“That one,” Zoe said with a nod towards the one she had hopefully just concussed, “might not be dead. Restrain her in Ylva’s domain. Teleportation doesn’t work inside, so she won’t be able to escape. Unless we want to let her go?”
Genoa walked over and slung the nun over her shoulder, fireman’s carry. She didn’t look at all bothered by the weight of a human body.
“Let’s find Nel and…”
One of the peasants ran over, waving its arms wildly. It stopped a few feet from them, just in time for Genoa to not turn it into paste.
Outside the heat of battle, Zoe noticed a few things. His clothes were definitely made from some type of burlap. There were rope burns around both of his wrists. Most notably, he was missing his entire jaw, though he didn’t appear to be bleeding.
The peasant outstretched one arm, pointing down between the cell houses. A second peasant was in the distance, pointing perpendicular from the first peasant.
“They want us to follow?” Genoa asked.
The first peasant stomped his feet and took off at a run. Genoa was quick to follow despite the nun over her shoulder.
Zoe simply flicked her dagger and teleported. Running would hurt.
From the second peasant, she could easily see what he was pointing at.
“Eva,” Zoe said softly. She teleported again to her student’s side with Genoa running up not far behind.
Eva was lying face down, wrapped in one of the security specialists’ trench coats. A gash had been torn in one side and through it, Zoe could see the inside of her student. Nestled within appeared to be one of her bloodstones.
A bone white dagger lay to one side, half sheathed in blood.
Zoe started to reach for it. A collection of blood appearing in front of her face stopped her.
NƠ̸̻̫̝̝͘͞ TOUCH
CURSED
“Eva? You’re alive?”
OBVIOUS̷̘̘͍̟͇̩LY
“Damn,” a voice behind them called out. “Damn.”
Devon ran up beside them, almost shoving Zoe out of the way. Two things, demons likely, followed him.
Genoa dropped into a combat stance. Something of an odd sight with the nun still over her shoulders. She seemed to recognize Devon just in time.
“What are those?” she said with a gesture towards the demons.
“Don’t shake hands and headache,” he mumbled as he stopped above Eva. “You couldn’t do one thing right, girl?”
The blood in front of Devon swirled around into a frowning face.
Devon didn’t seem to notice. He hunched over the dagger, pointedly not touching it.
“Where’s Juliana?” Genoa asked. “Alternatively, Nel?”
J NOT S̷̢͝͠Ị̸͓̪̹̝̼͈͠NCE LUNCH
NEL KIDNAPPED
“Kidnapped?” Genoa said with a growl. “Who?”
Before Eva could write out a response, Devon jammed both fingers into the hole in her back.
She spasmed twice. The mass of blood above her had a similar spasm. It formed into a spiked ball before splaying out a few droplets. A few landed on Devon’s face, causing him to pull his fingers out.
STOP
FIGH̵̨͇͎͕̬̘͘͟͞TING CURSE
BLO̧͈̮̲̭͇̹͇O̶DSTONE CRACKED
WILL BREAK
NEED DAĢ̸͙͓̭͈̰̳̖͞GER
“Arachne has it,” Zoe said.
NEẸ̢̡͓̼̰͘͟͠ͅD͉̯̝̰̜̰̖̤̤͞
LOSING FIG̸͓̺̖̙̫̬̕͡H̢̫̫̩̮̗͉̩͝T͉̜͓͔̻̀
NEED HELP
“Damnit. I can’t fix this on my own.”
Zoe was already readying herself to teleport to Arachne when Devon turned to face her.
“Grab the dagger and bring Ylva with you.”
“Ylva?”
“This is a necromancer’s work. If anyone can fix it, she can.” He turned back to Eva, mumbling under his breath. “Going to cost me an arm and a leg.”
“Necromancer,” Zoe said softly.
She saw one word written in blood before the world fell into between.
S̺̭͈͓̥̝͈̖̹̬̱̕͢͝Ḁ̧̛̞̝̩̘͉̝͈̗̠̞͉̦̳̞̳̗̀̀͟W̡͓̼̯̹͉͉̜̱͎͚̥̥͖͘͜͟͢Y̴̸̧̞̫̝̫̘̰͎̰͜͠Ẹ̼̳̯̩̮̲̞̞̩̝̼̼̝͎͉́̀̀̕͡ͅR̶̴̺͈̣̣̦̯͚̪͘̕͡
Chapter 027
“Has she woken up yet?”
Shelby stirred at the soft voice. She pulled herself out of the puddle of drool that had gathered on her sister’s bed. Wiping off her cheek, she looked towards the doorway.
“I don’t think so. What–” An involuntary yawn drowned out her words. “What time is it?”
“Ten o’clock in the morning,” Jordan said as he pulled up a chair. “I was just talking with Nurse East. He said that she should be waking up anytime now.”
“That would be nice,” Shelby said as she looked back down to her sleeping twin.
For the first time in weeks, Irene lacked the furrowed brow. She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t frowning either. She seemed… peaceful.
“She’s going to be alright, right?”
“He said it was just a concussion. A bad one, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a few potions.”
“She’s not going to be like, possessed, is she?”
“Those weren’t demons,” Jordan said. His features darkened, looking like he wanted to spit. A look of pure disgust. “Just parts of them.”
His voice lacked all the inquisitive excitement usually present within.
Shelby shook her head. “And you knew about that Ylva girl? And Professor Za–”
A finger pressed to her lips. She felt her face heat up even as Jordan shook his head.
“Don’t say his name. There are ways to find out if someone talks about oneself. I don’t know if he is doing that, but I’d rather not give any excuses to draw his attention.”
He sighed, pulling his finger away as he glanced off towards Irene. “I knew about Ylva. She wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding herself. When you’ve got a family like mine, you notice things like that.”
“A family like yours,” Shelby said with a half-suppressed yawn. She didn’t know what time she had finally fallen asleep the night before, but it was clearly too late.
As she thought over what he said, Shelby slowly put her head back down on her sister’s bed. She had to wiggle a little in her chair to avoid the damp patch of her own drool. “You’re like Eva then? All into demons or something?”
“Well,” he said. His voice had an audible smile in it. “I like to think I can keep a secret much better than she can.”
Shelby snorted into the blankets. “I’ve known you my whole life. I’ve only known Eva for a year and a half. It’s clear who the secret keeping winner is.”
That got a small laugh from Jordan. “But my family values knowledge and an open mind, I guess you could say.”
“Irene knew, didn’t she. That’s why she freaked out about Eva last year and kept her at an arm’s length since then. She asked you, or you just told her.”
Jordan took in and let out a deep breath. “She stumbled upon me in a fairly compromising position a few years ago.”
Shelby snorted again. It came out slightly pained. Her heart just wasn’t in it.
“Not like that,” he said. “She just walked in on me manipulating shadows like I did yesterday. My family Swore her to secrecy. That’s Swore with a capital ‘S’ otherwise we would have told you too.”
“That doesn’t seem like something Mr. Anderson would do.” Shelby frowned as a though occurred to her. “Are you going to do the same to me?”
“We’re older now. I’ll have to tell my parents, of course, but that was mostly so that Irene couldn’t talk about it. Kids are known to talk about things they shouldn’t, after all.
“I actually wrote to them last night about Eva, all the demon-things, and Juliana and Shalise. I completely forgot to mention you.”