An actress in our midst!

The demon lord, Hecate, and the dumb spirit all stared at her, aghast.

“Distract?! Kidnap?! My lord! I knew it! She’s a traitor! She must have been planning on kidnapping our princess!” the demon hissed.

Like hell!

“Tepes…? What is the meaning of this…?” Baugh asked, his voice level, uncertain. He had likely guessed her real kidnapping target. And he didn't sound happy.

Jessica racked her brains, trying to figure out how to talk herself out of this. Any excuse or deflection. Something to convince both the spirit and now also Baugh that she wasn’t a traitor.

“We… wanted to take the catalyst out of the castle… and perform the ritual to make sure the rebels can't reactivate the apocalypse.”

“Hah?! Are you saying the princess is some kind of a bomb?!”

“Why do you need to take her out?” Baugh asked, ignoring the spirit. “Why not perform the ritual right here?”

Because she hadn’t wanted to alert anyone… but she couldn't say that. Goddammit! If she had known Baugh was going to be this reasonable and side with her even after being outed, she would have just contacted him normally.

But now, she had made herself look even worse because she had assumed he wouldn’t.

“Keeping her here… would be dangerous,” she tried.

“Dangerous?”

“Yeah… keeping her in one place is not a good idea if the rebels ever found her… and also… we wanted to bring her elsewhere just in case I was wrong…”

“Those are all obvious lies!” the spirit screeched.

“Why didn’t you tell me of this plan in the first place?” Baugh asked. “And… I thought you said you figured it out. If you did, then why is there still a danger in doing the ritual? Why were you trying to do it if there still is a danger like that anyway?”

All very good questions. Neither of which she had an answer to… at least not one that wouldn’t incriminate her even further.

It really didn’t look like she had a choice anymore.

“The northern lights empower me,” she said, pitching her voice deeper. From the way Hecate and Baugh perked up, they seemed to have gotten the message. If she couldn’t explain herself right now in front of the spirit, she could do it in private.

Her fists tightened, she opened her mouth, gathered the necessary magic, and shouted over the telepathic link.

‘Abort mission! Worst case scenario! I’m in the demon lord’s office and I need backup right now!’

She immediately fell into a combat stance, spear in hand, and clad herself in magic.

The three demons in front of her startled before doing the same, albeit Baugh and Hecate were visibly reluctant. The spirit merely sneered before charging at her.

Against the demon lord, the strongest general, and a demonic spirit, her chances of winning were basically zero. Even if two of them – hopefully – wouldn't go all out.

She just needed an opening to cut loose and run.

She parried the spirit’s attack before counter attacking with a blast of magic, all while Baugh and Hecate watched on, still hesitant.

Her mind was racing, trying to come up with an impromptu escape plan… and then the damn spirit screamed with enhanced telepathy.

‘Wake up!’

Jessica felt the change inside quite vividly. It wasn’t very comfortable, but she managed to stand her ground regardless. Although if this was going in the direction she thought it was, she had to get out now.

‘Huh? What’s going on…?’ a familiar voice echoed in her head, giving an impression of looking around.

Baugh was still blocking the door, and now pulled out his giant greatsword… hopefully just to keep the charade up and not to split her in half.

‘Nomed! Your host is a traitor!’ the mantis-shaped spirit shouted directly into her soul. ‘Come out of there! Stop lending her power!’

Crap!

‘What?! Jessica?! What’s going on?!’

Time was up. She only had a few seconds at most now.

Jessica gathered as much magic as she possibly could, directed it all into her spear, swung it in front of her, to ward off the spirit, and finally lunged it at a nearby wall.

The wall erupted in dust and debris, causing everyone to shield themselves from it. She didn’t wait for the dust to settle and dashed right for the hole she had made, hoping to get away.

‘Nomed!’ the damn mantis shouted.

Jessica staggered with a gasp as she felt her own soul being squeezed and prodded.

‘What the…?!’ the voice in her head yelped in confusion. ‘I can’t get out?!’

‘What do you mean?!’ the mantis shouted.

‘There’s something blocking… oh… you didn’t, Jessica!’

Jessica stood up again with a grunt.

“Why did you think I was studying sealing magic so much?” she muttered. “This was my intention from the very beginning.”

‘That… I… wha–?!’ Nomed stammered.

Jessica felt just a little smug at that. Back when she had been planning on betraying the demons, she had a contingency plan in mind. Just in case the demon lord would want to rip Nomed and her demonic powers away from her. In fact, that had been the main reason for picking up sealing magic all the way back then.

She was incredibly glad that it had worked. She couldn’t have been sure if it would.

But no time to lose now.

She got her bearings and immediately bolted through the hole and away from the office. She was hoping to meet up with the others and book it. They needed to regroup. Trish could wait.

Unfortunately, Nomed pushing on her soul had made her sloppy and slow. The damn Mantis spirit caught up in no time and launched a volley of attacks in her direction.

She nimbly dodged or blocked as much as she could before returning fire with her own magic. The spirit alone, she could handle, but as soon as Baugh and Hecate emerged it all went sideways.

Hecate jumped in, her expression a stony frown, very atypical for her. They exchanged a few swings and blocks, distracting Jessica just long enough for Baugh to get close to her.

“Wh–”

Baugh’s hand, clad in ethereal magic, thrust itself into her unguarded back, penetrating her defenses, and going straight for her soul.

“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH?!”

Jessica let out an inhuman screech as Baugh’s armored hand grabbed her soul and then forcefully ripped Nomed’s main body off it, before dragging it right through the seal she had placed on him.

Her body hit the ground with a thump. Somehow, she had managed to retain consciousness, but she was shaking, dizzy, breathing heavily, and her vision and hearing were blurring together.

She wasn’t quite sure what happened after that. A volley of projectiles flew over her head and then a giant icicle popped out of the ground right in front of her. She could only assume back up was here.

After a moment that lasted an eternity to her senses, and voices she couldn’t discern, someone seemed to pick her up, and placed her on their back.

And then they were running.