Fidgeting with her hands, Shalise shifted back and forth in her seat. “I don’t think you’re a bad person. I wouldn’t want you to be stuck in a place like Hell–”
Eva doubted her idea of Hell was anything like its actual form, but she decided not to interrupt.
“–Taking a demonic artifact. I don’t know. I promised Sister Cross that I would keep away from things like that.”
Eva gave what she hoped was her friendliest smile. “That’s quite alright. I’m not forcing anything.” She turned her head to Juliana. “If your mother–”
“I’ll do it,” Juliana said. “Though, I want to be the one to drop it off at your prison.”
A smile worked its way across Eva’s face. “Thanks. I suppose that as long as I’m going to be a demon, I should start doing contracts like accepting the beacon and taking you to the prison in retu–”
“Don’t,” Arachne said slightly louder than normal. “Freely given. You can’t use contracts while giving a beacon.”
“I guess you’ll just have to accept the beacon.” Eva let out a short sigh. “I suppose I might be enticed to take you to the prison for completely unrelated reasons.”
“That will suffice,” Juliana said in a stern voice. It almost resembled the way Zoe Baxter spoke while in full-on lecture mode. A grin spread across Juliana’s face a moment later. “So what do I do?”
Eva held out the black sphere. She dropped it in Juliana’s open palm.
The sphere was just large enough that Juliana couldn’t close her fist around it.
“That was it?”
“I think so,” Eva turned her head towards Arachne, looking for confirmation.
The demon simply shrugged. “When you think about it, there will be a tingle in the back of your skull.”
Eva tried to think about it. The black sphere with a red streak.
She felt something. Not so much a tingle as it was a low buzz.
“I think it worked,” Eva said.
Shalise walked from her bed to Juliana and stared at the sphere. Eva noted that she took care to keep a good foot away from it, even as Juliana tried to give her a better view.
“So,” Shalise said, “you can teleport to it at any time now?”
“Cross-plane only,” Arachne said. At Shalise’s confused look, Arachne rolled her eyes. Or she tried to. Eva imagined she would if her eyes were capable of rolling, in any case. “From Hell to the mortal plane.”
“Still,” Juliana said, “becoming a demon? I don’t have the vocabulary to comment on how cool that is.”
“That is the part you cannot mention to anyone,” Eva said a bit forcefully. “Beacons are not too uncommon. Rare, but not overly so. My treatment is something only I, Arachne, Devon, and now you two know.” She paused as a thought occurred to her. “Ylva too.”
Juliana quirked her head to one side. “Nel?”
“Don’t think so.”
“She slips up and calls you ‘abomination’ on occasion.”
“Oh?” Eva tried on her most vicious grin. “I suppose I’ll mention that to her next time I see her.”
That got a small laugh out of Arachne, even if Juliana and Shalise–more so the latter–didn’t smile.
Chapter 004
Eva stopped at the staircase and stared.
It is a good thing I asked Zoe to wait outside, she thought.
The book showed no one other than herself and Arachne within the building. Clearly that was only partially true.
Part of a person lay halfway up the staircase to the second floor. Two legs and part of a torso. Blood splattered around the walls and ceiling, though there was no sign of anything above his shoulders. All dried to the point where Eva could only vaguely tell it was there in the first place. If she hadn’t been looking for the blood splatter because of the corpse’s presence, she might not have noticed at all.
He should have stopped long before the pain set in, let alone the more explosive parts of the blood ward. The man must not have felt anything. Eva hadn’t kept up with the weather in Florida, but maybe one day was especially cold this past winter. Numbness might account for the lack of digression. That or drugs.
Good to know it is still active.
For half a moment, Eva considered leaving some sort of warning at the base of the stairs for any future explorers of her hospital. She walked over the corpse on her way to the second floor. That would be warning enough.
“Start packing the library. I want every book. Not one left behind,” Eva said to the demon walking a step behind her. If Arachne even took note of the corpse, she did not give any indication. The suitcase she carried smacked into the legs on her way up.
“Slave driving again,” she said with a feral grin. “Ah, how nostalgic.”
“Nostalgic? You only lived here for a day or two.”
“No.” Arachne gave a swipe of her claws through the air. “Not that. The first order you gave me was to collect books.”
“Well,” Eva said as she reached the top of the stairs. “I hope you’re excited. You’re going to be reading a handful of those books to me.”
The grin on Arachne’s face quickly vanished.
For whatever reason, the spider-demon hated reading. She wasn’t bad at it; Eva hadn’t heard her stumble over any words over the past semester. That didn’t stop her from making her distaste for the task clear on multiple occasions.
Getting her to attempt to learn any magic was likewise met with resistance.
“When was it that you were getting your own eyes again?”
“Haven’t even started, though I have a few demons in mind. I would prefer yours, but there would be no hiding them even if we figured out a way to transfer them.” Eva sighed.
While there were plenty of demons with eyes, very few had eyes that looked entirely human. At least not in their natural state, which is what she’d be getting as far as she could tell. Both Zagan and Catherine could hide the slit pupil, colored irises, and black sclera. Zagan’s might actually work, but fat chance of getting those.
She had no ideas on that front and Devon was far from forthcoming in ideas for a solution. He had yet to replace his own arm.
“It is difficult to look for valid eye donors when you’ve got no eyes to both research a subject and see what you’re getting.”
“I will vet every demon you summon for the purpose, but I suggest getting a move on it. You don’t want to get stuck without eyes for eternity.”
“Maybe soon,” Eva said. “Speaking of getting a move on, get to the library. I’ve some things to pack in my room.”
Arachne simply nodded as she walked further down the hallway.
Eva split off towards her old room.
Dust covered most surfaces. It wasn’t all that thick, but it had definitely moved in during Eva’s absence.
Where did I leave it, Eva thought as she moved to her old closet. She rummaged through the few scraps of old clothes she left behind. Most had grown too small for her, doubly so with Arachne’s legs in the case of the pants. None of them interested her.
Some of the skirts might still work, even if they had become shorter than ever. That was a joy she’d have to learn to live without.
Well, Eva thought as she pulled out an old favorite she had somehow missed while originally packing, maybe a few for casual wear around the prison. She couldn’t actually see their colors, but Eva knew her skirts.
The main target of her return trip, aside from the books, wasn’t in the closet. Eva spun back to the room with a handful of skirts in arm. She dropped them in a pile around the center of the room before she ducked under her bed.
A small smile split across Eva’s face. There it was.
Eva stretched her claws beneath the bed and dragged out the small bag.
Sunlight pouring from the window glinted off the shined metal when Eva opened the bag. Gold. All the gold she stole from the museum over a year prior. Originally it had been there to cover her theft of her new favorite bloodstone capped dagger.