Tower Curator – Page 13 – Tower Curator's Void Domain

006.028

Posted on September 26, 2016November 20, 2021 by Tower Curator

Sister Abbey had turned out useful after all.

The door to the next staircase had been not only locked, but warded as well. Said wards went far over Eva’s head. She knew her blood wards and some runic equivalents to certain wards, and that was about it.

She was fairly certain that the wards were beyond Zoe’s expertise as well. At least the ones specific to the Elysium Order. Regular thaumaturgical wards, Zoe could probably have taken down herself. With study, Eva had no doubt that Zoe would have been able to do something about the Elysium Order wards, but they didn’t exactly have the time at the moment.

Regardless, both Eva and Zoe watched the sister like a hawk as she worked. Both had been in agreement that she had done nothing aside from unlocking the door.

So take that, Wayne Lurcher.

Sister Abbey walked at the head of the group. Everyone was able to keep their eyes on her. All the better to watch her and ensure that she didn’t drop any notes for other nuns to find. When she would have had a chance to scrawl out some message, Eva couldn’t say. No sense in not taking precautions.

Arachne still clung to her. Because of Arachne’s legs, Sister Abbey could barely move her arms to write a note in the first place. With the two needle-like legs pressing up against her throat, Sister Abbey had a constant reminder of what would happen should she attempt a betrayal.

So it wasn’t like they weren’t being careful.

It might not be the ideal situation, Eva would freely admit that. However, Sister Abbey was helping them get through their task faster. The quicker they were gone, the less chances they had to be discovered.

More discovered, anyway.

Though Eva wasn’t so sure that being discovered was much of a concern now that they had gone down a floor.

The ground floor was the most crowded with a good ten or so nuns–at least that came into Eva’s range. Only three of which they had had to pass nearby. The two at the doors and one wandering the hallways. For that one, they had all ducked into a janitorial closet while she passed by.

It had not had the most elbow room with all four of them inside.

The next floor had had the two augurs and the one regular nun.

But this floor… They had been walking for a good ten minutes since descending the last staircase. Eva hadn’t detected a single person.

“Where is everybody?” Eva asked, breaking the silence of their group. “And shouldn’t there have been guards at the stairs?”

Eva wasn’t asking someone in particular. She would have been happy to have an answer from anyone. Arachne apparently thought that the question was directed at the augur, judging by the sharp poke in the side that the nun received after a short silence.

“The Elysium Order has refocused their efforts overseas. Primarily Eastern Europe and North Africa. Most Cathedrals on North America are running,” she paused as a hint of a smile appeared on her face, “skeleton crews.”

Eva had to hand it to the augur. Had Sister Abbey and Nel swapped places, she was fairly certain that Nel would be bawling her eyes out between shaking herself to death out of fear. Sister Abbey was cracking jokes.

Maybe I need to do a little more threatening. Can’t have the captive getting uppity.

“Oh puns? I loove puns. Have you heard the one about the nun that married the zombie?”

Serena beat her to the punch.

“Perhaps it would be best if we limit our conversation with the sister, S,” Wayne said with a grunt.

Eva had lucked out on not being referred to as ‘S’ by the fact that Serena’s name and her last name shared initials. Wayne had almost decided that Serena should be ‘P’ for some reason, but a glare from the vampire had ended that discussion.

“Well at least someone is talking. Breaking in last time wasn’t half as boring.”

“Something you should be thankful for.”

The smile on Sister Abbey vanished and her back stiffened. “You people do this often?”

“Once every year or so,” Eva said before anyone else could preempt her. Unless Wayne and Serena actually robbed the Elysium Order on some kind of regular schedule, claiming to do it often might help throw them off the track. “Whenever we find a child in need of saving.”

“How altruistic. You threaten my life ten times over and–” Sister Abbey bit her tongue as Arachne poked her in the side hard enough to draw blood through her habit. After a quick grimace, her countenance turned to anger. “And yet you claim to work for another’s sake? If you’re so concerned about others, stand with the Order and work to better the world.”

Eva tried to hold in a bout of laughter. She really did.

It didn’t work so well.

Absently, she noted that Serena was laughing as well. A light bubbly giggle compared to her more scornful laugh.

“Ah yes, because the Elysium Order is all about bettering the world.” Eva rolled her eyes, though with Sister Abbey at the lead and facing forwards, the nun wouldn’t be able to see.

Serena, however, saw and started off on another round of giggles. “Every member I’ve ever met has tried to kill me within five minutes. If that.”

“I can’t say the same,” Eva said. “I’ve met and talked with plenty of nuns without fighting them. They usually resorted to poorly disguised death threats with me.”

“E, S,” Zoe said, voice terse. “Please desist.”

“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Wayne grunted. “We’re here.”

Eva blinked. Glancing down at the map and quickly counting the doors in her head, she found that he was right.

Though perhaps she needn’t have counted. The large door before them wasn’t like most of the other wooden doors. It had clearly been made from two slabs of stone and had a deep relief carved into its surface. In the relief, a series of figures wearing garb fairly similar to the nuns’ habits were depicted laying skeletons to rest in mass graves.

There were words inscribed on the front, running around the images on a sort of carved ribbon. They looked like words anyway. Whatever language it was written in was not one that Eva could understand.

Looking at the door did give Eva a slight sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t explain why, it was just there.

Not ominous at all.

Several other, far more regular wooden doors continued on into the distance.

Really, how large is this place?

Unlike the floor above, this second basement had far lower ceilings and a certain dampness that reminded Eva of the crypt that Sawyer had used a few years prior. They could stand to have a cleaning crew go through and freshen up the place a bit.

But this floor wasn’t the last.

Eva knew for a fact that there was at least one more floor below them. She could see something down there. A lone zombie perhaps. It was dead or undead. That much was certain. The blood within its veins might be moving slightly more than Serena’s, but its heart didn’t seem to be beating. It had several golf ball sized holes dotted around its corpse. Anything further was difficult to discern through her blood sight.

“This door?” Sister Abbey whispered. “We can’t go in this door.”

“Oh? Well, I guess we’ve come all this way for nothing,” Eva said, putting as much sarcasm into her voice as possible. “Let’s pack up and go home then.”

“You don’t understand.” Sister Abbey’s voice rose in pitch, becoming more strained. She tried to turn her neck, but Arachne’s needle-like legs put an end to that. Instead, she turned her full body around. “This door can only be opened by a prioress. Or someone given specific access through the source.”

“And you don’t have that access.”

The nun scoffed. “I’m an augur. They’d tear out our eyes if they weren’t necessary to our duties. We aren’t allowed in such secure areas.”

Eva pressed her lips together. It always seemed like it came back to the eyes. Though in this case, she was probably referring to the ones implanted around her body, rather than the eyes on her face.

“Even if you could find a way to enter the room, you wouldn’t make it out. The alarms will go off without fail. Everyone in the cathedral will be waiting for you to exit.”

“We know,” Wayne said as he brushed past Sister Abbey.

That was news to Eva. She didn’t know. Not wanting to show disunity in front of a prisoner, she just nodded in agreement and watched Wayne work.

He knelt before the door, pulling out a small satchel of tools. He started fiddling with the lock on the door after selecting three thin rods. As he started jiggling the rods around, he glanced back over his shoulder. “You sure are helpful for an enemy. Something you’re not telling us, E?”

Eva blinked, surprised that she was the one being addressed. “Ah, I can see why she might be concerned.” Eva said after a moment of thought. “The other nuns being alerted to our presence was one of the conditions for her demise.”

“Ev–” Zoe cut herself off at almost using Eva’s full name. “Might I speak with you for a moment?”

“Don’t worry,” Serena said with a bright smile behind her mask, “I’ll keep the dear sister from committing any nefarious deeds while you’re away.”

Eva eyed the vampire, but just shook her head.

Arachne would be plenty of pairs of eyes on the nun.

She turned and followed Zoe a short distance down the hallway. They were not quite to the next door when Eva felt the air around them change. Zoe had erected another sound barrier between the two groups.

“Eva, I know this is a stressful situation. But… just…” Zoe pinched her eyes shut as she rubbed her temple. “How many ‘conditions for her demise’ were there?”

“A lot, I’d say. There were a few specific ones. After that, I just said that if she did pretty much anything then Arachne would kill her.”

“Eva…”

“I know what you want to say,” Eva said. Probably something about how killing was bad or death threats on helpless prisoners were bad. “But if these nuns catch wind of us, they’re not going to come and ask us to quietly surrender. You’ve done this before, you should know that.”

“First, I do know that. But there is no reason for us to descend to the level of psychopaths. Second, I have not done this before.”

“But Wayne said–”

“He and Serena did it. I was twelve. They didn’t bring me along with them. And,” she glanced over Eva’s shoulder to where Wayne had pulled out his tome at the door, “we weren’t stealing things.” She frowned. “It was more of a rescue than a theft. They were headed towards a dungeon, rather than a storage room.”

The zombie below them might have been in a dungeon. It wasn’t moving around much.

“But if that was the case, he probably hasn’t opened a door like that before. Can he do it?”

“I think,” Zoe started, putting on a smile, “that he is about to show us.”

Turning back to the door, Eva watched as Wayne stood up. He looked over the door once. With his tome held open in front of him, he began flipping through the pages. It took a minute, but he eventually stopped on one in particular. He took a deep breath. As he exhaled, the page started to glow with a white light. It was eerily reminiscent of the same glow that came from the nuns’ eyes as they channeled their peculiar brand of magic. With a flick of his wrist, the light siphoned off to the metal rods that protruded from the door. Both rods turned white for a brief instant before all the light discharged into the door itself.

There was a loud crack that echoed down the empty hallways.

Satisfied with whatever he had done, Wayne snapped his tome shut and moved up to the door. He pulled the rods from the door, taking great care as he replaced them within his satchel.

Even if her conversation with Zoe wasn’t finished, Eva headed back to the rest of the group. No time to delay if the door really was unlocked.

“Finished so soon?” Eva asked.

She only received a grunt in response.

“It took for-ev-er,” Serena said, pronouncing each syllable distinctly on their own. “Seriously, you used to be so much better. Getting old? You know that there is a cure for that, right?”

“I’m rusty,” Wayne said, voice firm, “not old.”

“Uh huh.”

“Anyway,” Eva said before their charades could continue any longer, “the door is unlocked now?” She took a step towards it only to be interrupted by a cough from Zoe. “Oh, whatever.”

Sister Abbey looked almost sickly green. Whether that was thanks to her impending doom or the proximity with which Serena had decided to keep an eye on her, Eva couldn’t say. But she could say something to remove one of those two options.

“In the event that alarms go off through our own actions, I suppose you don’t have to be killed. But siding with any nuns that show up will be inexcusable.”

Sister Abbey swallowed once. “How gracious of you.”

“Too gracious, if you ask me,” Serena said. Her voice lacked the frivolous tone that she had spoken every other word in.

It surprised Eva for just a moment, but deciding that the vampire probably had more reasons to hate the Elysium Order than most, she let it go with a light shrug of her shoulders. She turned back to the door, but caught sight of a thin-lipped Zoe in the corner of her eye. Zoe stared for a second or two before giving a reluctant nod.

“Well,” Eva said to Wayne, “that’s done. Going to open the door? Or shall I?”

“I was waiting for us to be ready. Everything on the door is disabled, but if there is anything beyond that I couldn’t reach then we may not have much time.”

“Alright. S and Z keep an eye on the hallway. Sister Abbey will accompany W and I to help spot and disarm any traps that may be lying about. Sound good? Anyone not ready?”

“Oh good,” Serena said, eying the doors, “I was going to stay here anyway.”

Shrugging at the quip, Eva glanced around the group. From the ill-looking Sister Abbey and Arachne hanging off of her back, Serena prodding at Arachne’s limbs, to the professors–one of whom looked far more confident than the other–no one objected.

“Let’s do this,” Eva said as she pulled open the door.

The heavy stone slabs making up the doors slammed into the walls with a resounding thunder. Parts of them chipped and fell away while cracks formed in the brick walls.

Eva kept very still as she watched for any sign that the doors would fall off. It was a good thing that no one had been standing near the walls. They would have been crushed.

She might have used just a little too much force. In her defense, they were stone slabs; she figured that they would need a little force to get moving. Clearly, something had been done to them.

Ignoring the snort of a giggle from Serena, Eva pulled out her map. “It’s not far.”

Inside was a much shorter hallway containing three far more mundane doors. From Nel’s brief description from scrying inside, she knew that they were essentially storage rooms. Shelves full of dangerous objects or equipment that the rank and file weren’t supposed to handle. The idol-like devices that the Elysium Order used were in the third room.

And in there should be the obelisk.

Eva took a single step forward, only to be bathed in blinding white light.

The walls, the floor, the ceiling, it all turned white. For a moment, she thought that she was being teleported by Wayne or Zoe. The cold chill settling in didn’t help dissuade her thoughts.

The doors still standing before her were her first clue that she was not being teleported. As was the fact that, while chilly, the cold was more like a winter’s day than the debilitating freeze of their teleport.

“You’re not undead?” Sister Abbey said, genuine surprise in her voice.

“Oh? You knew this would happen? Thought you’d lead us–”

“I didn’t know!” She jumped in place as Arachne’s legs pressed inwards. Her voice raised pitch a few notches as she spoke with haste. “It is a common trap used to immobilize undead. I didn’t know that it would be here.”

“An alarm too, I’d bet,” Wayne said as he brushed past the two. He reached the correct door only to find it locked. Rather than pull out his toolkit, he opened his tome.

One page burst into flames. The flames went out and nothing but ash remained. It dusted off into the air, dispersing and disappearing as it went.

Just as the page burst into flames, the wooden door was quick to follow suit.

He stepped over the threshold before the flames had even died down.

Eva charged in after him. Arachne could handle the augur on her own.

“Back left shelf?” he asked.

“That’s what Nel said,” rushing to the place herself.

There were so many things in the room. It was hard not to stop and stare. Most were in the form of stone or wood sculptures. Some, more organic.

One that Eva did stop to look at–for only a second–was a beating heart inside a glass case suspended by four silver prongs. An eyeball dangled off the bottom. Probably the same kind as the nuns’ implanted eyes. Despite its obvious beating, Eva couldn’t see the thing itself through her sense of blood.

That didn’t stop the eye from glowing bright white as she watched.

Eva jumped back and ran to the shelf that Wayne had stopped in front of.

“We should hurry,” she said. “I don’t like this place.”

“No arguments.”

He closed his hand around an arm-sized replica of the Washington Monument. This version was covered in all kinds of markings and scribbles. The top was not a square pyramid. Rather, it had a cone with engravings on it. The first engraving had a circle. That circle was repeated just to either side, except with a sliver taken off. The pattern went around, waxing and waning until it returned to the circle at the front.

Just as Nel had described it.

He hefted it up a few inches before setting it right back down. “Heavy,” he grunted.

“Zoe can levitate it, right?”

Frowning, he tucked his tome under his arm and tried again with two hands. “Maybe,” he said, holding it in the air for a few seconds before setting it down. “Won’t be easy.”

Rather than try again, Wayne pulled up his tome. He tapped the obelisk on the front.

There was a clipped rush of cold air. Nothing else changed save for Wayne’s frown deepening further. Whatever he had intended to do had failed.

“Between is warded off here,” he grumbled to himself. “It wasn’t on the main floor…”

Again, he tapped the obelisk. Aside from another burst of cold air, nothing happened.

Eva shook her head. They didn’t have time for this. If Wayne could lift it with two hands, surely she could as well. As long as she lifted with her legs and not her back, it probably wouldn’t be all that difficult.

Putting one hand around the base and the other halfway up, Eva hefted it up.

Heavy was an accurate word. Wayne had chosen well. However, it didn’t feel quite as heavy as carrying Irene’s limp body around after their little hot springs incident. She would be useless in combat, but she had plans to help with that. With the blood in her backpack already attuned to her dagger, she would be able to control it without much physical effort.

Taking a few steps away from the shelf, Eva found the load much easier to carry as she readjusted her center of balance. It left her leaning back, but… I can do this.

“Got it?”

“I do. Let’s go.” Before she moved more than two steps, Eva paused and took another look around the room. A golden necklace with an hourglass set in the middle particularly caught her eye. “Not going to take anything else?”

“I’d rather not give them more reason to hunt us down,” he said as he moved back through the room. He didn’t so much as glance at the objects on the shelves. “This obelisk is damning enough on its own.”

“Fair point,” Eva mumbled before following after him.

Sister Abbey stood at the room’s threshold, just behind the pile of ashes that once was a door. Her mouth was agape as she looked into the room.

“Lot of good your ‘door unlocker’ was, Spe–E.”

“She unlocked one door,” Eva said as she hefted the obelisk, shifting its position ever so slightly. “That was useful.”

“Could have done it myself. You’d have done better to let S knock on the door and give you a few seconds to escape.”

“Maybe if she did that sooner. As it was, had to act quickly. I didn’t want our dear augur friend to notice me while I was unprepared.”

“Too much talk. Not enough running.”

Eva just frowned as Wayne ran into the white room. “You started it,” she mumbled to herself.

With a nod of her head to Arachne and Sister Abbey, she walked back into the icy cold room, carrying the obelisk all the way.

They got through the pure white room just in time to see a lightning bolt travel down the hall from Zoe’s dagger.

“Company,” she said through grit teeth as blindingly white lightning crackled down the hall.

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006.027

Posted on September 22, 2016November 20, 2021 by Tower Curator

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Three things made getting into the Elysium Cathedral much easier than it had any right to be.

The first was the map. Drawn by Nel both from memory and from scrying, it had possible routes to the relic chamber along with some annotations about which directions would have them encounter how much resistance. Most of it was guesswork and estimations. Nel had to remain behind to prepare the salt, so she couldn’t give real-time updates. The nuns could and would move around and invalidate most of her efforts.

But that was the second thing. For whatever reason, there were hardly any nuns about. A handful of guards was about all that they had to sneak by. They hadn’t passed the sleeping quarters, so it was entirely possible that the majority were asleep. Nel had mentioned that there should have been more guards, so Eva wasn’t about to question their luck.

Eva wanted to say that the third thing was her own blood sight. The ability to effectively see through walls, see which direction guards were facing, and to tell whether or not a guard was asleep at their post was an amazing asset on a job like this. Something that Eva wished she had figured out back when doing odd jobs with Devon.

However, while it helped, Eva had to begrudgingly give a nod to Serena and her unique abilities.

Two guards stood alert outside of the doorway leading to the basement of the cathedral.

There was another way inside, but they would have had to backtrack through a good portion of the building, negating much of their work so far. And, if this one was guarded, that door was likely guarded as well.

Turning to the others, Eva said, “Arachne can handle this.”

At hearing her name, the spider demon poked her head out from under Eva’s shirt.

They didn’t actually need to be silent. Something that Eva was beyond grateful for. Part of her reason for wanting to go in alone was that it was far easier to be stealthy with fewer people. Arachne had shrunk and latched onto Eva’s chest just to help reduce their total footprint. More people meant more noise, no exceptions.

Except when Zoe was part of the group. She just twisted her dagger and the air itself didn’t allow sound to pass beyond a small radius around their group. The vibrations froze in mid-air.

That hadn’t made Arachne unshrink. A group of people was already a larger visual target than a single person, and Arachne was larger than any one person in their group. Zoe’s air magic couldn’t hide them from sight.

“How?” Serena asked with a wide smile.

The tone of her voice wasn’t hostile and it was a fair question. It still sent Eva’s eye twitching. Not only was it a question that Eva had been about to answer on her own, but it was Serena asking.

She wasn’t certain that she liked the vampire. Every time she glanced in Serena’s direction, she found the vampire staring at her. Every single time.

To Eva, it didn’t feel much like a friendly stare or even one of the curious stares that her classmates often gave her hands and eyes. It was of the hungry variety of stares. Like the vampire was just waiting for her to let her guard down so she could have a quick snack.

“Arachne climbs on the ceiling–no one ever looks up,” Eva said, glancing up herself.

If asked, she would say that she had glanced up as emphasis on her words. It was definitely not because she too never bothered to look up. While her blood sight worked in a sphere around her, there could be nonliving concerns on the ceiling.

Looking up only to find a trapped ceiling slowly descending to crush them would be terrible. She did not want to become an Eva sandwich.

Bringing her eyes back down to Serena after finding nothing, Eva said, “Arachne then drops on their heads, bites them, injects venom, and then we walk past two recently deceased nuns.”

Zoe shifted, probably about to say something about killing people.

Serena beat her to the punch. “Buut, that will leave two dead nuns.”

“You care?”

She shrugged. “I’ve no love for the Elysium Order. However,” she held up a finger, “what if the changing of the guards happens or someone walks by? Even if we hide the bodies, the lack of guards will alert the others. If there is an augur here, and there probably is, the entirety of the cathedral will be on alert near instantly. That makes our job far more difficult.”

“Fair points,” Eva said with a frown. “But you can’t just complain without putting forward a suggestion of your own. What’s your plan?”

“Hmm,” she tilted her head back and forth a few times. “Something like this.”

Before Eva could so much as react, Serena had jumped around the corner, extending her arm out like she was holding a pistol.

Through her blood sight, Eva could see the guards’ eyes widen a fraction of an inch.

Neither of their hearts had the chance to spike in pace before Serena’s invisible pistol sent a recoil up her arm.

As her wrist flicked back, a dark beam erupted from her eyes.

Both guards slackened slightly, but not enough to topple over.

“Hurry,” Serena said, already taking off running towards the door. “Not much time.”

Wayne and Zoe were already in motion, apparently having experienced such antics from the vampire in the past. Eva scrambled after them a moment later.

Both guards had a dazed look on their faces. Neither was quite focusing on any one thing in particular.

“Locked,” Wayne grumbled from ahead of the pack.

Serena whipped her head to one of the guards, staring at the nun for a moment.

For a bare instant, the nun’s eyes refocused. Eva tensed, ready for a fight.

But the nun just turned without actually seeing any of them. She pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the door, tapping the lock with a wand before returning to her position at the side of the door. As she retook her position, her eyes lost their focus once again.

Wayne and Zoe charged through the door. Serena gave a little pat on the shoulder of the nun. “Thanks,” she said before following the other two.

With one last look at the glossy-eyed nuns, Eva ran through the door.

“A little warning next time,” Zoe said as she shut the door and flicked the deadbolt back into place.

“Ohh, but there’d be no fun in that.”

Zoe ignored her, clicking the locks on the door shut. “The nun touched the door with her wand. There was probably a magical lock in place. I hope it wasn’t tied to any alarms.”

As they spoke, Eva watched the other side of the door through her blood sight. Both nuns shook their heads slightly as they lost the sag in their pose.

Eva waited at the door, preparing to charge through and stop the nuns from running to get help. Serena was right in that killing them would be troublesome. They could at least restrain them. That would give them plenty more time than having them run off right away.

Neither made a move for or away from the door. Each simply resumed her guard without so much as a word to the other.

“Eva,” Zoe called up from the bottom of the staircase, “we’re not there yet. Best to keep moving before they notice the spells on the door are gone.”

“What was that?” Eva asked anyone as she reached the others. She paused for just a moment, looking around. “People inside the large room on our right. Only three. A meeting of some sort?”

Eva wished that her blood sight could provide more details. Or maybe she needed to get good at reading lips through blood veins. As it was, all she could tell was that three people were seated around a table, discussing something. Two of them were augurs, judging by the copious amount of eye-shaped organs dotted around their bodies.

They were fairly far away. Just at the edge of her range.

The end of the stairs opened up into a long hallway that, after a curve, followed back along the hallway they had just been in one floor up. The main chapel room sat directly adjacent above, though if there were a replica down here, they hadn’t gone down enough steps for it to copy the vaulted ceiling.

Unless the room had been partitioned off, the nuns would be sitting in the far corner from where Eva was.

Perhaps much of it had been made into a storage area? There were doors on either side all along the hallway. Offices? What did the Elysium Order need with such a large space?

And they still had to go down one more floor before reaching the room that contained the obelisk.

“That,” Serena said from the head of the group, “was just a figment of their imaginations. Staring at a wall for hours on end has a habit of playing tricks on the mind. Whatever they thought they saw was probably nothing.”

“‘Probably nothing’ unlocked the doors?”

Serena shrugged. “Not my fault that she had a sudden pressing need to open the door and forget about it afterwards.”

Frowning, Eva glared at the vampire’s back. “If you can do that, why are we bothering with all this sneaking around? We could just walk up to a nun and have her go get the obelisk.”

“Ah, but it doesn’t last that long, does it now? And if their eyes are glowing, forget about it working entirely.” She glanced over her shoulder as she walked. Her stormy eyes made contact with Eva’s as she flashed a grin. “Learned that the hard way.”

Eva was about to ask a few other questions about her ability. It seemed a neat trick to have and definitely warranted learning, if she could.

The three nuns moving in the far end of the room gave her pause. She waited just long enough to be certain that they were headed towards the hallway before alerting the group.

“Heads up,” she said. “Three nuns incoming from the far door. Serena?”

The vampire shook her head. “If they come out one at a time, I might get the first one but the other two will notice. If I try to wait, I might not get any of the three.”

“Hide then,” Wayne said from behind. He and Zoe had fallen a fair distance behind Eva and Serena during the short walk through the hallway.

As one, they turned and moved towards one of the rooms that Eva had presumed to be offices. Eva expected it to be locked for a moment, but Wayne turned the knob and walked right in.

Eva and Serena started towards a closer room to where they were. Serena stopped partway and vanished from Eva’s sight. She was still there in her blood sight, unbeating heart and all.

At least she can’t sneak up on me, Eva thought, taking the disappearance in stride. It wasn’t until Serena backed away from the door to position herself at the wall directly opposite that Eva hesitated.

Through her blood sight, Eva glanced through the walls towards Zoe and Wayne’s hiding spot. They had positioned themselves behind where the door would open, ready to ambush anyone who entered. There must not be any good hiding spots in the room itself. For a moment, just a single moment, Eva thought to go and join them in their room.

Shaking the notion from her mind, Eva entered the door before her.

Running down to their room would be cutting it too close. The nuns were almost to the hallway.

“Arachne,” Eva said to her one companion as the door shut behind her with a soft click, “ceiling. Keep quiet and don’t attack unless the situation looks dire.”

If Zoe and Wayne were setting up an ambush, she would take their lead.

The spider-demon gave her a quick tap on her right shoulder before climbing out the top of her shirt. Leaping from her shoulder to the wall, Arachne skittered up to a corner of the ceiling where her dark carapace blended in with the shadows.

Arachne in place, Eva looked around the room in an attempt to find her own place to hide.

There weren’t many options. The room was not an office as she had initially suspected. There was a single altar in the center of the room along with a small closet to one side. The room looked an awful lot like the room Nel had set up for herself within Ylva’s domain, if a far less gaudy version of it.

The thick wooden citrus of frankincense hung in the air like smog, reinforcing Eva’s growing fears.

These rooms were not safe places to hide with two augurs walking down the hall.

With nowhere better to hide, Eva moved to the opposite side of the altar. It was thick, heavy, and solid stone of some sort. Marble, probably. Sitting was all that was required to hide behind it, and she was left with plenty of space to spare overhead and to the sides. With a large pillow between the altar and the door, it was fairly obvious that the augur would sit with her back to the door. She wouldn’t come around the side.

Eva withdrew a vial of Arachne’s blood as she watched the two augurs walk down the hallway alongside the regular nun. No sense in not preparing for the worst.

The group stopped outside of a room a few doors down, opposite of the direction that Zoe and Wayne were hidden. They spoke a few words to one another before one of the augurs split off and entered the room. The other two continued on down the hallway.

Continued towards her.

Closing her eyes, she hoped that they would just pass by. Surely only one augur needed to be on duty at such a late hour. The other should go to bed.

Serena did nothing but lean against the wall, head turning to follow and watch the two nuns.

Couldn’t she just use her magic trick right now?

No. They were both looking at each other. One would see her before the other saw leading to the second turning on their power.

Eva stifled a groan as they stopped outside of her door.

Of course, she thought as the door cracked open.

“–allowed to roam free, Sister Abbey,” the non-augur said. “We must–”

“If you wish to pursue demon hunting,” the augur spat, “I will look the other way. But I will not accompany you. A few rogue sisters will be overlooked in this time of crisis. A second rogue augur will be hunted down by the few remaining inquisitors without question.”

Chagrin filling her voice, the non-augur all but whined at the augur. “Sister Abbey–”

“And, Sister Cole, I trust I do not need to remind you of the last time your chapter encountered demons. What was the casualty rate for that mission, forty percent?”

The augur shook her head as she turned to the altar.

Eva stilled her breathing as much as possible. Please leave, please leave. She wished she had possessed the foresight to stab her own chest with her dagger. Oxygenating her blood through exposure to the air was far quieter than breathing.

The other nun stayed in the doorway. Her hands, balled into fists, trembled. “Thirty seven percent. And we are far more prepared. We’ve had time to analyze and employ better countermeasures. And this time, we won’t have Cross and–”

“The former prioress’ faults are well-known,” Sister Abbey said with a glance over her shoulder. “It is amusing to me that you wish to repeat her mistakes so soon after gaining her title, Prioress.”

Sister Cole grit her teeth. Even had she not been able to see her muscles clenching, Eva would have heard the grinding.

“You are just an augur. You’ll be–”

“Looking the other way. If you continue pressing the matter, I may find myself in a more active role of alerting the inquisitors before they find cause to go after me.” Turning fully from Sister Cole, Sister Abbey knelt down at the altar. “This conversation has been most enlightening. If you would remove yourself from my presence, I have work that must be done.”

Clenching her fists again, Sister Cole turned from the door, slamming it shut in the process. She stormed towards the staircase.

At least they would know if the nun noticed those missing spells. If she came running back down the stairs, she would probably have spotted them and alerted the two guards. Hopefully her anger would cloud her perception.

Unfortunately, Eva had a more pressing problem.

The augur sighed. A long, drawn our, exasperation-filled sigh. She reached up and pulled her habit’s cap off, setting it on the altar with reverence. With a sudden clenching of her fists, she stood up, walked to the door, flicked the deadbolt into place, and sat down.

“And stay out,” she murmured.

Outside of the room, Serena walked up to the door and pressed her ear against it.

Unless the vampire had unlocking doors as an ability, Eva doubted that she would be getting any help from there.

Down the hall, Zoe and Wayne had emerged from their room. Zoe had likely enhanced her ears beyond the point of safety to determine if the hallway was empty. They ran up to Serena–who must be visible again–and started speaking to one another.

No sound penetrated the door. Whether due to the door’s construction or Zoe dampening sound, Eva couldn’t say. Them speaking without her being able to listen did reaffirm her decision to figure out how to read lips through blood. They were probably plotting ways to get her out. It would help a lot to know what they were talking about.

Inside of her room, the augur didn’t actually appear to be doing any auguring. A lot of sighing and breathing exercises, but no scrying. Something of a shame. Nel tended to block out most of the surroundings when she dipped into her abilities. Maybe not enough for Eva to sneak out, but it couldn’t hurt.

Eva expected the closet to be filled with all the objects the augur would use to scry with, so it was a good thing that the augur wasn’t doing her job. If she went up to the closet, Eva would come into view.

It would be so easy to signal Arachne from where she was. Arachne had moved to directly over the augur. An angle from where she would definitely be able to see Eva.

But Serena was right. If the augur died, everyone in the area would know and be after them immediately.

Best to find a non-lethal solution.

Eva mentally cursed at her stupidity in not packing her poison satchel. Even a mild paralytic would keep her down long enough for them to get in and out. Probably.

Zoe and company were probably looking for a solution, but they didn’t know what the inside of the room looked like or really anything that would give them a concrete plan.

With a mental sigh, Eva started forming precise directions for Arachne out of blood.

As she finished, Arachne dropped. She dangled from the ceiling on a single thread. Her eight legs touched the ground behind Sister Abbey without the slightest noise.

Arachne sprung from the ground. Six of her legs latched around the woman’s chest–arms included–breaking at least one of her bones based on the noise. Arachne’s front two legs snapped up and positioned themselves at either side of the woman’s neck. They pinched her skin inwards, but managed not to pierce her throat.

Yet.

“If your eyes glow, you die,” Eva said before anything else, even before the nun had a chance to cry out in pain from her broken bones.

While she wouldn’t put it past a member of the Elysium Order to go out in some suicidal attack, the augur had been worried about inquisitors; it was reasonable to assume that she feared for her life.

Eva managed to hold in a sigh of relief as the nun stilled. Her heart had jumped to a couple thousand beats per minute, but she clamped her mouth shut and did not ignite her eyes. Eva couldn’t actually see her eyes, but Arachne hadn’t killed her. Therefore, her eyes were normal.

“Congratulations,” Eva said without standing from her hiding position. “Through an inestimable amount of bad luck, mostly on my part, you get a choice tonight. One choice, obviously, is death. I do not think I need to explain that one.”

On the other side of the door, Serena was shushing the two conversing professors while trying to press her ear even further into the door.

Eva ignored them for the moment. It was a bit too late for anything they might do.

“The other choice: you can help save a little girl whose life is in danger.” Shalise probably wouldn’t appreciate being referred to as a little girl–Eva wouldn’t–but the facts were that she was not here and little girls were far more sympathetic than teenagers. “That could use some explanation, but I am pressed for time and really, what choice do you actually have?

“Rest assured, I am not here to hurt anyone. As I said, you’re only in this position because of bad luck. I’m just here to steal something. Hell, I don’t even need to keep it.” Unless an obelisk is somehow consumed during the ritual. “You can have it back in an hour.” Or however long the ritual lasted plus time to get back. “Maybe a day? Definitely less than a week. I’ll drop it off on the front lawn.”

Eva hummed for a moment, giving the augur time to process what she had said. “Saving the life of a little girl or having your own life extinguished. I intend to get what I came for either way, so I suppose those aren’t mutually exclusive. You only need to worry about your own life.”

The augur remained silent. Arachne pressed one leg ever so slightly deeper into her neck, causing her to jump.

“Go ahead, make your choice. I’m a very busy woman and I haven’t got all day. If time runs out, the default choice is death, in case you were unsure.”

While the nun mulled it over, Eva took the orb of blood in her hands and formed it into a sort of mask and a pair of gloves to lessen the pointedness of her fingers. Serena had mentioned having masks on whatever previous experience she had with the Elysium Order, so it couldn’t be a terrible idea.

If she did end up agreeing, as Eva expected she would, Eva didn’t want to give any clue as to who she was. Given the distinction of her eyes and hands, it wouldn’t be difficult to find out who she was.

Probably wouldn’t be difficult anyway, Eva grumbled to herself as she finished shaping the blood. The moment anyone noticed anything demonic going on, they would immediately turn to Brakket.

Perhaps shoving Serena in front of a nun would distract them for a few months while they hunted down some nonexistent vampire coven.

Unless she had an actual coven that they could locate. That might be something of a jerk move in that case.

Encountering augurs made Eva feel woefully unprepared. She would have to make sure that no significant part of herself was left behind. Nel used vials of blood and strands of hair to locate her targets.

They should have all worn hair nets. And bindings on their bodies to keep arm hairs and such things from falling out.

How small could augurs go? Flakes of dead skin? Individual skin cells? If so, it was far too late from the moment they walked inside without a hard suit and recirculated air.

With a sudden sinking in her stomach, Eva resigned herself to being hunted by the Elysium Order for the foreseeable future. Even if Ylva’s presence kept them at bay, that would probably not last through the week if she was serious about removing herself from the mortal plane.

Still, no need to make it easy on them. Eva attached the mask to her face, allowing the semi-solid blood to flow over her exposed skin. It was difficult to tell without a mirror, but she was fairly certain that she looked a lot like Arachne minus a few pairs of eyes.

Plunging her dagger into her arm, she quickly made three other masks out of her own blood. They would be thin and wouldn’t cover all skin, but it would be better than nothing.

“Alright.” The nun slumped slightly and her voice came out strained. Arachne might be holding on a bit too tight.

But whatever. She’d live.

“I’m glad you can see reason. Surprising in a way, but I suppose that all the augurs I’ve met have been far less trigger happy than the rest of your lot.”

Standing from behind the altar, Eva ignored the gasp as she stared the augur in the eye.

“If at any point your eyes glow, you will die. If you shout or try to escape, you will die. If the other members of the Elysium Order are alerted to our presence before we leave, you will die.” Eva paused as she thought of other circumstances, but there were far too many to list. “If you think something you do might possibly in some minor probability wind up with you dead, it will.”

Eva smiled behind her mask. A pointless exercise as the nun couldn’t see. Unless… Eva quickly manipulated the surface of her mask into a wide smile. Far wider than her normal smile. Much closer to Arachne’s smile.

In fact, Eva thought as she etched in sharpened teeth. She wasn’t sure that it would be visible as the light in the augur’s room was fairly dim, but it was the thought that counted.

“Aside from that,” Eva said, “Sister Abbey, welcome aboard. Now stay right here and don’t move.”

Stepping around the suddenly statue-like nun, Eva walked up to the door and flicked the lock.

Zoe and Wayne ceased their conversation, both jumping to high alert. Serena just casually walked away from the door with a grin on her face. She had probably heard everything.

Neither of the professors let their guard down. Rather the opposite. A dagger was thrust in her face while Wayne readied his tome.

Rolling her eyes, Eva allowed part of her mask to roll off of her face for a few seconds. “It’s just me. Put these on,” she said, handing her masks off to the three.

Zoe accepted one first, frowning at it. “Are these–”

“Made out of your blood?” Serena snapped between Eva and Zoe, wrenching one of the masks out of Eva’s hands. She pressed it up to her face, drawing in a deep breath.

Eva took the moment it was pressed to her face to remodel it slightly to better fit her face. The large bushy eyebrows and tongue sticking out that appeared on the front were completely unintended consequences of reshaping it.

“This is the best present anyone has ever given me,” Serena said with a mild glare towards Wayne. “I’ll cherish it forever. Not to mention, much better than the ski masks we wore last time.”

Or until I make it explode when we’re done, Eva didn’t say. She hoped that she remembered to tell the vampire to take it off first.

Wayne was the only one hesitating, so Eva tossed the last mask at him. “Put it on unless you don’t care if an augur sees you.”

“What did you do?” he hissed. Wayne hesitated three times, bringing the mask near to his face and pulling it away again before he finally placed it against his face.

Eva fit the masks to both Wayne and Zoe without any unnecessary additions.

“Sister Abbey,” Eva said with a turn of her head, “come introduce yourself.”

The augur, who had been sitting as still as she could manage with her heart beating as it was, jumped slightly at being addressed. After a slight prod from Arachne, she finally made it to the doorway.

Upon seeing the augur, the other three all took a step away. At least until their eyes dipped down to where Arachne’s legs were wrapped around her like some kind of ominous rib cage.

“What did you do?” Wayne grunted through grit teeth.

“I got us a door unlocker!”

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006.026

Posted on September 19, 2016November 20, 2021 by Tower Curator

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“Wayne isn’t coming with us?” Eva asked as she shook off the icy cold of Zoe’s method of teleportation. Digging her claws into the brick wall of the building they had appeared next to, she pulled herself into a proper standing position. “I thought you said he would be here.”

“He will be. He just had to make a brief stop somewhere else first.”

Rubbing her claws up and down her arms, Eva watched an equally shaky Arachne as she unfolded herself from her smaller spider form.

Without a gate nearby, they didn’t have much choice but to go with Zoe despite the downsides to her teleportation. Zoe didn’t have a problem with her teleportation. She stood on watch for the few minutes that it took Eva and Arachne to recover, completely unaffected by the shivers and shakes.

No one else had a problem with it either. Eva had personally watched both Shalise and Juliana teleport alongside Zoe, and both had always walked away without the slightest shakes immediately after arriving at their destination. Yet both Eva and Arachne suffered after every teleport.

Maybe her method just wasn’t meant for nonhumans. At least it didn’t flay them alive as Eva’s teleportation had done to Lynn Cross.

“Well, I hope he gets here soon.” Eva slung off her backpack of supplies. “I need those potions.”

With Devon having fled into the night, Eva wasn’t about to try summoning demons. She was fairly certain that the wax demon had just about killed the both of them last time he summoned it. They had only been saved by Devon dominating it at the last minute.

Eva possessed neither the desire nor the ability to dominate demons. Devon had never taught her how. The textbooks that Martina Turner had assembled for the diablery class didn’t so much as mention the discipline, let alone devote a chapter to how to perform it.

So, Eva had decided to forgo any demonic support.

Aside from Arachne.

That was a whole other can of worms. Arachne had agreed to come along without hesitation. There wasn’t a problem with that.

Eva watched the unnaturally still demon through her blood sight as she pulled a large jar of fresh blood from her pack. She couldn’t help but let her mind wander to the demon.

Despite regular visits over the past few months, Eva felt as if she hadn’t spoken with Arachne in forever. What was she thinking? What was she feeling? Arachne’s thoughts were impenetrable at the best of times.

Now, it was like looking at a blank wall.

Eva shook off the thoughts. They could have a sit-down discussion after the current crisis was over.

For now, she had work to do.

Pulling out her dagger, Eva dug the tip into the crook of her elbow. After drawing out a decent sized globule, she healed the cut and dug into her backpack.

It didn’t take much rummaging to find what she was looking for. It already had a large core of blood that was shining brightly in her vision.

As soon as she moved her hand nearby, Basila coiled around her fingers, squeezing tightly. Eva pulled her out and started looking over the stone basilisk.

Everything appeared in order. Her scales had the same dark sheen and luster that they had had immediately after Eva performed her little experiment. The teeth and silver eyes still maintained their changes as well. None of the blood in the center of the basilisk replica had degraded–odd, given Eva had altered Basila back in January, a good two and a half months ago. Almost three.

Eva shrugged off that oddity. Probably intentional. Given that the spell was supposed to have been performed on an actual living creature, it made sense that the blood that actually imbued the effects would have to be preserved and not overwritten by the creature’s natural blood production.

Even still, she streamed the fresh globule of her own blood down the basilisk’s throat.

Had it always had a throat? It was just a sculpture, wasn’t it? Surely the Rivases wouldn’t have carved out the insides as well.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking an extra security measure.”

Eva didn’t glance up to Zoe as she responded. She had to ensure that Basila both swallowed all the blood and that her addition didn’t disturb the changes to Basila. Given that Basila was just an enchanted sculpture, she doubted that she could kill it. Still, she would rather not mess everything up.

The book she had acquired the spell from didn’t have any sections on fixing an altered sculpture.

“Security for what, exact–”

Two new people popped into the alley.

Eva jumped to her feet, the jar of Arachne’s blood bubbling and boiling at the ready. At her side, Arachne sprouted her spare limbs and dropped into a combat stance.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Zoe going for her dagger only to stop halfway there.

It didn’t take much to figure out why. Wayne was one of the two people.

Still, Eva and Arachne kept up their guard as the girl at his side started towards them.

Or… not, Eva thought as she watched the girl fall forward. She didn’t even try to catch herself as her skull cracked against the asphalt. Another demon?

It sure looked to be suffering from the same problem that she did when teleported by Zoe and Wayne. Eva rubbed her own chin, feeling some semblance of empathy. While she had managed to catch herself on her knees this time, Eva distinctly recalled landing flat on her face the first time Wayne had teleported her.

Did Wayne know any other demons? Eva couldn’t think of any possibilities. The girl wasn’t Ylva, Catherine, or either of the Brakket security guards. While the girl could be Zagan, Eva couldn’t think of a reason why he would appear as a teenage girl.

Wayne stepped over the girl without so much as a downward glance. He quickly found himself at Zoe’s side where the two engaged in a hushed conversation.

Eva thought about listening in, but found herself more interested in the demon. As the minutes dragged on, the girl didn’t push herself up. She didn’t move at all. The thought of her being a demon vanished as Eva noted the oddity in the fallen girl through her blood sight.

Her blood did not move through her veins. Her heart wasn’t beating. Her chest didn’t expand and contract with each breath. There wasn’t the slightest sign of minute movements in the body’s blood that was so tell-tale of other living beings.

“She’s dead,” Eva said, feeling somewhat foolish at pointing out what was now plainly obvious. It was somewhat shocking. Had the girl died from the teleport? Wayne was one thing, but Eva couldn’t imagine Zoe just ignoring Wayne killing some teenager.

Wayne turned from his conversation. He regarded Eva for a good minute before shrugging his shoulders. “Yeah.”

With that, he went back to his conversation.

Or tried to.

“That’s it? ‘Yeah,’ and nothing else? You can’t just–” Eva paused.

With a shake of her head, she shunted the thought from her mind. Zoe wasn’t freaking out. Given how she had reacted to Devon and his potential new subject, a hushed conversation was out of character for her. Therefore, she expected this to happen.

She had known that Wayne would be dragging along a corpse.

So, Eva thought, what use is a corpse in sneaking through an Elysium Order owned church? Spare blood for me?

There wasn’t any sign of life in the blood and it felt old. Eva doubted it would be usable. If Wayne had intended that for her, it wasn’t a very good gift. He should have just raided a blood bank, not a morgue. Even then, Eva had a decent amount of Arachne’s blood to use. Stale blood just couldn’t hold up a candle to that.

“Whatever,” Eva said. She had already intended to steal the obelisk with only herself and Arachne. If Wayne could help, great. Otherwise… “Did you get my potions?”

“You’re lucky I keep examples on hand.” Wayne Lurcher reached into his suit and pulled out two vials. One was dark orange while the other could have been mistaken for blood. Regular blood.

“Thanks,” Eva said as she reached for them.

Wayne snapped his wrist back, pulling the vials just out of reach. “Not for use on huma–” He cut himself off with narrowed eyes. Those eyes flicked over towards Arachne before he continued. “Not for use on living flesh. You’re not going to be able to shrink yourself to get in.”

Eva shot out her hand and snatched the vials. “I know that,” she said. “Just because I don’t go to your class doesn’t mean that I haven’t read the books.” Technically, Arachne had read her the books. Wayne didn’t need to know that.

Rolling the vials around with her fingers, Eva double checked that the color and consistency was what the book described. She didn’t believe that Wayne would make a mistake–no matter how annoying he was, Eva believed that he knew his alchemy–but it couldn’t hurt to double-check.

“Actually,” Eva said as she finished. Satisfied with the results of her inspection, she set the vials within a potion satchel inside her backpack. “I don’t wear those gloves anymore. That was your main complaint with me, right?”

“You want to come to my class again?” He shook his head. “Wrong question. Are you going to be disrespectful and disruptive again?”

Balling her hands into fists, Eva glared at him. “You were rude to me–”

Wayne held up a hand. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll talk about this later.” Under his breath, he grumbled, “I might not have a job if the school shuts down.”

Eva’s mild anger dissipated into a slight sensation of melancholy. “That’s a possibility, is it?”

“Can’t tell what the dean will do. I’ve long since stopped trying to figure out how Turner thinks. But she won’t matter much if the sky spooks off all you kids. Can’t have a school without students.”

Although there were plenty of problems surrounding Brakket Academy, including the one going on at the moment, Eva had taken a liking to school. Without it, she would probably still be doing the odd job with Devon. Few and as far between as those jobs were, she would be going to mundane school. Her most recent experience with a mundane school had left her bored out of her mind.

Eva turned away from Wayne, not bothering to question him further. As he had said, it was something to think about later. For now, she was wasting time. With the potions delivered, she was fairly certain that they were ready.

Arachne didn’t have many preparations to make as she was made up of everything that she used to fight with. She was no longer shaking from the effects of the teleport either. When Eva gave her a glance, she nodded.

“Let’s get this show on the road.”

“Wait. We’re not going to let you do this on your own.”

Eva turned back to Zoe with a frown on her face. She tried to keep her voice polite as she said, “Wait? For how long? You do realize that Shalise could be in danger?” Eva bit down on a harsher response.

While she respected Zoe and understood that she wanted to help, Eva was somewhat anxious about finding the obelisk and getting back to Shalise. When Sister Cross had said there might be problems acquiring the obelisk, Eva had not expected that an assault on an Elysium Order controlled church to be in the cards.

“But don’t worry, this is just like a job with Devon. I’ve done tons of them. In fact, this is better than a job with Devon. This time, thanks to Nel, we actually have a map with the destination marked and a good idea of how many nuns are around. That’s ten times the preparation that ever went into any of Devon’s jobs.”

Zoe had her lips pressed into a thin line. Probably at the thought of Devon dragging her off on jobs.

“Eva, you–”

“Smell good…”

Eva jumped, whirling around to face the corpse on the ground. The sound had come from below and behind her. Right where that corpse had been lying.

The body was still dead. Still unmoving face down on the asphalt. No blood flowed through its veins. It was even in the same position that Eva had last seen it in.

No, Eva thought as a glob of Arachne’s blood started hovering around her, not quite the same position.

The jaw had slackened from the hardened rictus that it had arrived with.

Eva jumped back as the body lifted a hand. She did a quick double-check of herself, the professors, and Arachne just to ensure that her blood sight was working properly.

Everyone’s blood was flowing just fine.

Everyone except for the currently animated corpse.

Her first thoughts were of necromancy. None of the skeletons or zombies that she had encountered had ever spoken, but the ghost that had assisted in her initial capture had responded to queries. Could ghosts possess corpses?

Then there was the blended girl and her friend. Both were strange to her blood sight and both had a connection to Sawyer. Their status of being alive was in question solely because of that. But even the friend had a pulse. A slow, lethargic pulse, but a pulse nonetheless.

It did, however, answer the question of why Wayne had brought along a corpse. If the Elysium Order thought that there might be undead in the general area of their church, they would probably send at least a portion of their forces to investigate.

Unfortunately, it would probably set the rest on high alert.

Maybe the undead should be contained and set to be released if they needed a distraction. A much better plan than alerting everyone right away.

Eva kept a careful watch on the girl as she pushed herself up to her knees and then to her feet. All the while, Eva had a portion of Arachne’s blood ready to strike or shield at a moment’s notice.

Arachne had moved back in the shadows and climbed partway up the building, looking about ready to pounce on the animated corpse.

“I told you to warn me before teleporting,” the girl whined as she tried to brush dirt and grime from her clothes.

Given that she was wearing a white dress, she failed miserably. If anything, she only worsened the problem by smearing the dirt around herself.

The girl seemed to realize the problem only after it was too late.

As she looked up to glare at Wayne, Eva caught a dead-on view of her eyes.

Or rather, the endless abyss behind them. They were like little snow globes with storms in place of the snow that would be right at home inside of Ylva’s domain.

“You would have ended up on your face no matter what,” Wayne said.

His voice broke Eva out of her trance. She shook her head and averted her eyes, determined not to get stuck in that trap again.

“I also told you to catch me. You’re so meaan to me,” she said, drawing out the word. “And after all the favors I’ve done for you over the years.”

Eva heard the distinct sound of Wayne scoffing behind her back.

“Now I’m all embarrassed and dirty in front of,” she took a deep breath through her nose, “someone who smells soo fantastic.”

The girl appeared in front of Eva. It wasn’t teleportation; Eva managed to track her movements just enough to tell that much. She was, however, fast enough to startle Eva.

Barely thinking, Eva activated her shield as she stumbled back from the other teenager.

She passed through the side of the shield and left the animated corpse behind, trapped within the bubble.

“What strange eyes,” the corpse muttered to herself.

“Look who’s talking.”

The corpse took another deep breath. “Ah, blood magic,” she said. A wide smile formed on her face as she poked the orb of blood powering the shield. “But you should have taken this with you.”

It doesn’t work like that, Eva almost said. The orb had to stay in the direct center of the shield or it collapsed. She had tried otherwise in the past, but nothing had never worked.

But Eva kept her mouth shut as her mind raced to toss out all of her previous assumptions about the girl. The twin fangs hanging out of her smile introduced a new theory.

The girl was a vampire.

Eva had never before encountered a vampire. In fact, she had assumed that the entire species was a myth up until Genoa had told the story of why she disliked the Elysium Order.

As if to prove Eva’s new theory, the vampire leaned down and slurped up the core of the shield. The actual shell collapsed immediately, freeing the trapped vampire.

For just a moment, Eva considered clapping her hands together and exploding the blood inside the vampire’s stomach. The only thing staying her hands was the fact that the vampire had arrived with Wayne and Zoe had clearly been expecting her arrival. She was probably not an enemy.

A blur of movement in the upper corners of Eva’s eyes had her shouting as fast as possible. “Arachne!”

The spider-demon twisted in midair, moving just enough to land behind the vampire rather than on top of her. All of her spare legs were spread out, hovering dangerously close to the vampire’s throat.

The vampire turned around to face Arachne, calm and languid as she could be.

Or the vampire’s calm exterior could be a facade. Perhaps she was nervous out of her mind.

Eva was finding it incredibly difficult to tell one way or the other. It made her realize just how much she had come to rely on her blood sight to tell when people were nervous. Anyone with even a modicum of self-control could keep their face straight in stressful situations, but keeping their hearts steady was another matter entirely.

“That was your blood?” The vampire wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure it agreed with me. Too tangy. Too sweet.”

Arachne stood motionless over the far smaller vampire, radiating a menacing aura.

“Do you talk? You clearly listen,” she said with a glance at Eva. “Yet I cannot say I’ve ever encountered a creature like you.”

“Serena,” Zoe said, “we have time constraints. You can socialize later.”

The vampire spun on her heel and skipped straight to Zoe. Wrapping her into a hug around the waist, Serena said, “Zoe! I haven’t seen you in forever. You’re so big now. Have you thought more on joining?”

“Not in the slightest,” Zoe said. Her voice was flat, but she returned the hug.

Eva just blinked. Zoe knew the vampire too? And was hugging her?

“Wayne told you what we’re going to do?”

Serena shook her head. Her voice dropped into a mocking growl as she spoke. “‘Remember Boston? We need to do that again,’ was all he said. But since we’re in an alley and not a sushi bar, there are no circuses around, and Wayne doesn’t have makeup on, I’m not sure how we’re going to–”

“Not that part of Boston,” Zoe said as fast as she could.

Unlike the vampire, Eva could actually see Zoe’s heart pick up the pace a few notches.

“Oh,” her eyes narrowed. “I thought we agreed not to bother the Elysium Order again. I’ve enjoyed relative peace for the last few years and would really rather not antagonize them any further. Can’t you just ask them for whatever you need?”

“While I respect the Elysium Order for most of their work,” Wayne said as he took a half step forward, “I’d rather not walk up to them openly and announce myself. I doubt they will be so forgiving if they tie us to Boston.”

Zoe nodded along with that. “And they probably wouldn’t be willing to give a relic of theirs away. This is an emergency. Necessary, even. If you want to back out, I’ll understand.”

“Do we even have masks this time?”

Zoe gave a short shake of her head.

Releasing Zoe from the hug, Serena huffed as she turned around. Her eyes found Eva and for a moment, she just stared. “What’s your role in all this?”

“My friend is the one in danger. And we,” Eva gestured towards Arachne, “will be proceeding with or without anyone’s help.”

“You think you can fight the Elysium Order on your own? I don’t know what the two of you are, but you can’t seriously believe that running head on into one of their strongholds will turn out well.”

“Run in? Fight?” Eva shook her head. “Not in the slightest. I doubt I could fight a single nun. So long as they’re healthy, at least. No, my plan involves a great deal more subtlety and stealth. We have a map. We know roughly how many nuns are around. It is late at night; many nuns will be asleep.” Eva glanced at Arachne. “Shapeshifting into smaller forms won’t hurt our chances.”

“Sneaking in?” The vampire hummed. After a moment of thought, she turned a glare on Wayne. “That’s a far better plan than what we did last time. And, it is something that my talents will be useful for.”

“Great. Splendid. Can we please get a move on?”

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006.025

Posted on September 15, 2016November 20, 2021 by Tower Curator

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Zoe stopped before a well-worn wooden door with a familiar brass handle. She pushed the door open, fully expecting to be welcomed into the bar and parlor by Tom’s smiling face.

A bright light had her wincing away the second she stepped inside.

It took her mind a moment to catch on to the fact that something was wrong. The bar was never brightly lit. Lights were kept perpetually dim. Tom was not a mage, but she had often wondered if he didn’t have some sixth sense for incoming customers. The lights were low even when she had walked in during the off hours on occasion, when he was in the middle of cleaning–a task that Zoe would never consider attempting without decent lighting.

Blinking away the spots in her eyes, Zoe peered beyond into the rest of the room. Or tried to. With a frown on her face, she realized that the rest of the bar was pitch black. Even her enhanced eyes were having trouble seeing past the few spotlights that had been moved directly in front of the door.

Her enhanced ears, on the other hand, picked up the sound of heavy metal being lifted from a wooden surface.

Zoe slipped off her backpack full of ritual supplies in the same swift motion she used to draw her dagger.

“Keep your hands where I can see them!”

“Tom?” It sounded like his voice. For the most part. It lacked the ever friendly tones that it normally carried.

Zoe kept her hand firmly on her dagger, ready to erect a shield at any moment. “Tom? It’s me, Zoe Baxter. I’m not here to hurt you.”

There was definite hesitation in the darkness. She could almost feel the uncertainty.

“What did you order when you last came here?”

Zoe blinked, trying first to think when the last time was here. It had been at least a month. Two? A long time to remember something as insignificant as a drink.

“I didn’t,” Zoe eventually said. “I asked for a drink, you decided what.”

That was what she most often did, anyway. His question made her second guess herself, but she was fairly certain that she hadn’t actually ordered anything.

Her suspicion was confirmed a moment later as Tom sighed. Whatever he had landed on a table with a clunk. A half empty glass bottle scraped against the wood as the lights in the rest of the establishment slowly brightened to their normal levels.

After once again closing her eyes to help adjust to the light, Zoe surveyed the war zone–for a lack of a better word.

Tables had been flipped on end. Several propped up against the rear exit while the rest served as barricades and obstacles between the front door and the bar’s counter. Most of the chairs had been set up in the same manner.

Sitting behind the counter was a fairly disheveled Tom, currently in the middle of sampling his own wares.

“You gave me a right fright,” he said between drinks.

“I’m sorry about that,” Zoe said as she slowly stepped into the parlor, picking up her backpack before she moved. She kept a wary eye on the pistol lying on the counter. While not knowing much about mundane weaponry, the pistol made her somewhat nervous. “It wasn’t my intention. Has something happened?”

Despite being set up for war, Zoe couldn’t spot a single bullet hole around the room. She was fairly certain that she would notice anything made by that gun. It looked large enough to take out an elephant and still have enough punch to kill a horse on the opposite side.

“‘Has something happened,’ she says as she walks into my bar at such a strange hour. The lights in the sky weren’t enough for you, Zoe? Or did you miss them completely?”

“Well, yes. I had noticed that. But I hadn’t realized they warranted all of this.” She waved her hand around the tables, ending at the pistol laying on the counter.

“Apparently you missed out on the zombies and other monsters wandering the streets over the last few years.”

Can’t argue with that.

“New shop policy,” he said with a smile, “anything strange happens and I’m closed.” After taking another swig of his drink, he held out the bottle towards Zoe.

“No thank you,” she said, waving a hand in front of her. Realizing that hand still held her dagger, she quickly sheathed it.

“Suit yourself. So, what is going on out there?”

“Not a clue. Wayne is talking with some people to try to find out the answer to that. However, I’ve been wandering around and haven’t noticed anything immediately dangerous. No creatures running the streets, at least.”

“Well, that’s a small relief.” He started to take another drink, but paused with the bottle halfway to his mouth. After a moment of deliberating with himself, Tom capped the bottle and placed it somewhere behind the counter. “So, what brings you to my humble bar at such a late hour? I take it you didn’t come for just a social call.”

Zoe shook her head. “Nothing dangerous, but it might cause your business some problems. I need salt. Non-iodized sea salt. Everything you have, probably. I already cleaned out the local food mart–they didn’t have quite enough on their shelves. The woes of living in a small town, I suppose. Without a clerk present, I didn’t want to search around their back room.”

“Must be desperate times,” Tom said, lifting an eyebrow, “if you’re stealing from the local shops.”

“I left my name and number, along with a list of everything that I fully intend to pay for once someone contacts me.” Zoe let out a small sigh. She had had to teleport straight into the building. There had been a momentary concern over alarms before deciding that Shalise came first. “And I intend to reimburse you as well. But yes, something of an emergency with a student. One unrelated to the changes in the sky.”

Probably.

Eva had mentioned Hell’s changes and its likeness to the sky over Brakket City, but someone chasing after Shalise didn’t seem to line up with that particular problem.

“Welp, let’s take a look-see at what I’ve got in the back room.”

Tom pulled up the part of the bar that allowed access behind the counter. He gestured for her to follow as he slipped into the door labeled ‘Employees Only’.

The room itself wasn’t all that large. Larger than your average pantry–Zoe couldn’t touch the shelves on both sides at the same time–but not by much. It did, however, have a large trap door in the center of the floor. A wine cellar of some sort, Zoe assumed.

But they weren’t headed there.

Tom stopped at a section of the shelves labeled ‘Dry goods’ and bent over to pull out a large bag.

Zoe almost sighed in relief as she spotted the label. Twenty-five pounds of sea salt would work perfectly. She had eleven, single pound containers from the grocers.

“I think this is all I’ve got,” he said, hefting the bag over his shoulder. “Unless I start draining the table shakers.”

“That should be plenty. Thank you, Tom. You might have just saved a student.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever done that before. Strange day.”

“Indeed.”

“What do you want done with the salt?”

In response, Zoe pulled out her focus–her wand, not her dagger. No need to make Tom more nervous. With her wand, she dropped the sack straight to between.

Tom stumbled slightly at the sudden lack of weight on his shoulder. He looked around as if expecting it to be levitating above him. “Handy trick,” he said when he failed to find it.

“It is,” Zoe agreed. Especially for lugging around more than thirty pounds of salt and other reagents. She would have been making several trips without that little trick. “But I try to use it as little as possible. Items that I put away for long term storage have a tendency to become unrecoverable. Shouldn’t be a problem here as I intend to withdraw it in a minute or two. Speaking of, I should be leaving.”

“Don’t let me hold you up. I can handle myself.”

Zoe let a small smile touch her lips. “I’m sure that our illustrious dean will be releasing a statement sometime soon, but I’ll keep you appraised of the situation as I can. I don’t think you’ll need your barricade tonight, though.”

Tom gave a short shrug. “Can’t hurt.”

“Might scare off any customers that wander in.”

“Anyone who walks in this late, I don’t care if they return. Present company excluded. I run a classy bar, not a hostel.”

“Have you tried locking your doors?”

Giving the scoffing Tom a slight wave, Zoe used her wand to drop herself into the blinding white of between. The walls of his bar tumbled off into the light, only to be replaced by the women’s ward gate room.

She made her way from the ward to Ylva’s domain, stopping just outside to pull everything out of between that she had stored there. Most of it went into her backpack. Everything else, she simply levitated.

Wayne and Nel sat at the table that had been set up on Ylva’s throne platform. Both seemed deep in a fairly heated discussion. Most of the heat was coming from Wayne if the scowl on his face was anything to judge by.

After crossing the gap with only the slightest modicum of hesitation, Zoe dropped her supplies on the table. “This should be everything on the list,” she said. “Where’s Eva?”

“Off talking with her spider,” Wayne snapped. He let out a strained sigh through grit teeth as he ran a hand down his face.

Frowning at his entirely unwarranted hostility, Zoe narrowed her eyes. “Did something happen?”

“Not much… Oh, except for the Elysium chapel I need to figure out how to break into and out of without getting myself killed.”

Zoe blinked, going over what he said a second and third time in her mind. Just to make sure she had heard him correctly.

“The obelisk that you need is inside the Salem Cathedral,” Nel said, answering the question that Zoe had been about to ask.

“Alright,” Zoe said slowly. That explained Wayne’s mood.

“Spencer only wants a teleport nearby. She thinks she can do it alone.”

Again, Zoe had to go over what he said a second time. “She what?”

“That is roughly what my response was. Even with her pet’s help, maybe other demons, I doubt she has what it takes.”

“Alright. I’ll talk some sense into her. But,” Zoe bit her lip, wondering if she should say anything at all. With a side glance at Nel, she decided that it couldn’t possibly hurt. Nel had no love for the Elysium Order. “But can’t you do it the same way that you did it last time?”

Ignoring the expected stiffening and gasp from Nel, Zoe focused on Wayne.

He just looked confused more than anything. “Last time? Last time I…” His confusion vanished into a mounting look of horror. “You’re not seriously suggesting–”

“If it helps, why not?”

“I could think up a thousand reasons,” he grumbled. Pressing his hands into the table, Wayne stood. “I have a phone call to make.” Without a backwards glance, he walked out of Ylva’s domain, phone in hand.

“Last time?”

With a smile on her face, Zoe turned to Nel. “Well, he wasn’t stealing an obelisk, but he got in and out. Otherwise, long story.”

— — —

Irene sat in the hallway with her back to the wall, staring at the door to Eva’s room and wondering just when Professor Lurcher was going to return.

Or if he would return.

Irene would like to think that the condition of Eva’s room was worth at least an urgent rating. Unfortunately, she had a sinking suspicion in the back of her mind that it barely made it on the ’emergency’ scale at all.

Especially not after Shelby had dragged her off to their room’s window. After seeing the real sky, Irene doubted that Eva’s room was even worth remembering. Compared with purple veins stuck in the sky, a little sand was nothing.

Nothing for the people who weren’t sitting outside, constantly reminded of it, anyway.

Irene had had the sick sensation of butterflies in her stomach ever since Catherine left, something that should have provided some peace of mind. If Catherine didn’t think that it was that big of a deal, it probably wasn’t. But she had said to draw out the highest tier of shackles that Irene knew. That did not provide any comforting feelings.

Shelby had gone to bed. Right next door to Eva’s room no less! She hadn’t been worried about it. She just assumed that both things would be solved by the professors and security staff by morning. Shelby hadn’t been aware of the implications behind the markings that Irene had drawn.

And Irene, quite literally, could not tell her. Not without violating her contract. All of Shelby’s inquiries had been responded to with simple ‘nothings’ and ‘Catherine asked me to.’

Jordan could have. Irene didn’t pretend for a moment that he was unaware as to what she was drawing. But he had run off to find his father before the sky had changed. He had probably forgotten too, in light of the veins in the sky.

Irene sighed as she bit her lip. I suppose I should be grateful, she thought. Taking into consideration what had happened with the hot springs, watching an empty room was a vacation. Perhaps she had the easiest job of the people who must be awake this night.

So long as morning comes without anything coming through the room.

Irene jumped a good foot in the air as a wet slopping noise echoed down the hall. Heart beating a million beats a second, she gripped her wand and got off of her chair. Just what the wand was meant to do against anything, she wasn’t entirely certain. But it was a small comfort as she ran to the edge of the shackles and peered into the room.

Nothing. Not a single thing. The sand still held her own footprints, and those of both Professor Lurcher and Catherine, but was otherwise smooth and undisturbed. She couldn’t see into the corners of the room without stepping onto or over the shackles, but Irene felt fairly confident that the room was empty.

Unless it isn’t.

A shiver ran up Irene’s spine as she recalled the first sentence in their diablery textbooks: ‘Never make assumptions when demons are involved.’

Scenarios ran through her mind. What if there was something in there.

She couldn’t see it, so it had to be using a spell of some sort. Either it was invisible or capable of altering her perception.

Irene took a step back from the shackles. It could even be right in front of her, hoping she would step over the line.

But it couldn’t be invisible. It would still leave footprints.

Unless it could float over the sand.

The only other possibility was that it had burrowed beneath the sand. Mundane logic said that the sands would be disturbed at least somewhat. But mundane logic generally went out the window when dealing with magic. Any half-baked earth mage would be able to smooth over sands enough to avoid notice from the distance she was standing.

Well, that’s not the only other possibility, Irene thought as she pressed a finger to her temple. My imagination could be playing tricks on—

“What are you doing?”

Irene screamed. She would never admit to it, but a high-pitched shriek sprung from her mouth as she felt a hand come down on her shoulder.

Her mind took an extra minute to process Jordan’s voice.

Clutching her chest, Irene tried to calm down. Her efforts weren’t helped any by Jordan’s snickering.

“It isn’t funny,” Irene said, giving him a punch in the shoulder.

Jordan rubbed his shoulder, but didn’t stop his snickering. If anything, it only made him laugh harder. “You were concentrating so hard,” he said between chuckles.

“I heard something like a barrel of spaghetti being dumped on the ground. It scared me, alright? You don’t have to make fun of me for it.”

His laughter died down with a single, “ah.”

“What? Did you find something out?”

He shook his head. “Dad is meeting with Dean Turner and Professor Zagan. They wouldn’t let me in. I ran into someone who I thought might help watch Eva’s room, but…” Jordan trailed off with a glance over his shoulder. “See for yourself.”

Following his gaze, Irene spotted… something. Something had spilled? With a rag on top of it. Maybe. It was at the far end of the hallway, just at the top of the staircase.

“What is it?”

“Well, it used to be a security guard. Now however, well, your barrel of spaghetti example might not be so inaccurate.”

“Oh, it’s Lucy.”

Irene started towards the demon, moving around Jordan. Seeing Lucy was actually something of a relief. The day she had come into class, they got a brief introduction to contracts. Lucy’s contract was essentially to act as security for Brakket Academy and to protect the students at all costs.

If there was something inside of Eva’s room, having Lucy around would be a great reassurance.

Or not, Irene thought as she got closer.

Lucy was well and thoroughly disassociated with herself. She had flattened herself out on the floor, her spindly tentacles making no effort to maintain her human form. Or do much of anything at all. Only her security uniform kept her in any kind of recognizable shape.

In other words, she was something that would be incredibly difficult to explain if anyone emerged from their rooms.

Irene glanced up and down the hallway, but apart from Jordan, there was no one around. And that was in spite of her earlier scream. The rooms had some protection against noise, but the scream should have gone through.

Then again, it was the dead of night. Most people were probably in deep sleep.

Irene stooped down to be a little closer to the mass of tentacles. “Lucy? Can you hear me?”

Something that might have been a response in tentacle-people language emerged from the mass. An effort was made, but whatever it was, Irene found it entirely unintelligible.

“You’re going to have to form a mouth if you want to talk to me. And everything else you use for speech.”

Irene immediately regretted saying anything at all.

Watching as the pile of wet spaghetti noodles twisted around to form a set of disembodied lips was one of the more disturbing things that Irene had witnessed in her recent memory. Possibly ever.

“This place feels gross.”

“I don’t feel anything,” Irene said. Though, now that it was mentioned, Catherine had been complaining about something similar before she had left.

But she wasn’t, Irene glanced down at the mass, like this.

“Do you think you can pull yourself together?”

Rather than give any verbal response, Lucy’s tentacles trembled. She was trying, that much was clear. Slowly, ever so slowly, her body started to gain some definition.

“Huh.”

Irene jumped again. She shouldn’t have, she knew that Jordan was right at her side. He was just so quiet and easy to forget about.

At least he was a distraction from Lucy. When she had demonstrated her true form in class, she had only done an arm. Even that had been quickly and easily decentralized into the strands of tentacles and put back together. As Lucy was now, it looked almost painful.

Irene was thankful that her uniform was covering up most of her body.

“You don’t seem very surprised. I expected more shock.”

Putting on a frown, the only thing that Irene could think of in response was that the contract was incredibly inconvenient. Jordan knew about demons anyway. There should be an exception for people like him, if nothing else.

“Neither do you,” Irene said with a shake of her head.

“Oh, I was plenty surprised when she fell face first into the ground and exploded into ribbons.”

“I’m sure.”

To avoid any continuation of the topic, Irene reached down and helped the mostly solid Lucy to her feet. She made sure to only touch Lucy on her clothes; the demon was covered in some slimy mucus.

She wobbled a fair amount, but managed to keep from falling on her face again. There was a bit of wet gurgling noises coming from–Irene wanted to say from Lucy’s throat, but that wasn’t entirely accurate. It was just coming from Lucy in general.

“Why is this place so gross?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Irene said. “I don’t feel anything.” Except a constant butterflies-in-stomach feeling, she thought. She was fairly certain that the feeling wasn’t related. Glancing over at Jordan, Irene asked, “do you feel anything?”

He shrugged. “Not particularly. Maybe a little unsettling sensation, but that could have just been from watching Lucy put herself together.”

“Something is here. But not? It’s,” Lucy paused, scrunching up her face in concentration.

Given her lack of bone structure or human muscles, the look sent chills up Irene’s spine. She was clearly mimicking what she had seen other people do in similar situations, but wasn’t quite succeeding. There was just something uncanny about it. If asked, Irene wouldn’t be able to point out any one thing in particular that was wrong with it. It just looked off.

“I don’t know the words,” Lucy eventually said, sagging in defeat.

On instinct, Irene reached forward to help steady the demon. When Lucy sagged, she sagged.

A stray thought couldn’t help but slip in. She’d be great at limbo.

“Maybe if you saw the room?” Jordan asked with a shrug. “Couldn’t hurt, could it?”

Irene wasn’t so sure about that. They might have to go get a mop if Lucy fell again, or worse, passed out. Just to sweep her down the staircase.

But Lucy had already taken one wobbly step forward. That was followed by a second and a third, each more steady than the last. Irene wanted to say that her eyes were unfocused as she moved, but that wasn’t all that different from the other times she had seen the security guard around school.

Considering for a moment that her eyes were strands of tentacles too… Irene shook her head before she could think about it too hard. Demon physiology was not covered in their course work and probably for good reason.

Moving up next to her, Irene stopped Lucy from stepping over the barrier of the shackles. If there was an invisible creature trapped inside, she didn’t really want Lucy to be trapped inside as well. Even if nothing attacked her, Irene would have to break the shackles to let her out, potentially letting out whatever had gotten trapped.

Irene gasped as she looked into the room from Lucy’s side.

There were definitely new footprints in the sand. She had spent long enough staring at it that she was sure of it.

Something was in there. Judging by the footprints, it had moved around to the blind spot to the side of the door.

A sharp noise from Lucy sent Irene’s heart into overdrive.

“Mushy mortals should stand away,” she said as her hands unfurled into their natural form. “Something in here is–”

Her comment was cut off by a high-pitched whine.

That whine terminated in thunder resonating between Irene’s ears.

<– Back | Index | Next –>

006.024

Posted on September 12, 2016November 20, 2021 by Tower Curator

<– Back | Index | Next –>

Eva tore open the doors to Ylva’s domain and sprinted inside.

Ylva was on her throne, her skeletal form looking impassive as always under the light shining from the storm clouds overhead. Her pose was as relaxed as it always was. With her fist curled beneath her chin, she slouched back in her throne.

Four others sat around a small table set down at the base of her throne. Alicia and Nel sat at opposite ends of the table from one another with Wayne Lurcher in between the two. Wayne had a scowl on his face as he eyed his neighbors.

Surprisingly enough, Devon had been allowed back inside Ylva’s domain.

Desperate times, I suppose, Eva thought as she ran up to the table.

“It isn’t the entity known as Void,” Devon said. “I’m willing to put a lot of money on the sky being the doing of the Power that is attacking the Void.”

“The point still stands,” grumbled Wayne. “Whatever it is, it probably doesn’t have our best interests at heart.”

Ignoring the others and not caring at all that she was interrupting what was probably an important conversation, Eva placed both palms on the table and gazed straight into Nel’s eyes. “You found Sawyer?”

Zoe had already said as much. Eva trusted her not to lie, but she had to be sure. She had to hear the words from Nel’s own mouth.

Wilting under Eva’s gaze, Nel nodded her head. “He passed out somewhere in Nevada just as… well, you’ve been outside. Just as all that started.”

Eva grit her teeth and balled her fist. A thin layer of marble dust coated her fingers from where they scraped against the table surface. Of course, it would be now. He couldn’t just show up while nothing was happening like a good little necromancer. He had to show up while a potential apocalypse was going on.

If that was what was actually going on. Devon and Wayne’s conversation might have implied otherwise. Eva was too focused on Nel to pay all that much attention to their words.

With a heartfelt sigh, Eva slumped into one of the extra chairs set up around the table.

Even if nothing was going on except for Shalise and the doll, Eva couldn’t put Sawyer in front of her friend.

Well, she could. Lynn would probably kill her if she did. Though Eva couldn’t discount the possibility that Lynn wasn’t going to try to kill her the moment they made it out of Hell anyway.

Eva rested her forehead against the cool surface of the table, idly scratching a claw mark to the side of her head just a little deeper.

“Spencer,” Wayne grumbled with a slight tension in his voice, “what did you do with Zoe?”

She didn’t even have the motivation to protest his usage of her last name.

“Don’t worry so much. She’s just doing a little shopping for me.” Eva pulled out one of the copies of the list and slid it over to Nel. “Can you do anything about the bottom two?”

Nel didn’t even glance at the list. “What about Sawyer?”

“What about him?” When Nel didn’t move, Eva let out another sigh. “I’d love to go gallivanting across the country, but for some reason, I don’t think this is the time. It might have to do with the sky, and Shalise, and,” Eva glanced up at Wayne, “something about my dorm room?”

He opened his mouth to respond, but Nel slammed her fist down on the table.

“So he just gets to walk away. Is that it?”

Eva lifted her head. “Of course not. There’s just…” Narrowing her eyes at the augur, Eva said, “have you even looked outside?”

Nel glanced down. Not at the paper, more at her feet through the table. After a moment of silence, she mumbled something.

“What was that?”

“I said that something bad happens every time I leave. I get inquisitions sent after me. I get kidnapped. Or the sky turns purple! Next time I leave, it just might be the end of the world.”

“So you did go outside.”

Nel shifted. “Not really. I opened the door, saw the sky, and slammed it shut.”

Eva smiled. She wanted to laugh, but the thought of missing out on hunting down Sawyer did put a damper on her mood.

“As much as he is a personal priority of ours,” Eva said, emphasizing the word, “I think you’ll agree that other matters require our attention first. Like that list in front of you.” Eva tapped a sharp finger down on the piece of paper, all but forcing Nel’s eyes to it.

Those eyes widened a moment later.

“The salt is easy,” she said after a moment of rereading the list. “The obelisk, not so much.”

“Let’s start with the salt–”

Wayne, leaning over to read the list, cleared his throat. “What is this for?”

“A cleansing ritual,” Nel answered before Eva could. “The deep, soul level type of cleansing.”

“For Shalise,” Eva added. “Former Sister Cross thinks that she can get Prax out of Shalise and, therefore, Shalise out of Hell. Considering that things down there are possibly scarier than things up here, she’s willing to accept a small amount of danger on Shalise’s part to perform the ritual.”

“Scarier?” Devon said, genuine curiosity in his voice. “What is happening in Hell?”

“Same things, for the most part. The sky had purple streaks through it, much like here. They’ve since faded, I think. The difference between here and there is that Hell has Void actively fighting back. At least, as far as I can tell from a cursory glance.” Eva glanced up at Ylva, but the hel failed to move. Without skin on her face, she couldn’t even see any facial expressions.

“Sounds like her situation wouldn’t improve much,” Wayne said with a slight grunt as he centered himself back in his seat.

“Oh yeah, Shalise might also have some prison warden hunting her down.”

That actually did get a response out of Ylva. Just a slight stirring in her posture that, had she been anyone else, might have been mistaken as movement to get more comfortable. Eva would have missed it entirely had she not already been watching the demon.

Eva raised an eyebrow in her direction, wondering if she had anything to add.

Ylva just gave a slight, almost imperceptible shake of her head.

“Anyway,” Eva said, letting it drop for the moment. She turned back to face Nel. “Where do we get the salt?”

“Anywhere, I think. It needs to be natural sea salt–no iodine. Larger grain size. About fifteen pounds should work for this ritual.” Nel shook her head. “Wait, better make it thirty. I’m… well, out of practice. I’d rather have some to spare if I mess something up.”

“That’s it?” she asked just to be sure. Thirty pounds of salt sounded like a lot, but it wasn’t anything outrageous. It certainly didn’t sound like something that would cause much trouble. Quite the opposite, really.

“Well, I’ll have to prepare it. Shouldn’t take more than two or three hours.”

Still not too bad. Maybe Lynn Cross was simply worried about the time it would take to acquire and prepare it. “So the other thing? Where can I find an obelisk? I assume it is a specific kind of obelisk.”

“Of the pure moon,” Nel said, shaking her head. “It isn’t something you can go to a shopping center and purchase.”

“Then where do I find one,” Eva asked, speaking slightly slower as if she were speaking to a child.

“It’s an idol. Similar to the idol used to crack the sky.” She sent a mild glare at Devon. “The priceless artifact that he destroyed.” There wasn’t much accusation in her voice. Probably because she knew that she would have been far less angry about its destruction had one of those beams of light hit her.

Eva could guess that she would have preferred capturing it over destroying it, but that was in the past.

Devon, for his part, did not appear to be paying attention. He had his thumb on his goatee and his brow furrowed in thought.

“That’s all well and good,” Eva said, slowing down her speech further. “Where, Nel, do I get one?”

Nel bit her lip. She glanced over to Alicia–whose face had remained entirely impassive throughout the entire discussion–before turning to face Eva. “You’ll have to steal one. There are only six that I know about.” Again, she glanced over at Alicia. “The closest would probably be in the Salem Cathedral and Training Center.”

Eva snorted. “A bunch of vampire hunters made a home base out of the home of the witch hunts? Wonder if they worked together with the puritans back in the day. It would make sense, both have far too much zealotry for their own good.”

For the first time since Eva had shown up, Alicia laughed.

Actually, for the first time ever, as far as Eva knew.

It wasn’t a happy laugh. Rather, it set Eva’s nerves on end. Both Wayne and Devon–who had come out of his thoughts at the noise–looked a bit unsettled as well.

Nel shot a glare in the ex-nun’s direction, but turned a pained look on Eva.

“Um… Salem Oregon,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “Not Massachusetts.”

Her voice wasn’t quiet enough to avoid Devon’s ears, evidenced by him turning a smirk in Eva’s direction.

“Point still stands,” Eva said, ignoring everyone at the table. She cleared her throat when Devon opened his mouth. Whatever snide comment he had could be kept to himself. “Anyway, can you spy on where you expect it to be? I’d rather not waste my time running all the way to Oregon if it isn’t there.”

“I can try,” Nel said with a nod. “But how are you getting there?”

“Well,” Eva shifted her glance towards Wayne, “there are two people I know of that can teleport without needing something at the destination. Although, Zagan could probably do it.”

Nel flinched while Devon glowered.

Eva shook her head before either could say a word. “I’m not going to ask him though. Even if he agreed, it would probably be at some exorbitant price that I am not interested in paying.”

Besides, Eva thought, if I help Shalise myself, I don’t have to answer his riddle about what would be worth having Shalise back home.

With an extra heap of gravel in his voice, Wayne said, “you feel you must drag myself and Zoe into this?”

“It is for Shalise. When I told Zoe before heading here, she essentially gave a blanket offer of assistance.”

He mumbled something under his breath that sounded roughly like a curse, but Eva let it pass.

“If you are scared,” she said, “you could just wait outside. Stealing it won’t be that hard, right? Just have to get around a couple of nuns.” Eva glanced at Devon.

While she was fairly certain that he hadn’t had to use her before, if he could summon up that waxy, headache inducing demon again, they could probably just walk right in. The demon would incapacitate everyone while they browsed the Elysium Order’s wares.

Eva tried not to consider raiding the place straight away, but she couldn’t help but think that perhaps there would be more of value than just the obelisk. The Elysium Order had to collect a number of artifacts and tomes that they could not or simply did not destroy.

Under her stare, Devon’s eyes grew wide. “Oh no. Nope. Don’t look at me. We’ve tangled with the nuns enough for one decade. Call me again in ten years when they’ve had a chance to cool off.”

“But just a few demons with the right abilities will make it our easiest job in years. Probably.”

“Probably.” He let out a slight snort. “I wouldn’t count on them just laying down and allowing you to walk away with priceless artifacts because Arachne showed up.”

Eva gave a slight start. She glanced around the table to confirm her fears.

No Arachne.

“Has anyone talked to Arachne since all the sky and things have happened?” Eva was staring mostly at Devon, but was open to a response from anyone.

No one said a word.

With a sigh, Eva said, “I’ll have to go see if she has even noticed the sky after this.”

“If you’re done with that drivel,” Devon said, “I would like to hear more about the happenings of Hell.”

Eva shrugged. “I don’t know what more there is to say. There was an earthquake. Sky turned colors. That’s pretty much it.” Eva glanced up towards Ylva before asking, “were there tremors here?”

“Enough for only Ourself to notice, not enough to shake the walls of Our domain.”

“And your sky?” Eva asked, glancing upwards. She still wasn’t certain that sky was the proper term, but said it anyway for lack of a better word. The storm clouds overhead obscured any view of the dark void, but Ylva probably had enough awareness of her own domain to know what was happening regardless of whether or not she could see it.

Unless something had changed in the last several hours, there weren’t any storm clouds over the beach portion of her domain. She would be able to observe from there in any case.

Ylva’s head gave a slight incline. “It has since returned to normal.”

“That fits with what I saw.” Eva gave a sorry shrug towards Devon. “Can you make anything out with that little information?”

He hummed for a moment, again stroking his beard. “I imagine that the Void fought back. And succeeded, for now at least. Here, however, we have no Power to fight for us.”

Wayne leaned forward on the table. “So we fight back ourselves. Is that what you’re saying?”

Devon snorted, slowly shaking his head from side to side. “If you think you can match power with a Power, be my guest. If you can, you’re a far scarier person than I gave you credit for.”

Dismissing Wayne with a wave of his hand, Devon put a finger down on the table. “Here is my theory. The events of tonight are not caused by any mortal or demon. Rather, a Power is the cause. I do concede that a mortal, demon, or other non-Power entity may be assisting the Power, but they are not the primary cause.

“The effect observable in the sky does not extend far beyond Brakket City, ending within a few miles in any direction around the town with the exception of the direction of this prison in which it extends and encompasses this area as well.” He drew his finger around in a large circle around the initial point he had touched.

“The reason for this is the concentration of demons around Brakket City. I mean, there’s what, ten to fifteen demons in and around the city at any given time? One of which is a pillar.” He glanced down towards Eva as if asking for confirmation.

Eva just shrugged. “Sounds about right. That we know of, at least. Who knows what Martina has in reserve.”

“As someone who has dealt with demons in one manner or another throughout my entire life, I have never once heard of such a thing. Diabolists are rare. Typically, they won’t have more than one or two demons out at once and then, not often for any length of time.”

He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms before him. “I posit that this concentration of demons has given the attacking Power a medium through which to target Void.”

“So we send them all back to Hell,” Wayne said, rising to his feet.

Eva watched him, trying to keep the amusement off of her face, as he slowly realized just where he was. She could spot the very moment when he knew that he had done something wrong.

His shoulders jumped slightly. Slowly, he turned to face Ylva. He cleared his throat before speaking. “Ah, no offense,” he mumbled.

Ylva raised one skeletal hand and brushed his worries off to the side. “Nothing occurs to Us that might contradict the presented theory, given our collective knowledge is so limited.”

“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Devon said as he scratched at his chin with his tentacle. “Probably too late. Even if you sent back every demon currently roaming the Earth, I doubt the sky would turn back to normal. The connection has already been made.”

“But the sky in my domain is back to normal,” Eva said. She gave a short nod in Ylva’s direction. “Presumably everywhere in Hell.”

“That just means that the Power must try again on the Void side of things. In fact, I recommend the opposite. Limit the connections going between the Earth and Hell. No more teleporting. No more summoning. No more banishing. It might just slow things down while we learn more.”

He turned his eyes to bore straight into Ylva. “And I will put money on the notion that your domain will become more dangerous. The enigmas that have been attacking are just the vanguard. Placed there to weaken Void. More dangerous things will be appearing in preparation for another attempt.”

Devon narrowed his eyes in Eva’s direction. “Keep out of it. I have no intention of stopping my work just because of a little apocalypse. And that will be hard to do if you’re dead or trapped in Hell.”

Eva harrumphed, but didn’t disagree. All the more reason to get Shalise out sooner rather than later.

“Of course,” Devon said louder, angling his head back just so Ylva was in the corner of his eye, “that means severing this domain’s connection to the mortal realm. I’d say I’m sorry to see you go, but that would be the biggest lie I’ve ever told, and I have told a few.”

He turned away, mumbling under his breath just loud enough for Eva to pick up. “Stupid girl shouldn’t have allowed it in the first place.”

Eva glowered at the man. Instead of giving him a response, she watched Ylva. She half expected Ylva to come down from her throne and toss Devon around for a minute for the insult, but her actual actions surprised her.

After taking a moment to consider, Ylva’s skinless skull dipped into a grave nod. “We concur.”

Devon blinked, apparently surprised as well. The confusion on his face shifted into horror as he jumped to his feet, heart suddenly beating faster and faster.

“You’re not doing it now, are you?” He glanced towards the door and looked ready to start running.

Eva’s own heart jumped in pace. She did have an active beacon, having handed hers off to Zoe, so returning wouldn’t be that big of an issue. But it would still be an inconvenience as she still needed to go collect an obelisk.

Ylva shook her head as she stood from her throne. Her dress draped around the floor as she walked down the steps. “We have Our own business to attend before severing Our domain. We shall start with haste. Finish your business here and vacate at once.”

As she stepped down from her throne, she left the column of light. Her flesh returned just in time for her cold eyes to shift to Alicia. “Come,” she spoke.

Alicia snapped to her side fast enough that Eva wondered if she hadn’t teleported there.

Ylva’s eyes turned to Nel. The augur’s eyes ceased their glare at Alicia to meet with Ylva.

“Assist Eva in her task. Find Ourself upon finishing.”

“Yes, Lady Ylva,” Nel said, head ducking in a sitting bow.

As Ylva and Alicia headed off towards one of the back archways–not one Eva could remember entering before–Devon all but ran from the throne room. He paused for just a moment at the edge of the throne platform, hesitating. After tapping his foot against the thin air to reassure himself that he wouldn’t fall through, Devon walked across and out of the domain.

It seemed silly to Eva. She had walked across without even thinking about it, as she had on occasion in the past. Then again, she had also helped throw an enigma or two down the pit, and was fairly certain that she had dangled her legs over the edge one time. A brief bout of curiosity tickled the back of her mind as she considered just how it worked.

She dismissed the thought as quickly as it came. It probably wasn’t the most pressing of matters at the moment.

Turning back to those remaining at the table, Eva stopped her gaze on Nel. “Let’s check that the obelisk is where you think it is, then we’ll get you some salt. After that…” Eva gave an involuntary shudder as she realized that she would have to be teleported through that cold ‘between’.

But that was a momentary discomfort. Shalise being stuck in Hell would be worse.

Shaking her head to clear her mind, Eva looked at Wayne. “After, if you’d teleport us to wherever this chapel is, Dev–”

Eva whipped her head towards the door leading out of Ylva’s domain.

That coward just ran away.

“Actually,” Eva said after a short sigh, “I might need a few minutes to consult with Arachne.”

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006.023

Posted on September 8, 2016November 20, 2021 by Tower Curator

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Eva came down into her domain hard.

It was supposed to catch her, and probably would have had she not considered her current situation so urgent. Her domain compensated for her urgency by not slowing her down.

That was fine. Her legs could take the abuse.

Eva rolled out of the way and glued her eyes up to where she had come from. She didn’t want to take any chances that the woman had followed her.

This nagging feeling in the corner of her mind told her that the moment she turned, she’d be stabbed in the back.

When nothing appeared for several moments, Eva stood up and started backing away. Her slow movements turned to a full-on backwards sprint across the beach. Eventually, she turned around despite the feeling and began running full-tilt towards the alternate women’s ward.

Eva opened the door and slammed it behind her, startling both of the occupants. Shalise let out a small screech.

Lynn Cross, on the other hand, jumped to her feet and sent a bolt of lightning at Eva before she had even turned around.

A blackish-red shield appeared between the two, catching the lightning. Eva didn’t bother questioning it. She hadn’t intended to form any kind of shield. Obviously, it was some oddity of her domain working to protect her.

“You sure took your sweet time–”

“Later,” Eva interrupted. “We have a problem. Or, to be more specific, Shalise has a problem.”

The girl blinked twice. “Wh-what do you mean?”

Eva stepped up to Shalise, or tried to. Lynn moved between the two. Ignoring the woman, Eva looked around her shoulder at the brunette. “If you’ve got any far-out ideas of how to get out of Shalise, you had best voice them now, Prax.”

“What,” Lynn said with at flat tone of voice as she crossed her arms, “is going on?”

“I found out why Prax’s mother was hanging around in his domain.”

“You hung around to speak with an enemy after deciding it was for the best if we left immediately?”

“No. I hung around to speak with the one hunting Prax’s mother.”

Gently pushing her mother aside, Shalise stepped around to face Eva. “Prax wants to know who would be hunting anyone in his domain.”

“Didn’t catch a name,” Eva said with a shrug. “Didn’t feel like a demon though. Couldn’t see her with my blood sense. She had silver hair, a well-fitting leather duster, and a sword of some sort at her hip.”

That got a gasp from Shalise.

“Someone you recognize.”

“The doll. But-but that doesn’t make sense. The dolls let us escape. They wouldn’t come after us… would they?” She tilted her head to the side. “Would they?”

“Her specific words were ‘cells that were once full must be filled again.’ She didn’t specifically mention Prax, and since she didn’t follow me immediately, I assume she’s not after him right this second. Probably dealing with his mother first and foremost.”

An earthquake punctuated her statement. While in Hell, there had been small tremors every now and again.

Nothing quite like the one that had struck now.

All three of them went rocking back and forth. Shalise and Lynn Cross tumbled forwards and backwards, collapsing in a heap of limbs on the floor. Eva managed to stay upright only through the virtue of her toes acting as claws and digging themselves into the ground, providing an anchor of sorts.

The tremors subsided as quick as they came. Eva ran up to the windows and started watching. She didn’t want any enigmas sneaking around while they were talking. If some showed up, they needed to be dealt with as soon as possible.

Purple lightning crackled across the otherwise empty sky. Where the lightning touched, it stayed purple.

For a time.

The empty void fought back, Eva could see the purple slowly recede as the dark sky overpowered the streaks of purple.

Eva stared and gaped. She hadn’t wanted lightning in any way, shape, or form. She was fairly certain that she hadn’t had any subconscious desires for lightning either.

“Well,” Eva said as she found her voice, “even if this ‘doll’ isn’t going to attack you–something that I would not count on–” Eva gestured at the black and purple sky outside. “That looks like a perfectly good reason to accelerate our efforts to get you out of here.”

Both of the other two had managed to untangle themselves from each other, but by the time they made it to the window, there were only faint traces of purple left over.

It was enough for Shalise to give a light gasp. “That never happened before,” she said.

“The color is the same as enigma blood. Could be a coincidence…”

Lynn gave a light snort. “If only the world were that simple.” Turning away from the window, she put one hand on either of Shalise’s shoulders. She bent her knees slightly to level out their heads, though it didn’t take much bending. Lynn Cross was a tall woman, but Shalise wasn’t far behind.

Staring into her daughter’s eyes, they stood stock still.

Well, Lynn Cross stood still. Shalise fidgeted under her mother’s unwavering gaze.

Eva wondered just how it was that Shalise hadn’t noticed that Lynn was her mother. The resemblance was uncanny. Their hair was about the only thing different between the two. Shalise had shoulder-blade length wavy hair while her mother had her hair cut short–to better fit in her habit, most likely.

Then again, perhaps Shalise had noticed. That almost made more sense. Shalise had noticed and hadn’t mentioned anything because Lynn Cross had not mentioned anything. If her mother kept silent on the matter, then there must be a reason.

And that reason certainly wasn’t that Lynn Cross did not care for her daughter. She had come to Hell itself to be with and protect Shalise.

Though Eva may have forced that in part.

Eva’s speculation came to an abrupt end as white flames erupted from Lynn’s eyes.

Shalise jumped a good foot in the air, letting out a startled squeak as she flew.

Eva jumped forward with far more purpose than simple shock. She was seriously considering the notion that she had been grossly inaccurate in her assessment of Lynn Cross’ care for her daughter.

Before she could lay a hand on the older woman, Lynn released Shalise.

“I think,” she said slowly, “that it could work. A chance, at least.” She turned, her face drawing a disgusted countenance as her eyes settled on Eva. “But I will need assistance.”

“You’re going to have to be more vague. I almost guessed at what you are planning.”

“There may be a way to exorcise the demon inhabiting Shalise’s body.”

Eva gave her a flat glare. “Why didn’t you say so sooner? I’m not keeping her here because I find it fun, you know. If Prax gets out of her, she can go back to the mortal realm through Ylva’s domain, or even me carrying her while traveling back using my beacon. Arachne did the same–”

Hold on, Eva thought, cutting herself off as she remembered something. While Shalise was looking hopeful, Lynn Cross was anything but. The white flames pouring out of her eyes obscured a good deal of her emotions, but she did not have anything resembling a smile on her face.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?” After a glance over Lynn Cross’ shoulder at Shalise, Eva looked the former nun in the eyes and added, “privately?”

Her frown twisted into a scowl. She hesitated for a moment, but eventually nodded.

Leaving a somewhat confused Shalise behind, Eva dragged Lynn off to her room. The moment the door shut behind her, Eva said, “I have just one question, with a small story before it.

“Back when you and your minions were strutting around the academy like you owned the place, one of your nuns came up to me one day. She started harassing me and ended up telling me that I should be… I believe the word was ‘cleansed.’ Immediately after, she said that I would die during the process, but should undergo it anyway despite that fact because it would be for the ‘betterment of the world’ or some such nonsense.”

Eva paused, watching for any reaction. Lynn kept her face as expressionless as she could.

With a sigh, Eva shook her head before continuing. “Are you planning on putting Shalise through a process that is likely to wind up with her dead?”

“Of course not,” she snapped. “There is always danger, but that danger can be mitigated. I would not put her through something that I thought would kill her.

“The two of you are fundamentally different in the nature of your corruptions. Shalise and her leech are two distinct entities. They merely need to be separated. You are…” Though her eyes hadn’t once lost their fire, the intensity flared. “You are an abomination.”

Eva shrugged. “Heard that before,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Don’t care. But, why haven’t you mentioned this exorcism before if you’re so sure it will succeed?”

“I said there were dangers. Risks that I would rather not expose her to. Trouble getting the items needed as well. But if she is to be hunted down and killed or tossed in some hellish prison… or worse,” she gestured towards the window. “Then the possible consequences of not separating the two outweigh that of the exorcism itself.”

Eva nodded. That made sense enough. Though she had to ask, “what are the dangers? The consequences?”

“Death, obviously, though I intend to minimize that as much as possible. More likely things include coma, disfigurement, pain…” Lynn shook her head. “Basically, the sort of consequences one would expect from such a ritual.

“In addition, there is a further complication. We are in Hell. The very air here–if it even is real air–is so steeped in the demonic magics that it may interfere with the ritual. I plan to properly ward our ritual circle, so this is only a slight chance. One I am willing to take if Shalise can return to the mortal realm.”

Pressing her lips together, Eva nodded. “As long as you’re sure.”

“Have you any other options?”

“Possibly. None that I know of at this precise moment.”

“Then exorcism it is.”

“Two things first,” Eva said. “First, what assistance were you talking about?”

Sighing, Lynn leaned back against the wall. “This ritual will not be a simple affair. The circle alone could take hours to draw out.”

“And hours would mean multiple incursions of the enigmas. Unless this latest earthquake put an end to that.” Eva shook her head. “Doesn’t matter, I can handle defending you. Or, I could try helping you.”

Drawing her dagger–and trying to keep her movements as nonthreatening as possible–Eva made a shallow cut on her arm. She proceeded to form a simple ritual circle in the air between the two of them.

“I can manipulate it to your instructions,” Eva said, demonstrating altering the symbols in the air. “It should save time and effort.”

Lynn did not look pleased in the slightest. “This is a purification ritual. I would rather it not be tainted with blood and haemomancy.”

“Fair enough,” Eva said. She put the blood right back where it came from and let the matter drop. She wasn’t interested in a long argument, especially if they would be limited on time in the near future. “I can handle watching your back so you can work undisturbed.”

“In addition to the work,” Lynn said, “it will require reagents that your cupboards simply lack. And…” Her calm expression turned to a glower. “I believe I spotted Sis–Nel Stirling. I’ll need her help with the actual ritual.”

“Because she is an augur? Or because she is a former nun and has your eye things implanted?” Seeing the confusion on her face, Eva held up her hand before Lynn could respond. “Let me put it this way: Would a regular nun work for this ritual?”

“So long as they are knowledgeable about certain Elysium Order secrets. Why?”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter, but I’d rather have my bases covered. Ylva has a second former nun in her retinue. I figured I would ask, just in case Nel is uncooperative. Though I would much prefer Nel. I’d rather avoid the other as much as possible.”

Moving to the bedside table, Eva pulled out a notebook and a pen. She hadn’t been entirely sure that they would be there, but the writing implements were there in the real world, so it made sense. Probably.

“I’d offer to see if my domain couldn’t just make your reagents, but I have a feeling that you’ll reject them for the same reason you rejected my haemomantic ritual circle.” Eva tossed the writing implements to Lynn–the former nun caught them without issue.

“Write down a list of your reagents,” Eva said. “I’ll get what I can from around town. Zoe should be able to teleport to larger cities for anything more esoteric. I’ll bring them back when I grab Nel.”

“I do not require her presence. Her assistance will be for acquiring a certain artifact as part of the reagents. Speak to her after I give you the list. She will be able to answer your questions better than I, most likely.”

“Fair enough. The second thing,” Eva paused for a moment, double checking everything through her blood sight. Shalise was back in the common room, seated on a couch. Her heart was beating at a fairly high rate, but otherwise appeared calm.

“The second thing is just a curiosity. What do we tell Shalise? The dangers? Why you didn’t bring this option forward before?”

Lynn took a deep breath through her nostrils, flaring them as she inhaled. “Leave that to me. I will inform her myself. Should she decide not to undertake the risks, I will stay here as long as it takes for you to find another solution.”

“I imagine that she will agree.”

“As do I. She is my daughter, after all. I would not stand for such an infestation within me longer than necessary. Go clear out the other room, I’ll have your list ready momentarily.”

Eva rolled her eyes before leaving Lynn to her task of writing down the reagents. She threw open the door to her room and walked back out.

A nervous looking Shalise jumped to her feet at the noise. Wide eyes glanced over, calming slightly once she spotted Eva. Her hands fiddled with each other as she held them in front of her chest.

“Well?”

“Congratulations,” Eva said, clapping her hands together. “You might just be rid of Prax sooner than you thought.”

Shalise’s expression broke into a hesitant smile. “R-really?”

“Yep. Some nun ritual. Remember when you had half your arm eaten by zombies?”

“I-I try not to.”

“Well, it will be like that.” Probably. “Except without the half eaten arm. Your–Lynn Cross will explain more when she finishes writing down a handful of things that she needs. In the meantime,” Eva walked up to the couch and gripped one end of it, “help me move these out of the way.”

Eva watched, keeping her face impassive, as Shalise’s arms bulged out with an extra bulk of muscles before she took her own end of the couch in hand. She barely exerted any effort in lifting the couch.

She could probably have moved the entire thing on her own.

“Oh, and Prax,” Eva said as they dropped the couch in the back of the room, “you’ll be free to do whatever. You can even stay here, so long as you don’t cause trouble. Sending you right back to your domain would be cruel while that doll might still be there.”

Tilting her head to one side, Shalise winced. “He says thanks.”

“I’m sure he does.”

Moving back to the center of the room, Eva picked up one of the remaining chairs.

Shalise, on the other hand, decided that moving furniture one at a time was too slow. She picked up the table with one arm and leaned the last chair against her other shoulder, moving both at once.

Eva doubted that she would be able to do the same. The chairs weren’t the heaviest things in the world, but they were fairly bulky and awkward to carry. Lifting one one-handedly might be a bit much, especially with a table in the other hand. Her legs were strong, as was her grip strength, both thanks to Arachne. The rest of her upper body could use some work.

“You know,” Eva said once they finished clearing out the room, “you’re not going to have those muscles, assuming all goes well.”

Shalise started. She glanced down at her body as if she hadn’t quite realized what she had done.

Eventually, she spoke. “I know. He tricked me into it–sort of–but they have come in handy.”

“Well,” Eva held up her own hand, examining her shiny carapace in the light, “if you’re going to miss it that much–”

Hands on her hips, Shalise glared. “I’m not amputating my arms.”

Rather than respond, Eva stiffened. Lynn Cross stood just behind her, her pose radiating irritation.

Slowly, Eva turned. She wasn’t surprised in the slightest to see lighting crackling between the ex-nun’s fingers.

“I’ll thank you not to put foolish ideas into others’ heads,” Lynn said, shoving a leaf of paper into Eva’s chest. “The last two items are those that may prove troublesome. The augur should be able to assist.”

Eva nodded. Without so much as a glance at the list, she folded it up. Slinking away as fast as she could, Eva made her way to the gate room.

Empty though it was, it was still the gate room. It was the room that Eva had taken to using in traveling from Hell back to her beacon. As she stood in the center, a pattern colored in and brightened on the floor.

It was almost identical to the summoning circles used in the mortal realm. Soon enough, the symbols upon the floor began a clock-like rotation. Ripples formed on the surface.

A gaping, void filled maw opened up at her feet. Eva dropped straight down, not concerned in the slightest.

She had long since become used to the sudden weightlessness.

Eva wasn’t certain how long she spent drifting aimlessly through the emptiness. She had tried timing it once. She brought along a mechanical pocket watch. That had actually exploded on her wrist, though not until she had tried a small light spell to see it in the darkness.

If she didn’t try to look, time appeared to pass by at a regular pace. She could leave for her domain at four in the afternoon, spend an hour in her domain, and return at five. That all led Eva to believe that this limbo between Hell and the mortal realm didn’t actually exist on a proper time line.

It felt like it took forever, but no time had actually passed once she got out.

Her musing came to a sudden stop as she found herself spat out of the nothingness into her gate room. The one in the regular women’s ward.

At least, it should have been the regular gate room. There was a thin layer of sand on the floor.

Everything else appeared normal, however, so she ignored it for the moment. Shalise was a far more pressing concern than a bit of loose sand.

Eva plucked a black marble with a streak of red–her now inactive beacon–from a shelf in the gate room. It would need to be given to Zoe to reactivate it before she returned to Hell.

Deciding to pull out the list of reagents before doing so, Eva found that most of the items were familiar. Simple things that she could get around Brakket City. Given the late hour, she would probably be breaking into the apothecary and any other shops she needed, but Brakket Academy paid for everything anyway as far as Eva could tell.

Zoe had probably at least heard of the things she did not recognize.

The last two, the ones that Nel should be able to help with, didn’t look any more or less difficult to acquire than the items she didn’t recognize. Purgato salis and obelisci lunam pura.

Eva started to move to her bedroom. The state of her common room had her pause.

All of the furniture had been shoved off to the back of the room. Just like it had been in the alternate version of the room.

“Shalise?” Eva called out, suddenly unsure as to whether or not she actually made it back to the regular women’s ward. “Lynn Cross?”

There was no response. And no sign of either of the two in her blood sight. She shook her head. It was probably just Devon wanting to do something to the treatment ritual circle.

Continuing on to her bedroom, Eva pulled out some paper and made two copies of the list. One for Nel and one for Zoe.

“Now to find the two.”

She decided to start with Nel. The augur was closer and the least likely of the two to have gone someplace outside of her usual haunt. Nel could also help find Zoe without a whole lot of guesswork.

Eva took one step outside of her room and stopped.

The sky… didn’t look much like how she had left it.

Zoe was running up towards her. She was plainly visible to Eva’s blood sight.

But Eva was far too enraptured with the purple streaks running through the night sky.

“Nel said you were back,” Zoe said as she got closer. “We have problems.”

“Yeah,” Eva said, voice as flat as possible. “I can see that.”

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006.022

Posted on September 5, 2016November 20, 2021 by Tower Curator

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Eva wasn’t jealous.

Not the slightest little bit.

Prax’s domain was something special.

Willie’s domain had been… less than entrancing. His theater was fancy enough, on the inside at least. But at no point could Eva recall just stopping and staring with a gaping mouth. The only thing of any real note was his golden bee statues. Those just didn’t appeal to Eva.

The first time she had entered Ylva’s domain, she was struck dumb with a sense of awe. The bottomless pit and the storm clouds overhead framed her throne, combined with the massive open space of her main room and it all added to her larger-than-life presence.

It was impressive, as was the rest of her domain, but it didn’t resonate with Eva.

Ylva’s domain fit her. It fit Eva’s regal image of Ylva. Yet, it wasn’t something that Eva thought she could spend an eternity within.

But Prax… he had a castle.

A big castle.

No. Not just big. Immense. Eva had to crane her neck to see the top of the tallest tower. It stretched so high into the sky–if sky was the proper word for it in Hell–that it took her stomach out from under her. The vertigo from staring had her stumbling a few steps as she fought to regain her balance.

That stumbling almost sent her over the edge of the bridge that connected the landing point to the main gate. The bridge was large enough that she should never have been within twenty feet of the edge, but Eva had wanted to see what they were bridging over.

A bottomless pit. Because of course it was a bottomless pit.

Jealous though she was of the castle itself, Eva could do without bottomless pits in her domain. Even if her domain ‘caught’ her should she fall, it really just seemed like an unnecessary hazard.

Moving away from the edge, Eva decided to focus on a portion of the castle a little lower. The main building.

Obsidian bricks that were probably larger than Eva standing on Arachne’s shoulders made up the entire structure. While the walls themselves were smooth and glossy, the shape was blocky and angled for the most part. No spikes adorned the walls, as she might have expected given how Shalise described Prax. The only thing similar were the four spires reaching above the tallest tower.

Now far from the edge, Eva felt safe glancing up once again. Dark clouds hung overhead, threatening rain. It probably wouldn’t start raining unless Prax or Shalise wanted it to, but the atmosphere was set.

As they approached the colossal wooden gate that separated the bridge from the castle proper, Eva’s initial shock wore off.

And she frowned.

Ylva’s domain fit her regal bearings. Willie’s domain had fit his theater-demon nature.

Eva hadn’t seen any other domains. She had visited Arachne’s domain, but had lacked eyes at the time. Same with the abattoir, if that was even an actual domain. As such, she didn’t have much to compare it to. But…

Prax’s domain did not fit him.

Not that she had ever seen or even spoken with the demon directly. But Shalise had described him and his mannerisms. A red-skinned muscle-bound hulk of a cambion did not quite mesh with the elegant structure before her.

Rather, this domain looked more like what she imagined Zagan lived in. He was titled the Great King, one of the seventy-two pillars of Hell, after all.

Eva wasn’t certain what did fit her image of Prax, but this… just wasn’t it.

Shaking her head, Eva glanced towards her companions.

Nothing bad had happened to Shalise upon dropping in. So that was.. good. But she also hadn’t said a word.

If Prax had done something to switch places with her again, Eva wasn’t certain what she would do. Zagan likely wouldn’t help out a second time. Eva still hadn’t made any progress on puzzling out what he might want that would be worth potentially drawing the Keeper’s attention by helping Shalise out of Hell.

But, Eva didn’t think that anything had happened. Shalise still walked with the gait Eva had grown used to over the past two years. Eva hadn’t seen much of her while Prax had been in charge–she had been far too concentrated on Genoa–but Prax had definitely carried himself differently. Stiffer and with a far wider stance.

Sister Cross–who, according to Shalise, was not a sister anymore–carried herself like a warrior. Her eyes were aglow with her brand of power, scanning each and every little detail for any kind of threat. She spent no time taking in the sights as Eva had.

After her fairly long nap, she was looking much better. The bags under her eyes were still there, but not half as dark. Eva had ended up fighting off two separate attacks of the enigmas while the former nun slept.

And yet, despite helping Shalise fend off the enigmas and keeping everyone safe, she still sent Eva a glare every couple of steps. And every single time, Eva tensed, just waiting for a bolt of lightning to fly in her direction.

Eva would not be missing the stress when it came time for her to return to the mortal realm.

“So,” Eva said, breaking the silence between glares, “who has control?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“Don’t know? How can you not know?”

“Neither of us have tried,” Shalise said. “Too afraid.”

Eva almost asked what she was afraid of, but Shalise continued without needing a prompt.

“Prax is afraid that I have control still. I’m afraid to mess up his domain beyond repair. Or, beyond my abilities to repair.” She took her eyes off of the massive gate to glance at Eva. “He’s not all that bad, so I’d rather not be needlessly cruel. It is his home.”

“Shalise,” Lynn Cross said, warning tone in her voice. “I would rather you not fraternize with the enemy.”

“It’s a bit hard when he’s stuck inside my head.”

Lynn’s lips pinched down to a single point. Eva watched as the flare in her eyes jumped up a few notches in intensity.

Eva quickly looked away before that glare could be leveled at her.

“As nice as it is that you’re so considerate of each other,” Eva said with her focus on Shalise and Shalise alone, “it would probably be a good idea to find out before anything happens. I’m already surprised that this place isn’t crawling with enigmas.”

Shalise tilted her head to the side, listening to whatever Prax was saying. “Depending on the exact nature of their origins, these creatures have likely gravitated towards domains of demons currently on the mortal plane. Given your frequent travels between here and there, the ‘walls’ may have weakened further in your case.”

“That,” Eva said, trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible for Shalise’s sake, “could have been useful information to have been told earlier.”

“He says that you never asked,” Shalise said.

Eva sighed. Well that’s just great. Her sigh cut off partway as a thought occurred to her. “Are you sure you want me in this domain then? Am I not knocking down walls with my very presence?”

“Could be,” Shalise said with a shrug. “Prax doesn’t think it will matter much. All of Void will be weakened to that point sooner or later.”

Turning away from Eva, Shalise looked up to the gate. She rested her hand on the dark wood. “But enough of that. Let’s try this. Do you want to, or shall I?”

Ignoring the look on Lynn’s face that said she wanted to interrupt, Eva fell silent as she watched and waited. Shalise continued to stare at the door with her head tilted to one side and her hand on the wood.

“But that won’t solve anything.” Shalise shook her head. After another moment of silence, she shrugged. “Alright, if you say so.”

With a ring of thunder, the door cracked open. Apart from the initial noise, the doors parted in a smooth and silent manner. The hinges, each as tall as Eva herself, didn’t even squeak.

It stopped only a sliver of the way open. A sliver relative to the size of the doors themselves. Eva, Shalise, and Lynn were all able to walk in shoulder-to-shoulder with space to spare.

“So?” Eva said as they walked through the courtyard up to the main entrance.

“Still don’t know. We tried at the same time. Count of three and everything.”

Eva rolled her eyes. “Well, at least one of you has it. Better than neither–”

“Wait.” Shalise glanced around, scanning the exterior of the castle. “Someone is here.”

Eva ignited her hands without hesitation while her dagger found its way to her hand. The three vials of Arachne’s blood at her hip quivered in anticipation, though she did not uncork them just yet.

Already combat-ready, Lynn only increased her vigil. Eva did shy away from a handful of sparks that started dancing across the backs of her hands.

“Who would be here? Not any humans, right? More enigmas?”

Shalise shook her head. “No. It is a demon. But who– O-oh.” She backed up a few steps. “Should we l-leave?”

Whatever Prax was saying, Shalise wasn’t liking a word of it. Her face drew back into a tight frown.

“What?” Shalise jumped. Muscles started growing beneath her skin.

Prax’s muscles.

Shalise hated Prax’s muscles. If she was growing them out, it was probably something serious.

Ignoring the disgusted look that Lynn was giving her own daughter, Eva brought Arachne’s blood up before her. Some went into a shield, ready to activate at a moment’s notice, while the rest started orbiting her shoulders.

“And what if she isn’t friendly?” Shalise shouted. “You do remember that you crushed her skull the last time you met her. I might hold a bit of a grudge if you did the same to me.”

“Who are you talking about?”

Shalise glanced to her side with wide eyes. “Prax’s mother.”

“Oh.” Eva frowned. Shalise had told her the story of her prison adventures, but couldn’t remember more than a simple mention of Prax’s mother. Something about Prax murdering her with Shalise’s hands. There was probably more, but that had been several months ago.

One thing was certain, this demon’s presence was doing a good job of frightening Shalise.

But between herself and Lynn Cross, they should be able to hold their own, right? Besides, this was Prax’s domain, not his mother’s.

Eva shook her head. She had made poor decisions in the past, especially regarding demons and their domains. If Prax ended up convinced to act against them, they could wind up in the same situation as when they had gone on their ill-advised assault against Willie. Depending on how much control he actually had and how much he could actually interfere with Shalise.

Backing up a few steps, Eva said, “we should leave before we get too far from the way out.”

“I agree with the abomination,” Lynn Cross said. Ignoring Eva’s glare, she continued speaking. “The enigmas were known quantities. Annoying, but easily dealt with. If we are forced to remain within this nightmare, it is best we avoid demonic enemies.”

“Prax agrees,” Shalise said with a nod. “The reason he believes that she won’t attack us is because this is his domain. He possesses the power here. Theoretically, anyway. For her to willingly show up and wander about means that she likely came here seeking an alliance of some sort.”

“An alliance?” Eva frowned. “Against wha–Enigmas?”

“Possibly, Prax says. She was imprisoned for helping other demons join her on Earth in some sort of freedom fighting thing–” Shalise paused for just a moment. “Oh, that’s wrong. More of a conquering kind of thing.”

“Great for her. Doesn’t mean we should go talk to her.”

Lynn laid a hand on the younger girl’s shoulder.

“Shal, you’ve been repeating the words of this… demon,” she spat the word with clear distaste. “Even as he intrudes on your mind, you defend his opinion. One that may wind up with us all dead. You don’t feel this way. You’ve seen this demon before and she scares you; you want to leave.

“So trust your instincts, Shalise. Listen to yourself, rather than him, and let us be gone from this place before it is too late.”

Shalise’s eyes flared. Not quite a demonic flash of red, but there was unmistakable anger behind her eyes. The muscles in her arm tensed.

Eva tensed up, waiting for Shalise to strike first. She could imagine the words Prax must be whispering in her ear.

She thinks you’re weak. But you don’t need to listen to her, Shalise. We have the power here. She hates you and fears you for having me in your head.

Or something along those lines, in any case.

Whatever his whisperings were, they weren’t enough. Tension drained from Shalise along with her muscles. She slumped into Lynn, nodding into her chest.

“You’re right. Let’s go.”

Eva watched as Shalise’s face winced. Probably at whatever Prax was saying now–insults, Eva was willing to bet.

Keeping herself tense, Eva stayed ready for any sign of trouble.

But nothing happened. No pits opening beneath them. No hot tar pouring off the battlements. No sign of any domain manipulation acting against them.

Either Prax was more subtle than Eva was giving him credit for or Shalise still had power. Or Prax had decided that insulting Shalise was enough, probably deciding that speaking with a mother that had recently had her skull crushed by him was a poor idea.

Eva was somewhat hoping for the latter option as it would prove that Prax was at least somewhat reasonable.

With Eva watching their backs and Lynn watching just about everywhere else, they made their way back across the bridge and to the waters of Hell.

“Remember,” Eva said, “you don’t want to get lost and wind up in some other demon’s domain. Think of me, repeating my name can’t hurt either.”

Eva stood back and watched as they, hand in hand, jumped into the water.

Unlike hers and Ylva’s domains, Prax had his waters looking almost more like a swimming pool than a beach. Obsidian bricks surrounded a pit of water. It wasn’t actually a swimming pool–it lacked walls and a floor within the basin, as it was all part of the ‘ocean’–but it gave off the appearance from above.

There were no ladders or steps to get in and out. The water level was a good body-length beneath the top of the bricks. Arachne could probably get out without much trouble, but a lot of demons would have problems climbing out.

That tied into his defenses for the area. The landing into his domain was immediately overhead. A cushioned platform that looked as if it could be opened into a trapdoor, dropping any unwanted guests straight back into the rest of Hell.

Eva wasn’t certain that it was possible to re-enter the same domain that she was leaving from–she had never tried–but if it was possible, they would just land back in the waters a second time.

Willie’s domain had been almost the exact opposite of Prax’s domain. His started out with a boat ride designed to disorient and confuse, ultimately making it incredibly difficult to actually leave. His guests would be trapped in with whatever amusements he concocted until he decided to release them.

Prax seemed intent on keeping unwanted demons out of his domain. The castle, the walls, the gate, the easily defensible bridge, and this. They all deterred invaders.

Probably something Eva should set up in her own domain. Even if someone just landed in a solitary confinement cell until Eva set them free, it would at least be a start.

And it might contain the enigmas for easier disposal. A much better plan than the current ‘allow them to run free on the beach’ method.

Stepping up to the edge of the pool, Eva stopped with both of her feet half over the edge.

She glanced around the room. There was some kind of uniform light throughout Prax’s domain. No light sources, but Eva could see.

And something was casting a shadow. Probably nothing. She couldn’t see anyone through her sense of blood. Eva guessed that it was a trick of the light and nothing more, but…

“How long are you going to skulk about? If you wish to speak, speak.”

If it was nothing, it might have been embarrassing. But no one else would be around to know, so the point was moot.

If it was something, then calling out was just one step on the path cultivating her own appearance as a mysterious and omniscient demon.

Waiting, Eva stared around the room. Her gaze slowly swept from one side to the other, sweating this possibly non-existent person out.

Eva sighed. Guess it was nothing after all, she thought.

A flash of movement had Eva’s head whipping around before she could step forward.

It was nowhere near the shadow on the wall.

Keeping her blood ready for a shield at a moment’s notice, Eva watched as a silver-haired woman stepped around a pillar on the opposite side of the room.

Eva only absently noted her long-coat and boots, choosing instead to focus on the sword attached to the woman’s hip.

It was, thankfully, sheathed.

And yet, somewhat concerning. Eva could not think of a single demon that used tools. Every one of them chose to fight with bare hands. That included Ylva, possibly the most civilized demon that Eva knew of.

“You knew I was here,” she said, voice coming out cold and hard, though still in a whisper.

Too busy fighting the surprise off of her face, Eva couldn’t even celebrate the success of her seeming-omniscient plan. The woman’s voice itself was almost as bad as the voice Ylva used while speaking from her throne.

Worse, if not for trusting her own sight, Eva wouldn’t be able to tell that this person was in the room at all. She had no blood. At least not that Eva could see. She had no presence or bearing.

She wasn’t even breathing.

Had she stood still on a pedestal, Eva was certain that she would pass her off as a particularly detailed statue.

Eva slid her feet slightly closer to the edge, ready to drop off. If the woman suddenly attacked, her own domain would be far more defensible.

“You were following us,” Eva said. Again, she was bluffing and possibly pushing her omniscience too far. For all Eva knew, the woman had just shown up. But it had worked well enough the first time around.

Besides, this didn’t look like someone she should show weakness to.

“Why?”

“The Keeper is displeased. Cells that were once full must be filled again.”

Eva almost leapt off into the pool at that. Her first thoughts were that this woman was here for Shalise. If so, Shalise needed to be warned.

They really needed to get her out of Hell.

But Eva stayed where she was. There was another, more likely reason why this woman was inside Prax’s domain.

“You’re here for the demon hiding here. That demon is hiding from you?”

The woman nodded, sending her ponytail up and down in a light bob.

“Hiding here? Why? This isn’t her domain. She has no advantage or power over this place. Her own–” Eva cut herself off. That was a stupid question. Obviously, she was hiding here because they would look for her in her domain.

But if she left a place she had total control over for a place inhabited by a possible enemy… “You did something to her domain, you broke it or somehow made it inhospitable, didn’t you?”

“Not I.”

“The Keeper then.”

The woman remained silent, neither affirming nor denying Eva’s suggestion.

Neither spoke for a time. Eva watched the woman like a hawk while she thought.

Really, it was a pretty stupid decision in Eva’s opinion, showing up at Prax’s domain even though he had also escaped from that prison. At least, that was Eva’s first thought. Given how Willie had treated her, perhaps going with a known quantity was always better than going to some random demon’s domain. Together, they might have been able to fend off assaults. That was what Prax’s domain had been designed for.

Except Prax wasn’t here.

And now Eva might have given Prax’s jailers the key to finding him.

Eva gave a quick mental curse. “Well, don’t let me stop you. I’ve no love for the demon here.”

With that said, she stepped forward–actually blinking just above the surface of the water.

It engulfed her before the woman could respond. Eva felt the familiar yank as she was pulled off to her domain.

Shalise needed to be hidden better or cured of her Prax affliction. Immediately.

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006.021

Posted on September 1, 2016November 20, 2021 by Tower Curator

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Catherine’s heels clicked in a steady rhythm as she walked down the empty hallway of Brakket Academy.

She considered running. The quicker she made it home, the sooner she could join in on her clan’s planned raid against those pathetic humans and elves. Well, they were all humans–probably–including her own team. But her team had chosen the demonic race, so their hearts were in the right place.

As it was, she was already a full half hour late because of ‘secretarial duties’ that she had been purposefully neglecting.

Thanks, Martina, she thought. Because of course Martina would choose today of all days to check up on my work.

Filing paperwork in its proper place had cost her dearly.

She wanted to teleport. It would have been so much simpler. Not to mention faster.

Again, Martina was standing in her way. The paranoid woman had banned everything that could potentially hint towards demonic activity around Brakket Academy. That, naturally, included the method of teleportation that both Martina and Catherine employed.

The one consolation Catherine had was that Martina had condemned herself to walking about like a common plebeian.

What she was afraid of, Catherine couldn’t even begin to fathom. Demon hunters were ruthless, no arguing that. However, Martina had Zagan on call. If he wasn’t around to swat annoying flies away with the back of his hand, what good was he?

Surely he wasn’t being kept around for his teaching skills.

Catherine shook her head. The idea was laughable.

Mid-head shake, Catherine stopped. Just in time to avoid three people coming around the corner.

“Ca–Professor Catherine,” Irene’s twin said as she jumped back. “What are you doing here?”

Ignoring the improper title–Catherine was not a professor, the diablery class did not count–Catherine eyed her student. Irene’s sister looked… worried. Perhaps just shocked at meeting someone in the hallway, but probably not. Moving on to the spawn of Governor Anderson, Catherine’s frown deepened. He was calm, but still had jitters.

Something must have happened that rattled them.

And then they ran off to get a professor. Wayne Lurcher didn’t look worried so much as he looked annoyed. So either he hadn’t seen whatever had startled the children, or he didn’t care.

Possibly both, it was hard to tell with him.

“I,” Catherine said, turning her gaze back to the sister, “happen to work here. I am allowed to be within the school after hours. You two lack that excuse.”

“We–”

“Something is wrong with their dorm,” Wayne said, interrupting the girl. He continued with a sneer. “In fact, probably something more suited to a secretary than a professor. You would know how to contact the proper custodial or maintenance personnel.”

Catherine’s heel clicked as she stepped forwards. “You’re not foisting more garbage off on me. I’ve got to get home and–and do important things.”

That got a scoff from the professor.

“As I was saying,” the Anderson spawn cut in, “I don’t think it is that kind of issue.” He glanced up to Catherine. “We’re heading to Eva’s room. Irene is keeping an eye on it.”

“An enigma?” Catherine frowned as no recognition lit up in the kids’ eyes.

Though that made sense after a moment of thinking about it. Irene wouldn’t be able to say anything about them without violating her contract.

“Where is Eva?”

“She doesn’t stay in her dorm much these days. Less than once a week, I’d say.”

Wayne pulled out his phone and started tapping away. A moment later, he dropped it back into his pocket. “Zoe will check her other residence,” he grunted. “In the meantime, let’s take a look at whatever mess the menace has caused this time.”

Catherine stood still as they all started to move. For a moment, she considered just ignoring the problem. Most problems had a tendency to resolve themselves or just go away if they were ignored long enough.

Unfortunately, she doubted that she would hear the end of it if Martina found out. And besides, it was a good opportunity to see her student and how she handled herself. Considering Irene’s performance against the other enigma, it would be something of a wonder if the girl hadn’t killed herself.

It didn’t take long to get to the dorms. They were, after all, just a stone’s throw from the school building itself.

All the while, the kids and the professor were talking quite animatedly amongst themselves. Arguing over some mortal problems, Catherine assumed. She really didn’t care enough to listen in.

The moment they reached the third floor of the Rickenbacker dormitory, a wave of nausea hit Catherine. She doubled over, one hand braced against the wall to keep her up. She couldn’t recall ever even imagining the sensation that caused mortals to vomit, but this had to have come close.

Brushing off a suddenly concerned group of mortals, Catherine pulled out her cellphone.

Rickenbacker. Third floor. You’ll know it when you feel it.

She sent the message off to Zagan as she shoved the Anderson boy off of her.

“I’m fine,” Catherine snarled.

The feeling had been growing since entering the stairwell, but she was caught entirely unawares by just how pungent the very air felt on the top floor. It was similar to the feeling she had felt upon first seeing the enigma that Irene had summoned, so she hadn’t paid it much mind while it was a minor effect. She had already assumed that there would be an enigma around anyway.

Catherine’s heels clicked against the floor, unsteady as she half-stumbled her way to the source of the feeling.

One of the dormitory rooms had its door wide open. At least, she thought it was one of the rooms. The number outside listed the door as three-thirteen, though part of the lettering had worn off.

Moving to check the adjacent doorways, Catherine found that they were regular dorm rooms. Logic held that three-thirteen was supposed to be a room as well.

Or at least a broom closet of some sort.

She stepped into the room, heels mushing against the sand covered flooring. The sharp spikes making up the heels of her stilettoed boots barely encountered any resistance for the first few inches from the surface. Even with sand over the floor, they shouldn’t have sunk in so far. The solid floor beneath should have held firm.

But, other than a light stumble, Catherine barely noted her feet. Her attentions were drawn straight up. There was no roof. No ceiling. No lights, wiring, or structural support for the building.

There was nothing. A pitch black lot of familiar nothingness.

Forcing her gaze off of the emptiness, Catherine glanced around. There were no waters. In fact, there was nothing but a slice of the beach. It cut off sharply where the walls of the room were–for they were in their normal spot.

Irene stood a few steps forward, enraptured by the void overhead.

“You shouldn’t stare.” Catherine placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Or even be inside. There are enigmas somewhere in here.”

Blinking three times, Irene shook her head. The glazed look over her eyes subsided. “Wha–what happened?”

“I guess that you came inside, a stupid move, and proceeded to look up for far too long. Another stupid move. Get out of the room and draw the highest tier shackles you can remember how to draw correctly just in front of the doorway.”

“What about you?”

What about her? There were enigmas somewhere around. Perhaps on the other side of the walls, or underground. Sticking around didn’t seem like the best of ideas.

Catherine shrugged. She had already sent a text to Zagan, this seemed more like his job anyway.

“Probably go home. I have other things to do.”

— — —

“For the last time, she didn’t attack me, dad.”

Juliana wanted to slam her head against the window of their tiny car. Every clank of her father’s cellphone as it knocked back and forth in the cup holder only increased her irritation. A cloudless starry sky hung cheerily overhead in stark contrast to her current mood.

Brakket City was slowly shrinking into the background. Along with it went her school and her friends.

She didn’t even get a chance to visit Shalise before her father ushered her off into the car.

“And she didn’t attack you either,” Juliana said, sticking a finger in Erich’s arm.

Calling him up had been a mistake. She had thought that he would be worried about their mother. Turns out that was wrong.

Basically, it was the opposite. Erich had barely said two words to their mother. Even taking into account her few periods of wakefulness during the first few months, that was far too few in Juliana’s opinion.

Instead, he had spent all of his time babysitting her, complaining about her parents when they weren’t in the room, and making things awkward when they were in the room. Juliana knew that he had poor relations with their mother, but there was a point where it got ridiculous.

He could at least pretend for her sake.

“It doesn’t matter what Eva did or did not do, Juli. I finalized my initial report and sent it off to her. I sent a copy to Zoe and the Dean as well. My job was done, it was time to leave.”

“You mailed them. You could have at least given them in person.”

Juliana crossed her arms in a huff. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get back to her mother. She did. Even though her mother had doctors to keep her healthy, they didn’t exactly keep her company.

But she also wanted to say goodbye at the very least.

“You know,” Erich said as he moved to rest a hand on her shoulder, “when I went to school here… it was a calming center of learning and research. No zombies or monsters attacked the school.”

“Sounds boring.”

“The point,” he said, “is that you should be learning in a safe environment.

“You’re a powerful mage and Genoa has taught you well. But you are still a child. You’re inexperienced and still learning. There will be plenty of time for danger and adventure later. When you are better equipped to handle it.”

Juliana shrugged off his hand and went back to leaning her forehead against the cool window. Yeah, right, she thought. Not if the world ends soon.

That was the one thing that she hadn’t told anyone. Her mother might know, depending on how conscious she had been while Zagan was talking to Eva in Willie’s domain. If she did know, she hadn’t said a word.

Juliana was leaning towards her not knowing. She hadn’t started up an extensive training regimen. Neither had she insisted on bulking up their already massive food storage. Bedridden or not, Juliana knew her mother and her mother would not just lie down and not prepare.

Getting her own training in had become a daily routine for Juliana. She tried to think up what her mother would have her do and then double it. It probably wasn’t close to what her mother actually would do, but it kept her from becoming rusty. Unfortunately, Juliana doubted that thaumaturgy would be enough.

Her excursions with Ylva served a dual purpose. It was true that she was searching for references to Willie and talkina in general, but if Hell merged, it probably wouldn’t matter much. A good portion of her time went into seeking out weapons. Anything that could be used effectively against demons.

Her findings weren’t the most heartening of things. Shackles were easily the most prevalent defenses against demons. But there must be more. Demon hunters had to have proper tools for actually hunting them.

Juliana thought that they would be more publicized.

And then there was the ‘domination’ that Devon apparently used. Juliana had never seen it in person, but Eva had mentioned it on occasion. How to do so was not listed in a single book.

“The classes and professors that have come on since I graduated are less than reassuring as well,” Erich said, bringing Juliana’s attentions off of the fast-moving scenery. She turned just in time to watch his face darken considerably. “That’s to say nothing of your… friend.”

“Don’t you dare. I would be dead several times over if not for her.”

“And that,” Carlos said from the front seat, “is exactly why we’re looking into alternate schools. I’m thankful to Eva, I really am, but you should never have almost been dead even once. If Scotland is too far, why not Charmbridge? The dean there is a strict woman and would never allow all of this,” he paused to wave one hand in the vague direction of Brakket Academy.

Rolling her eyes, Juliana kept silent. Protesting would lead to another argument. Agreeing was exactly the opposite of what she wanted to do.

Though, Erich and dad are in agreement. The world really is ending.

As she was staring out the window, Juliana gave a start. The normal sky wasn’t quite so normal any longer.

Streaks of purple cut through the sky like jagged clouds. The purple pulsed lightly to some unheard beat. Every pulse spread the streaks out like lightning made of molasses.

“Um, dad?”

“I see it.”

Though her eyes were glued on the heavens, Juliana’s peripheral vision caught the ground moving much faster beneath their car.

“We’re not stopping?”

“The sky is clear up ahead.”

“But what about–”

“Juliana,” her father said, voice firmer than she had ever heard it. “This city has come so close to taking away everything I hold dear. I’m not giving it another chance.”

“But my friends… Zoe…” Juliana bit her lip. The way Zagan and Eva had talked about Hell being brought to the mortal realm sounded much farther off than now. It hadn’t even been half a year. But if that was what was happening, driving away likely wouldn’t save them.

Her lip-biting turned to grinding her teeth as anger welled up within her. She was running away.

“Mom would go back.”

“Genoa isn’t here,” Carlos said softly, his speed only increasing.

Gripping the door handle with white knuckles, Juliana watched the speedometer pass one hundred. It won’t matter what’s going on behind us if we crash into a mountain.

Shaking her head, Juliana reached forward and pulled her father’s cellphone from the holder.

At the very least, she could warn Zoe and Wayne, both of whom were in his contacts list. To her surprise, the dean and Catherine were entered in as well. One of them had probably seen the sky and already alerted the others, but Juliana sent off a group text anyway. If they were asleep, maybe, just maybe her text could save someone’s life.

Turning in her seat, Juliana watched helplessly as the purple lightning-streaked sky shrank behind her in the rear window.

“This city is cursed,” Erich mumbled under his breath.

— — —

Staring at the inky blackness of nothing became tedious after a while.

Actually, it got tedious after a matter of seconds. There was no one to speak with, nothing to look at, nothing to do save for wander her own mind. Unfortunately, Nel felt that she was reaching the limits of even her own thoughts.

There were only so many things she could think about. After weeks and months of nothing but blackness for most of every day, Nel was starting to worry for her own sanity. She had already thought about everything she could think of.

Other augurs didn’t have to deal with an empty target under normal circumstances. There weren’t many things that could block out the scrying of an augur. In fact, apart from Ylva’s domain and a few higher-ups in the Elysium Order like Sister Cross, whatever Sawyer had done with her eyes was the only thing that she had ever encountered that could block her sight.

There were probably more things. Nel had only been an augur for a year prior to entering into Ylva’s service. The more experienced sisters had probably encountered at least a handful of things that could block out their sight.

For a moment, Nel wondered what the nuns did to occupy their time.

Shaking her head, she realized that she knew the probable answer.

Any long-term observation would have multiple augurs assigned to the task. They didn’t have to deal with such things.

Unfortunately for Nel, she lacked any companions to foist the responsibility off to. Any breaks she took to sleep, eat, or just stretch her legs would gnaw at the back of her mind until she returned to the altar.

What Sawyer did might have been permanent. In which case, she was entirely wasting her time. But there was a chance that he had to consume the remaining eyes that he had stolen to power whatever he had done. Or that it couldn’t be moved easily.

All she needed was a sliver. A slight glimmer of where he was. Even if he occluded himself immediately after, it would give Nel a starting point. A point where she could look around, find street signs or other landmarks. Maybe, just maybe, she’d be able to follow the disturbance around. If she got a good enough sense for what the disturbance was, Nel was hoping that she might be able to lock onto that. Even if she couldn’t see what he was doing, seeing where he was could have infinite value.

Of course, none of those thoughts were things that Nel hadn’t already thought before, furthering her own opinion that she was slowly going crazy. Her thoughts were just cycling around themselves, never going far in one direction or the other.

“Eva really needs to finish her project with his blood,” Nel mumbled to herself for what had to be the hundredth time.

Originally, Nel had wanted to be the one to locate Sawyer. Partially out of pure revenge, but also because she had a feeling that it would be her only real contribution to bringing him down.

She wasn’t much of a fighter and she knew it.

Nel nearly fell from her seat as a sudden image filled her vision. A quick burst of fear-filled adrenaline was all that gave her the reflexes to catch herself on the altar.

She did not want to miss out on what could possibly be the sliver she had been waiting for by falling and losing concentration.

Her vision came into focus. Blurry at first, but it slowly sharpened as time dragged on.

As it cleared up, Nel tried to glean as many details as was possible. There was a lot of red. Blood, Nel decided. It would fit with the more fleshy tones surrounding the red. Violet was another predominant color, though Nel couldn’t tell what that was. Perhaps a cloth draped over a table–she was fairly certain there were tables.

While everything cleared up, Nel moved her vision outside of the building. It was a large warehouse built out of rusted metal. Or rather, it had probably been built out of regular metal that had rusted through time and disuse. Either way, there were no large signs indicating what the structure had been originally intended for.

Everything outside was clear instantly, so she wasted no time in maneuvering her view to the nearest crossroads. Nel scrambled for a pad of paper and proceeded to write down the road names.

She would be able to come back to those later to find the state or country, if he had left the states. The signs looked like they were from the United States, but Nel hadn’t been to every country.

For the moment, Nel moved back inside. On her way back to the original point, she scoped out some of the rest of the warehouse. A good number of those creatures he was so fond of creating stood locked up in a makeshift cage. Skeletons patrolled the catwalks overhead, most armed with bows and arrows. One appeared to have a revolver bolted onto its hand.

Nel shook her head. Wouldn’t the kick of firing just send the whole arm flying off the body?

Then again, those skeletons could draw the string of a bow, and that wasn’t supposed to be easy.

A sick feeling welled up in Nel’s stomach as she spotted piles of bones. The piles formed four distinct pillars, each capped with a human skull, all positioned around a circular table. A sacrificial dagger lay between two basins. An assortment of rings rested on one side of the table.

It was something that all augurs had been trained to recognize. Bones dug from a graveyard built up to form the soul binding altar. One of the easiest signs to recognize budding necromancers with. They would use the altar to call and bind ghosts to anchors.

And, since moving in with Ylva, Nel had discovered that soul binding was the greatest affront to Death. Even moreso than sealing ones own soul away into an immortal object made of gold. The souls to create ghosts were stolen directly from his plane of existence.

Yet it was one of the easiest branches of necromancy to start off with. All it really required was digging up a graveyard. Even the more squeamish of necromancers could do it. No killing required.

Back at the origin point of the scrying, Nel couldn’t help but frown at what she saw.

Sawyer was lying flat on his back between two operating tables. His wide smile was missing from his face.

While covered in blood, he didn’t actually appear injured. Nel couldn’t spot a single injury. There was, however, a pulsing lump of violet fused with his hand.

That probably had something to do with his condition.

Nel almost wanted to cry out in frustration. He couldn’t just die. Not without being killed first. And made to suffer.

A slight movement of the collar on his button-up shirt quashed Nel’s rage. Moving her view closer, she could see that he was breathing.

Satisfied for the moment, Nel looked around the rest of the operating theater. One of those enigma creatures was dismembered on top of one table, mostly unmoving.

The other table held a far more gruesome sight.

The little girl who Sawyer referred to as ‘honey’ or ‘Des’ had her chest carved open. Eyes wide with panic, she was in the middle of swinging her ribcage shut. The bones appeared to be attached to the rest of her with hinges of some sort. As soon as she snapped it into place, the girl pulled a needle and thread off the side of the table and started stitching herself together with skilled fingers.

She had obviously done it more than once.

Before she managed to seal up her skin, Nel spotted something. She did not, in any manner of the word, profess to being an expert in anatomy. However, she was relatively certain that eyes did not belong on the inside of the chest. Whatever rapidly pulsating organ that they were connected to was probably not supposed to be there either.

It looked like a miniature brain.

Even for an augur, that would be strange.

Nel grit her teeth. Those are my eyes.

She must be the one preventing augurs from finding them. Her panic must have caused a lapse of concentration. Or perhaps Sawyer severed something he shouldn’t have when he fell–there was a bloodied scalpel on the floor near his hand.

Once Des finished sewing herself up, she jumped off the operating table and started fretting over Sawyer. An action that boggled Nel’s mind. Des had been as much a victim of Sawyer as she had been during her brief stay in his care.

After watching a bit longer–Des had apparently decided that amputating Sawyer’s hand was the best course of action–Nel pulled herself out of her scrying and got up from her seat.

It didn’t look like whatever was preventing her augur abilities would get itself fixed soon. If Sawyer regained consciousness, he would also have to realize that Des’ brain-eye thing was broken. That should buy time on its own. Even if he did notice, Nel had a good idea of the location. A sign welcoming visitors to Nevada had been a short way along one of the roads.

For now, Nel needed to find Eva.

Swapping fetters to the long strand of black hair, Nel frowned. More of the inky nothingness. A different inky nothingness, though no less familiar than that of Sawyer’s scrying protection.

Eva was somewhere in Hell.

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006.020

Posted on August 29, 2016November 20, 2021 by Tower Curator

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Eva’s first thoughts upon landing on the sandy beach could be summed up in three simple words: What a mess.

She glanced around her domain with a sinking feeling in her stomach. That unpleasant feeling that she had felt while enigmas were still ‘alive’ permeated the place.

It didn’t take long to figure out why. As Eva moved up the beach to the entrance to the alternate women’s ward, she stopped and froze with a gaping mouth.

Mess was putting it lightly. Just about every one of the trap doors had been opened. Enigmas filled the holes to the brim. Many not injured enough by the spikes to have ceased moving. They would be the primary source of the feeling.

Assuming there weren’t living enigmas inside the building.

Eva took her steps gingerly.

Unfortunately for her, there weren’t all that many safe areas to walk. The courtyard between the walls and the building had been designed to be intentionally treacherous to cross while the trap doors were open. Spikes alone wouldn’t have been a problem. The carapace coating her legs was plenty strong to avoid injury from spikes.

The problem was the enigmas. Before, an enigma had taken off her foot without all that much effort. She was in no rush to repeat the experience.

Eva kicked at the few that dared to snap at her feet. Not many were in the shape to try. All the enigmas looked intimidating, but Eva made it to the doors without any real resistance.

A good number of enigmas had actually piled up in mounds within the trapdoors just outside the entrance. The good news was that these ones appeared more dead than the ones farther out. Singed as well. Eva could clearly see spots on some of them where lightning had hit.

She recognized the scorch pattern well enough.

Eva spent a good five minutes just clearing the corpses away from the door.

Then came the next issue. The door was deformed beyond her ability to push open. Eva shoved her shoulder against the heavy iron to no avail.

Really, Eva thought, can’t my domain just allow me through? She had seen open doors before, on occasion. But willing the door before her open did nothing.

Eva tried slamming her shoulder into the door again, only to have to leap back, almost falling into one of the pits of enigmas.

White lightning crackled across the surface of the rusted iron.

Well, that’s a good sign. At least they’re still alive.

“It’s just me,” Eva shouted. No need keeping them wondering if another attack had come.

All she heard in response was something of a cross between a groan and a sigh, muffled by the door.

Eva had to admit, she wasn’t expecting an attack of this magnitude. Ylva hadn’t had a problem with enigmas aside from that one time after Nel used her augur abilities on the other Power. But Eva wouldn’t put it past the hel to figure out a way of warding away the enigmas.

Something to ask when she got back. Regardless of whether or not Ylva could block the enigmas, extra defenses and wards would be absolutely vital.

For now, Eva had to find a way into her own home.

A more complex task than it felt like it should be. Had Juliana been with her, ferrokinesis could have easily solved the problem just by melting the door. Her own strides in earth magic were barely at the level of being able to brush some dirt around the ground.

Something that she should be working on more. Tests were coming up in March and Eva was scarcely prepared. Almost all of her studying time had gone towards research, typically into blood magic.

But Juliana was not with her. That was another mess and she still wasn’t sure what had happened. Devon had a theory that it was due to the weakening walls between Earth and Hell. She had imposed her will on reality though her domain’s magics.

Unfortunately, it appeared as if Eva had become a persona non grata to the Rivas family. When she had arrived at their hotel room to ask if Juliana wanted to accompany her to visit Shalise, Erich hadn’t hesitated for a moment in slamming the door in her face.

That sparked off an argument on the other side of the door. Eva hadn’t caught all of it, but Juliana did not sound like she was winning.

She would try visiting again later.

While thinking about Juliana, Eva had decided to try melting the door anyway. Not through ferrokinesis, but through pure pyrokinesis. Despite focusing all of her effort on it, she couldn’t get her flames hot enough to even cause a moderate glow from the metal.

Spotting a small bend in the metal that created a space between the outward-opening door and the frame, Eva had an idea.

“You might want to move to one of the side rooms,” Eva shouted.

She didn’t wait for a response before starting. This would take a little time. Plenty of time to move.

She brought forth fire from nothing, continuously fueling a small marble forming at the tip of one of her fingers. More and more flames belched forth from her opposite hand, twisting and compressing into the small space.

Keeping the ball of fire contained was a chore. Sweat dripped from her brow. One wrong move and she might be missing her entire top half.

It was the same technique she had used when her foot got caught in the enigma’s mouth, just ramped up to eleven. Flesh tended to be weaker than metal and stone, after all.

The flames bubbled on the marble. Eva almost lost it. She decided that its current compression would have to be enough. Any more would be too dangerous.

Shoving her flame-tipped finger into the gap in the door frame, Eva gave one last warning. “Stand clear of the door.”

She ran. Leaving the flame ball in the gap, Eva hopped over the enigma pits as fast as she could manage without falling in.

Eva dived around the corner just as the thin shell of stable flames gave way to the chaos underneath.

A veritable earthquake shook powdered rock from the walls of the alternate women’s ward. Eva waited for just a moment to ensure that everything was stable before peeking back around the corner.

Eva couldn’t help but to let a small whistle escape her lips.

The entire front of the common room was missing. The door was in two separate pieces out in the trap-filled courtyard, both absolutely covered in purple viscera from where they skimmed across the tops of the pits.

Maybe a little too much power, Eva thought. She stepped straight to the front of the building, hoping that Shalise at least had made it out of the common room. An idle strand of thought wondered why she didn’t simply step away instead of running.

“Everyone alright?” Eva asked to the debris-strewn room.

A haggard-looking Sister Cross stepped out of one of the side rooms–Eva’s bedroom in the real world. She was not so roughed up as when she had attacked Eva the other week ago, but she was clearly running on less than full steam. Her eyes were aglow with white light while lightning crackled at her fingertips. Dark bags hung under her eyes, only increasing her tired look by standing out more under the harsh white light.

Eva kept herself tense, ready to react to anything the woman might try. Not that she thought that Sister Cross would attack her, but… well, she thought Sister Cross wouldn’t hesitate much to attack her.

They weren’t exactly on the best of terms.

To Eva’s surprise, Sister Cross just groaned, let the light die from her eyes, and turned back to the room and walked inside.

Frowning, Eva followed her. At no point did she let her guard down, just in case it was a trap.

Turns out, she needn’t have bothered. Sister Cross was lying face down on the bed by the time Eva made it across the short distance to the room.

Shalise sat in a chair in the corner. A school book lay open on the table to her side. Rather than looking like Eva’s fairly loud explosion had interrupted her studying, the brunette looked more like she had just collapsed into her chair.

She didn’t look quite so tired as Sister Cross, but the hints of fatigue were present in her face. Neither, Eva noted, looked like they had showered in several days.

“I’m glad you’re here, but did you have to do that? I thought I was going to have a heart attack,” she said, clutching her chest. She missed her heart, but that was a fairly common mistake. Not everyone had the ability to see blood.

“The door was stuck,” Eva said with a shrug.

“Now we lack a door,” Sister Cross said, moving her face the bare amount possible to clear her mouth of the pillow. “And a wall. If they attack again, we’re all dead. I’d kill you myself, but…” She groaned, angling her head back into the pillow.

Some muffled mumbles came out that sounded distinctly like she had said, “I’m too tired,” but Eva couldn’t tell for certain.

“I’ll fix it,” Eva said, already concentrating.

It shouldn’t be too hard to restore everything to pristine condition. Creating everything the way it was hadn’t been extremely difficult in the first place, just modifying it all from how she knew it in the real world. Repairing everything shouldn’t be too difficult. They would probably need to get rid of the enigmas though.

That was the plan, anyway. Modifying her domain was always fickle.

Turning to Shalise, Eva said, “I am glad that you’re safe. I was a bit worried when I saw the carnage outside.”

“Non-stop attacks. Never too many at once. Three to five would show up, charge the building, get killed, and then there would be an hour or two before the next one. We’ve been sleeping in shifts, but I can’t do much on my own.” She shot Sister Cross a pitiful glance.

“You could have warned me that I’d be fighting off an invasion force,” Sister Cross grumbled.

“Invasion force?” Eva cocked her head to one side, not that Sister Cross was looking at her to see. “You know something about these creatures?”

“Just what it seems like,” she said, lifting a hand in what might have been a dismissive wave, but was far too incoherent to discern for sure. “Why?”

“Might be accurate to a degree,” Eva said. “We’ve learned that they originate from another plane of existence. What Power calls it their domain, we still don’t know, but invading Hell doesn’t seem too far-fetched.”

Weakening Void to help pull it to the mortal realm? Hard to say without knowing exactly how Void was being brought there.

More of a problem for Zoe, Ylva, and Zagan–if he cared enough to investigate. For now, Eva had more immediate worries.

“Have any made it inside?”

Shalise shook her head. “None. What you did to the windows holds up long enough for Lynn to lightning them up.”

Eva nodded an acknowledgment. That was good, but it didn’t appear sustainable. Given how Sister Cross looked, it was doubtful that she would be able to maintain her defense much longer without help.

“How–” “Have–”

Both Eva and Shalise stopped talking at the same time. Eva gestured for Shalise to go first.

“Have you made any progress in finding a way out for me?”

“Actually,” Eva said, “that’s one of the reasons I’m here, other than to check up on you. I have a couple of questions that may seem strange, but they could be extremely important.

“Have either of you noticed any odd happenings? Nothing related to the enigmas. More like lights flickering and going dark, maybe the walls seeming especially oppressive and dripping blood. Inability to move or speak, difficulty breathing. Anything like that?”

The two glanced at one another. Sister Cross actually managed to peel her head off the pillow. That effort was quickly used to shoot a glare in Eva’s direction.

“Am I going to have to deal with freezing up in the middle of a fight?”

“No! I mean, I hope not.” Eva waved her hands in front of her, attempting to placate the angry woman. “But neither of you experienced any of those things?”

“I think I would have noticed the walls dripping with blood.”

Shalise shook her head. “Haven’t seen anything either.”

Eva sighed with a frown. “Oh.”

“What’s with that reaction? Is the walls dripping with blood supposed to be a good thing?”

“Well, it would be a thing. Maybe a thing that would help with something else, but no matter.” Eva shook her head. “How long has it been since the last attack?”

Shalise tilted her head to one side as if listening. She tapped her finger against her head a few times before shooting a frowning glance at the face-down Sister Cross. “I don’t think it will be long before the next one. They aren’t entirely regular, but it has been a while.”

“Alright,” Eva said. “Sister Cross, get some sleep. I’ll handle this next attack. Before and after that,” Eva turned to Shalise, “we should probably build up some better defense and dispose of the bodies. They don’t die entirely, so as long as they’re here, they might join in a fight.”

“I can–” Sister Cross started. She was pushing herself up off the bed.

Shalise snapped to her feet and pulled Sister Cross’ arms out from under her, sending her crashing back to the soft embrace of the bed.

“You can get rest for when Eva can’t be here. I’m not helpless and she less so.”

Smiling at the great Sister Cross getting a talking down by her daughter, Eva stepped out of the room before any arguments could start.

She had work to do.

And something of an idea of what to do.

The enigmas that had been struck by the white lightning were a whole lot more dead than the ones that had merely been spiked to ‘death.’ If she could somehow incorporate that into any traps she created, and maybe the doors and windows, the burden on Sister Cross should decrease by a fairly dramatic amount.

Eva wasn’t sure that she could replicate what was undoubtedly Death magic. For all Eva knew, it was completely untouchable without a boon of one kind or another from Death Himself. The eyes served as that for the nuns, Eva was fairly certain of that. But Zoe had failed while trying to cure Eva and magical theory was her specialty.

Zoe lacked one thing that Eva had.

A domain. A domain that could do all kinds of impossible things.

Eva had seen the lighting in action. She had even felt its effects on multiple occasions. While it was true that she hadn’t ever casted it, she had never built a prison either. Her domain was perfectly capable of recreating that.

A light cough behind her pulled Eva out of her musings. She turned to find Shalise shutting the door to the bedroom.

After taking one look around the debris-filled common room, Shalise shook her head. “Went overboard much?”

Eva could see herself dawn a light blush. “I just don’t know my own strength.”

“Clearly,” Shalise said, voice flat. “Did your domain help you out? Or could you do the same thing in the real world?”

“That’s…” Eva frowned, “a good question. I can’t say I’ve tried creating an explosion of this magnitude on the mortal plane. However, if my domain was helping me, it’s a jerk. It should have just opened the door like I had originally wanted.”

Shalise fell silent, her gaze drifting towards her feet. “I was wondering… I mean, not that this place hasn’t protected us, but shouldn’t we move?”

“Move? Out of the women’s ward?”

Prisons were, by definition, made to resist unwanted entrances and exits. The only places more protected would be military fortresses and maybe bank vaults. Though bank vaults lacked most amenities that made living possible. Not really a problem here, Eva could probably create the whole women’s ward within a bank vault if she tried hard enough.

Probably.

“I suppose I could change things around a little bit. What did you have in mind?”

But Shalise shook her head. “I-I mean, move out of your domain.”

Eva narrowed her eyes. She had the feeling that she knew where this conversation was headed. Asking anyway, Eva said, “to where?”

“P-Prax’s domain. I could control things there like you do here. So I thought it would be better if we didn’t… you know, have to hope that you come by to fix things up if they go wrong. And I could make more active defenses, right? Traps in his castle. And he has a castle, which is as good a defense as the women’s ward right?”

Closing her eyes, Eva crossed her arms. Yep, she thought, as I guessed.

“Sounds like a decent idea.” Snapping her eyes open, Eva bored her eyes into Shalise. “I have just one question. Was this Prax’s idea?”

Shalise flinched like she had known the question was coming. “He… may have brought it up once. Or twice. A handful of times.”

“I thought so. Last time you were there, your positions were reversed. You were in the back of your mind with him in control. Yet you had power over his domain. What if it is different this time? What if you don’t have control over his domain?”

Tilting her head off to one side as she often did when listening to Prax, Shalise nodded a few times before speaking. “In his words: I have more reason to protect this–” Shalise winced. Shaking her head, she said, “I think I’ll paraphrase instead. He’s scared of Zagan and of going back to the prison.”

“So you think that he will protect you.” It was a fairly selfish reason. That made it much more believable than him protecting Shalise out of the goodness of his heart. “With that in mind, I have one more question. Do you trust Prax?”

“No,” she said without hesitation. That brought a small smirk to Shalise’s face. Probably for Prax’s sake, though Eva wasn’t certain that Prax could even tell if she was smiling or not.

“But in this case, I do,” she said as her smile slid off. “I can feel what he feels, and I feel sincerity and fear.” Her head tilted to one side again. “Yes you are. Don’t deny it.”

“Alright,” Eva said before Shalise could get further in her one-sided conversation. “If you think it is best, I won’t stop you. Of course, I’m not about to explain the situation to Sister Cross. That can be your job.”

Shalise gave a nervous chuckle. “Maybe we should stay here.”

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006.019

Posted on August 25, 2016November 20, 2021 by Tower Curator

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Irene sat in her seat, shifting back and forth.

Her first day back in diablery class had her feeling intensely nervous. She had been the one to cause the brief intermission in their lessons.

Surprisingly enough, the rest of the class wasn’t staring at her in one way or another. She had expected a glare or two at least. She did almost cause them injury–from their perspective. Or worse.

Perhaps those that were the type to glare had already been kicked out of class.

Those that were left tended to all sit on their own. Few spoke with one-another. In fact, only two were whispering amongst themselves. Susie Bobo and Rachael Davis. Everyone else was either writing in notebooks, reading, or staring towards the front of the classroom.

It wasn’t hard to guess what they were staring at. Catherine was back to her demonic form–sans clothes and all.

Irene was trying to ignore her as much as possible. Catherine, Irene had decided, was pure trouble.

At least Eva was present this time. She was far more sensible than Catherine.

“Mind if I sit here?”

Irene glanced up. She only managed to suppress a groan through biting her tongue.

Randal.

She wasn’t sure how to feel about the white-haired boy. On one hand, he was obviously an idiot. What with wanting to ‘spruce up’ a summoning circle. On the other hand, he had saved her from Drew.

Anyone who didn’t like Drew had to be a good person, right?

The question was a matter of whether or not he could overcome his idiocy and learn from his mistakes.

“Sure,” Irene said. Might as well give him a chance.

At the first sign of him causing unnecessary danger with his antics, Irene would be speaking with Eva.

“Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?”

Randal took his seat and pulled out a book. “Still have a good three minutes,” he said, flashing a smile. “Plenty of time to get some emergency studying in before tomorrow’s test.”

Irene shook her head. How irresponsible. Leaning forward, she tried to catch a glimpse of what subject he had a test in by the cover of the book. None of her professors had mentioned any tests, but Randal was a full two years ahead of her. What subjects would an older diablery student be taking?

Printed in a floral manuscript on the cover of the tome were the words Enchanting and Warding, the Entwined Arts.

“You’re taking enchanting and warding?”

“Just warding, though I took enchanting intro last year. Interested?”

Irene shifted. “I was interested in them. Now I’m reconsidering just how respectable they are if someone like you is taking them.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“You strike me as the sort of person who is lazy to the extreme and who insists on doing things their own way. Someone who would succeed in more free-form artistic subjects.”

Harrumphing, he said, “I’ll have you know, warding requires plenty of artistry and imagination. If you just follow the book, any two-bit ward breaker can unravel your wards in seconds. Out in the real world, nothing is more respectable than a good warder. Except, perhaps, a ward breaker.”

“Ward breakers are respected?” That didn’t sound right. Criminals breaking into places they shouldn’t had to be on the opposite end of the respect spectrum. But then, anyone in diablery class had to have their perspectives skewed.

Irene had a brief thought about whether or not that applied to herself as well.

“Of course,” Randal said, oblivious to her thoughts. “Someone dies and their family can’t get into their home, or room, or safe. Who gets called? Ward breakers. Can’t sell a house with half the property warded off, can you? Or think about the villainous hideouts, ancient crypts, and other such areas that regular mage-knights can’t break into easily. They’ll hire on a breaker to get them in.

“But don’t take my word for it. Sign up for warding next year. It’s a blast. And the professor is completely insane.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good quality for a professor to have,” Irene said with a frown.

Randal shrugged. “Oh, she’s good at her job. Don’t doubt that. Just don’t be surprised when you walk into class and find her standing on the ceiling. Or wind up going through class backwards.”

Irene blinked. “How does–”

“Alright,” Eva said, interrupting their conversation. “I heard you all had an interesting class last time.”

You could say that again.

“Unfortunately, I was off being attacked by an insane nun of the Elysium Order. But don’t worry, I, and a few experts, had a chance to examine the thing. I thought I’d give you a little update on the creature that we’re calling an enigma.”

Irene blinked. Again. Elysium Order? What?

“You can’t just say that and expect us to ignore it,” someone said, echoing Irene’s thoughts.

Eva had the audacity to look confused. Clarity lit up in her eyes after a moment of thought. “Oh, sorry. It was a tautology, I know. What member of the Elysium Order isn’t insane?

“Anyway, that creature is something that has been infesting Hell as of late. They are not demons and, in fact, share more in common with zombies than actual living creature. They don’t have a virus that will infect you upon contact with their blood, but they’re almost impossible to kill permanently. Their organs will keep working even after their apparent death and they’ll slowly regenerate. Freezing it solid was probably the best choice, so good job to whoever thought of that.”

Irene had to agree there. While she was sure that Catherine could have done something more than get held up by its tentacles, locking it in a block of ice tidied everything up without much mess.

A dislocated shoulder was comparatively easy to explain away to the nurse and anyone she could have passed by in the halls. Being covered in blood was not.

Catherine set her phone down for the first time since she walked into the room. Looking out over the classroom, her eyes narrowed.

Until her gaze crossed Irene. Then, she smiled.

Irene shuddered.

“From now on,” the succubus said, “anytime we do any summoning in class, you must use what your books call tier three shackles. Those should hold the ‘enigmas’ without issue. At least long enough for us to deal with it.”

Eva clapped her hands together. “Now, since your summoning was interrupted last time, I’d feel bad if the rest of you didn’t get to at least make an attempt.”

Irene groaned. Eva was supposed to be the sensible one. The one who says that they still need more studying before any more attempts.

The class really needed proper supervision.

— — —

Martina Turner sat at her desk. The reports coming in were all positive. Not a one had her feeling down.

Average student attendance was up. Either the professors were being more interesting than normal or there was less reason to skip class.

Some of it might be related to the fact that zero teachers were on leave for any reason. No illnesses or worse. Less substitutes meant the students were less likely to skip. The regular teachers held more authority in that they could easily see who was absent and give them penalties.

No one wanted to flunk out of what was commonly seen as one of the worst magic academies on the continent. If they couldn’t succeed here, they couldn’t succeed anywhere.

The only substitute who managed to retain her students was Catherine. That was something of an interesting data point, though not wholly unexpected. Succubi simply had that certain allure that drew people to them.

Perhaps it would be a wise idea to order Catherine to sit in on classes randomly. Students would attend more in hopes of being in her presence.

Had to keep the numbers up, after all.

Especially with all the troubles plaguing the academy in the last two years.

There hadn’t been an incident in almost four months.

A record, Martina thought with a sarcastic tone.

Despite that long stretch of relative peace, word had definitely spread. Especially regarding the zombie incident under Dean Halsey’s tenure and the more recent demon-hybrid attack.

Established families, even those that couldn’t afford it, were looking at other academies to send their children to. Safer academies.

Pathetic.

The magical side of the world was a dangerous side of the world. Maybe that wasn’t true, and it was just that mages were more aware of the dangers that existed, but there was no reason to coddle children. Best expose them to it while in a relatively safe environment. Smash any preconceived notions about their safety as a mage early on.

Based on her security team’s handling of the hybrid incident, Martina felt confident in saying that Brakket Magical Academy was safe.

Relatively.

There were a handful of families that were not afraid. At least, not more afraid than they were interested. Her strategically leaked information about the diablery class was drawing in a few new student applications for next year, even a few prospective transfers for the later years.

Martina set her reports down on her desk and leaned back in her chair. She took out a bottle from the bottom drawer of her desk. Pouring herself a small glass of Hellfire, she pondered just what to do about school attendance.

They didn’t need money. The school governors had ensured that much. As such, families with a good amount of disposable money were not required.

But they did need fresh young bodies.

The parties interested because of the diablery were not enough to outweigh those leaving. Just enough to mitigate the damage, somewhat.

They still needed more.

Those extra bodies would have to come from first generation mages inducted as freshmen.

Martina scrawled a note down to ensure that the professors were well aware of their targets before the next round of student-hunting.

Not a hard task. Many first generation mages slipped through the cracks every year, condemned to go through their lives ignorant of the fact that they could be one of those rumored magic users.

Of course, having first generation mages wasn’t a bad thing. They would come into the magical world with open minds.

And would be far less prejudiced than their more magical-lineage-inclined counterparts.

No parents to tell them what magics were good and what were bad. No stories passed down to ‘warn’ them of certain types of magical creatures.

In other words, first generation mages would be far easier to induct into diabolical methods of magic.

Of course, it was dangerous. Not so much because of the demons, but because of fellow humans. Too noisy, and they would attract the attentions of demon hunters.

Eventually, such a thing wouldn’t be a concern. They would become powerful enough to defend themselves. A handful of students, all able to order multiple demons into battle, would wipe the floor with most assailing forces.

Unfortunately, that would be far off, relatively speaking. There were–Martina glanced down at one of the reports–a mere eight students remaining in the current class. None of them had formed any kind of proper contract yet.

For the time being, Martina would have to rely on herself, Catherine, the security force, and Zagan. And Zagan was far from reliable.

After his antics involving the missing students, Martina was almost doubling the priority of finding a way to dismiss him without winding up killed herself.

Aside from them, Eva had a small contingent of demons following her. A force that she might be inclined to use to help out the academy in the face of danger. But, like Zagan, Martina did not find the young diabolist reliable in the slightest.

Martina started as her door opened with a click.

Catherine hadn’t said a word.

Slacking again?

Martina shook her head, shaking off both the unexpected arrival and the missing Catherine.

Obviously she was off tending to her class, thereby allowing Anderson to walk in unannounced.

There goes my good mood for the day.

Anderson never brought good news.

“Something I can do for you, Mr. Anderson?”

He took a moment to dally about the entrance of her room. Removing his coat and hat, placing them on the rack, and then straightening out his suit gave him plenty of time to change up what he wanted to say based on who was in the room. He had a markedly different personality whenever Zagan was present.

It also meant that he was planning on staying for some time.

With a barely concealed groan, Martina reached down into her desk and withdrew a second glass. She tipped it in his direction, a silent question.

He, thankfully, shook his head. “No thank you, Martina. I’m here on business. Afterwards, I must depart for a meeting with the other governors.”

“Suit yourself,” she said as she replaced the glass. The less Hellfire liquor she had to waste on others, the better. “This business?”

He didn’t appear outwardly angry with her. That was good at least. Ever since he had shown up talking about two missing students, they hadn’t been on the best of terms.

Or rather, Martina was fairly certain that she only managed to keep her job through being the one holding Zagan’s contract.

“Unpleasant,” he said.

Of course it is, Martina thought.

“The Elysium Order has suspended operations in North America.”

Martina winced. “The entire continent? I was unaware that we had such a large impact on them.”

“One of our other ‘test runs’ down south may have had a brief run in with them as well. But this has two direct implications, neither pleasant and both affecting Brakket.

“First and most obvious, the pressure on everything they hunt will be off.”

“And that includes necromancers. Including the one that attacked the academy twice.” Martina reached out to her glass and took a long drink. “Why did they have to announce it? This is only going to make their job harder when they restart their crusade. Vampires will be out of control. Liches too. Even ones that aren’t here already will be looking to move to where the Elysium Order is not.”

“As of this time, the Elysium Order has submitted several bounties to the Royal Guild of Mage-Knights. Time will tell how effective the guild is in keeping undead under control.

“More importantly, they explicitly cited demonic interference as their reason for suspending operations.”

Martina froze mid drink.

That was… bad.

Downing the rest of her Hellfire in a single gulp, Martina slammed the glass on the desk, shattering it. She swept the shards off of her desk, ignoring the small cuts she got on her hand.

“Any two-bit hunter will easily be able to glance at recent Elysium deployments and make guesses at what they are talking about.”

“Indeed,” he said. “Keep your head down. Act like everything is normal. Gather students as usual and continue with the program. The others have agreed, given Zagan’s revelation, the program must continue. A handful of hunters aren’t going to save us from an apocalypse.”

Martina grit her teeth.

Anderson had stood up, but she was only scarcely paying attention.

The stooges of the board of governors now thought diablery lessons were a good idea? Just a few months ago, they were considering terminating the project.

Saving the world? Is that what they expect of me? Even ten thousand diabolists wouldn’t be capable of stopping an uncountable number of demons. And she had eight? Assuming no more dropped out, that is.

Well, it will certainly get me in the history books, Martina thought. If there’s anyone left to write them, that is.

Martina shook her head. Problems for later. For now, she had more immediate problems.

Hunters.

As if sensing her thoughts, Anderson glanced back over his shoulder. “I’ve put in motion a handful of projects that should keep the hunters off your back for a time. Hunters will find pockets of demons suddenly popping up all around the country. But don’t count on it occupying them for long. Sooner or later, someone will look into Brakket.” He plucked his bowler from the rack and placed it on his head, adjusting it side to side, slightly. “Be prepared.”

Martina scoffed as he walked out the door. “Be prepared,” she mocked.

Easy to say.

But what to do?

Pulling her spare glass from her desk, Martina started to pour herself a new glass. Halfway through, she stopped.

She drank straight from the bottle until it was half empty.

“I think I need more security personnel.”

— — —

Laughter.

Maniacal laughter.

It was about all she had heard in the recent weeks. Enough to drive her insane.

“It’s a gift,” her father shouted. Fingers stained purple, her father held up what she would guess was a heart. She had seen plenty of hearts in her life. Most came from humans, but she had dissected animals under the strict guidance of her father numerous times before moving on to humans.

The blob of meat held in her father’s hand was far too smooth and spherical to be a proper heart. The only imperfections that she could see from the neighboring table were the arteries and veins that jutted from the orb.

“A genuine boon from a Power,” her father continued, grin stretching from ear to ear.

Des wanted to ask just what he was talking about, but her father had yet to see fit to remove the stitchings binding her mouth closed. Left only to watch and speculate, Des spent most of her time waiting for the next outburst of a discovery to help fill in what exactly he was so excited about.

She didn’t have to wait for long. If there was one thing her father loved, it was talking while working.

“Look,” he shoved the heart straight over her face.

Up close, Des could see the pulsating flesh as the heart beat in his hand. As experienced as she was, she didn’t feel the need to count the heartbeats. It should have already stilled based on how long her father had held it in his hands.

Yet it wasn’t even slowing.

“The magic does not merely animate the whole, as is the case with zombies, skeletons, and such. It animates everything. And I can not stop it.”

He spun back around to face the body lying on the other table, laughing as he turned.

“Watch the panel, honey.”

Des strained her neck. A panel of lights sat at the head of the table. Her father had designed it to connect to a subject’s brain through wires and monitor activity. In this case, however, the creature’s brain was no longer attached to the creature’s body. It sat on a small shelf, wires running into it.

The rows of blinking lights weren’t too surprising. The human body maintained some level of activity for a handful of minutes after death. There were more lights blinking than normal for a human brain five minutes postmortem, but that didn’t mean anything. This wasn’t a human brain. They had no benchmark for creatures like this.

As she was watching the blinking lights, her father grabbed a scalpel, spun it between his fingers a few times, and jammed it straight into the severed heart.

Des’ eyes widened of their own accord. A spike of red lights lit up the entire panel.

“Not only is the creature still alive–even demons die upon removing their hearts and brains–but it still feels pain. It is still connected.” He waved his hands around the heart, as if double checking that there weren’t any strands of flesh connecting the organ to the brain.

Satisfied with whatever he found, he turned again to face Des.

“And then it starts healing itself. Slowly, perhaps not as fast as the healing ability most demons possess, but steadily.”

Her father’s eyes caught a glint of the operating theater’s lights, giving them a sinister look. Her father’s too-wide grin widened further as he looked down at her bare, stitch-covered chest.

Des’ heart sank as she watched him lift up his scalpel.

“Time for another installation, honey.”

She had the strangest feeling that her heart wouldn’t be hers for much longer.

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