“BAAAAAAAL”

The Tyrant demon charged towards Bal, ignoring the Boomy brothers completely. It looked pissed. Like, really, really pissed. Bal had a terrible feeling he recognised that one eyed face, and that he knew what happened to the other eye. Tyrant demon’s eyes went for a surprisingly good price if you knew the right demons, and Bal knew all the right demons.

Bal fumbled for his crossbow but stopped himself. That tiny thing wouldn’t even pierce this beasts’ skin. His stomach twisted itself into a knot. He took his hand back from the holster and spotted the magical card printed on his arm. He had refused to touch it since the sheriff’s prison. Magically appearing tattoos were rarely a good thing. Who knew what nasty things it could be doing to him.

The rapidly approaching Tyrant stole the choice from him and he went to draw the card. A glow emanated from his arm and the ‘Fool’ card bearing his face materialised in his hand. He was about to launch it at the demon when the Tyrant suddenly fell to the ground screaming. It flailed around on the ground, grasping at his chest. The lanky brother, Blast, if Bal remembered right, was jogging towards them looking terribly guilty.

It all clicked for Bal then and his tensed muscle relaxed slowly. One of these dancing fools must be the summoner. A much better summoner than his dear Ell it seemed, as the tyrant had just felt the effects of trying to break his contract. Bal knew the effect of doing that all too well.

Bal looked towards his own summoner. Ell had collapsed into a ball, arms over her head. She was screaming her throat dry, expecting an impact that would never come. Her hound, Cas, was standing with his sword drawn above her. The freak was staring at the demon, looking vaguely disappointed. Had he wanted to fight a Tyrant demon? By the Seven Lords of Hell, he was a suicidal fool. You didn’t fight a Tyrant demon. You could trick them and rob them blind easily enough, which Bal had quite literally done by carving out this one’s eye long ago, but no one picked a fight with a Tyrant demon. He pilfered this one’s eye only after buying it several barrels of drink to knock it out.

Bal decided to enjoy the moment and squatted down above the flailing Tyrant, resting his face on his hand.

“Oh dear my old friend, looks like you have a nasty case of the compulsion”

The Tyrant demon, whose name Bal was struggling to recall, flung a fist at him. Bal’s guess about the compulsion was proven correct as the meaty fist stopped mere inches from his smirking lips. It howled in pain and dropped its fist to the ground.

“Blethor, friend, you sure are a sight for sore eyes. It has been much too long! We need to get a drink some time. That last night was a real doozy.”

The Tyrant screamed at Bal’s joke.

“IT IS BELEXETHOR! BAL YOU BASTARD! I WILL EAT YOUR SOUL, SHIT YOU OUT AND EAT YOU AGAIN!”

Ah Belexethor, that was it. He had been so close. He really needed to get better at remembering names. If only everyone had them written on their heads or something, then he wouldn’t have to bother trying to remember at all. Never mind that though, had the flailing demon just said he would eat his own shit? Tyrant’s were kings of combat, but their brains were shrunken to make room for more muscle, or at least, that’s what the Succubi always told him. Cas and old One-eye here would get on great.

The lanky brother went over to help Ell back to her feet. A pointless task that, as her pride would never allow it. The scruffy brother meanwhile was staring at Bal with suspicion lurking in his eyes.

“Seems like my brother’s demon here knows you, feller?”

Bal stood up, ignoring the flailing demon and gave Blast a winning smile.

“Ah! How rude of me friend! I was too mesmerised by your spectacular dance that I seem to have forgotten my manners. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Bal. A pleasure meeting you good sir!”

Bal swept his arms back and performed the best formal bow he could muster.

“And it is my privilege to introduce her highness, Princess Ell of Yem! Accompanying her today is her most honourable protector, Lord Cas!”

Bang jumped back from Ell as though she was a viper then prostrated himself, begging her forgiveness for daring to lay hands on her. Blast on the other hand began laughing like a maniac.

“Ha! That little girly’s no princess Bang! Bal here is just yanking your chain! Get on yer feet ya moron!”

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Bang stood up, dusting the dirt off his trousers. The man’s face sagged, weighed down by stress and misery. All this excitement was apparently too much for him.

Ell shot Bal a death glare. He just winked back at her. What, she was the one demanding that everyone treats her like a princess, wasn’t she? Bal saw nothing wrong with telling these bumbling fools. There wasn’t much point in hiding the fact anyway, given the assassins were hot on their trail. Well, they didn’t believe him anyway, so no harm done.

“DO NOT IGNORE ME BAL! I WILL CRUSH YOU AND SQUASH YOU! SQUASH YOU REAL SQUASHEY LIKE!”

One-eye was still moaning and rolling about on the ground. His threats would be a lot more terrifying if his eyes weren’t glistening with the beginnings of tears. A Tyrant? Crying? These contracts had a terrifying amount of power. All the more reason to weasel out of his own.

“And to answer your question, Master Blast, I have unfortunately had a run in with this particular demon before. Nasty piece of work, this one is.”

Belexethor swung his claw out to grab Bal, but he remained just out of reach. A convulsion racked the Tyrant’s bulky body, causing him to whimper in pain. Blue tears streamed down its face, leaving a slimy trail. Bal resisted the urge to collect them; Tyrant tears were shockingly rare and so went for a handsome sum. Now that he thought about it, pretty much every part of a Tyrant’s body was worth a small fortune. Any body part from a Tyrant was hard to come by, so supply was low he supposed, but why in hell are they in demand? What was the point of having a bottle of slimy blue tears? Bal sighed; he would never truly understand economics.

Bal looked up for the weeping demon and back to the brothers.

“So, I do have to ask, why would such lovely gentlemen such as yourselves associate with such a fierce and evil creature?” Bal asked raising an eyebrow at the pair. He would understand if some pathetic summoner had called upon a tyrant to protect their assess, but that didn’t seem to be what was happening here.

Bang withered and squirmed under Bal’s accusing gaze and he began spluttering out some unintelligible explanation.

“Well, um, you see ah, Bal. No, sorry Mr. Bal? Lord Bal? I, ah, we….”

Blast blessedly stepped in and slapped his brothers back, hushing him. He hissed something under his brother, causing Bang to shrink back further. If the miserable creature shrunk back anymore, he might collapse in on himself and implode. Bal hoped he could stay with them a while longer, they were much more fun to tease than Ell was.

“Sorry about my brother, Bal. He’s a bit loony if ya know what I mean. Being cooped up here by yourself does that to a fella.”

Bal nodded along, not speaking up about the obvious problem with that statement.

“What he was trynna say was that we don’t use Belexethor here for anything, ah, nasty. We keep him on a tight leash, as ya can see. Banned from harming anyone, so he is”

A very tight leash it would seem. Bal thanked whatever force looked after him for sending him to a fool like Ell. The fool in question was flicking her eyes between Bal and the Tyrant. She stared at Belexethor with absolute terror, but when she dragged her gaze to Bal, she just looked annoyed. How he wished he could inspire such terror. He would have to settle for simply being an irritating prick in the meantime. Ell finally stopped comparing the two demons and turned to address the brothers.

“So why did you summon this demon then?”

“Oh that’s simple missy. We trade with him.”

Well that was new.

“And what do you trade then?” Ell inquired, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“He gets us some brimstone powder, you know, the explodey stuff. We give him, ahh, wood in return.”

“Wood? Do you mean you give him timber? How do you get that in this shithole?”

“No, no, no, you’re not understating miss. We just give him wood. Any wood. Planks, doors, the like. Hell, we even gave him a splinter one time. He loves the stuff, can’t honestly say why miss. Acts like it’s mithril.”

Again with the Hell economics, Bal sighed. Wood was virtually non-existent in Hell, so this whimpering genius of a demon before him must have thought that any scrap of the stuff would be valuable. Given that this demon thought it was valuable though, there were probably other idiots who would think a splinter to be valuable as well.

The summoning finally made sense to Bal now though. These explosion happy brothers could put the volatile Brimstone powder to good use, especially if they used it in a mine. Brimstone powder only existed in Hell though, so trading with a demon was the only way to get it, apart from going to Hell yourself.

Cas, who had been keeping an eye on the surroundings, turned back to the group.

“We have company!”

Ell let out a stream of curses. The assassins had finally caught up to them.

“Bal, what’s the plan?!”

“What plan?”

“What plan? What the hell do you mean ‘What plan’?!”

“I’m afraid I really don’t know what you mean, Miss.”

“Stop fucking about Bal! You have a plan! An ambush! That’s why you brought us to this shithole, isn’t it? Now spit it out!”

“Ah I’m afraid you are mistaken, I never said I had a plan. I just said that I thought that we should head to this mine. Besides, I’m more of an idea guy. This devil does not do details. Weren’t you the one coming up with the grand plans, my dear Ell?”

Ell’s face twisted into a mask of rage as she screamed in frustration, charging at Bal. He merrily jigged away from her small fists. She was a lot easier to dodge than Cas was. Cas himself had already wandered off gleefully to face the figure that was approaching from the other side of the village. Bal put a hand atop Ell’s head, keeping the mini typhoon of fists at bay. The Boomy brothers were standing to the side, utterly bemused, and as Bal looked at them he was struck with inspiration. Bal may not be one for details, but he knew a good hand of cards when he saw them, and he was definitely not one to waste an opportunity.

“Say, fellas, you wouldn’t happen to have any Brimstone powder stored, would ya?”

A nervous nod came from Bang. Bal grinned; it was about time he gave an explosive finale to this assassin’s hunt.