001.025

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Eva jolted awake.

Gritty sand flew in all directions as she flopped over to her back. She could feel it; it ground into her hair, her mouth, her finger stubs, her–

This isn’t the prison or the dorms, Eva thought. She looked around.

Eva landed on a small island. Water stretched endlessly as far as Eva could see.

A small flutter of hope beat in Eva’s chest. She brought her wrist to her face slowly. Her fingers were still gone. She could see them, or rather, she couldn’t see them. But she could see.

Her wrist bumped into an empty eye socket. She slumped back against the sand. It’s just a trick of this place.

Eva clamped down on a tension in her jaw. There had been enough crying earlier. She wasn’t going to cry. It couldn’t be a good idea to cry with empty eye sockets.

She knelt on her stomach and dry heaved at the thought. Her mouth still carried the putrid taste of vomit. She crawled up to the edge of the water.

It was black. The entire ocean had not a single ripple or wave. The entire glassy surface was black. Eva looked up. There was not a single star, sun, or moon in the sky.

There were no fires or lights, nothing that might help her see. She had a brief wonder if that was how things would look if Eva had her eyes. It didn’t matter.

The water, despite its color, didn’t smell different from normal water. Eva touched just the tip of her tongue to it. Normal, as far as she could tell. Not even salty like an ocean. Even if it turned out to be unnatural later, she wasn’t planning on drinking it.

Eva cupped some up in her hands–a task much harder without fingers than it should be–and rinsed it around in her mouth. She repeated the action another few times as well as wiping out her nose–the best she could with no fingers. The water ripples flattened out much faster than they should have.

Feeling much cleaner, if not much better, Eva took stock of her surroundings. The island might have taken her maybe five minutes to run around the edge at a light jog, if she felt so inclined. It wasn’t very big. A single tree with gray bark jutted out of the center. It was a skinny thing that held no leaves on its thin branches.

That was it. An endless black ocean in every direction, a small beach, a tree, and an empty night sky.

And heat. Eva was quite thankful for that. Being broken and naked in a cold place might have been unbearable.

It wasn’t as hot as she’d been lead to believe Hell should be, if that was truly where she was. It was the only place she could think of based on what she had been doing. Obviously the infernal walk failed. Unless she was supposed to walk somewhere here.

Eva didn’t know how to get back. She could try summoning herself or the same reverse summon she did to get here. For now, she’d look around.

Rather than try to stand, Eva tried to step. A small amount of relief filled her sick stomach when the step worked. She appeared kneeling next to the tree.

As happy as she was about her step working, Eva didn’t know what she expected. The island didn’t suddenly grow, no doors magically appeared, and the tree didn’t have any levers or buttons she could see. All she’d accomplished was moving a few feet to the center of the island.

Eva sighed and stepped back to an edge of the water. She still had dried vomit all down her front, butt, legs, and feet. The bloodied stumps of her toes, while not bleeding thanks to her healing efforts, had both blood and vomit caked on them.

She slowly inched herself into the water. She couldn’t see through the black, mirror-like surface. That made her nervous. Still, the water was without even a single ripple, other than her own.

Eva relaxed back with the water up to her neck. She rested her head on the beach and let the hot water soothe away her aches. Her eye sockets would need cleaning eventually. They had partially filled with blood, tears, and probably a little sand.

The idea of sticking fingers into her empty sockets sent shivers up her spine. Luckily she didn’t have any fingers. Eva didn’t count herself as the squeamish type, but there was something horrifying about her own empty eyes.

The emptiness was there. Almost as tangible as her eyes had been. She could feel the lack of anything pressing on the surrounding socket. Not to mention her eyelids. Without her eyes putting pressure on them, she kept trying to move them and they would just flap.

Eva shook her head. Not the line of thought she wanted to get into right now.

This place is nice, Eva thought as she lay in the water. If it wasn’t for… for that grinning man, she might have enjoyed coming here. Provided she could leave.

That was something she’d worry about later. Now, Eva just wanted to rest.

—

Channeling magic into herself didn’t work in any way, shape, or form.

Eva awoke after what felt like a very long nap. There was no way to tell exactly how long. The sky was as empty as it had been since she arrived. It felt like a good nap.

All her aches vanished. Eva half expected to have grown new fingers while she was out.

The water ran off her finger nubs as she lifted her arms out of the water. With a sigh, she put any thoughts of immediate recovery behind her. Devon was supposedly getting a whole new arm. How hard could a few fingers, toes, and eyes be.

She’d need to get off the island and back to reality if she wanted her master’s help in recovering lost limbs. Nothing she tried helped. Trying to get out the same way she got in did nothing.

Drawing a summoning circle and trying to summon anything did nothing. Standing in it and trying to leave by walking into it did nothing. Ylva did that both times she left reality. Eva wondered what would happen if her master tried to summon Eva into the real world. Did she need to set up some sort of gate on this side to get back?

Eva had no idea how demons really worked. They could get through to reality even without a summoner making a connection. That required a beacon like the one Eva suspected the black skull might be.

If she could use anything she left behind as a beacon, Eva didn’t know how.

That exhausted her total demonic knowledge. Something she really would like to brush up on one of these days. Her master could probably escape, so long as this truly was Hell.

It matched no description Eva had ever heard. It was hot, but not unbearably so. There were no other demons around. The only reason she still thought this was Hell was Arachne describing Hell as a void on a single occasion and that the Endless Void supposedly held dominion over the entire realm. Whatever that meant.

Devon would know. Eva would definitely ask to restart their demonology lessons.

For now, it left Eva in the terrible position of not knowing what to do. Her magic worked. Mostly. Darkness spells did absolutely nothing that Eva could see. An effect of her eyes being gone or the place, she didn’t know.

Her blink worked. Her fireballs worked. She could dig through the earth as Juliana taught her. Her light spell worked though it was just a dot in the sky, no actual illumination seemed to happen; her fireballs produced no light either.

She sent a ball of light across the glassy water until she couldn’t see the spot anymore. There was nothing but emptiness out there.

Nothing tried to eat her while she slept, so Eva decided to go for a short swim around the island. It was an awkward affair. Fingers, despite being so small, made enough of a difference that it was almost like relearning how to swim with just her square meat pads of hands.

She tried her hardest not to think about that.

The further out she went, the odder the water got. There was more pressure than normal water even at the surface. When she went down the sandbank to a neck-deep level, the water felt like it was hugging her.

Eva lifted a hand out of the water, expecting the liquid to cling to her skin. It didn’t. The water ran off into the pool creating tiny ripples that quickly dispersed. It was also completely opaque, something she failed to notice when she cleaned herself off.

She doubted she would see anything, but it couldn’t hurt to try. Anywhere would be better than her little island. Taking a deep breath, Eva dunked her head underwater.

The water pressed into her empty sockets. It met no resistance from her flaps of eyelids as it squeezed past.

Then it was gone. Not just the water in her eyes; all the water vanished.

A brief feeling of weightlessness took hold of Eva’s stomach.

She fell.

A hard, flat surface rushed up to greet her. It greeted her hard.

She crumpled and landed on her stomach, face hitting the floor a moment later.

Everything was black.

She couldn’t see.

Eva’s breath raced.

A light spell did nothing. No illumination, no little dot against whatever background was around her.

A heavy thunk hit the ground behind her. And then another. Then another and another and another.

Five thunks, each slightly different in sound as they hit. One higher, then another lower.

There was a short pause before five more thunks hit the ground in the same sound order. High, low, high, mid, mid. Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk.

They were closer than before.

Something was coming her way.

Eva scrambled along the ground on all fours. Away from the noise.

It kept coming. Five thunks. Each sounding closer than the last.

Eva hit a wall. She felt around. It was smooth metal. No door handles, no openings.

She scurried along the wall, desperate to move away from the noise.

It was louder, almost deafening.

Her hand slipped in something. Eva’s arms fell out in front of her. Her face hit whatever she slipped on.

She could see it.

Blood.

Another thunk.

The thing was right on top of her. Eva cowered into a ball.

Another thunk.

A huge, metal sounding pole impacted the ground mere inches from her.

She could feel it hit the ground. The blood splattered up onto the pole.

Another thunk.

This one past her. Opposite of where the pole right next to her was. It sounded muffled.

Another thunk.

Another thunk.

Her bare backside was almost skewered. If she had clothes on, they would certainly be torn.

Another thunk.

The pole right next to her lifted up. It passed over what she decided was a wall and settled down on the other side with a muffled thunk.

Another lifted up, one she couldn’t see. She could feel the air as it passed over her.

The pole against her backside scraped against her as it lifted.

The contraption froze.

Eva froze.

She held her breath, not daring to even breathe. If she had the tools, she might have speared her heart to keep it from hammering so loudly.

Her backside cut open as the contraption moved once more. Eva could sense blood trickling down her butt. Her cut healed more on instinct than any conscious act on Eva’s part.

Eva watched the pole, with mere droplets of her blood on it, as it lifted up and over the wall.

Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk.

Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk.

Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk.

Eva gasped in air. Her lungs were on fire. Her heart felt like it might explode.

She lay in the pool of someone else’s blood, thankful to be able to see anything at all, and waited for her shaking to stop.

Eva rolled in the blood, smearing it on herself. It meant she could see at least herself. Wiping on her face and soaking it in her hair created the odd sensation of seeing herself from outside her body.

Or like she had mirrors all around her.

She wished she had a container. She could splatter it around while she moved and at least get some simulacrum of the environment in her head.

That was not to be the case. There was nothing she could use.

Calmed down enough to think, though her heart still racing, Eva concentrated on the blood that was there.

She followed it up, her vision expanding as she concentrated and calmed. A person hung from chains attached somewhere out of her blood sight. He had a large hook through his chest. Blood dripped down from his toes.

He writhed and moaned, obviously still alive.

She ignored him. He wasn’t in any state to help her.

Eva splashed through his blood, splattering it around as much as she could. She crawled through it as far as she could stretch it.

Eventually, Eva ran out. She crawled along, blind to everything but herself and the rapidly diminishing trail of blood she made.

The sound of someone sobbing slowly grew audible.

She concentrated as hard as she could on expanding her vision as she crawled.

A small pool of blood entered her range about fifty feet away. She crawled towards it.

Another person, a woman this time, hung above the blood. Eva wasn’t sure she had a full grasp on interpreting her blood vision. There were two long poles on chains leading up to the ceiling like the kind trapeze artists swung on. They crisscrossed each other through the woman’s neck.

How her head hadn’t torn off her body, Eva couldn’t begin to fathom. Her body didn’t look like the lightest thing around.

Eva smeared herself in the pool of blood. It wasn’t as much as the man’s blood, but it freshened her up.

Do you wish to go back in time?

Eva whirled. She couldn’t find any source of a voice. That only meant they didn’t have blood on them. The woman above her continued sobbing, not taking notice of any voice.

You could regain your eyes. Your fingers. Your toes. Just say yes.

The voice came from all around, yet nowhere at the same time.

Devon was mad enough at her for Ylva’s throne room. Ylva had to be more benign than whatever lived here. She was sure she’d regret any contract made with whatever this was.

With time on your side, you could get revenge on all those who slight you.

Eva ignored the voice. She had a thought. Why couldn’t she sense someone who didn’t have blood on them. If they had blood in them, what difference would it make.

Eva focused on the woman above her. She had blood in her. She’d have to, in order to bleed.

The blood flowed from the holes in her neck. It fountained from her arteries and veins. Eva concentrated on that. Deeper and deeper inside.

You could get revenge before they hurt you.

Shut up, Eva thought. Her concentration broke. The sight of the blood shrank back to the woman’s neck. Eva focused again.

It was easier this time. Her sight sank into the woman. Limbs, organs, a beating heart. The woman’s whole body opened up to Eva. Every pulse brought her sight to life.

A neat trick, but not helping me escape. Even searching around for any other people brought up a blank.

Eva launched a fireball at the chains on the woman’s neck. It fizzled out without doing any damage. At least, none that Eva could see. For all she knew, that could be a lot.

She tried again, aiming for the same spot.

I wouldn’t do that.

On her twentieth try, the chain snapped. The woman swung to one side. The remaining pole tore through the woman’s neck as she swung. She landed with a plop in the pool of her own blood.

Somehow, she still sobbed and showed no signs of stopping. Eva wondered if she was even aware of anything outside her head.

Either way, her being alive was good.

Eva wiped the back of her right hand off on a relatively clean part of the woman’s body. At least, clean of blood. Cleaner than Eva was, in any case.

She shuddered at the thought that she might have been crawling through more than just blood. At least Eva wouldn’t be getting any infections.

With the back of her hand somewhat cleared off, Eva dipped her opposite thumb stump into the pool of blood. She carefully drew a circle on the back of her hand. Six lines spread outwards from the circle, touching the edge of a larger circle.

Probably the worst drawing Eva had done ever.

Hopefully it would work.

Moving to straddle the woman’s stomach, Eva whispered, “sorry, but you’re worth more dead than alive at the moment.” Her voice was hoarse and scratched in her throat.

Eva channeled magic into the back of her hand. She pressed down hard on the woman’s chest. A light pop was the only indication anything happened for a moment. The woman’s slowing cries were the next indication.

There it was. Looking inwards, Eva could see it covered in the woman’s blood. A bloodstone, right where her heart once was.

Eva smiled for the first time in a long time. She hadn’t expected that to work. Normally one should touch a beating heart directly. Not to mention the very malformed circle on the back of her hand.

Still, it had worked. The woman’s blood swirled around the bloodstone. With some effort and direction, the bloodstone erupted from her chest, covered in blood.

Eva inspected the bloodstone by covering it with blood. The blood filled every crevasse on the small marble.

That was a bad sign. Bloodstones were supposed to be smooth. The most perfect spheres to exist. Eva doubted this one would last a week. Less with use.

Eva planned to put it to good use.

She touched it to the pool of blood and the woman. Once sucked dry, Eva brought up as many blood marbles as she could. The marbles fell into a fast orbit around her, two merged together to form a sort of rolling-pin to run along the ground in front of her and check for obstacles. They were the only things Eva could sense in this place.

A small amount of blood kept circling around the stone. Without fingers, it was more convenient to have it hover in front of her. No dagger to mount it in, she would have a hard time drawing her own blood. A full, large bodied woman should be plenty for now. The woman’s blood was probably far more pure, according to blood magic, in any case.

Snapping fingers would be hard. Clapping would have to suffice for now. It was all a crutch in her mind, Eva knew. At least, theoretically. She’d never managed to vanish or obliterate blood without snapping in the past.

The blood swirled around her, touching against surfaces to grant her sight. Armed with her tools of war, Eva felt far more confident.

At least until a thunk sounded in the distance.

Now you’ve drawn the attentions of the keeper.

Eva shook the sing-song voice out of her head. It was not helping.

She ran.

Or tried to. The moment she shifted weight to her nonexistent toes, she fell.

Eva growled as toppled forward. She could fix this now. Several blood orbs dashed to her, catching her and righting her. She sent a handful of marbles to her feet. The spread out, forming makeshift toes. More blood stretched around her feet to anchor them in place.

Tentatively testing her temporary toes, Eva was happy to find they worked. At least for now.

She ran.

Whatever the keeper was, it couldn’t be a good thing to have the attentions of.

The walls of wherever she was ran in a large circle. At least from what she could tell of the short distance she ran. Another few bodies hung around the arena.

Eva happily sent her bloodstone skimming over the surface, gathering even more blood to herself.

There were no doors, no windows.

No roof either. At least not within her rough fifty foot range. Whatever the chains were attached to was so high, she couldn’t sense it.

Rather than continue around the arena–something that would bring her closer to those thunks–Eva created pillars out of the blood. Steps leading over the edge of the steel wall. She wasn’t sure the steps would hold her weight.

It was the first time she’d tried something like this. She’d never, ever had this much blood to play with. At least not since she made her last bloodstone, but she didn’t need to use the blood then. There was no way she could store this much blood without it degrading beyond use.

The steps did hold her weight.

Eva dashed up. She already sent an orb over to see the other side. There was ground there.

The thunks were slowly getting closer.

Rather than wait and form up steps on the other side. Eva just jumped.

One of her slippers splattered on landing. Eva tumbled into gritty sand.

Sand! That meant water, hopefully. Water brought her here, water could take her away.

Eva reformed her toes and ran. It was much harder to maintain cohesion while running across sand. Eva didn’t care. More blood was sent to her feet as she ran.

Her feet hit water before long.

Not sure that it would come with her otherwise, Eva popped her bloodstone into her mouth along with as much blood as would fit. She filled her eye sockets, ears, and other crevasses with as much as she could hold. The rest wrapped around her body.

She dived into the water thinking of nothing but home.

Like before, the water squeezed in on her and vanished.

A brief feeling of weightlessness took hold of Eva’s stomach once again.

And she fell.

Not a hard fall. Not like last time. She gently wafted down to a sandy beach.

A wave of nausea passed over Eva as she looked over the island with a single tree through blood filled eye sockets.

With a thought, the blood drained from everywhere she stuffed it. She was happy to note that the blood she wrapped around herself came through. It began orbiting around her, searching for any threats despite how the island felt safe the last time she was here.

One splattered against something. Something that wasn’t on the island before.

Eva whirled around, sending more orbs.

The orbs froze in midair. They dropped to the ground a moment later.

Eva fell to her knees and started crying.

She couldn’t help it. She tried to stop. Tried to stand up.

There was just no strength.

All her adrenaline was spent. Just a broken girl lying on a beach.

Sharp claws thrust out and grabbed Eva’s shoulders in a vice grip.

“It’s alright,” Arachne said. She pulled Eva close, squeezing her tighter than ever. “It’s okay.”

Eva threw her arms around the spider, squeezing just as hard as she cried into the demon’s shoulder.

—

Eva could see the agitation building in Arachne as her story went on. She looked about ready to tear something apart.

Unfortunately, the only thing to tear apart was Eva herself or the tiny twig that passed as a tree.

“The abattoir was a dangerous place to go. You shouldn’t have done that.”

“I didn’t know,” Eva snapped. “I was trying to get out of here. I didn’t want to end up in some demon’s private torture room.”

“The people there are being punished for severe breaches in contracts. Or rather, being caught breaching contracts.”

“As nice as that is, I don’t really care.” Eva sighed as she leaned against Arachne.

Never had she been so glad to see a friendly face. They settled down at the edge of the beach and Eva couldn’t stop talking. Arachne silently listened to Eva’s day, even when Eva stopped at a few points.

Arachne had Eva’s hand in her own. She gently rubbed her claws over the back of her hand.

“I can fix this, I think.”

“What?”

“Not your eyes, I don’t think mine would fit.”

Eva pulled away from the demon and looked at her in her gray eyes. Everything was gray here, an odd irregularity she hadn’t noticed when she was alone.

“I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

“How do you think Devon is going to get his arm back? He’s going to make some deal with some demon. That demon is going to chop off its own arm and slap it on Devon. Demons do it all the time.”

Arachne stopped and shifted against the said. “I’ve never done it before. I’m sure it isn’t hard, I watched it happen once. My blood is your blood which can’t hurt.”

Eva pulled her hand out of Arachne’s grip. “I can’t take your fingers. Arachne, I–”

“It isn’t even a big deal to demons, we regenerate things quickly. You would too, if you were further along. It–” She stopped again and gripped Eva’s hand, running a finger at the base of her wrist. “It would be your whole hand. My fingers,” she wiggled her needle-like claws, “aren’t exactly compatible with human hands. The wrist is much closer.”

“Arachne,” Eva said firmly, “I can’t take your hands.”

“If you don’t, you’ll be going through the same thing Devon is going through. Summoning demon after demon, asking what they want for their body parts. Finding a good deal will be difficult, I assure you. You’re going to have to do that for your eyes already, since mine aren’t analogous to human eyes.”

“You said it yourself, I’ll regenerate when I’m further along.”

“I wouldn’t take that risk, if I were you.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“When you reach the point where you can regenerate, your body might decide how you are then is how you should be. You might not be able to regenerate your missing parts at that point. You’d then have to go through the summon and bargaining process anyway and hope that whatever you’re given works.”

Eva frowned. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

Arachne pulled Eva’s hand up. “Close your– or just don’t think.”

“Wait,” Eva half shrieked. She pulled her hand back to her beating heart.

“You’re not going to find a better deal than free hands.”

“I know. I just–” Eva didn’t know what she just.

Arachne pulled her in close. Extra legs sprouted from her back, holding her steady. Two of the legs pinched Eva’s arms, holding them steady.

“Arachne,” Eva panicked. She tried to pull away. The restraints held her down tight, too tight. “I don’t think–”

“Don’t think,” Arachne said softly. “If you have to think about something, think about pulling those necromancer’s hearts out with your new claws.”

Eva stepped. She turned and looked at Arachne.

The spider-demon stood there frozen. Her legs still wrapped around the empty air Eva vacated. A moment after, she slumped. A dejected slump, like Eva just turned down her best attempts at helping.

In a way, she might have.

It didn’t matter.

“Not like that. That was too close to being in that chair again.” Eva took a deep breath. “I don’t want to hate you like that.”

Arachne didn’t respond. Her back still faced Eva, not having moved since she slumped down.

“It is a good deal, I’m sure,” Eva said slowly. “If I thought about it long enough, I’m sure I would agree.”

“Let’s wait.”

A long sigh escaped Eva’s lips. She stepped back to Arachne and laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’m glad. I was scared.”

“I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt you. I mean,” Arachne hesitated, looking off away from Eva, “it might have hurt having the rest of your hands removed. But it would have gotten better in the end.”

“It is the emotional hurt that I am worried about. I don’t want to see you like I saw Sawyer.”

“We have all the time here. When you feel up to it, let me know.”

Eva sat down on the beach, her back pressed against Arachne’s back. “We can’t get back?”

“I can. It will take some preparations. Your necklace is a beacon I can use to break the rules and escape from here without being summoned.”

Eva expected the necklace to be a beacon. “But not me.”

“There are rules in place to prevent other demons escaping with one’s beacon.”

“I can’t make my own beacon for you to take with you?”

Semi-tough hair tendrils smacked the side of Eva’s face as Arachne shook her head. She dodged their return trip. “Again, there are rules. I can’t take another demon’s gift with me without being summoned regularly. Even if I could, gifts must be accepted in the hands of a mortal–a mortal who knows they are gifts from a demon–before they become active.”

“So,” Eva said with a trepidatious smile, “we just need loopholes in these rules. I’m not a demon right? Try taking me back with you.”

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