Astaroth grabbed the fireplace poker and headed for the portal, Calladia by his side. “Ready?” she asked, yarn stretched between her fingers.
He nodded. “Let’s do this.”
* * *
On the other side of the portal, screams filled the air. Smoke roiled over cobblestones and cast a veil over the torches lining the street. The sky ought to be the hazy purple-gray of daylight, but the heavy smoke made it seem like night.
The street was packed with demons, many of whom carried glittery neon signs with various slogans: horns off my rights, hybrids can be heroes, diversity = strength. Someone was screaming a chant. “Two, four, six, eight, Moloch, don’t discriminate!” Astaroth saw many familiar faces, both hybrid and full-blood, and among the ones he didn’t know, he spotted a variety of horn sizes, ear shapes, and other traits that indicated mixed heritage.
A fireball streaked past, narrowly missing a demon. It crashed into the side of a building, igniting the black-and-red vines climbing the stone wall. A demoness tossed a bucket of water on the flames, extinguishing them, and a new chant went up. “Two, four, six, eight, don’t send us to a fiery fate!”
“That’s got to be Themmie’s doing,” Calladia said from beside Astaroth. “She loves chants.”
Astaroth took in the scene and recognized exactly what had happened. The protestors had gathered in a public square a block away—chosen because it was centrally located and had multiple access points—and then started the march early. Moloch had clearly been keeping tabs on the activity, because his troops had ambushed them on the narrowest stretch of the route—this cobbled street that connected the square to a major thoroughfare leading to council chambers.
Astaroth skirted the fray, scanning for enemies. Both ends of the street were blocked by a mix of heavily armed demons and stone gargoyles. A movement on a rooftop caught his attention, and he dodged just in time to avoid a boulder that had been flung by a demon’s shoulder-mounted trebuchet. It hit a barrel next to him, exploding it in a spray of potent liquid. A splash hit Astaroth’s cheek, reeking of alcohol.
A demon wearing a stained apron emerged from a nearby doorway. “My firewine!” he wailed. “Please, stop this fighting.”
“Tell that to Moloch of the Nine,” Astaroth shouted over the din, keeping an eye on the trebuchet demon. “This was a peaceful protest until he had his supporters attack.”
“A protest against what?” The demon flinched when a protestor crashed into another barrel.
“Moloch wants to strip hybrids of rights. He wants to close the demon plane to outsiders and institute a dictatorship, returning us to the fundamentalist values of the Middle Ages.”
“Oh. Not great.” The demon looked between Astaroth and the rioting crowd. “But my wine . . .”
“Hang the wine,” Astaroth snapped. “Your community is in danger.”
The demon on the roof was winding up again, but before Astaroth could formulate a plan, Calladia scooped up a hand-sized rock from the curb bordering the street and threw it overhand. It hit the demon square between the eyes, and he toppled off the roof.
“Nice shot,” Astaroth said.
“I knew I joined Little League for a reason,” Calladia said.
A stocky demoness retrieved the portable trebuchet from the fallen demon and lifted it to her shoulder, and a hybrid with pointy ears and moss-green hair loaded a stone into it. Arming the protestors was a good start, but they couldn’t win from a vulnerable position, and Moloch and his supporters were clearly willing to kill.
Moloch himself wasn’t anywhere in sight, and the fireballs whizzing past were on the small side, so Astaroth suspected they were being launched by lesser warriors. It made sense. If the attack succeeded, Moloch could claim credit. If it didn’t, he could truthfully state he was never there.
A fireball hit a nearby pixie-demon hybrid on the arm, and she screamed as her sleeve caught fire. Her small wings fluttered but couldn’t get her off the ground. Thankfully, someone doused her with water, but this had to stop immediately. Demonic fireballs were superheated, and while a direct hit wouldn’t kill a full-blooded demon, mortal hybrids might die.
“Can you cast a spell?” Astaroth asked Calladia. “Something to break through the front lines so we can get out of this death trap?”
She held up a string. “On it.”
Astaroth positioned himself in front of her as she wove the spell. He spotted Ozroth smashing a demon’s face into a wall while Themmie dropped rocks on another’s head. Mariel stood in the shadows near Ozroth, lips moving as her hands inscribed elegant arcs in the air. Vines peeled away from a nearby building, shot toward one of the demons blocking the exit, and picked him up before flinging him over the rooftops. The werewolf pack was there, too, howling as they led an assault against the guards.
Calladia recited a spell, and three stone gargoyles were launched into the air, their screams like grinding gravel. With their heavy bodies no longer in the way, protestors sprinted toward the remaining demons blocking the exit. As the crowd surged, the danger of being trampled underfoot grew.
“Can you levitate me?” Astaroth asked Calladia.
More gargoyles at the rear went sailing. Calladia threw that knotted string aside, then pulled out another. “How high?”
“Speech-making high.”
The firewine brewer was cowering behind a barrel. At that, he popped his head out. “Who are you anyway?”
Astaroth’s smile was grim. “You’re about to find out.”
The ground shifted under him, and he staggered before an invisible hand righted him. No, not the ground—Calladia’s spell. Soon he was floating above the crowd. “I am Astaroth of the Nine,” Astaroth shouted, “and I am here to fight for the rights of all demons.”
Faces turned toward him, followed by exclamations.
“Didn’t that bloke get booted off the council?”
“I thought he was dead.”
“Is he flying?”
“Moloch of the Nine plans to round up all hybrids,” Astaroth continued, flourishing the fireplace poker. “He won’t be satisfied with imprisoning them. As you see here, he’s willing to kill them.”
Another fireball punctuated the sentence, shooting toward Astaroth’s face before abruptly veering away. When he looked down, he saw Mariel standing beside Calladia, hands outstretched and a determined look on her face. The witches were on defense.
“He will not keep us down,” Astaroth said. “We will not lay down our lives or our cause here. We will take this fight straight to the steps of the high council!”
A cheer went up. At that moment, the front lines of protestors finally broke through the ranks of Moloch’s supporters.
Astaroth looked at Calladia. “You can let me down now.”
Calladia shook her head. “This is a heck of an aesthetic, Astaroth. We’re floating your badass self to council chambers.”
Well, if it was an aesthetic . . . Astaroth nodded and straightened his posture, extending his arms. “Vocal amplification?” he asked.