Who knew when it might come in useful. Brackets, rings, necklaces, earrings. It wasn’t all that much, but it was far more than nothing.
Eva dropped the bag of gold down on the pile of skirts. She had one thing left to do. Eva rolled up a sleeve of her shirt.
Drawing her void dagger from its sheath against her back, Eva jammed it straight into her forearm–just above the hardened carapace of her hands. A blob of blood spilled forth and gathered in the air a few inches from her.
A flick of her arm had her flesh mending back together. In the same smooth motion, Eva sheathed her dagger.
With a twist of her fingers, she added the blood to the existing wards. Eva wasn’t about to risk the wards either failing or rejecting her after too many treatments. Even if the hospital had regained its abandoned status, it could always serve as a good fall-back safe house.
If she had the time, she’d add an infernal walk gate. Teleporting cross-country wasn’t something she was looking forward to attempting in any case. She still needed the gate just for getting to and from the prison.
It was probably all psychological these days. Eva knew in her head that a gate wasn’t required. Much like clapping her hands to obliterate her blood, the gate served as a focusing crutch. One she used out of fear.
Trying to obliterate blood without clapping wasn’t scary. The worst that would happen was nothing at all. She’d already failed an infernal walk once and Eva did not have any desires to wind up in Hell again.
Juliana might have given her an escape in that situation, but it wasn’t something she wished to test. She had escaped with Arachne the first time on the technicality of still being human. If that same technicality prevented her from using her own beacon, Eva would be stuck again.
Even if she could use it, she still had to figure out how.
Luckily, she didn’t have the time to draw a gateway circle. Keeping Zoe waiting too long might see her entering the building despite the warning of the wards Eva gave.
Eva gathered up the gold and the clothes into the gold bag and almost ran into Arachne back in the hall.
“Got all the books?”
Arachne held up the suitcase they’d brought as if that were all the answer she needed to give.
They walked down–Arachne once again hit the corpse with the suitcase–and Eva made sure to grab the book showing everyone in the building out of the lobby. It would be easier to modify it for the prison than to create a new one. Part of it could be left alone for the hospital, though Eva wasn’t sure it would work long distance.
Something to test later.
Outside, Eva walked right up to Zoe Baxter. The professor stood against a wall of the hospital.
“Got everything?”
“Yep, all cleaned out.”
“Sure you don’t have anyone you want to say hello to while in town?”
“We already popped in and said hello to Doctor Thompson’s veterinary clinic. I don’t think I know anyone else in Florida.” Eva certainly did not wish to say hello to Todd or Michael. They weren’t half important enough to warrant consideration.
Zoe gave a light frown, but nodded anyway. “Let’s head back then.” She held out both hands. Eva took one while Arachne shrank and latched onto Eva’s chest.
Eva smiled as her professor didn’t flinch at either the clawed hands touching her or Arachne’s spontaneous transformation.
The smile vanished from her face as the world fell away. Cold set in. She almost shook her hand out of Zoe’s iron-like grip before the world righted itself.
Eva and Arachne collapsed to the floor of her prison, shaking and shuddering.
— — —
“D-Didn’t he die?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“I watched it happen,” Eva said. “He fell from three or four stories. Head first.”
Juliana glanced back at the man behind the counter. His sunken in eyes scanned back and forth over a book he held in pencil-thin fingers. One hand raised to scratch at his hairline. It went back to the book without even being wiped off despite the still-wet-looking gel covering his hair.
I hope he doesn’t touch his hair often while stacking books, Juliana thought with a shudder. The pages would stick together without a doubt.
“His name tag even says Stephen. Was that his name before?”
“Let’s just grab our books and get out of here.”
Juliana nodded. She kept expecting to run across someone or something in the Toomey Tomes bookstore that she’d regret coming across. With Stephen Toomey sitting at the counter, every aisle looked like it should have a ghost roaming around.
What she could actually do to defend herself from a ghost, Juliana hadn’t the slightest idea. Nevertheless, she turned on her ferrokinesis spell the moment she set foot in the store.
One couldn’t be too careful after the mishap with the imp the other week.
Maybe they’d have a book on ghosts and necromancy, Juliana thought. Some way to fight back would be nice. Her book list had nothing of the sort on it. The closest was Elemental Offense and Defense; the only new book that wasn’t a volume two to their list over the previous year.
That was a class Juliana could look forward to. Most practical magic classes over the previous year were simply below her skill level. She could see the combat class becoming one of her favorites if they actually practiced tactics and strategies.
If they sat around tossing spells at each other at a second year level… well, Juliana would deal with that if it happened. She had enough of that during Professor Kines’ mage-knight club.
“The least they could do is put all the school books together,” said Eva as Shalise pulled a book off the shelf for her. “I understand that this is a regular bookstore, but a shelf in the front along with a list sent by the academy would simplify everything.”
“I think they want us to browse and buy.”
Juliana frowned as she glanced over the titles on the shelf next to her. “All these are in the Rickenbacker Library. I’d assume they’re at the Gillet and the main library as well. In fact, the main Brakket library is more than twice the size of this entire shop.”
“Why do they need three libraries?”
“And three nursing centers? What about all the swimming pools and hot springs? Does anyone even use those?” Juliana shook her head. “Mom said that all the doorways were supposed to connect to the same buildings out in the Infinite Courtyard. I guess something went wrong. Like, disastrously so.
“When that failed, they should have consolidated it all into the main building. They should have spent money developing their marketing division instead of all the amenities that no one uses.”
“All that was probably from the marketing department,” Eva said. “They were trying to make the school more appealing than its competitors.”
“Why is Brakket in such low standing?” Shalise asked with a quirked head. “I don’t find anything wrong with it, unless you count z-zombies.”
“My mother said that most other schools teach much faster. Students casting elemental attacks by the end of the first year without problem. The pace Brakket takes causes people to look down on us.”
“What?” Shalise dropped half the books in her arms as she spun to face Juliana. “How?”
Juliana just shrugged. “I don’t go there. Mother insisted that Brakket’s methods were better in the end.”
The brunette all but deflated. She stooped down and picked up her books while mumbling under her breath. When she stood up, her head still hung slightly. “I wonder if Professor Baxter knows how they do it.”
“I’d assume so. She is the theory expert.”
“I’ll have to ask. She didn’t tell me when I was asking about tutoring last year,” Shalise sighed, “so I doubt she’d say anything now. I’ll try anyway.”