“So,” Zagan said with a glare, “bringing your pet demon to class? You haven’t banished her yet?”
Eva frowned as Arachne drummed her legs on Eva’s back. That’s what this is about? “You’re one to talk. Why are you here at all?”
“I am fulfilling my contractual obligations.” He kicked his feet up onto his desk. “It isn’t like anyone could do anything about me if they found out. You on the other hand–”
“Arachne accompanied me to every class from September to November last year and there were no problems. She only stopped because of the nuns wandering the city. Nuns that we helped remove.”
Zagan shook his head side to side. “I warned Martina about Catherine already, but she insists her familiar won’t cause problems. With you, your pet–” Arachne bristled lightly, “–that demon on the horizon, and our unknown summoner all tainting the air, it is a wonder we’re not onset by hunters already. Too many in close proximity.”
“Devon seems to think that no hunter would attack while you are hanging around.”
Zagan shrugged. “I won’t be around forever. Of course, you might not have to worry at all. I may decide to raze this school before returning to the Void when my contract ends.” As an afterthought, he added, “I don’t think I’m fond of teaching.”
Eva’s frown deepened. “When does your contract end?”
“Could be a year, could be twenty. It isn’t time based. The details are for me and me alone, however.”
Before Eva could comment, Zagan switched tracks.
“You truly are tainting this place. I can smell it. You smell like a demon, though I hope that would be obvious to you. But it has rubbed off. Your friends smell like demons as well.”
Eva drew in a sharp breath. My friends smell like demons?
“Don’t be silly, embryonic one.” Zagan said with a brushed hand. “They aren’t like you. It would be interesting to watch, between you and Martina’s plans. Maybe I’ll preserve the school just for that. If you are interesting enough that is. If not, well, I might get bored.
“Of course, it will be fun to see you two panic as hunters arrive without me here. I hope you prepare better than Martina is doing, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Eva said after a moment. She had a sudden urge to speak with Devon regarding what could be done about hunters at the school. Her master would have ideas. They hid out in Florida for years.
Though they never had Arachne constantly summoned in Florida. She only turned up on occasion for treatments or jobs.
“Well,” Zagan said, “what are you standing around for. Be gone with you, foul creatures.” He started laughing to himself as Eva backed out of the room.
“Don’t worry,” Eva whispered to Arachne. She stroked the spider-demon lightly over her shirt. “We are not sending you back. Not while Zagan and Martina Turner are around. Even if that means we’ll have to deal with hunters.”
Arachne gave Eva a few slow taps on her right shoulder as they headed off towards their second class of the first day.
— — —
Des idly rubbed one of the lines of stitches running from her forehead to her ear. She nodded along as Professor Zoe started her talk about the treatment she was getting from her fellow students.
It wasn’t going to help. She’d heard this speech from teachers other than Professor Zoe before. Des had already resigned herself to being ‘freaky Des’ once again.
This time was different. This time she had a loyal companion. Hugo couldn’t betray her. Hugo couldn’t make fun of her.
So, Des smiled. She had at least one friend here. If her father was correct, she might even get a second.
“I am curious, Miss Des. What did you say to those girls?”
Des’ smile grew a few inches. “Oh! Those nice girls were just wondering why my eyes were different colors.”
She lifted her finger up to her right eye and carefully pressed her finger above her eyelid. Being extra careful–it wouldn’t do to crush another one, daddy had been angry enough the first time–she compressed it to one side so Professor Zoe could see the stitches.
“I showed them.”
Chapter 006
“Professors Baxter, Kines, and Zagan?”
“We’re a lot larger this year, probably because of Professor Zagan.”
The three professors stood in the center of the dueling rings. Franklin Kines spoke to the students about learning combat and a new outline and schedule for the mage-knight club courtesy of Zagan.
The majority of it was the same as last year, so Eva felt little need to pay attention.
Instead, Eva cast her sight around in full, inspecting everyone she could. Irene was correct. Including Irene and Max, almost the entire second year class had shown up along with more older students than the previous spring.
Not many first year students. Only two, though Eva couldn’t be entirely sure; some freshmen might be big enough to pass as third years.
The two freshmen bothered Eva. There was something off about both of them. The male barely had a heartbeat. It beat at about the same rate a regular person’s heart ticked at during sleep. Apart from that, he wasn’t that strange.
The female, Eva didn’t know what to make of her. Her heart worked fine, but the veins were all messed up. Every so often there would be a jagged point. It was like looking at her circulatory system through a broken mirror. Some parts of it seemed disconnected entirely. There were blood pockets that didn’t seem to move at all.
All that was in addition to her missing several organs.
Eva nudged Juliana and leaned in to whisper. “Don’t look too long or too obviously, but you see that girl over there?” Eva asked with a hopefully discrete point of her finger.
Juliana leaned around Eva’s shoulder. It didn’t take long to figure out who Eva was talking about despite the crowd if her elevated heart rate was any indication.
“Describe her for me.”
“Curly blond hair, short. One green eye and one brown eye. Stitches all over her face, down her arms, and around almost every joint on her fingers.” Juliana gave a small shudder. “She looks like she lost a recent fight with a lawnmower.”
Eva nodded her thanks.
“Something wrong with her?”
“Apart from everything you just said? Her insides look like they’ve been through a blender.”
More than a few people were staring at her. With Juliana’s description, it wasn’t hard to see why.
“Should we be keeping an eye on her?”
Eva shrugged. “I don’t see why we should. So long as she doesn’t bother me, I don’t particularly care about her.”
“That seems cruel,” Juliana said with a frown.
“Cruel would be making fun of her or otherwise bullying her. I don’t care about a lot of people in this room, because she has a few stitches and scars doesn’t make her special. I was merely curious about her appearance.”
A lie, but not an overly big one. The jagged veins and arteries didn’t disturb Eva so much as her missing organs. She had a stomach but no liver or kidneys. Her intestines were far shorter than normal, only a few feet. There were no reproductive organs at all. Or, at least, they weren’t receiving blood.
She did have three things inside her abdomen that Eva couldn’t identify.
A demon, perhaps. Not one she’d ever heard of, but that wasn’t saying much.
Zagan and Arachne had odd internal biology as well, Zagan having four stomachs among other things. Arachne’s tube for a heart and general weirdness due to a lack of an internal skeleton.
Of course, Eva’s own insides were off as well. Her lack of internal skeleton was confined to her hands and legs, but anyone who observed the world in the same manner that she did would be thrown for a loop.
Except Arachne wasn’t freaking out. The spider-demon stayed latched to Eva’s chest in a calm manner. Maybe she simply did not view the girl as a threat.