The whole point of blowing up the ritual site was to draw him out. Well, and to stop the ritual. Him thinking it was his imagination couldn’t be allowed.
Moving forward a few steps, Eva found herself in range of another few caskets. Explosions at each of them had Sawyer dropping his tools.
“The field,” he hissed. Sawyer ran up to a tool shelf and pulled off a small whistle that looked as if it had been carved from bone. “Des, honey, meet me at the field with as many skeletons as you can gather that can fight. We have a vampire infestation.”
Placing the whistle against his lips, Sawyer gave a sharp blow. Eva couldn’t hear anything through his ears. The same was not true for the enigmas in the room. The second he blew the whistle, they perked up and ran over to him, stopping just at his feet.
They followed at his heels, nipping at each other with their vacuous maws and intertwining their tentacles.
Apart from the occasional glance back, Sawyer ignored them. As soon as he got outside, he blew the whistle again.
Nothing happened.
Sawyer didn’t seem too worried by the lack of any action. He walked right past his sports car, stopping at a larger truck around the backside of the warehouse. The truck was hooked up to a long metal trailer with plenty of holes in the sides for air.
Eva heard it before she saw it. The scampering of footsteps as enigmas charged towards him. Three, five, ten… there had to be at least thirty.
It didn’t take long to herd them into the back of the trailer. Either they were well-trained or Sawyer had more control over them than a simple whistle would imply.
They didn’t all fit. Each enigma was roughly the size of a large dog. A few of them might have been able to pass as smaller horses. Very tentacly horses. With wide mouths and sharp teeth. The larger enigmas climbed over and on top of the smaller ones. They all bit at each other, but not enough to do damage, sadly.
Once Sawyer had kicked the last enigma aboard, he closed the back of the trailer and went around to the driver’s seat of the truck.
The field wasn’t far from the warehouse. A fifteen minute drive at most. And Sawyer would be in a hurry.
“Serena!” Eva shouted out, hoping that the vampire could hear her above all the droning thunder of the enigmas around the field.
She dropped out of mid-air in front of Eva just a second or two after shouting.
“Little busy at the moment,” Serena said, baring her fangs in Eva’s direction.
Nel started shaking at the look, again, but Eva paid her no mind.
She was glad to see that Serena had listened to her request of not drinking the enigmas’ blood. Her fangs were shiny white and not stained purple. Eva still hadn’t seen any proof of corrupting effects, but who was she to doubt Ylva’s words on the matter. She didn’t know if the other vampires had listened, but really, she didn’t care.
“You’re about to be a whole lot busier,” Eva said. “Sawyer noticed. He’s on his way with about thirty more enigmas.”
“Thirty! There were only ten here and we are barely dealing with them. What are we supposed to do about thirty?”
“He has a whistle that he’s using to control them. Inside his shirt pocket on the left side,” Eva said, patting her chest in the spot. “Get it and we might not have to deal with them.”
“If I’m that close to him, I might as well tear out his heart while I’m at it.”
Eva slumped slightly. “I won’t say you can’t, but that wouldn’t get rid of the enigmas. Besides, I’d rather he lives. I’d hate to resort to necromancy just to torture him.”
Nel hissed at Eva’s side, but again, Eva ignored her.
“Alright,” Serena said, “I’ll let the other vampires know that we have incoming enemies.”
“Great. I’m going to explode as many of these coffins as I can before he arrives.”
Serena jumped away into the night with barely a nod of acknowledgment.
Eva turned to face Nel with a frown. “Walking with you is slowing me down. We need to move fast if we want to make any progress before Sawyer arrives.”
“What?” Nel shrieked. “B-but, you can’t leave me alone. You promised.”
“I know,” Eva said. She was mostly certain that she hadn’t actually promised anything, but she didn’t intend to leave Nel behind anyway. Ducking to the ground, Eva faced away from Nel. “Climb onto my back.”
“What.” This time, her voice was flat.
“No time to argue. Climb on and shoot lighting at anything that moves. And try not to fall off.”
“I can’t–”
“No time to argue,” Eva repeated slowly. “My legs are strong enough to carry you, just hold on tight.”
Her legs were definitely strong enough, but Eva was more concerned about her back. Nel wasn’t overweight or even all that large. If anything, she was malnourished. Eva didn’t think that she had been eating much since the start of their trip. Still, carrying around a human body for any length of time wasn’t easy. She had learned that much from carrying Irene’s unconscious body around when Sawyer had attacked Brakket the second time. And Irene was smaller than Nel.
“Hurry,” Eva said as Nel continued to hesitate.
That seemed to snap her out of it.
Nel climbed on, wrapping her legs around Eva’s waist and gripping Eva’s shoulder with her good hand. Her withered hand was far too weak to keep any real hold of Eva.
Eva had to place one of her hands around Nel’s bottom to stabilize them both enough to move.
With her free hand, Eva lit up another few fireballs.
“Alright, lightning at anything that moves,” Eva said as she took off in a run. “Well, aside from the vampires,” she added.
Chapter 015
Sawyer stood at the crest of a hill that overlooked the ritual site. He turned his head one way then the other, taking in the destruction down below.
His actions gave Eva a nice overview of everything as well.
Much of the field was on fire in some capacity or other. Eva hadn’t managed to explode every casket, but a good chunk of them were nothing more than craters. Most of the skeletons and enigmas on the field were dead, thanks to the efforts of the vampires and Nel.
It was a strange sensation to feel Sawyer’s shoulders slump ever so slightly. Several nights worth of work had just gone to waste with her ten minute romp through the field. Likely more than just several nights. Even if Eva was beaten back, Sawyer wouldn’t be able to recover.
If it were just the work he had put into preparing the bodies, it wouldn’t be all that bad. But with the graveyards mostly dug up already, there might not be enough suitable corpses remaining. He might have to move to an entirely new location and set up everything all over again. Starting from scratch on a project this big couldn’t be fun.
Sawyer’s eyes narrowed to thin slits as he caught sight of one of the vampires dashing across the field. His hand went to his whistle.
But he paused. The whistle was on his lips, but he didn’t breathe out.
The vampire’s motion had carried his vision right to Eva and Nel.
Eva had to admit that the two of them looked absurd. Nel clung to Eva’s back while she hunched over to carry the weight. Lightning shot from a withered arm. Immediately after, Nel wobbled around as the lights in her eyes died off.
Absurd, but not to the point where it was all that humorous.
Yet Sawyer’s lips drew his already wide smile back even further.
Every time she had seen Sawyer, he had been smiling. Even when things weren’t going his way. Something was constantly amusing him.
Eva would have suspected drugs, but she had watched his actions from a front row seat over the last few days. She would have noticed something had it actually been drugs.
“Sawyer is here,” Eva said, turning to the necromancer and giving a little wave.