The book was, at times, undecipherable. He could not make hide nor hair of certain passages, but others seemed pretty bog standard, and others were just familiar enough that Malcador believed he could cobble together the pieces to make a spell. Unfortunately, much of it was blood magic, an art strictly forbidden by the academy he attended. Though he disagreed with most of the stringent rules of the academy, this one made perfect sense to him. Even the gods looked at it in a poor light, and the one time he tried it, it made his skin crawl, even under controlled conditions. He was glad he beat the blood mage to death, otherwise he would have been in a bad way. 

Outside, pandemonium was still occurring. He felt a weight on his psyche; on his very soul. The screams of women and children and the cries of demons were the backdrop for him sitting in a dark kitchen, reading a book full of blood magic. Why on earth Mystra had cursed him so, he did not know. How the gods could allow any of this to happen, he wasn't sure. 

Still, after raiding the larder and reading up a bit, he felt more dangerous, or at least less helpless than he had at the start of the day. With a few more spells in his repertoire, he could cause a bit of havoc to anyone trying to get in his way. Briefly he wondered where Serphia was, but despite his worry, the sly mage knew she was more likely to survive this whole ordeal than him. 

Without warning, the door to the foyer burst open. It did not directly lead to the kitchen, but it was close enough to where Malcador saw the devil step in as it did so, though it did not face him immediately. The mage, thinking quickly, unleashed a cone of cold, one of the spells he had placed in his roster. An incantation and a gesture of his hands, and a blast of wintry ice flew from his hands. The devil spun, and to Malcador's disbelief, pulled the icy magic into a controlled, floating ball within his hands. Malcador's eyes widened, and leaped aside as soon as he realized the devil was using a counterspell. The cone of cold was shot back at him, and had Malcador not had the dinner table before him and the cabinets in easy reach, he might have been hit directly. He fell behind cover, and the devil stalked in, eyes peeled for the hiding mage. 

Suddenly, out from the other side of the kitchen, two wooden guardians, animated figures of the collected wood used for the floor and furniture, stepped out. Both were the size of men, made into a humanoid likeness, and they charged the surprised devil. It hissed and prepared a spell, likely one of fire, but before it could, both constructs hit it at dead runs and the three tumbled to the ground in a cacophony of splinters and spikes. Malcador was not going to wait around to see if his constructs had beaten the thing, and he was now down two very useful spells he could have utilized at better times. Instead, he felt past the snarling devil and the constructs as they pummeled one another, making his way out the front door.