stay.

The sand continued to kick against the window, but there was no sign that the demons had moved closer, nor were any of the protective spells triggered.

Staying left her in the same position she had been in, and with every second that passed, Vittoria could be sinking deeper into trouble.

"Stay here,” she told Inara. “No matter what you see or hear, don’t go out. The protective spells should work even if we're under attack. And if you’re in trouble, I’ll hear you.” She copied Vittoria’s magic, placing the same alerting spell that she’d used on Inara back in the demonic sect.

Inara nodded slowly, and Arielle headed for the door.

However, the second she opened the door and attempted to step out, the portal bird materialized.

A taut rope made of light attached from her band to the bird's foot, and it prevented Arielle from moving further. She tugged at it, but it had no give. Despite the bird’s slight build, it felt like Arielle was attached to a secure iron rod. She was stuck.

The portal bird flapped its wings.

“Vittoria?” Arielle inquired, but the bird merely blinked slowly at her.

It opened its mouth and said in a voice that sounded very un-Vittoria-like: “Danger.”

That wasn’t Vittoria speaking.

It was the portal bird, now developing consciousness, talking to Arielle and holding her back with their bond.

“Vittoria is also in danger,” Ari explained. “I have to go help her.”

It blinked at her blankly, strengthening the bond between them, as though affirming its stance.

“Danger,” it repeated in the same high-pitched tone.

Arielle didn’t know what to do. She would have to break the bond between them to escape, but Vittoria said that would hurt the bird too, and Arielle didn't want to hurt the bird.

Maybe she could help Vittoria from here.

She couldn't create clones or separate her consciousness the way Vittoria did.

But there was one thing she could do.

She took deep breaths, then closed her eyes.

Deep meditation enabled her environment to come into deeper focus, as she pushed her consciousness outward, searching for any demonic essence she could find.

It was like looking for a single grain of sand in the storm, but experience had her moving swiftly, stretching her mind farther and farther, making out the details of every single spell form that surrounded them, going beyond, into the darkness.

It was several yards out before she felt it, stretching the limits of her awareness.

The demonic orbs were webbed out in the distance, in a series of octagons that reminded her of the portal dimension she had been trapped in, except it was only partially revealed.

Observing it for a minute, watching it clash with Vittoria's domain spells that were rising out of the sand, Arielle thought that a demon lord was attempting to access Vittoria’s home and subsume that portion of the desert into its domain.

But the desert was fighting back.

And though Ari couldn't see her, she felt Vittoria fighting from the other side, battling to get out of wherever the demon lords trapped her.

Or was it several overlords? She felt the presence of more than one, which explained why Vittoria was having a hard time.

I have to help her.

Arielle grabbed the Calor attached to the demonic orb and held her breath, using every bit of focus she had to tug it.

It didn't shift. The orb was too far away from her, and the demon lord had a good hold of his spell. The lord’s struggle against Vittoria made his hold weaker, but not enough for Arielle to overcome its own control.

It felt like she was merely skimming the orb.

She would need to get closer, but she didn't know how to do that without breaking from the portal bird, and the portal bird wasn't going to let her leave.

The distance was too much, and she couldn't teleport.

Unless...

Unless she used the abyss.

Arielle only had a vague sense of what she was doing as she connected to some of the other orbs, the ones not being held by the demon.

She slowly arranged them to create a small abyssal domain like the one she had attempted to use on the now dead Overlord.

However, instead of having him push his soul into it, she planned to instead push her ‘touch’ through to shorten the distance to the demonic domain’s orbs.

Since the abyss was a plane out of reality, it could be used to bridge the distance between two physical locations. But Arielle's plan was based on a mere theory from her study on rifts and abyssal structures, not any hard facts.

She tested a few things, attempting to create a magical link from that abyss to her hand, but it was still difficult given the distance. So was creating multiple abysses and linking them together.

But she already had another pre-existing abyssal structure that existed close to her, within her, that she could use.

She took another deep breath and began to descend into a deeper meditation, finding the abyss within her, trying to connect it to the abyss without.

She wasn't sure what she was doing. She was focusing on two different things, internal and external, at the same time, and it was almost impossible to do.

Her moves were clumsy, and it felt like her brain was being split apart, but she didn’t let go of either of them, even as she lost a sense of just about everything else.

But the more she focused on both of the abyssal structures, the closer they seemed to become. It was strange, like two worlds shifting closer and closer.

Every inch made her suffer.

Arielle's brain felt like prongs were being pushed into it, and it made her want to break focus, but she kept it on the abyss as the connection between her internal abyss and the external one strengthened. She refused to be distracted by fear, apprehension, or even doubt. This had to work. It had to.

She pushed her consciousness through it until her finger was no longer skimming the Calor orb; she had it firmly in her grasp.

It was like she was there herself.

She grabbed it with all her strength and ripped it off, breaking a portion of the Overlord's domain.

She felt more than heard the shock of the demon lord, and she also felt Vittoria leap into action.

Her concentration broke when a sharp dragon head bumped into her back.

She drew in a deep breath and sagged against the wall.

“Tamsy!” Inara rushed to her. “Are you okay?”

She nodded weakly. Her mind hurt, but she was grateful that she had managed to make it out thanks to Sir Spendulon.

The storm around them worsened, but Arielle sensed that it wasn’t the demon’s doing. It was Vittoria’s.

The spell forms were now emerging from underground, and it was all Luxa, Vitae and Massa. There must be another Vittoria somewhere else, casting an active spell, perhaps also battling another Overlord while the first Vittoria faced the demon Lords.

The sand grew higher and higher, and Arielle looked down to find the baby dragon was now focused on burrowing its head in her abdomen again, demanding headpats, seemingly forgetting about the trouble. Arielle obliged.

“Good job,” she told him, and he purred.

In a flash, the storm was over.

The sand was undisturbed, the sky clear. No trace of demon in the atmosphere.

And Vittoria appeared on the doorstep, looking angry and bloody.