With a snap of her fingers, all traces of blood on the lab coat had been obliterated using drops of her own blood. She grabbed six vials of Arachne’s blood and sent orbs to obliterate the six arrowheads. She grabbed all of her potions, making sure they were clean, and went back to Shalise’s side.
Eva handed over two light blue vials and a yellow vial. The general remedies would help boost her blood production as well as general pain relief and the yellow vial would help stop the bleeding, though her arm and hand were going to need some serious healing before they went back to normal. If they ever got back to normal.
“Juliana,” Eva said, “see if you can round-up some clothes from the other party goers. It doesn’t need to be a lot, I don’t care if you can’t get clothes for me. Just something for Shalise to wear.”
The blond nodded. She still seemed to be in some sort of shock, but at least she was responding.
“Oh,” Eva said before she left, “don’t touch Arachne. She’s still covered in zombie blood.”
A soft whimper brought Eva’s attention back to Shalise. She knelt down and resumed her hug.
Those necromancers are going to wish they were never born.
Chapter 019
“Terrible night, isn’t it?”
“Is this an attempt at small talk?”
The man grumbled something under his breath.
Zoe took her eyes off searching the streets and glanced at him.
Wayne’s eyes searched the tops of buildings as they walked down the deserted street. He, like her, was fully dressed in his usual black suit. He held a large tome open in one hand as if he was in the middle of reading it. He wasn’t, of course.
Zoe had never understood why he used a tome as a focus. Their storage capacity surpassed staves. One could pen down spells into the tome’s pages to avoid the concentration required for more complicated spells. Wayne never used spells that took advantage of those traits. As far as she could tell, he used the tome like any other focus.
Tomes were heavy and unwieldy, yet it was all he used outside of the classroom.
“Ahead,” he said.
Zoe broke her thoughts and snapped her eyes forward.
Another group of the creatures shambled around the corner of the street.
Six of them looked old and rotted. Two had bright red blood still dripping from their wounds. Their clothes were less torn and one wore a Halloween costume. Fresh victims.
Still, no mercy would be shown. Zoe readied her dagger. She already had to put down one of her students, she only hoped neither of the two fresh corpses were students.
Zoe lanced a lightning bolt at the nearest one’s head. She sustained the bolt for a few extra seconds. A normal person would go down with a heart attack, brain damage, or nerve damage, depending on location and power. A zombie didn’t care about such things.
She held the bolt until the zombie’s eyes exploded. Another few seconds and the zombie crumpled to the ground with smoke rising from its body. The putrid stench of burnt flesh filled the street.
The crack drew the attention of the rest of the creatures.
Wayne didn’t hesitate for a moment. He immediately sent out a blast of fire, enveloping a zombie.
Zoe took a step backwards, casting a heavy wind in the direction of the zombies. Two of them stumbled and fell to the ground. A follow-up razor wind took the head off of another.
Wayne threw a blaze of red fire over the two on the ground and caught a third in the inferno.
Thick shoes clomping behind her made Zoe spin. Out of the alley stumbled one more creature. Wayne was incinerating a zombie to her side. This one fell to her. She raised her dagger and prepared to fire.
A small black sphere splattered against the neck of the zombie from its side. It flashed white a moment after.
The zombie’s head fell to the ground with its body crumpling after it.
Zoe whirled around to where the attack came from.
A woman stood next to a younger black-haired girl. The woman wore a suit–much fancier than Zoe’s own–splattered with blood. The sleeves were torn at the wrist and she had long black gloves tipped in sharp claws. What really drew Zoe’s eyes was the half-black, half-white mask with thin slits for eyes and thick cords that ran from the top of her head down her back.
The black-haired girl quickly placed something behind her back while Zoe was distracted with the masked woman. She wore much more normal pants, tee-shirt and a jacket.
It took a double take before Zoe recognized the girl. Zoe forced herself to relax and put on a calmer face.
“Eva, what are you doing here?”
The young girl looked up at Zoe with cold eyes. “Same thing as you, I imagine; cleaning up the town and hunting necromancers. Found any?”
“You’re covered in blood.” She wasn’t exactly covered in it. Not as much as her companion, at least. There was definitely blood, especially on her hands.
She looked down at herself then back up at Zoe with a small smile. “It isn’t mine.”
Zoe did not match her smile. If the blood was hers, she was injured. Not a good thing when zombies are running around. If the blood wasn’t hers then it was zombie blood.
“Eva,” Zoe started, calmly and slowly, “are you infected?”
The tall figure standing next to her tensed at the comment. Zoe couldn’t tell her facial expression beneath the mask, but she looked about ready to pounce. Judging by the blood dripping off of her clawed gloves as well as over her undamaged clothes, she was quite good at pouncing.
Eva held her hand to the side and gave a small shake of her head. The woman immediately relaxed.
“Don’t worry,” Eva said, “I took an anti-zombie potion.”
Wayne bristled at that. “No such thing,” he grunted.
“People keep telling me that.” Eva crossed her arms beneath her chest. “We’ll see who is a zombie in the morning and who isn’t.”
Zoe didn’t doubt Wayne’s knowledge of potions. She knew of only one way to counteract the infection from a zombie and she did not have a corpse flower handy. “You will become a hindrance if you are infected.”
“So you’re going to kill me then?” Eva half snarled. This time both of them tensed.
Zoe did not like how quickly the girl was ready to fight. She had one hand behind her back. Zoe did not know what was back there except that it was undoubtedly a weapon.
“Quarantine,” Zoe quickly said. “In the morning you can, if you’re you, teach Wayne how to make your potion.”
“Can’t,” Eva said with a wave of her hand, “I didn’t make it. My mentor did. It was delivered by,” she paused and glanced at the tall woman next to her, “his associate.” Eva relaxed, dropping her arm to her side. The woman next to her didn’t.
“Does this associate have a name?”
“Yes.”
“Why’s she wearing a mask?” Wayne asked.
“It’s Halloween, isn’t it?” The woman in the mask had a confident but very artificially modulated voice. Just four words came out like they weren’t being spoken by a proper mouth or vocal cords.
It set Zoe on edge. More on edge than she already was.
“Quarantine, Eva, is–”
“A waste of time. If you have no information on the necromancers behind this, then I believe it is time to go.” She turned, though the woman next to her did not. “Believe it or not, I am mildly fond of you. Don’t try to stop me. It would be… unpleasant.”
“Take one of these at least,” Zoe said. She pulled out one of her business cards and held it out. “If you do find the necromancers, let us know. We can help.”
Eva reached out and almost took it. She pulled her hand back mere inches from the card. “I’d rather not risk getting blood on you,” she said.
Zoe set the card on the ground and took a step back. Eva picked it up.
“If I do use this, I highly recommend not touching either of us without sterilization. Even if we’re badly injured.”