Nel could have searched around for the friend, but that could take a while without a fetter.
The poor girl sat on her bed. She had her wand out, continually casting a spell over and over again. It was the usual routine for her.
If she–Shalise, if Nel remembered correctly–wasn’t hanging around with her friends or at school, she was practicing. Both the blond and the abomination helped her out when she practiced in their presence.
Nel smiled as she rooted for the girl. She’d pieced together what happened to her on Halloween; it was almost impossible not to figure it out when you watched the people involved all day every day. If Shalise could find happiness in becoming a warrior, good for her.
Learning her past brought up conflicting emotions in Nel. Most of her conflict lay with the abomination. She seemed to be a kind person. Nothing outside of what happened the night Nel first saw her hinted at anything. That was more revenge than anything else.
She even saved the daughter of Lynn Cross.
That was another thing she was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to know about. There was no way she would survive beyond the end of this assignment. The leader of Charon Chapter having a daughter? Unthinkable.
Nel sighed as she swapped the two floating brown hairs. The short one moved into position as the long one hovered off to the side to join the long black hair and the demon’s leg.
As usual, Lynn Cross didn’t appear immediately. She didn’t appear at all. There wasn’t even a trail of light detailing the last fifteen minutes of her life.
Just darkness.
Nel rose from the altar, directing the fetters to their storage spots against one wall as she did so. There was no need to check up on the demon. She was right next to the abomination.
Not that the demon ever did anything interesting anyway. She sat almost perfectly still unless the abomination was around.
Time for another bath, Nel thought.
With a spring in her step, Nel moved into the bathroom.
Her new home had a bathroom attached to the master bedroom. She no longer had to round-up the guards to go take a shower. Being able to take one whenever the mood struck her might be the best part about Sister Cross’ failed murder attempt.
It was just another way to separate her from the rest of the nuns. Nel knew this. Nonstop baths made her not even care.
She pulled off her habit and left it crumpled on the floor.
Flipping the ceiling fan on–something that helped with both humidity and frankincense–Nel sat on the edge of the already filled bath. It made too much noise to fill often. Sister Cross would take away this one pleasure if she knew about it.
Taking her focus from her habit, Nel slid the baseball-sized orb underneath the water. She channeled magic into it.
Where she learned thaumaturgy, Nel couldn’t say. She could say that she would be very depressed without it. As the water around the orb started bubbling, it rose to the top of the pool and spread out. Cool water moved in next to the crystal and heated up.
“I am so glad I’m a pyrokinetic.”
Nel shut her eyes as she slipped into the steaming bathwater. She sat and soaked, reclining against the slanted end of the bath. All her tension slipped off into the water and dissipated.
There was something to be said about baths. For one, it wasted time. A simple shower would suffice for cleaning. It also left Nel in a state of idleness. No work got done in the bath. No spying. No sleeping–Nel had tried to sleep once, it didn’t end well.
Yet it was the single most pleasurable thing Nel could remember doing since she became an augur. The water seeped into her skin and she reveled in it.
What she wouldn’t give for a less cramped bath. Nel did not consider herself a very tall woman by any standards, yet knees poked up above the water. Her head rested against the wall with her neck completely out of the water. If she wanted to dunk her head, she’d have to almost completely lift her feet out of the water.
On one of her missions nearly a year ago–just after she became an augur–Charon Chapter had been hunting a cadre of vampires. Nel had been searching for their den. She found it.
The master vampire had a bathtub big enough for his entire coven to–well, it was big. It had these little jets that shot water around.
Nel almost started drooling just thinking about it.
Even with her knees poking out of the water and absolutely no arm room, the bath was still the best part of her day. She spent almost every bit of downtime just soaking.
With a deep sigh, Nel thought for just a moment that she wouldn’t mind staying there forever.
Unfortunately, such a thing was not meant to be. Not only because of the murderous Sister Cross, but also because of the large crash outside the bathroom.
Nel scrambled out of the bathtub. Her foot skidded across the floor. She fell on her back. Pain lanced through one of her eyes as she pulled herself back to her feet.
Another crash outside came with the strangled cries of one of the nuns.
Nel threw on her tunic, ignoring the throbbing pain in her eye. She gripped her focus in her hand. Her scapular, rosary belt, and cross all lay forgotten in a pile.
If this was it, she wasn’t going down without a fight.
She threw open the door, eyes already blazing with white light. Nel was ready to fight off any nuns or necromancers that looked hostile to her.
Neither stood before her.
A man stood with his bare hand shoved deep into a white-robed nun’s chest. His foot plunged through Nel’s scrying altar as she stared.
The moment Nel looked at him, she was hit by an overload of information. She tried to sort through it all.
“Devil,” she started. Augurs weren’t meant for combat. “Asmodeus, subcategory: Mammon? Beelzebub?” Too much information. Her head throbbed. Her eyes stung. She had far too much insight to observe a creature like the one before her.
Nel shut it down.
The demon–devil lunged at her.
She scrambled backwards into the bathroom, falling once again. With her focus, she threw out the largest burst of fire she could.
The thing in front of her laughed. Chuckled?
Nel activated her connection just long enough to send a bolt of lightning straight into his bare chest.
That shut him up.
He took a slow step forwards. His hoofed foot left behind a burning crater as it lifted off the ground.
That would be why he laughed at fire. Nel tried to lick her dry lips. Her tongue was too dry to do any good.
He took another step forward.
I’m going to die here. She almost laughed. He was trying to intimidate her. Toying with her. Before the lightning bolt, he might have just killed her. Now he was mad. I’m going to get pulled apart in the most painful way he can imagine.
At least it wouldn’t be my imagination. Several very unpleasant ways to die flashed through Nel’s mind as she stared in horror.
Death pinged against her. One of her sisters died. The one the demon held. The nun’s passing resonated in Nel’s bones. She had held on for so long with the demon’s hand in her chest.
Nel needed to alert the others.
The demon took another step forward.
She couldn’t spare the concentration. Not now.
Nel closed her eyes and activated her connection again. She blindly fired three bolts of lightning.
If the source had been right–it always was–he was a devil class demon. She might have just tickled him rather than hurt him. Nel kept her eyes closed. She didn’t want to see the end coming.
It didn’t come.
She peeked open one of her eyes.
Nel took in the tiny bathroom. The nun he had had his hand in lay collapsed against the door. Sister Mable’s lifeless eyes stared out at her. The devil wasn’t in sight.
Hot breath stung the back of her neck.
“Boo.”
The bass voice rumbled the floorboards. Nel could feel it through her hands.