The Last Slayer Read Online Free Page A

playing?”
    It laughed, a screech as shudder-inducing as nails scraping down corrugated tin. “No game, no game! You are marked!”
    Marked?
    The centaur vanished and the demon straightened to its full height. The gaunt human façade melted off its tall frame like heated wax. Scraggly red hair covered a freakishly small head. Tiny crimson eyes, too many to count, remained unblinking and focused on me. Instead of a nose, it had three thin slits. What an ugly bitch. The thing I hated the most, though, was its midriff—it didn’t have one. It was as if there was an antigravity gap between its bust and hips, which meant disembowling “Selena” was going to be out of question. Talk about unfair.
    A smirk appeared on its glistening purple lips, and magic radiated from it like a hot furnace. This wasn’t some midgrade succubus. It was powerful, far more so than my initial estimate.
    I couldn’t believe Valerie hadn’t done a background check on this client before sending me off on the job. It certainly wasn’t going to introduce itself to me. Demons never give out their real names.
    I faced the thing that had been a woman just a moment ago. It didn’t attack, although its body vibrated with the tense energy you get right before a duel. Strange.
    Oh well. Its problem, not mine. I planned to add it to my kill list.
    As if it’d read my thoughts, a morning star appeared in its three-fingered hand. “Fight, mortal. I will shred you and drink your blood.”
    “Oh, I’m quaking in my boots.” One cliché deserved another.
    I brought my sword up. I’d worry about the paperwork later.
    The demon circled sideways. It had the advantage—since we were in its dream, it controlled the environment. But I didn’t dwell on the situation. To do so would only split my focus and undermine my confidence.
    I swung, as did the demon. The spiked ball at the end of the chain clanged against my blade, knocking it sideways. The blue ocean solidified into crystals and changed color to sun-bleached white. Columns rose and smooth rock piled up until a Roman gladiatorial arena with tens of thousands of togated spectators surrounded us. They booed at my every offensive move and cheered for the demon’s victory. Self-glorification at its finest, but it showed just how much power this demon wielded, that it could keep all of that going and fight at the same time.
    Sweat began to bead on my temples. I could feel the blood in my veins heat and pulse through my body.
    We exchanged so many blows that my arm began to ache. Its strikes were bone-jarring. The spikes on the morning star gleamed under the relentless sun. I ducked, neatly avoiding getting a chunk of my flesh ripped from my face, and lunged forward. My blade dug into its thigh. It pulled back, hissing. Thick black liquid the consistency of molasses oozed from the wound and hung toward to the ground. The demon’s hundreds of eyes glowed bright white, like so many tiny supernovas.
    A diamond-shaped block of ice fell from the sky and landed where I’d been less than a second earlier. The demon screeched, and another block fell, then another. The quicker I evaded them, the more enraged it became and the faster the ice fell.
    I didn’t have time for this game. And the last thing I needed was an injury. I drew a circle with my sword and sealed it off. Then I raised my blade as magic heated it. Before the demon could bring another ice meteor shower down on my head, I incanted and sliced the air in a clean arc.
    Thick, metallic-scented gel poured in through the cut and smashed against the shield I’d erected. The sky ripped and the gladiatorial arena and the spectators crumbled like a sand castle under a tsunami. The demon doubled over, morning star forgotten, its hands cradling its pygmy head, shrieking.
    I’d slashed the barrier of its psyche. Bet it hadn’t been expecting that. The spell required a lot of power and skill—Level One, to be exact. The Federation of Mageship frowned upon its