“Hunting zombies, and you weren’t cowering. You were watching over an injured friend. That’s far more important than helping random people.”
“Is that all they are to you? Random people?”
“Since you didn’t name any names, even when you mentioned students, I am going to assume that yes they were just random people.”
“They were people with lives, Eva.” Juliana stopped again and turned to face Eva. Eva was more ready for the stop, she didn’t have to dodge this time. “People who might have been eventually in your life if they wouldn’t have died.”
Eva frowned. Juliana seemed to be taking this conversation more personally than she should. “Did someone you know die, Juliana?”
“Not really,” she said. She turned and resumed walking. “I heard Mr. Toomey died.”
“He, well, probably didn’t deserve it,” Eva lied. “Thousands of people die every day that don’t deserve it and you don’t worry over them. Just because some died close to us–physically, not emotionally–does not mean we should lie down and act differently than normal.”
“That’s a cold way of looking at it.”
“Maybe so. There isn’t much I can do about it, especially after the fact. I’ll concern myself with those close to me before I worry about others.”
Eva wondered how true that actually was. The closest people to her before was a very short list consisting mostly of Devon. Arachne probably got on the list sometime more recently, but neither of those two really needed to be concerned over. Arachne was nigh-immortal and Devon was Devon.
Nowadays she had friends. Real ones. Probably. Did she concern herself over Juliana? What did that even mean? It sounded good when she said it, but now it started feeling weird.
How do people even know if they’re friends anyway?
My world was simpler when there were fewer people in it.
Juliana didn’t say anything the rest of the way. Eva wasn’t complaining. She doubted friends often talked about such morbid topics.
Eventually they came to a stop in front of a homely little cafe stuck between some decrepit looking buildings in town. A faded signboard let customers know the shop was called The Liddellest Cafe.
It was a quaint little cafe. Painted on red roses and giant mushrooms adorned the window. Glowing yellow eyes and a teeth filled grin were reflected in the window, but nothing was there when Eva turned to look. A magic trick of some sort, Eva thought. A neat little effect, even if the red spots on the teeth were a little odd.
“Well, don’t make a fool of yourself,” Juliana said, “she’ll tease you as long as she knows you.” She paused with her hand on the door. “And let’s try to keep the conversation light, shall we?”
Eva nodded in agreement. She’d had enough with heavy for one day.
Juliana opened the door and stepped through the large horseshoe that framed the doorway. She walked straight to a corner booth–a large table that seemed to be a giant clock–with only a nod towards one of the staff behind the counter.
The place smelled strongly of tea, Eva noted as she followed. Not the worst of smells, in fact it was quite good, but the cafe was missing a good food smell.
In her distraction, Eva missed a portion of the conversation. She perked up at her name being mentioned.
“–my roommate, Eva.” Juliana gestured to her side.
Eva gave a light nod of her head. “Hello.”
The woman didn’t respond. She just gave Eva a long look from head to toe. Eva decided to respond in kind.
Juliana was definitely her daughter. An older set of the girl’s piercing blue eyes stared over the rims of smaller circular sunglasses. They had the same shade of blond hair, though the mother’s was twisted into two short braids reaching just to her shoulders rather than flowing freely down her back.
She wore fairly revealing clothes though she didn’t have much to reveal. Eva’s eyes flicked to a heavy fur coat sitting over the back of a nearby chair. Her clothes did show off a very impressive set of muscles on her stomach and arms. Two knives hung off of a loose belt. They were probably foci similar to the one Zoe Baxter used.
The only real difference other than size was the number of scars running the entire length of the woman’s body. A particularly nasty one covered one eye and ran up to a small bald spot on her scalp.
A hand jutted out in front of her so suddenly, Eva had to stop herself from reaching for her own dagger. Eva took the offered hand with her own.
She immediately regretted the decision.
Juliana’s mother crunched down on Eva’s hand. It took all her effort to keep from wincing and to return the shake as hard as she could. She had a sudden wish for some of the strength Arachne possessed. Sadly Devon wasn’t expecting any drastic physical changes of that nature until far past ninety percent of the treatments, if not for several years after the treatments were finished.
Still, it seemed enough for the amazon in front of her. She barked out a short laugh and said, “Genoa Rivas. I take it you aren’t the roommate she spent a while caring for after Halloween?”
“No, that would be Shalise. I’m Eva.”
“The missing one then?”
Eva shot a quick glance at a shrugging Juliana. “I wasn’t missing. I knew exactly where I was. For the record, my guardian was considering taking me out of school over the ‘incident.’ I do believe the Elysium Sisters plaguing the town convinced him otherwise.”
Genoa Rivas shot her daughter a pointed look. Juliana returned it in full force.
“Plaguing? Interesting term to use.”
“Sorry, slip of the tongue. I meant infesting.”
After a short laugh, Genoa Rivas said, “at the very least, they’ll keep zombies from walking the streets unchecked.”
“Hopefully,” Eva conceded. “Might I have my hand back?”
She gave one tight squeeze before releasing Eva’s hand. “To be honest,” she said as she sat in the chair with the fur coat, “I don’t like them either. They’re a sneaky bunch that use odd magics. They don’t play by mage-knight rules when hunting their targets. I had to work with one condescending bitch wearing their robes one time. Worst job I ever took.”
“Turn out poorly?” Eva wondered if that was the story behind her scars.
Juliana shot Eva a glare. She then sighed and buried her face in her hand.
Eva just quirked an eyebrow.
Turns out, it wasn’t. An hour later, Juliana and Eva finished their meals while Genoa Rivas barely touched hers. She was too engrossed in telling her story.
The south coast of Africa had a vampire plague at one point in time. She had been bitten thanks to her partner using her as bait. She even showed the two round spots on her neck as proof, they had barely faded even after twenty years.
Despite the vampire not even performing the kindling ritual, the nun tried to attack Genoa due to her being ‘tainted’ by the undead. She’d escaped and didn’t know what happened to the nun. That she wasn’t being chased by sisters meant the nun was either dead or the rest of the order had better sense than their overzealous sister.
“But enough about me. I’m sure two youngins like yourselves think you have better things to do than listen to an old has-been blabber on.”
“Not at all, Miss Rivas. It was very interesting,” Eva said in her best polite voice. “You seem like the kind of person who has a lot of stories to tell.”
“Don’t egg her on or we will be here all day,” Juliana stage whispered.
“Oh, look at you, acting all standoffish in front of your friend.” Genoa Rivas looked to Eva and held up a hand to her mouth before doing her own stage whispering. “She used to ask me to tell her a story every night before bed. Couldn’t get to sleep without one.”
Eva shot a small smile at the sighing blond.
“Well, I’ll let you to get back to whatever youngsters get up to these days.” She stood and slid over to Juliana. “Come on, Juli, give your mother a goodbye kiss.”