CHAPTER#151

"We are going to take her back!" Yuki hollered, summoning ice beneath the demon's feet. Her magic was far weaker here, and without her cards, she was unable to summon the necessary materials. The ice slowed him for a moment, but his cloven feet smashed through, digging deep into the soil.

"No. You won't." His tail whipped around and spiraled through the air, grabbing Yuki by the waist and pulling her through the air. The demon caught Yuki in one hand and smashed her into the ground. She let out a cry of pain, and Oliver laughed in her face.

"There is nothing you can do that will hurt me," he told her, saliva dripping from his jaws. "In this place, I. AM. GOD." He punctuated his words by smashing her into the ground repeatedly. His attention was so fixed on her that he didn't pay any attention when Mike slid the goggles over his face, the lenses flicking back and forth instantly to form a floating bullseye.

"Hey! God!" Mike leaned on his back about ten feet from the demon and twisted the knob on Tink's club. Oliver looked up, his bony brow folding in curiosity as Mike lined up the shot and pulled the trigger once the bullseye was between Oliver's eyes.

The mechanism fired the bolt, but instead of a standard arrow, the bolt had been rigged with the final vial that Zel had given him. It exploded on contact and expanded into a sickly yellow foam that clung to Oliver like glue. Steam hissed from his body as the acid did its best to eat through his flesh, and Yuki scurried off, the foam eating into the hard rock by her feet.

Blinded, Oliver swung wildly with his hands, and Mike shouted at him, drawing him away from the pavilion with Beth inside. Oliver's bones and sinew were visible now, but Mike watched as the demon's flesh regenerated, the wounds closing up where the acid had already fallen off. A large portion of it had fallen to the ground, and the demon stumbled over the suddenly uneven terrain.

Taking a chance, Mike waited for Oliver to stumble onto the smooth walkway of the garden and then leapt forward and swung the club into Oliver's knee. The impact made his arms go numb, and the club fell from his hands, clattering onto the ground. Oliver spread his fingers wide and pinned Mike to the ground with his claws as he fell.

The angry face of a wounded demon was terrifying enough, but the acid had eaten away all of the soft tissue. Oliver growled, his sunken eyes slowly growing back in his monstrous skull. One of his horns had fallen off, but was already reforming on his skull.

"Did you... did you really think... that you could win?" He asked. Oliver leaned forward, his hot breath washing over Mike. "Oh, I'm going to make you suffer for this."

"I bet." Through Oliver's legs, he could see Yuki moving close. He needed to buy just a couple more seconds. "I heard you like questions. Is it true the answer just pops in your head, just like that?"

The demon's face was ruined, but healing rapidly. Scales and flesh were growing back across his skull. "I'm uninterested in your questions."

"Even if I ask you a good one? Like, for instance, what are all the lines of code necessary to run G****e?"

Oliver's face contorted and steam hissed from his eye sockets. His horn had finished regrowing now, his regeneration speeding up. He raised his claw in the air.

"Follow up question. What are those lines of code converted into morse code?"

Oliver's hand faltered and he shook his head, then clutched it in pain.

Mike laughed, egging Oliver on. "I knew it! You still have to process the information, don't you? Hard to do with half your fucking face gone, isn't it?"

The demon bellowed, shaking his head and coating Mike in spittle and blood.

"If you shuffled up the morse code randomly and printed out every configuration and then shuffled those up..." Oliver placed his hand over Mike's mouth, silencing him.

"Enough!" Oliver bellowed, holding up his other hand, the talons narrowing into razors. His yellow eyes had reformed and the skin of his face was nearly complete. He focused his gaze on Mike. "You're dead."

Mike briefly twisted his mouth free of Oliver's hand. "How is a raven like a writing desk?!?"

Oliver's eyes flashed and he let out a grunt, bloody drool falling from his mouth. Smoke emanated from his face now, coming out of his nostrils and his ears. It lasted just a few moments, and then he tilted his face down toward Mike's. "I'm going to peel you like a grape and then fuck your skull, you weak bag of flesh."

"Yeah, well..." Mike mumbled, then twisted his mouth free again. "You owe me a new kitchen knife."

Oliver's brow furrowed. "What?"

Yuki slammed into Oliver from behind, the magic dagger sinking into the back of his skull. He reached back, eyes rolling into his head, and then his body went limp and he fell onto Mike. Mike scurried free and Yuki rolled off of the demon and pulled the dagger free, then stabbed him in the head again. Oliver let out a gurgling whimper, the first wound already closing and one eye swiveling around to focus on the kitsune. Twisting his head sideways, Yuki jammed the blade into his temple and let go. The demon went completely limp and collapsed, his claws twitching.

Mike stood up and joined Yuki. She watched the demon twitch for a moment and then picked up Tink's club from the ground nearby. She walked toward the demon and used the club as a hammer on the pommel of the dagger. It sank even deeper into Oliver's skull. She did this over and over again until the loud cracking of bone could be heard. Hammering it even deeper, the hilt sank beneath his skull, blood like black tar leaking onto the ground. Only an inch of the pommel was visible now.