“If you would have let me warn her…”
“Yeah. Hindsight though.” Eva dismissed Zoe’s concerns with a wave of her hand. “I don’t see a problem with Juliana visiting her. Nel seems somewhat lonely yet generally happy whenever I stop by. I don’t think she likes me, though. More than once have I noticed her looking at me like I was about to kill her.”
“I wonder why.”
“Excuse me, who is Ylva? And Nel?”
Eva turned to face Shalise despite the orientation of her head not mattering for her sight. “The half skeleton demon and her new servant who live at the prison. I think I’ve mentioned them.”
Shalise tapped her lip with her finger. “You might have. I still haven’t been to your prison, you know.”
Zoe stiffened and frowned at Shalise’s implied request.
Eva ignored her. “I’d take you, but it is a good distance away. My method of teleporting isn’t well suited for tagalongs; I think you wouldn’t enjoy it.”
A pout formed on Shalise’s face. She actually pouted. “Juliana got to go.”
“Juliana rode on the back of Arachne or was teleported there by Zoe Baxter. So it is really them that you have to convince.”
Shalise immediately glanced up towards Zoe.
“Absolutely not.”
Eva was about to laugh when Arachne poked her in the back.
Hard.
A little yelp escaped from her lips much to the surprise of the other two. Eva peaked down her shirt, less because she needed to and more to tell Arachne that she was talking to the demon. “Something the matter?”
Two pokes in her shoulder.
“Emergency matter or something we can ignore?”
Arachne said, ‘yes’ before Eva finished the question.
Both Zoe and Shalise stopped their half playful fight when Arachne poked Eva. Zoe’s face turned more worried with each question. “What’s wrong?”
“Arachne needs a place to turn back,” Eva said. The little amphitheater still had a few students loitering around. “The forest should work.”
The same forest behind the amphitheater where Eva had been possessed by a ghost and kidnapped. Eva tried not to get sentimental about such things. It didn’t always work.
Not that she felt afraid of the forest. Eva was quite confident that, should she be possessed and kidnapped again, she’d be able to escape and thoroughly dismantle Sawyer.
Another poke in her back brought Eva out of her thoughts.
“Alright,” she said, “I’m going.”
Only two steps later, Eva realized both Shalise and Zoe Baxter were following close behind.
“You don’t have to come, you know.”
“You mentioned emergency. If this is a danger to students, I can’t sit by.”
“I want to be a part of this too. With the gloves, I can be here for whatever this is too.”
Eva sighed. “The gloves aren’t exactly meant for actual combat. I don’t know what this is, but I might have an idea.”
“Which is?” Zoe asked.
“Wait until we’re at the forest,” Eva said as she continued out of the amphitheater.
A few students glanced in their direction as they walked out. Partially because they were heading away from the dorms and partially because they had Zoe with them, Eva assumed. So long as none of them followed her, she didn’t care.
At the tree line, Arachne popped off Eva’s chest. She skittered around behind a few trees and immediately grew back to her humanoid form.
“There’s another demon out there,” she said before her face had even formed fully.
“Demon?” Shalise and Zoe echoed together, though Shalise stuttered it slightly.
“Out on the outskirts again?” Eva asked.
Arachne shook her head as her hair tendrils sprouted from her scalp. “Closer.”
“Are you really going to make me ask how much closer?”
Arachne opened her mouth to answer. Instead of the demon’s voice, Eva heard a scream coming from the direction of the amphitheater. Several more shouts and screams followed.
Zoe Baxter vanished with a bone chilling blast of cold air.
“So? What do we do?”
“I guess we go help Zoe Baxter,” Eva said. “Shalise, you–”
“I-I’m going with you.”
Eva heaved a greatly exaggerated sigh. “Arachne, keep out of sight with Shalise. Only jump in if there is no one around or I’m in trouble.”
“But I want to fight.” Her needle-like fingers spread apart and clasped back together. “It’s been so long.”
“Stand by what I said.” Eva uncapped her vials of blood and drew out five marbles into a large sphere near her hand. “Let’s go.”
Eva turned and ran back to the stage. Arachne followed behind at a far more dejected pace with Shalise behind her. The poor brown-haired girl didn’t have the powerful legs to keep up. Luckily for her, the amphitheater wasn’t far.
Chaos reigned in the amphitheater. Students were either running or cowering. One lay in a pool of her own blood. Zoe had taken up the defense, putting herself between the retreating students and the demon.
The demon itself was a shorter thing. It came up to about half Zoe Baxter’s height. Three stubby fingers capped each of its hands. A spaded tail sprouted from its backside along with two stunted wings.
Eva doubted they could support the imp in any kind of flight.
Not taking chances with her relatively weak order shield, Zoe intercepted its green fire with large gusts of wind.
Despite its small stature, the imp kept Zoe from launching a proper attack with a mass of fireballs flowing from each hand.
“Shalise,” Eva called out, “try to get the kids who are cowering out of here. Arachne, keep an eye out for a summoner.”
Her orders given out, Eva didn’t bother to ensure they were carried out. She’d trust her friends.
A fifth of the glob of blood in Eva’s hand separated and beelined towards the imp. She had enough blood to do two of the larger disembodied limb attacks; they were far too visible and left too much residue to clean up.
The blood formed a ring around the imp’s arm.
With a clap of Eva’s hands, the blood obliterated.
An arm slapped against the ground as the demon let out a frightened scream. It hopped backwards, turned, and ran.
Weak, Eva thought. She used more than twice that amount to disarm Zagan and that had been a close one.
Two more globs of blood separated from her sphere, leaving a much smaller ball behind.
Before they could impact with the fleeing demon, a bolt of lightning pierced through its chest. Blood and flesh boiled away leaving a six-inch gaping hole.
Once Zoe Baxter raised her dagger to cut off the stream of lightning, the imp collapsed. Its knees hit the ground followed by its face.
Eva frowned as the imp’s body dissolved and sank into the ground.
“You shouldn’t have killed it,” Eva said. “We could have asked it who sent it.”
“No time.” Zoe spun on her heel and ran towards the injured student. She clasped her hand around the student’s shoulders and both vanished.
Eva wandered back towards Arachne with the two globs of blood trailing after her. Rather than replace them in the vials, Eva kept them orbiting her. No sense getting complacent when another attack could occur.
“That was it?” Arachne asked as Eva neared. “I could tell it was weak. I didn’t expect it to be that weak.”
“I know. I barely did anything save give Zoe an opening.”
“Lynn isn’t going to like this,” Shalise said after she jogged up. She nervously rubbed her hands together. “Where did it come from? W-why did it attack?”
Eva shrugged. “It had to have been a distraction for something.”
“Why a distraction?”
“Because,” Arachne drawled, “that imp was pathetic.”
“Unless it was specifically targeting the one student who was injured,” Eva said. “It didn’t accomplish much else.”
Arachne drew in a deep breath. “I don’t smell any unusual demons around.”
“So the summoner is acting without demon support, but doing what? And how was this distracting? A single, easily dealt with demon didn’t even buy five minutes of time. If anything, it tipped us off to the summoner attempting something tonight.”