He went down to the ground screaming with his knee bent the wrong direction.
The guy she had caught in her flames was on the ground, rolling back and forth in a mad effort to put out the flames.
After causing the remaining fire to flare, Eva continued on past him. The final guy had run off towards the door during her beat down of bar-man. He was repeatedly slamming his shoulder into the door.
Shame the doors opened inwards.
Eva marched towards him at a glacial pace, making her footsteps as loud as possible on the concrete floor.
“No, please!” He pressed himself against the door, raising his arms in front of him for some minute amount of protection.
Eva paused just a step away from him. “You want mercy,” she growled out.
She lifted the bar overhead and brought it down on his outstretched arm. The snapping noise barely audible under his screams was not the bar breaking.
“I’ll show you the same mercy you were going to show a little blind girl who had lost her dog.”
Eva raised the bar again, preparing for a second strike.
Something cold and hard penetrated through her side. Right where Lynn Cross had taken a chunk of her hip.
It had healed, but perhaps not as well as it should have. Though thinner at her hips than her legs, the carapace should still have stopped most everything that hit her.
Letting out a cry–frustration more than anything–Eva used one of her vials of blood to form up a shield around herself.
Just in time for two loud cracks to ring out through the warehouse.
Two flattened bullets hit the ground just outside of her shield.
With a feral growl, Eva tore the icicle out of her side, unsheathed her dagger, and plunged it back into the hole. Eva shored up the damage as best as she was able as she turned to face her attackers.
The thug that had run off stood on the second floor walkway with a small revolver in his hands.
The man standing at his side held a small metal stick.
A wand.
Another bullet and four more icicles hit Eva’s shield in the time it had taken her to turn and glance up to the walkway.
The moment her eyes met those of the mage, he took a few steps backwards. Eva might have smiled at that had she not been fighting through the pain of having a hole in her side again.
After a few more impacts from both men, her shield had started to crack. They were far from the tier of attacks employed by the Elysium Order, but she was using her own blood.
Eva fired off an oversized fireball towards the two along with an orb of blood.
The blood homed in on the gun. The moment it hit, Eva clapped her hands to obliterate most of the gun.
Parts of the thug’s hand as well, but Eva couldn’t bring herself to care.
Both men dove off to opposite sides to avoid the oncoming flames. The fireball wasn’t intended so much as an attack as way to obscure the mage’s vision. Eva charged in straight after it, leaping off the bottom floor.
With Arachne’s legs, reaching the walkway was no issue.
Eva tore through her fireball, emerging on the other side to land on top of the diving mage.
One hand crushed his wrist while the other snapped his silver wand in two.
Digging her claws into him, Eva hefted him up and over the railing.
She would rather have them all on the ground floor.
Unfortunately, despite the relatively low height of the walkway, she had thrown him over head first. Eva watched with a frown as his body stilled, neck bent at an angle necks were not supposed to bend at.
The mage had been fairly small, a skinny guy without the muscle that the rest of the thugs had. The thug was the exact opposite. Possibly the largest person in the room. He was a pain to deal with. Especially with the struggling.
Eva had to break his nose and crush his hand that hadn’t gotten blown off just to get him to stop resisting.
Taking more care with the handless guy, Eva pushed him over feet first, dangling him by the shoulders to help lessen the height. He landed in a heap.
Jumping back down to the ground floor, she snapped the thug’s leg before he could move.
Eva surveyed the damage. Most everyone was moaning or screaming in pain. The guy with several broken ribs and a crushed wrist had actually managed to get back to his feet.
Eva shoved him to the ground and crushed a leg with a well placed stomp.
Her flames had died out on the man she had hit earlier. Despite being one of the least injured of the bunch, he wasn’t moving. He was lying still. Very still. Had she not been able to see his heartbeat and other minor movements, she might have thought he had died.
Pretending to be unconscious? Cute.
She left him be for the moment as she counted up the thugs.
Broken ribs, destroyed knee, fire guy, broken-arm-by-the-door guy, dead mage, handless guy.
Six including the mage.
Someone was missing.
“Oh leader,” Eva called out. “Where have you run off to?”
Given the fact that he had passed out right at the start of the fight, she had been expecting the least amount of trouble from him. Maybe the noise of the gun going off had woken him. Whatever the case, he couldn’t be allowed to escape.
Eva walked left. She walked right.
All, including her call, for show. For fun.
The leader had slipped away during her fight and had hidden himself behind the collapsed section of the walkway.
Eva tossed a few rocks in one direction while she tiptoed around the heap in the other. For a moment, she actually considered creating a blood-clone of herself to make the effect all the better, but that would have taken far too much effort.
Not to mention the disorienting effects that she still hadn’t overcome.
Instead, she just kept quiet as she sneaked up behind him.
“Guess who?” Eva said as she clasped her hands over the leader’s eyes.
He immediately started struggling and shouting.
“Struggle more and you might not have any eyes,” Eva said, voice hard. “Not a fun experience. Trust me. I know. How about you answer my questions instead, hmm? Doesn’t that sound far more pleasant?”
“W-what do you want?” he squealed.
“I want to kill a few pedophiles and rapists.” His heart-rate jumped through the roof. “But for the moment, I’m content to find out just what a mage was doing hanging out with a bunch of low-lives.”
That calmed him back down. Slightly.
“Eddy? Shit–he helps us get into places. Helps fight rivals. That sort of shit.”
There had to be better magic-needing jobs than working for a small-time gang. It didn’t even sound like he led the gang. Eva had been calling this guy the leader just because he had been at the head of the group, but for all she knew, he was the leader.
“And what did they mean by ‘it’s one of them’ earlier?”
He didn’t immediately respond. Eva scratched one of her fingers across his forehead.
“I’ll talk, I’ll talk!” he screamed out. “Some people showed up a few months ago, investigating or some shit. Big guy in armor and a smaller woman. Talked to just about everyone in town, police, gangs, everyone. Wanted to know about all kinds of strange shit. Especially anyone that might have colored eyes–demons they called them. If it weren’t for Eddy, we would have laughed in their faces. He talked to them, not me. Ask him!”
“I see,” Eva said with a hum. Asking him wasn’t going to be possible at the moment. But the information wasn’t totally worthless. Someone looking for demons. Neither she nor Devon had been in the area for two years. Less depending on exactly how many months ago this was.
Were there other demons in the area that had drawn attention to themselves? Or someone following an old trail?
“Well,” Eva said, “can you think of anything else that might interest me?”
“Please, just let me go.”
“Aww, I’d love to.” Eva loosened her grip ever so slightly. “But then you might go kidnap some other poor girl. No. Best to take preventive measures.