Through her sense of blood, she could see Nel take notice. Eva’s wave had pointed him out to her.
Her lips drew back into a snarl. Without a word of warning, she raised both of her arms.
Eva had to use both of her hands to keep Nel from falling off her back.
Twin bolts of white lightning fired off from Nel’s fingertips. They were of the same blindingly overcharged caliber that her initial bolts of the evening had been.
The only reason that Eva could still see with the lightning right in front of her face was because of her connection with Sawyer.
Though she couldn’t see from that end of things for very long. Grass and dirt filled her vision. Sawyer dropped to the ground the moment he saw Nel raise her arms. Eva could feel the heat over his back as the lightning careened on to the sky.
He rolled over on his back and brought the whistle around to his lips.
Again, no sound came out when he blew into the opening.
A wave of enigmas charged around him and into the field.
Still blinking away the spots in her eyes and shaking the thunder from her ears, Eva had to rely on her blood sight.
One of the vampires was in the way of the enigmas between Sawyer and Eva. Eva couldn’t tell if he had been blinded by the lightning or not, but he didn’t manage to get very far away once he realized what was happening. Tentacles lashed around his legs and arms from several different enigmas.
The different enigmas pulled in different directions. There was a moment of strain in the vampire’s limbs before they started snapping off.
A few of the enigmas pounced on the vampire, tearing him to even smaller pieces with their sharp teeth.
He didn’t scream for very long.
Most of the enigmas were still charging into the field.
Eva didn’t waste any time. Even while partially blind, she could still act.
The demon blood contained within the vials strapped to her body forced its way out of the vials. Two vials of Zagan’s blood stayed intact, just in case she needed them later on.
As it was, she was going to be stretching her blood reserves rather thin. Thirty enigmas were a lot. Even with Nel and the remaining vampires to assist and distract, dispatching them wasn’t going to be easy.
And then there was Sawyer to worry about. He climbed back to his feet, brushing the dirt off his button up shirt as he went. For the moment, he seemed content to merely watch.
Rings of blood flew out from Eva. She wrapped them around the four nearest enigmas’ necks and promptly clapped her hands. Technically, beheading the beasts didn’t kill them. It still put them down long enough to take them out of the current fight.
Eva didn’t have time to throw out more rings. Another wave of enigmas charged over their fallen brethren towards Eva.
A stream of fire from Nel’s fingertips consumed one and kept the others at bay long enough for Eva to form a shield around the two of them.
Just in time for an enigma’s wide mouth to try gnawing on the shield. Eva sent a smaller marble of blood down its throat and clapped her hands again.
Eva started to form up more rings when she noticed something odd.
Enigmas, despite their oddities with death, acted like any other creature for the most part. They had brains, hearts, blood, and other organs. Eva was concerned mostly with their blood and hearts, as that was what she could see best. Normally, their hearts pumped and their blood flowed.
But not those of the enigmas that had consumed the vampire. There were only three of them, but they weren’t moving at all. Their tentacles were still, their mouths did not open or close, their hearts didn’t beat, and their blood didn’t move.
Though still, they weren’t idle. The blood inside the affected enigmas’ veins was turning stale. Old.
Like the blood within vampire veins.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Eva said, more to herself than to Nel. One of the vampires had landed on top of one of the unmoving enigmas and had started to tear it apart.
That seemed to be the trigger needed to get them moving. The vampire jumped away just in time to avoid getting caught by a tentacle.
The vampiric enigmas jumped after him.
A startled noise from Nel brought Eva back from watching the rest of the battle. She quickly sent a few small marbles down the throats of three enigmas that had approached her shield, dispatching all of them.
None of the other vampires in the field had been caught, thanks to small mercies, but they really were not that effective at taking out the enigmas. Nel’s fire did a much better job, probably because of its magic eating aspects and the fact that the enigmas were definitely magical beings.
Eva hoped that none of them wound up caught. She didn’t know what the enigmas had done, exactly, but something told her that they would be tougher, better regenerators, and possibly contagious. With any luck, they wouldn’t like the sun all that much. Maybe the sun could even kill them permanently.
Unfortunately, Eva had no time to test.
“We’re going to be moving up towards Sawyer,” Eva said.
Nel was back to gripping Eva’s shoulders for support, but she nodded an acknowledgment.
After dispatching one more enigma with a ring of blood around its neck, Eva shut down her shield and started running. She built up a fireball and tossed it towards the vampiric enigmas as she ran.
Vampires didn’t like fire, so why should vampiric enigmas?
That was the theory anyway. Eva didn’t stop to observe the results of her handiwork. She ran straight for the hill that Sawyer was once again standing on top of.
At the base of the hill, she stopped.
Something strange was going on. Her vision and sense of blood were not matching up with what Sawyer saw.
To Eva, the enigmas were fighting with the vampires down on the field. Or, they were being distracted by the vampires. After watching one of their number get quartered and eaten alive, they were being a little hesitant in engaging directly.
Standing atop the hill, Sawyer calmly watched as three of the enigmas turned. They started snarling at him. After a brief moment, they started running. Two of them brushed past Eva on either side of her.
Looking in person, the nearest enigma was some distance away, snapping at the heels of a vampire that jumped over it.
Eva could feel a headache forming again. Just when her nausea had started to dissipate as well. Something was going on and it was messing with Sawyer’s head. Her head by extension.
She had a feeling that she knew what it was, but she couldn’t actually see Serena anywhere around.
The three enigmas in Sawyer’s vision charged up the hill, running straight up to the necromancer.
He stood by as unconcerned as he could be even as the enigmas started circling around him. They growled and occasionally sent out the whistling thunder inside of his head. Sawyer flinched every time, but was otherwise entirely too calm for the situation.
Still, he was distracted.
Eva couldn’t waste the opportunity.
Gathering up one of the vials of Zagan’s blood, she formed it into a large ring and sent it whizzing up the hill towards Sawyer. With Nel still on her back, she ran up after it.
At the same time, one of the enigmas lashed its tentacles around Sawyer’s leg. Eva could feel it squeezing and constricting. The pain just about sent her stumbling in her run.
Sawyer just looked down, his grin widening.
Something was definitely wrong.
Just before Eva’s blood ring could make it to Sawyer, his hand darted out to his side. It gripped something that wasn’t there in his sight. Eva could feel his hands squeezing tight around something fleshy.
In her blood sight, Eva just about started to panic.
The ring of blood flew straight towards his outstretched arm.
Eva just about dropped Nel in an attempt to clap her hands together.
She stopped just in the nick of time.
Sawyer swung his arm around. Eva’s blood splattered across an invisible woman in his hands.