Her blood did not move through her veins. Her heart wasn’t beating. Her chest didn’t expand and contract with each breath. There wasn’t the slightest sign of minute movements in the body’s blood that was so tell-tale of other living beings.
“She’s dead,” Eva said, feeling somewhat foolish at pointing out what was now plainly obvious. It was somewhat shocking. Had the girl died from the teleport? Wayne was one thing, but Eva couldn’t imagine Zoe just ignoring Wayne killing some teenager.
Wayne turned from his conversation. He regarded Eva for a good minute before shrugging his shoulders. “Yeah.”
With that, he went back to his conversation.
Or tried to.
“That’s it? ‘Yeah,’ and nothing else? You can’t just–” Eva paused.
With a shake of her head, she shunted the thought from her mind. Zoe wasn’t freaking out. Given how she had reacted to Devon and his potential new subject, a hushed conversation was out of character for her. Therefore, she expected this to happen.
She had known that Wayne would be dragging along a corpse.
So, Eva thought, what use is a corpse in sneaking through an Elysium Order owned church? Spare blood for me?
There wasn’t any sign of life in the blood and it felt old. Eva doubted it would be usable. If Wayne had intended that for her, it wasn’t a very good gift. He should have just raided a blood bank, not a morgue. Even then, Eva had a decent amount of Arachne’s blood to use. Stale blood just couldn’t hold up a candle to that.
“Whatever,” Eva said. She had already intended to steal the obelisk with only herself and Arachne. If Wayne could help, great. Otherwise… “Did you get my potions?”
“You’re lucky I keep examples on hand.” Wayne Lurcher reached into his suit and pulled out two vials. One was dark orange while the other could have been mistaken for blood. Regular blood.
“Thanks,” Eva said as she reached for them.
Wayne snapped his wrist back, pulling the vials just out of reach. “Not for use on huma–” He cut himself off with narrowed eyes. Those eyes flicked over towards Arachne before he continued. “Not for use on living flesh. You’re not going to be able to shrink yourself to get in.”
Eva shot out her hand and snatched the vials. “I know that,” she said. “Just because I don’t go to your class doesn’t mean that I haven’t read the books.” Technically, Arachne had read her the books. Wayne didn’t need to know that.
Rolling the vials around with her fingers, Eva double checked that the color and consistency was what the book described. She didn’t believe that Wayne would make a mistake–no matter how annoying he was, Eva believed that he knew his alchemy–but it couldn’t hurt to double-check.
“Actually,” Eva said as she finished. Satisfied with the results of her inspection, she set the vials within a potion satchel inside her backpack. “I don’t wear those gloves anymore. That was your main complaint with me, right?”
“You want to come to my class again?” He shook his head. “Wrong question. Are you going to be disrespectful and disruptive again?”
Balling her hands into fists, Eva glared at him. “You were rude to me–”
Wayne held up a hand. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll talk about this later.” Under his breath, he grumbled, “I might not have a job if the school shuts down.”
Eva’s mild anger dissipated into a slight sensation of melancholy. “That’s a possibility, is it?”
“Can’t tell what the dean will do. I’ve long since stopped trying to figure out how Turner thinks. But she won’t matter much if the sky spooks off all you kids. Can’t have a school without students.”
Although there were plenty of problems surrounding Brakket Academy, including the one going on at the moment, Eva had taken a liking to school. Without it, she would probably still be doing the odd job with Devon. Few and as far between as those jobs were, she would be going to mundane school. Her most recent experience with a mundane school had left her bored out of her mind.
Eva turned away from Wayne, not bothering to question him further. As he had said, it was something to think about later. For now, she was wasting time. With the potions delivered, she was fairly certain that they were ready.
Arachne didn’t have many preparations to make as she was made up of everything that she used to fight with. She was no longer shaking from the effects of the teleport either. When Eva gave her a glance, she nodded.
“Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Wait. We’re not going to let you do this on your own.”
Eva turned back to Zoe with a frown on her face. She tried to keep her voice polite as she said, “Wait? For how long? You do realize that Shalise could be in danger?” Eva bit down on a harsher response.
While she respected Zoe and understood that she wanted to help, Eva was somewhat anxious about finding the obelisk and getting back to Shalise. When Sister Cross had said there might be problems acquiring the obelisk, Eva had not expected that an assault on an Elysium Order controlled church to be in the cards.
“But don’t worry, this is just like a job with Devon. I’ve done tons of them. In fact, this is better than a job with Devon. This time, thanks to Nel, we actually have a map with the destination marked and a good idea of how many nuns are around. That’s ten times the preparation that ever went into any of Devon’s jobs.”
Zoe had her lips pressed into a thin line. Probably at the thought of Devon dragging her off on jobs.
“Eva, you–”
“Smell good…”
Eva jumped, whirling around to face the corpse on the ground. The sound had come from below and behind her. Right where that corpse had been lying.
The body was still dead. Still unmoving face down on the asphalt. No blood flowed through its veins. It was even in the same position that Eva had last seen it in.
No, Eva thought as a glob of Arachne’s blood started hovering around her, not quite the same position.
The jaw had slackened from the hardened rictus that it had arrived with.
Eva jumped back as the body lifted a hand. She did a quick double-check of herself, the professors, and Arachne just to ensure that her blood sight was working properly.
Everyone’s blood was flowing just fine.
Everyone except for the currently animated corpse.
Her first thoughts were of necromancy. None of the skeletons or zombies that she had encountered had ever spoken, but the ghost that had assisted in her initial capture had responded to queries. Could ghosts possess corpses?
Then there was the blended girl and her friend. Both were strange to her blood sight and both had a connection to Sawyer. Their status of being alive was in question solely because of that. But even the friend had a pulse. A slow, lethargic pulse, but a pulse nonetheless.
It did, however, answer the question of why Wayne had brought along a corpse. If the Elysium Order thought that there might be undead in the general area of their church, they would probably send at least a portion of their forces to investigate.
Unfortunately, it would probably set the rest on high alert.
Maybe the undead should be contained and set to be released if they needed a distraction. A much better plan than alerting everyone right away.
Eva kept a careful watch on the girl as she pushed herself up to her knees and then to her feet. All the while, Eva had a portion of Arachne’s blood ready to strike or shield at a moment’s notice.
Arachne had moved back in the shadows and climbed partway up the building, looking about ready to pounce on the animated corpse.
“I told you to warn me before teleporting,” the girl whined as she tried to brush dirt and grime from her clothes.