Eva wanted to take Arachne’s legs. She truly did. She almost went ahead with it more than once. The only thing still holding her back was not wanting to give Arachne the satisfaction. The spider-demon was being punished.
That, and the nun in front of her. Sister Cross seemed to be able to see through her clothes. Not that Eva could really complain about being able to see through things. She was far more acquainted with the intimacies of everyone’s biology than she ever wanted to be.
Sister Cross’ sigh brought Eva out of her thoughts. “Shal is coming back.”
“Good for her.”
“Despite my urgings, she doesn’t want to change roommates.” Another sigh escaped Sister Cross’ lips. “She yelled at me.”
“Good for her,” Eva said with a smile.
A hand reached out and gripped the sides of Eva’s jaw. “I swear, Eva. One toe out of line and I will kill you. You hurt Shal in the slightest–”
“Why would I save her if I wanted to turn around and hurt her,” Eva said through Sister Cross’s hand.
The nun released Eva with a light shove. She turned her back to Eva, not that such a thing mattered to her vision. “I expect you to catch her up in all her classwork. If you are anything but an exemplary friend, I’ll know.”
“I would do that without your orders. I’m sure Juliana will be willing to help with things I can’t.”
Sister Cross gave Eva an evil eye. She all but stormed out of the room.
Such an annoying woman, Eva thought as she headed back towards the party room.
The party seemed over, at least from outside the room. Only Juliana and Irene were inside. They looked like they were putting tables and chairs back in their spots.
Juliana immediately turned to Eva as she walked in. “What was that about?”
“Shalise is coming back. Sister Cross asked me to help her catch up.”
“Why did a nun tell you Shalise was coming back?” Irene asked.
Juliana answered, “Sister Cross knew Shalise before school. She apparently was a sort of family friend.”
Irene quirked her eyebrow and said, “it will be nice to see her again.”
“I was wondering if she would come back,” Juliana said as she shoved a table against one wall. “After what happened… I just wasn’t sure.”
Eva helped the finishing touches on cleaning the room. They went up to their rooms and parted ways with a merry Christmas.
“Taking a shower,” Juliana said as she jumped into the bathroom.
Eva took a seat at her desk and pulled off her gloves. They had to come off slowly and carefully. She’d torn one set of gloves getting it caught on the tips of her fingers.
Gloves off, Eva stretched out her fingers. Keeping them folded up all day was easily the biggest drawback. It wouldn’t even work if her finger’s joints weren’t weird. Each finger had six joints that could hyper-extend to a ridiculous degree.
None of that made it any more comfortable.
Eva placed the metal plate and Jordan’s necklace on her desk. With a quick swipe of her dagger, a decent sized marble of blood splashed down on the plate.
As she suspected, it was a very intricate etching of herself with a large spider sitting on her head. Arachne would love it.
Eva’s smile disappeared as she pulled open a drawer on her desk and pulled out a black marble. One part had a bright red streak running across it. She mulled it around in her fingers until Juliana popped out of the bathroom.
Eva tossed the gift back into her drawer and slammed it shut.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” Eva said. “Just closed the drawer with too much force.” She wiggled her fingers as if they were at fault.
Juliana gave a light smile and said, “you haven’t crushed anything in weeks.”
“And I didn’t crush anything this time. Just startled by the noise was all.”
While watching Eva cut herself for blood magic seemed to disturb the blond, her new hands were almost fawned over. After the initial awkwardness was settled, Eva almost couldn’t shake her off.
“My turn for a shower?”
Chapter 002
Her hug was only stiffly returned. She pulled away from the target of her embrace and glanced over her friend.
Shalise took one look at Eva and her stomach sank.
“Y-your eyes… that isn’t from when you saved me, is it?”
Eva just tilted her head to the side in a confused look. She leaned slightly against Juliana’s desk. “No. Why would you think that? I was sitting around on the floor holding you for several minutes afterwards.”
That must have been a stupid question, Shalise thought even as she felt her face run hot. “I-I thought it might be some kind of sacrifice. Your eyes for my life or something.” Shalise hung her head.
“Nothing of the sort. I lost my eyes in a mostly unrelated accident a week or so later.” At that, Eva’s thus-far polite smile flashed into a gritting of her teeth for just an instant. It turned back into a smile before Shalise could blink. “The only sacrifice for that was your own. Speaking of, how are your hands?”
Shalise stuck out her hands and flexed her fingers. A deep scar ran lengthwise through one of her hands. “They’re all working. Sister Cross sent a special healer Sister to take a look. Doctors told me that I’d never use my right hand again but after she did her magic, I could move my fingers again.”
“That’s good. I was worried, especially about the zombie bite.” Eva moved a gloved hand to the thin leather strap over her eyes and pulled it up. “I can see for the most part thanks to magic, but I don’t have eyes currently.”
“I… don’t– That’s–” Shalise’s mouth stumbled over what to say. Her brain couldn’t even decide, it was stumbling just as much. The eye socket she held open was gross to look at, but would it be rude to turn away? Shalise didn’t know.
“You’re scaring the poor girl on her first day back,” Juliana said from her place on her bed.
Eva let out a chuckle as she slid the band back down.
Shalise finally settled on a one word response. “Currently?”
“It is a work in progress.”
And Eva said no more. Shalise simply nodded.
“One more thing, something you can’t tell anyone. Only us three, Zoe Baxter, and Sister Cross know.”
Shalise nodded again, though she wondered at the tone Eva used when she said Sister Cross.
Sister Cross had been unusually pushy as of late. When Shalise wanted to go into the dorms without her, Shalise thought she might take her straight back home. Eventually she relented, but only after a good five minutes of Shalise’s best glare.
Eva started pushing up the sleeves of her dark gray school uniform. She had tattoos? No, it wasn’t markings on her skin. Something in her skin curled and twisted away from her elbow. It turned into a solid, shiny black about two inches away and continued all the way down to the edge of her gloves.
“How much do you remember about Halloween?”
“Too much.”
Juliana lightly chuckled, though there didn’t seem to be much mirth in it.
“Good,” Eva said. “You might remember Arachne then?”
“That was,” Shalise paused a moment in thought. Truthfully, she didn’t remember much. Most of it was told to her by Juliana over the next few days. Some things stuck out in her mind; the phantom dancer for one. “That was the person you danced with who killed the zombies? She helped heal me, or cure me, right?”
Juliana’s nod to one side confirmed Shalise’s half-guesses.
“I lost my hands a few weeks after Halloween and Arachne offered her own as replacements.”
“That was… nice of her. I guess.” Was it? It seemed an odd thing to do. Not something Shalise would be interested in offering. Then again, she didn’t know much about magic. “Is she okay just like, chopping her hands off?”
“She’s fine. She’s a demon.”