A stray thought couldn’t help but slip in. She’d be great at limbo.
“Maybe if you saw the room?” Jordan asked with a shrug. “Couldn’t hurt, could it?”
Irene wasn’t so sure about that. They might have to go get a mop if Lucy fell again, or worse, passed out. Just to sweep her down the staircase.
But Lucy had already taken one wobbly step forward. That was followed by a second and a third, each more steady than the last. Irene wanted to say that her eyes were unfocused as she moved, but that wasn’t all that different from the other times she had seen the security guard around school.
Considering for a moment that her eyes were strands of tentacles too… Irene shook her head before she could think about it too hard. Demon physiology was not covered in their course work and probably for good reason.
Moving up next to her, Irene stopped Lucy from stepping over the barrier of the shackles. If there was an invisible creature trapped inside, she didn’t really want Lucy to be trapped inside as well. Even if nothing attacked her, Irene would have to break the shackles to let her out, potentially letting out whatever had gotten trapped.
Irene gasped as she looked into the room from Lucy’s side.
There were definitely new footprints in the sand. She had spent long enough staring at it that she was sure of it.
Something was in there. Judging by the footprints, it had moved around to the blind spot to the side of the door.
A sharp noise from Lucy sent Irene’s heart into overdrive.
“Mushy mortals should stand away,” she said as her hands unfurled into their natural form. “Something in here is–”
Her comment was cut off by a high-pitched whine.
That whine terminated in thunder resonating between Irene’s ears.
Chapter 026
“Wayne isn’t coming with us?” Eva asked as she shook off the icy cold of Zoe’s method of teleportation. Digging her claws into the brick wall of the building they had appeared next to, she pulled herself into a proper standing position. “I thought you said he would be here.”
“He will be. He just had to make a brief stop somewhere else first.”
Rubbing her claws up and down her arms, Eva watched an equally shaky Arachne as she unfolded herself from her smaller spider form.
Without a gate nearby, they didn’t have much choice but to go with Zoe despite the downsides to her teleportation. Zoe didn’t have a problem with her teleportation. She stood on watch for the few minutes that it took Eva and Arachne to recover, completely unaffected by the shivers and shakes.
No one else had a problem with it either. Eva had personally watched both Shalise and Juliana teleport alongside Zoe, and both had always walked away without the slightest shakes immediately after arriving at their destination. Yet both Eva and Arachne suffered after every teleport.
Maybe her method just wasn’t meant for nonhumans. At least it didn’t flay them alive as Eva’s teleportation had done to Lynn Cross.
“Well, I hope he gets here soon.” Eva slung off her backpack of supplies. “I need those potions.”
With Devon having fled into the night, Eva wasn’t about to try summoning demons. She was fairly certain that the wax demon had just about killed the both of them last time he summoned it. They had only been saved by Devon dominating it at the last minute.
Eva possessed neither the desire nor the ability to dominate demons. Devon had never taught her how. The textbooks that Martina Turner had assembled for the diablery class didn’t so much as mention the discipline, let alone devote a chapter to how to perform it.
So, Eva had decided to forgo any demonic support.
Aside from Arachne.
That was a whole other can of worms. Arachne had agreed to come along without hesitation. There wasn’t a problem with that.
Eva watched the unnaturally still demon through her blood sight as she pulled a large jar of fresh blood from her pack. She couldn’t help but let her mind wander to the demon.
Despite regular visits over the past few months, Eva felt as if she hadn’t spoken with Arachne in forever. What was she thinking? What was she feeling? Arachne’s thoughts were impenetrable at the best of times.
Now, it was like looking at a blank wall.
Eva shook off the thoughts. They could have a sit-down discussion after the current crisis was over.
For now, she had work to do.
Pulling out her dagger, Eva dug the tip into the crook of her elbow. After drawing out a decent sized globule, she healed the cut and dug into her backpack.
It didn’t take much rummaging to find what she was looking for. It already had a large core of blood that was shining brightly in her vision.
As soon as she moved her hand nearby, Basila coiled around her fingers, squeezing tightly. Eva pulled her out and started looking over the stone basilisk.
Everything appeared in order. Her scales had the same dark sheen and luster that they had had immediately after Eva performed her little experiment. The teeth and silver eyes still maintained their changes as well. None of the blood in the center of the basilisk replica had degraded–odd, given Eva had altered Basila back in January, a good two and a half months ago. Almost three.
Eva shrugged off that oddity. Probably intentional. Given that the spell was supposed to have been performed on an actual living creature, it made sense that the blood that actually imbued the effects would have to be preserved and not overwritten by the creature’s natural blood production.
Even still, she streamed the fresh globule of her own blood down the basilisk’s throat.
Had it always had a throat? It was just a sculpture, wasn’t it? Surely the Rivases wouldn’t have carved out the insides as well.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking an extra security measure.”
Eva didn’t glance up to Zoe as she responded. She had to ensure that Basila both swallowed all the blood and that her addition didn’t disturb the changes to Basila. Given that Basila was just an enchanted sculpture, she doubted that she could kill it. Still, she would rather not mess everything up.
The book she had acquired the spell from didn’t have any sections on fixing an altered sculpture.
“Security for what, exact–”
Two new people popped into the alley.
Eva jumped to her feet, the jar of Arachne’s blood bubbling and boiling at the ready. At her side, Arachne sprouted her spare limbs and dropped into a combat stance.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Zoe going for her dagger only to stop halfway there.
It didn’t take much to figure out why. Wayne was one of the two people.
Still, Eva and Arachne kept up their guard as the girl at his side started towards them.
Or… not, Eva thought as she watched the girl fall forward. She didn’t even try to catch herself as her skull cracked against the asphalt. Another demon?
It sure looked to be suffering from the same problem that she did when teleported by Zoe and Wayne. Eva rubbed her own chin, feeling some semblance of empathy. While she had managed to catch herself on her knees this time, Eva distinctly recalled landing flat on her face the first time Wayne had teleported her.
Did Wayne know any other demons? Eva couldn’t think of any possibilities. The girl wasn’t Ylva, Catherine, or either of the Brakket security guards. While the girl could be Zagan, Eva couldn’t think of a reason why he would appear as a teenage girl.
Wayne stepped over the girl without so much as a downward glance. He quickly found himself at Zoe’s side where the two engaged in a hushed conversation.
Eva thought about listening in, but found herself more interested in the demon. As the minutes dragged on, the girl didn’t push herself up. She didn’t move at all. The thought of her being a demon vanished as Eva noted the oddity in the fallen girl through her blood sight.