Maybe a little too much power, Eva thought. She stepped straight to the front of the building, hoping that Shalise at least had made it out of the common room. An idle strand of thought wondered why she didn’t simply step away instead of running.
“Everyone alright?” Eva asked to the debris-strewn room.
A haggard-looking Sister Cross stepped out of one of the side rooms–Eva’s bedroom in the real world. She was not so roughed up as when she had attacked Eva the other week ago, but she was clearly running on less than full steam. Her eyes were aglow with white light while lightning crackled at her fingertips. Dark bags hung under her eyes, only increasing her tired look by standing out more under the harsh white light.
Eva kept herself tense, ready to react to anything the woman might try. Not that she thought that Sister Cross would attack her, but… well, she thought Sister Cross wouldn’t hesitate much to attack her.
They weren’t exactly on the best of terms.
To Eva’s surprise, Sister Cross just groaned, let the light die from her eyes, and turned back to the room and walked inside.
Frowning, Eva followed her. At no point did she let her guard down, just in case it was a trap.
Turns out, she needn’t have bothered. Sister Cross was lying face down on the bed by the time Eva made it across the short distance to the room.
Shalise sat in a chair in the corner. A school book lay open on the table to her side. Rather than looking like Eva’s fairly loud explosion had interrupted her studying, the brunette looked more like she had just collapsed into her chair.
She didn’t look quite so tired as Sister Cross, but the hints of fatigue were present in her face. Neither, Eva noted, looked like they had showered in several days.
“I’m glad you’re here, but did you have to do that? I thought I was going to have a heart attack,” she said, clutching her chest. She missed her heart, but that was a fairly common mistake. Not everyone had the ability to see blood.
“The door was stuck,” Eva said with a shrug.
“Now we lack a door,” Sister Cross said, moving her face the bare amount possible to clear her mouth of the pillow. “And a wall. If they attack again, we’re all dead. I’d kill you myself, but…” She groaned, angling her head back into the pillow.
Some muffled mumbles came out that sounded distinctly like she had said, “I’m too tired,” but Eva couldn’t tell for certain.
“I’ll fix it,” Eva said, already concentrating.
It shouldn’t be too hard to restore everything to pristine condition. Creating everything the way it was hadn’t been extremely difficult in the first place, just modifying it all from how she knew it in the real world. Repairing everything shouldn’t be too difficult. They would probably need to get rid of the enigmas though.
That was the plan, anyway. Modifying her domain was always fickle.
Turning to Shalise, Eva said, “I am glad that you’re safe. I was a bit worried when I saw the carnage outside.”
“Non-stop attacks. Never too many at once. Three to five would show up, charge the building, get killed, and then there would be an hour or two before the next one. We’ve been sleeping in shifts, but I can’t do much on my own.” She shot Sister Cross a pitiful glance.
“You could have warned me that I’d be fighting off an invasion force,” Sister Cross grumbled.
“Invasion force?” Eva cocked her head to one side, not that Sister Cross was looking at her to see. “You know something about these creatures?”
“Just what it seems like,” she said, lifting a hand in what might have been a dismissive wave, but was far too incoherent to discern for sure. “Why?”
“Might be accurate to a degree,” Eva said. “We’ve learned that they originate from another plane of existence. What Power calls it their domain, we still don’t know, but invading Hell doesn’t seem too far-fetched.”
Weakening Void to help pull it to the mortal realm? Hard to say without knowing exactly how Void was being brought there.
More of a problem for Zoe, Ylva, and Zagan–if he cared enough to investigate. For now, Eva had more immediate worries.
“Have any made it inside?”
Shalise shook her head. “None. What you did to the windows holds up long enough for Lynn to lightning them up.”
Eva nodded an acknowledgment. That was good, but it didn’t appear sustainable. Given how Sister Cross looked, it was doubtful that she would be able to maintain her defense much longer without help.
“How–” “Have–”
Both Eva and Shalise stopped talking at the same time. Eva gestured for Shalise to go first.
“Have you made any progress in finding a way out for me?”
“Actually,” Eva said, “that’s one of the reasons I’m here, other than to check up on you. I have a couple of questions that may seem strange, but they could be extremely important.
“Have either of you noticed any odd happenings? Nothing related to the enigmas. More like lights flickering and going dark, maybe the walls seeming especially oppressive and dripping blood. Inability to move or speak, difficulty breathing. Anything like that?”
The two glanced at one another. Sister Cross actually managed to peel her head off the pillow. That effort was quickly used to shoot a glare in Eva’s direction.
“Am I going to have to deal with freezing up in the middle of a fight?”
“No! I mean, I hope not.” Eva waved her hands in front of her, attempting to placate the angry woman. “But neither of you experienced any of those things?”
“I think I would have noticed the walls dripping with blood.”
Shalise shook her head. “Haven’t seen anything either.”
Eva sighed with a frown. “Oh.”
“What’s with that reaction? Is the walls dripping with blood supposed to be a good thing?”
“Well, it would be a thing. Maybe a thing that would help with something else, but no matter.” Eva shook her head. “How long has it been since the last attack?”
Shalise tilted her head to one side as if listening. She tapped her finger against her head a few times before shooting a frowning glance at the face-down Sister Cross. “I don’t think it will be long before the next one. They aren’t entirely regular, but it has been a while.”
“Alright,” Eva said. “Sister Cross, get some sleep. I’ll handle this next attack. Before and after that,” Eva turned to Shalise, “we should probably build up some better defense and dispose of the bodies. They don’t die entirely, so as long as they’re here, they might join in a fight.”
“I can–” Sister Cross started. She was pushing herself up off the bed.
Shalise snapped to her feet and pulled Sister Cross’ arms out from under her, sending her crashing back to the soft embrace of the bed.
“You can get rest for when Eva can’t be here. I’m not helpless and she less so.”
Smiling at the great Sister Cross getting a talking down by her daughter, Eva stepped out of the room before any arguments could start.
She had work to do.
And something of an idea of what to do.
The enigmas that had been struck by the white lightning were a whole lot more dead than the ones that had merely been spiked to ‘death.’ If she could somehow incorporate that into any traps she created, and maybe the doors and windows, the burden on Sister Cross should decrease by a fairly dramatic amount.
Eva wasn’t sure that she could replicate what was undoubtedly Death magic. For all Eva knew, it was completely untouchable without a boon of one kind or another from Death Himself. The eyes served as that for the nuns, Eva was fairly certain of that. But Zoe had failed while trying to cure Eva and magical theory was her specialty.
Zoe lacked one thing that Eva had.