Besides, Eva thought, if I help Shalise myself, I don’t have to answer his riddle about what would be worth having Shalise back home.
With an extra heap of gravel in his voice, Wayne said, “you feel you must drag myself and Zoe into this?”
“It is for Shalise. When I told Zoe before heading here, she essentially gave a blanket offer of assistance.”
He mumbled something under his breath that sounded roughly like a curse, but Eva let it pass.
“If you are scared,” she said, “you could just wait outside. Stealing it won’t be that hard, right? Just have to get around a couple of nuns.” Eva glanced at Devon.
While she was fairly certain that he hadn’t had to use her before, if he could summon up that waxy, headache inducing demon again, they could probably just walk right in. The demon would incapacitate everyone while they browsed the Elysium Order’s wares.
Eva tried not to consider raiding the place straight away, but she couldn’t help but think that perhaps there would be more of value than just the obelisk. The Elysium Order had to collect a number of artifacts and tomes that they could not or simply did not destroy.
Under her stare, Devon’s eyes grew wide. “Oh no. Nope. Don’t look at me. We’ve tangled with the nuns enough for one decade. Call me again in ten years when they’ve had a chance to cool off.”
“But just a few demons with the right abilities will make it our easiest job in years. Probably.”
“Probably.” He let out a slight snort. “I wouldn’t count on them just laying down and allowing you to walk away with priceless artifacts because Arachne showed up.”
Eva gave a slight start. She glanced around the table to confirm her fears.
No Arachne.
“Has anyone talked to Arachne since all the sky and things have happened?” Eva was staring mostly at Devon, but was open to a response from anyone.
No one said a word.
With a sigh, Eva said, “I’ll have to go see if she has even noticed the sky after this.”
“If you’re done with that drivel,” Devon said, “I would like to hear more about the happenings of Hell.”
Eva shrugged. “I don’t know what more there is to say. There was an earthquake. Sky turned colors. That’s pretty much it.” Eva glanced up towards Ylva before asking, “were there tremors here?”
“Enough for only Ourself to notice, not enough to shake the walls of Our domain.”
“And your sky?” Eva asked, glancing upwards. She still wasn’t certain that sky was the proper term, but said it anyway for lack of a better word. The storm clouds overhead obscured any view of the dark void, but Ylva probably had enough awareness of her own domain to know what was happening regardless of whether or not she could see it.
Unless something had changed in the last several hours, there weren’t any storm clouds over the beach portion of her domain. She would be able to observe from there in any case.
Ylva’s head gave a slight incline. “It has since returned to normal.”
“That fits with what I saw.” Eva gave a sorry shrug towards Devon. “Can you make anything out with that little information?”
He hummed for a moment, again stroking his beard. “I imagine that the Void fought back. And succeeded, for now at least. Here, however, we have no Power to fight for us.”
Wayne leaned forward on the table. “So we fight back ourselves. Is that what you’re saying?”
Devon snorted, slowly shaking his head from side to side. “If you think you can match power with a Power, be my guest. If you can, you’re a far scarier person than I gave you credit for.”
Dismissing Wayne with a wave of his hand, Devon put a finger down on the table. “Here is my theory. The events of tonight are not caused by any mortal or demon. Rather, a Power is the cause. I do concede that a mortal, demon, or other non-Power entity may be assisting the Power, but they are not the primary cause.
“The effect observable in the sky does not extend far beyond Brakket City, ending within a few miles in any direction around the town with the exception of the direction of this prison in which it extends and encompasses this area as well.” He drew his finger around in a large circle around the initial point he had touched.
“The reason for this is the concentration of demons around Brakket City. I mean, there’s what, ten to fifteen demons in and around the city at any given time? One of which is a pillar.” He glanced down towards Eva as if asking for confirmation.
Eva just shrugged. “Sounds about right. That we know of, at least. Who knows what Martina has in reserve.”
“As someone who has dealt with demons in one manner or another throughout my entire life, I have never once heard of such a thing. Diabolists are rare. Typically, they won’t have more than one or two demons out at once and then, not often for any length of time.”
He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms before him. “I posit that this concentration of demons has given the attacking Power a medium through which to target Void.”
“So we send them all back to Hell,” Wayne said, rising to his feet.
Eva watched him, trying to keep the amusement off of her face, as he slowly realized just where he was. She could spot the very moment when he knew that he had done something wrong.
His shoulders jumped slightly. Slowly, he turned to face Ylva. He cleared his throat before speaking. “Ah, no offense,” he mumbled.
Ylva raised one skeletal hand and brushed his worries off to the side. “Nothing occurs to Us that might contradict the presented theory, given our collective knowledge is so limited.”
“Doesn’t matter anyway,” Devon said as he scratched at his chin with his tentacle. “Probably too late. Even if you sent back every demon currently roaming the Earth, I doubt the sky would turn back to normal. The connection has already been made.”
“But the sky in my domain is back to normal,” Eva said. She gave a short nod in Ylva’s direction. “Presumably everywhere in Hell.”
“That just means that the Power must try again on the Void side of things. In fact, I recommend the opposite. Limit the connections going between the Earth and Hell. No more teleporting. No more summoning. No more banishing. It might just slow things down while we learn more.”
He turned his eyes to bore straight into Ylva. “And I will put money on the notion that your domain will become more dangerous. The enigmas that have been attacking are just the vanguard. Placed there to weaken Void. More dangerous things will be appearing in preparation for another attempt.”
Devon narrowed his eyes in Eva’s direction. “Keep out of it. I have no intention of stopping my work just because of a little apocalypse. And that will be hard to do if you’re dead or trapped in Hell.”
Eva harrumphed, but didn’t disagree. All the more reason to get Shalise out sooner rather than later.
“Of course,” Devon said louder, angling his head back just so Ylva was in the corner of his eye, “that means severing this domain’s connection to the mortal realm. I’d say I’m sorry to see you go, but that would be the biggest lie I’ve ever told, and I have told a few.”
He turned away, mumbling under his breath just loud enough for Eva to pick up. “Stupid girl shouldn’t have allowed it in the first place.”
Eva glowered at the man. Instead of giving him a response, she watched Ylva. She half expected Ylva to come down from her throne and toss Devon around for a minute for the insult, but her actual actions surprised her.
After taking a moment to consider, Ylva’s skinless skull dipped into a grave nod. “We concur.”
Devon blinked, apparently surprised as well. The confusion on his face shifted into horror as he jumped to his feet, heart suddenly beating faster and faster.
“You’re not doing it now, are you?” He glanced towards the door and looked ready to start running.