Eva rolled her eyes. He said that after just about every treatment. She had never noticed much of a difference and his measurements were usually fractions of a centimeter. That could have just been from natural growth or how relaxed her tongue was at the moment of measurement. Still, Eva stuck out her tongue just to test, feeling it pass over surprisingly sharp teeth on its way out of her mouth.
She blinked at what she saw.
Her tongue was darker in color. No longer the healthy pinkish red, but almost black. Maybe more of a gray color. Previously, she might have been able to touch the underside of her nose with her tongue. Now, it took no effort to get it up and around the peak of her nose.
“We should talk about your use of the word ‘elongated’ and how much it never applied until today,” Eva said.
Devon just harrumphed. He folded his notebook under his arm while he used both his tentacle and hand to run down Eva’s side, counting her ribs under his breath. Once satisfied, he opened his notebook again and jotted something down.
“How do you feel?”
“Like I had a bucket of ice water poured all over me and haven’t been given a towel to wipe it up.”
“Interesting,” he said, making another note. “The water was just normal water from your rune system. No ice added. It had actually been sitting out for about fifteen minutes. Should have been closer to the ambient temperature.”
Eva glared at him. “Are you going to give me a towel or not?”
He tapped the tip of his pen against his notebook three times.
As if he actually has to think about it.
Eventually, he decided. With a resigned sigh, he headed back into the women’s ward shower room. A moment later, he reappeared with a fluffy purple towel.
Which he threw at her.
It smacked her right in the face.
Eva let out a small growl as she started drying herself off. “Apart from that, pins and needles.” She paused her efforts with the towel and held a hand in front of her face. “I can’t seem to stop shaking.”
“Likely left over from the pain rather than any side effect of the treatment itself,” Devon mumbled, noting something in his notebook anyway.
That made sense well enough. “There was a lot more pain than I had expected. It was intense. Drastically different from the treatments with Arachne.”
“I anticipated that.”
“You could have warned me.”
“That would have just caused unnecessary apprehension. Anything else?”
“I can feel the other demons. Before, I might have been able to sense Zagan if I was concentrating. Never could tell about the others though. Now it is like they’re broadcasting themselves to me. Each one is distinct and clear, though Zagan still towers over the rest.”
“Really?” Devon’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead a good inch. “With the somewhat drastic changes to your body–”
Eva glanced down at herself, double-checking that she still looked like a human on the outside. She did. And, through her sense of blood, she decided that she was mostly human internally as well. Although, most humanoid demons tended to look indistinguishable from humans even on the inside. Had she not already memorized their circulatory systems, Eva wouldn’t be able to tell Zagan and Catherine apart from anyone else while they were in their human form.
Lucy was a bit different, being a mass of tentacles compressed into a humanoid form.
Blinking, Eva realized that Devon was still talking.
“–jump started or skipped over part of the process. I doubt you’re fully demon yet, but this may have accelerated things. I’ll need a more in-depth examination to be certain.” Devon hummed for a moment, tapping a finger on the edge of his notebook. “What about farther away? Can you sense the hel? Or any other demons at your school?”
Eva closed her eyes in concentration. Leaning in and listening, metaphorically, she found nothing more than the four demons around her prison.
“Nope,” Eva said. “Maybe Zagan is overpowering anyone who is too far away. Or I just can’t feel them from this far away. Once I get back to the city, I’ll feel around a bit and let you know.”
Devon marked a few things down with a nod. “Speaking of the demons. You need to go get rid of them. They won’t leave.”
“Won’t leave? How long has it been since the end of the ritual.”
“Two hours. And the succubus keeps trying to corner me. You can tell it that I am not interested.” He blinked before shaking his head. “In fact, use harsher words than that. Much harsher words.” He snapped his notebook shut and regarded her with a glare. “And that devil hasn’t moved at all. Get rid of them then come back and see me. We’ll get those measurements.”
He wandered off towards the kitchen, muttering something to himself that Eva couldn’t quite catch.
Rather than jump up to go confront the gaggle of demons outside, Eva just sat back on the couch.
She didn’t want to move.
Pins and needles poked all through her body with any kind of movement. She had been keeping a straight face in front of Devon, but her face had taken on an unpleasant grimace now that he had gone. It wasn’t that bad of a pain. Cutting herself for blood hurt worse. Having her eyes removed had hurt far worse.
But it was constant and everywhere. That was more than enough to make it annoying.
Hopefully it would die out after a few minutes. If it continued for any length of time, she might just go insane.
Apart from the pins and needles, Eva didn’t feel all that bad. Her treatments with Arachne usually left her feeling lethargic for most of the day. If she even woke up before the next day. Now it had been a mere two hours, according to Devon, and she felt full of energy.
Of course, the ritual itself had lasted a lot longer. They had started not long after noon and it was now dark outside the window. Maybe just a short time after dusk, maybe it was almost morning. Eva couldn’t see the clock from where she lay and getting up just to check sounded painful.
But she couldn’t just lie around all night. Especially not with all the demons sitting around.
Zagan did whatever he wanted. The fact that he had decided to stick around wasn’t any more surprising than finding out he had disappeared immediately after would have been.
Catherine, on the other hand, didn’t make sense. The succubus hadn’t even wanted to come. Eva had expected her to be the first one gone. She had games to get back to, or whatever else the succubus did.
And what had Devon said? She was trying to corner him? Eva couldn’t help but make a face at the thought.
Stalking Devon shocked Eva more than anything else. Succubi sure had strange tastes. Weren’t they supposed to be extraordinarily vain creatures?
Devon was not handsome by anyone’s definition of the word. His beard was scraggly and unkempt at the best of times, as was his hair. With his nose looking like it had been broken a few too many times, wrinkles lining his face, and small scars around where the wrinkles weren’t, Devon couldn’t attract an ogre, let alone a succubus.
At least, that was what Eva had assumed before hearing that. Maybe Catherine saw something beneath his rugged exterior. Some inner beauty. His charming personality, perhaps?
The thought had Eva bursting out in laughter—laughter that rapidly turned to groans as the ache of her body flared.
Regardless of what Devon and Zagan said about the ritual, Eva hoped beyond hope that she wouldn’t pick up any strange traits from having Catherine as a donor.
Though, she had to admit that she wouldn’t mind having the succubus’ body and natural grace.
With a sigh, Eva swung her legs over the edge of the couch while trying to ignore the needles poking her body. It was actually somewhat like having a limb fall asleep.
Something that hadn’t happened to her since she got Arachne’s limbs.
Pushing herself up to her feet, Eva took one step.
She immediately stumbled into the table, hopped twice to get away from it without crashing onto it, bumped into a chair, and promptly fell to the ground.