She slumped against the ground, resting while letting the Psalm level healing course through her body. It wouldn’t fix her broken bone, or her larger cuts, or her burned chest. It was, however, an excellent pain reliever. At least for the minor injuries.
Soft, lush, roadside grass became Lynn’s cushion as she laid back and stared up at the night sky. She watched the stars with wonder. Nothing like a near death experience to make one appreciate all of existence. Not that Lynn ever wished for near death experiences. They just happened, and far too commonly for her tastes.
With a start, Lynn nearly teleported straight back to that street. Shal was still in that city. If that demon decided to go on a rampage when Lynn vanished… Thoughts swirled in her mind. She bit her lip until she bit through it.
Lynn slowly sank back into the grass.
Shal was friends with Eva. Eva had tricks of her own, and was probably in cahoots with Zagan. There were two academy staff standing with them. Those two, at the very least, wouldn’t allow the students to be harmed. One of them had thrown himself at her to protect a student.
On the other hand, Lynn returning could endanger her daughter if another fight started up.
She’d wait. It went against every instinct she had. Lynn would wait anyway.
And if anyone harmed Shal, she’d raze Hell herself using whatever means she could get her hands on.
Headlights in the distance broke Lynn out of her thoughts. She stood up and waved the truck down with a palm full of white fire. Of course, Lynn used her good arm to do so.
The eighteen-wheeler truck that carried artifacts and equipment slowed to a stop. Other, more habitable vehicles behind it followed its example.
Lynn walked up to the artifact truck and hopped into the vacant passenger seat.
“Sister Cross,” Sister Cole said with no small amount of surprise in her voice. Her eyes drifted up and down Lynn’s sorry state. “I didn’t–I mean, are you well?”
Lynn snorted. The snort turned into a full bout of laughter. What a stupid question. “Well enough,” she said. “Get us home.”
“Yes, Prioress,” Sister Cole said. “Of course. Right away.”
Lynn leaned back into the seat as the convoy started up moving again. It took mere moments before she felt sleep take her.
Chapter 021
You saved my life. I’ll spare yours.
This one time.
Do not test my goodwill.
Eva frowned as Arachne read the three lines again. There was no signature, but it didn’t take a lot of guesses to figure out the sender. Eva could only recall saving one life in her recent memory.
Maybe. Zagan agreed to not kill her. As long as he was planning on following through with that, Eva didn’t actually need to interfere.
How Sister Cross got the note onto her pillow without either waking Eva or alerting Arachne was somewhat worrying.
A pulse of magic had Eva’s hand lit with thaumaturgical fire. She plucked the note from Arachne’s claws and crushed it in her fiery hand. The note evaporated into ash. She frowned again as she felt her fire die down.
Her master’s flames were green. Unless something changed in the last few months, her flame was a reddish-orange. Eva wasn’t certain there was anything more than a cosmetic difference. Still, perhaps it was time to ask for another lesson.
Perhaps not. Green fire would draw all kinds of attention. She had enough to go around with the gloves and blindfold as it was.
Eva set her unblemished claw down and looked over her sleeping roommates.
Juliana sprawled out over her bed with one arm hanging off. Her mouth was wide open and, while Eva couldn’t actually see it, there was little doubt a small pool of drool had gathered on the pillow.
Shalise was the exact opposite. She had curled up in a ball and stayed there ever since they returned the previous night. Every so often a shiver would run down her spine. A nightmare perhaps. Her heart rate was slightly elevated.
Neither Juliana nor Eva had mentioned their nocturnal activities, though word of the riot spread through the dorms like wildfire before some professors ushered everyone to their rooms.
As far as Eva knew, Shalise was not aware of her relationship with Sister Cross. They were friends in a sort of weird, generation-boundary-crossing way.
Still, Shalise clearly cared for the nun. She worried over her and hadn’t fallen asleep for a good portion of the night.
Eva flopped back down on her pillow. It was too early to think. Even discounting the late night she’d had. Arachne curled up alongside Eva, though she was at full alertness. Eva wouldn’t have a problem sleeping through the rest of the morning with that vigil over her.
I hope you appreciate what I did, Eva thought at Shalise as she shut her eyes.
Not that she ever intended to tell.
— — —
Lynn Cross fidgeted in the lobby of the Rickenbacker. She wore no coif, no scapular, no rosary, not even a robe. Simple jeans and a tee-shirt did not fit her.
To say it felt awkward would be an understatement.
Headquarters almost relieved her of command over Charon Chapter. She lost Nel, several members of Charon Chapter, and had the public turned against the Elysium Order. The public relations nightmare had been the biggest complaint, followed by the missing augur.
Nel’s disappearance weighed heavily on Lynn’s mind. They didn’t even have a body to perform the final prayers and ministrations upon. Headquarters declared her dead, though they planned to follow the procedure for all rogue augurs. Her blood would be watched nearly twenty-four hours a day for a full year.
Lynn did not hold out much hope.
As a last chance gesture, Lynn was being sent off to some town in Central Africa. Some upstart lich needed its phylactery destroyed and sent on to meet its maker. If the mission was a failure, or even a success with significant losses, Lynn would be relieved of her command.
They weren’t even going to give her augur support.
If she did fail, Lynn wasn’t sure what would happen. She did know that there was a semblance of regret regarding her own vial of blood stored in the Elysium Order’s vaults.
The mission had to be a success.
Lynn sighed as she leaned back in the lobby chair. Everything had become such a mess. She still wasn’t sure who to blame it on. The necromancers, probably. They were always a good target for blame. Eva somewhat.
Herself, as well.
Finding out about the darker aspects of Eva woke a streak of paranoia and mistrust. Overwhelming worry for Shal followed close behind. She was blinded. She ignored the teachings, lectures, and rules of the Elysium Order by focusing so much on Shal.
Plenty of people could have died due to some rogue poltergeist while Lynn stuck around trying to deal with a situation that no one in the Elysium Order was qualified to handle.
Worst of all was that Lynn still was not sure if she had overreacted, or if she hadn’t reacted enough. Eva still wandered the halls of school. She still slept in the same room as her daughter.
Yet she worried about calling in proper demon hunters. They were known to apply scorched earth policies to anything they deemed corrupted by Void.
Shalise walked into the room while Lynn thought. She walked just behind a chattering Eva and their blond friend. Shal looked… lost. She had a smile on, but it didn’t reach her eyes. They were empty and stared at nothing in particular as she walked behind her friends.
“Shal,” Lynn said as she stood up.
All three of the girls stopped in their tracks. The two who weren’t Shal looked on with a hint of confusion. Her daughter didn’t.
A smile crossed Shal’s face. It quickly twisted to a frown before returning to a soft smile. “S-Sister Cross,” she started.