As such, despite having the ritual circle set out and all the reagents collected, Eva was loath to actually put it to use.
According to the ritual tome, what she currently had set out should give her a one-way connection to the target, allowing her to perceive the target from any distance. It was a little vague on the exact definition of ‘perceive,’ but Eva was hoping that it would function in a manner similar to her blood sight.
Using the blood reclaimed from Sawyer’s fingers, Eva would be able to see and hunt him down.
But was it really worth one of her unique bloodstones?
No one had heard a peep from the necromancer since Nel had been recovered. Zoe and Wayne had been keeping an ear to the ground about any sign of necromantic activity. That included sleepy little towns with a population barely out of the single digits suddenly disappearing overnight.
Maybe, hopefully, he had gone into hiding after his last encounter with Brakket. And, maybe even more hopefully, perhaps he had decided that operating around Brakket was simply too difficult. Too troublesome to continue.
As far as Eva knew, he hadn’t succeeded in much. She couldn’t say for certain without knowing his plans, but several things had failed without a doubt. He had made off with Nel, temporarily, stole a handful–or armful–of her eyes, and learned how to hide himself from Nel, but that had resulted in his hybrid army being all but destroyed for a second time. Whatever he had been planing with Weilks had failed, as had killing Eva with the dagger.
Eva shuddered at the memory, feeling a phantom pain in the small of her back. She glanced over at the dagger. It sat atop her dresser along with a handful of other items she had acquired since arriving at Brakket. Christmas presents, Ylva’s void-metal skull, and Arachne’s beacon among them.
Thankfully, she had managed to procure a glass case to keep any accidents from happening. The case had originally been designed for a football, but the dagger fit inside. And a good thing too. The edge of the blade barely needed to skim the surface of something to curse it.
Shaking her head, Eva went back to her musings.
Because of Sawyer’s few failures around Brakket, it wasn’t too out of the question to imagine him leaving for greener pastures. And yet, Eva had a gut feeling against the idea of him fleeing.
Rather, every passing day felt more and more like something big was going to happen. Every day gave him more time to build up larger armies of demon-human hybrids.
All while she was too preoccupied with larger issues, such as whatever was going on with Void and the enigmas.
Though confirming that Sawyer had indeed run off would be a weight off of Eva’s shoulders, that might actually be the worst situation. Eva had vowed vengeance and she fully intended to extract said vengeance in the most painful ways that she could imagine. Possibly by finishing him off with his own dagger.
Not that she needed to. She hadn’t signed any contracts or made any magical vows. But she wanted to. She held a yearning desire to rid the world of that man for purely selfish reasons.
Eva thumbed the bloodstone, turning it over in her hand once again.
That all brought her back to her current dilemma.
Back in Florida, this wouldn’t have been a problem in the slightest. All she would have had to do was to take a short walk down the shadier sides of the city. Someone would eventually follow her down an alley with less than pure intentions.
Much like Sawyer, the world didn’t need such people.
Unfortunately, bloodstone creation was much more difficult in Brakket City.
The city was tiny. So tiny, it really shouldn’t qualify as a city. A town at most. A commune?
There was almost no population to speak of save for the students and staff, and everybody pretty much knew each other. There was no police department–Brakket Academy acted more as police than anything else, especially with their new security force–and, as far as Eva could tell, there were actually little to no crimes committed by the general population. Occasionally there would be a story about petty theft performed by students, but nothing more.
It was doubtful that she would find anyone outside at night period, let alone those with ill intent.
Eva bit her lip. Maybe a short vacation was in order. She did have the gate set up back at her abandoned hospital.
Gripping the bloodstone in her hand, Eva reseated it in the slot of her dagger’s sheath.
Yes, vacation was a great idea. And maybe she could use it as an excuse to pry Arachne out of her room.
It would have to wait a while. Perhaps after Juliana left again.
Standing from her desk, Eva headed back out to the women’s ward common room to check on her wayward friend.
And promptly frowned.
Books everywhere. Piles of books surrounded the little coffee table. More were strewn about on top of the table, half-open and half closed. Juliana poured herself over a good three at once while her brother sat in a chair, idly thumbing through one of the more innocuous tomes on the subject of shackles.
“I hope you put every single one of those back where you found them.”
Juliana looked up with fury in her eyes.
“Have you never heard of organization? Or labels? You don’t even have that many books. I should be done by now.”
Eva shrugged. “I’ve adopted Devon’s organization system.”
“Randomization?”
“Don’t be silly. I’d never find anything like that.” Eva allowed Juliana’s glare to slide off without effect. “Of course, the method is to always know where your books are. It makes you look mysterious when you pull the exact right book off the shelf while everyone else fumbles around looking foolish.”
“Who is it you have to appear mysterious to?” she half-shouted. “And this one,” she said as she slapped down on one of the open books, “it isn’t even a real book. More like you took the pages of ten different books and shoved them into one binding.”
Eva swept around the room until she could see the book in question. “Oh,” she said, “I don’t know how that one got there. It’s one from Devon’s library. I must admit shame at the fact that his sorting system is just that much more mysterious than mine.”
It was hard–much harder than Eva had imagined it would be–to hold in her laughter while Juliana looked about ready to scream in frustration.
A look of horror replaced the frustration on Juliana’s face. “You mean to tell me that when we go through Devon’s library, it’s going to be worse?”
That set Eva off. She started laughing.
It was good to have Juliana around again.
Really. Eva felt bad about what happened to Genoa. She didn’t want to keep Juliana tied up here. Not if her mother needed her.
At the same time, Eva wanted to keep Juliana all to herself. Things had just been so glum over the past while that Juliana was like a breath of fresh air.
“Don’t worry. After moving my stuff from Florida, I haven’t had a chance to sort through it all. It got a bit jumbled in transit. And that book,” she pointed at the mish-mash tome open on the table, “shouldn’t have too many like it. Devon likely found damaged tomes and slapped what was salvageable inside a spare book cover.”
Still chuckling, Eva took a seat in the chair opposite from Erich and pulled out her tome of blood rituals.
She had offered to go through her library with Juliana, but the mad woman wanted to do everything on her own. Or rather, she insisted on double checking every book Eva tried to go through. Instead of feeling useless by having her work overwritten, Eva had decided on going back to her own projects. Namely, the project involving Sawyer.
But, with that project on hold until she had a chance to acquire more bloodstones, Eva was left with idle time. There were the enigmas, but Eva was at a loss what to do with that. Carlos could have used some help, probably–he had taken samples of the enigma back to his hotel for testing with larger equipment that he had brought with him–but Eva found being in the company of Juliana far more preferable.