The illusion in Sawyer’s vision died off and Serena shimmered into being, clutching and grasping at her throat, clawing away at Sawyer’s skin.
He didn’t seem to care as blood started dripping from his hand. His smile just grew wider.
“Serena is in trouble,” Eva hissed as she doubled her efforts in getting up the hill.
As she ran, she tried to salvage as much blood as she could from Serena. A lot of it had soaked into her clothing, becoming unusable. That which Eva could scrape up, she gathered just on the back of Serena’s neck. Normally, such a thing would have ruined the blood. It would have gotten mixed up with sweat and grime. Being a vampire, Serena didn’t sweat. Her body was dead.
With Sawyer holding her facing him, it was the perfect spot to hide the blood without him noticing.
“I say, you two are quite the sight,” Sawyer said, turning a grin in Eva’s direction.
Eva glared. She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to.
Nel gave a slight squeak as Eva unclasped her hands from the augur’s bottom. She almost fell to the ground as Eva dropped her, but managed to remain on her feet with a little help.
“Is this one with you?” Sawyer asked as he turned back to face Serena. “She’s a much rarer strain than those riffraff,” he swept his stitched hand towards the valley below. “Almost a shame what I have to do.”
Muscles and blood within Sawyer’s arm started moving. He was squeezing Serena’s throat.
Wasting no more time, the blood from behind Serena’s neck moved around, coating the back of Sawyer’s hand. Given that his hand was throttling Serena’s neck, the blood didn’t have far to move. He didn’t have a chance to pull away before most of the blood got onto him.
When he did release Serena and pull away, it was far too late.
Eva clapped her hands together.
Sawyer shouted out a clipped cry as the blood flashed white and obliterated everything that it was touching.
Namely, his hand.
Eva took care not to harm Serena. The vampire collapsed to the ground, unmoving despite Eva’s efforts. Her neck was bent at an angle that it shouldn’t be.
Vampires died if they were decapitated. Eva wasn’t sure about broken necks. Hopefully Serena would be able to regenerate from it. The vampire had actually grown on Eva since their attack on the Elysium Order’s cathedral.
But there was no time to worry about that now. Sawyer was looking at his hand–or the empty spot where it had been–as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened. Eva only managed to coat his fingers and part of the back of his hand, but his entire arm was missing up to his elbow.
The power of Zagan’s blood. Probably.
Eva charged forward, planting her shoulder right into Sawyer’s stomach. As he fell to the ground, Eva stepped forwards. She planted one foot on his chest and the other foot on the arm that still had a hand.
While Eva didn’t consider herself to be that heavy, she did not spare Sawyer anything. Her sharp toes pressed down on his chest with all the force that she could muster.
For a moment, she wished that she still had Nel on her back.
“You’re not getting away this time, Sawyer. Nel and I want to have a little fun with you.”
He smiled–as always–and laughed. “I can’t wait. Unfortunately, I don’t think that is in the cards for me tonight.”
This time, it was Eva’s turn to laugh. “You think that Des and a handful of skeletons will save you? Or that haugbui that you’ve got locked up in your warehouse?” Eva shook her head. “Think again.”
“How did you–”
Eva pressed down on his chest, digging the claws that made up her toes through his shirt and skin. Blood welled up and stained his shirt.
Drawing her knife from its sheath, Eva stabbed it into her arm. The amount of blood she pulled out was perhaps more than she should have, but she needed it for the next stage of her plan. She wanted to have everything ready before Des showed up with the skeletons.
Shaping her blood into a large circle, Eva hesitated. Sawyer was entirely too calm. Casting around her blood sight, Eva couldn’t find anything that might immediately threaten her.
Though pausing did remind her of something.
Bending over, Eva clawed one hand as she reached out for his pocket. Her hand grasped his whistle, cloth from his shirt, and even some skin. Even in her slowly fading senses from Sawyer, it hurt. Eva had intended for it to hurt.
Sawyer didn’t flinch in the slightest. He had to have some way of shutting off his sense of pain that didn’t protect Eva. There was no other way that he could just sit there smiling.
“Nel, keep an eye out for a bunch of skeletons while I work on this.”
“M-me?” she asked, whipping her head up from glaring at Sawyer.
Eva rolled her eyes. At least act a little confident in front of Sawyer. “Yes, you. They’ll be with Des, so maybe we’ll be able to recover your eyes.”
Slowly, Nel nodded. “Alright. I’d like that.”
Given that the eyes were implanted within Des, it might not be a good idea to put them back into Nel. They had been in the hands of a necromancer for far too long. There could be all kinds of traps and safeguards to keep Nel from reclaiming them.
But Eva didn’t need to comment on that to Nel at the moment. The augur desperately needed a boost to her confidence. Saying such things would have the opposite effect.
Turning her attention back to Sawyer and the ring of her blood in the air, Eva put on a grin of her own. She fingered the small black orb that hung from her neck–Arachne’s beacon. It was a depressing shame that Arachne couldn’t be here to watch her victory over Sawyer.
“Do you know what this is?” she asked as details started to form within the circle.
“A summoning circle,” Sawyer said with a half chuckle. “What horror are you going to call forth to exact your revenge? Oh, I can’t wait to find out!”
“Sawyer, I am appalled,” Eva said with a shake of her head. “You should really study up on your diablery. Or get your eyes checked.” He was entirely too excited about everything. Normally, such a thing would have worried Eva. She must be missing something.
But the circle was complete. It wouldn’t matter in a few seconds.
Eva started channeling magic into the circle as it hung in mid-air right next to Sawyer’s prone form.
A black void opened up where the blood had been.
“This,” she said, stepping off Sawyer, “is a transference circle.”
Before her words could entirely sink in, Eva dug one of her feet between Sawyer’s back and the ground.
Using the powerful legs that she had been given by Arachne, Eva kicked out.
Sawyer’s body lifted off the ground just a hair–it really didn’t need to go so high, Eva had made the bottom of the circle almost scraping the ground. All she needed to do was to get him inside.
She halfway succeeded. Her foot must have been too far off-center.
Sawyer’s legs and lower waist disappeared into the void, but he managed to flip over onto his stomach. Grasping at the brush and well-entrenched weeds on the ground, he managed to stop himself from falling inside entirely. His head tilted upwards, glaring at Eva as she smirked down at him.
He no longer had a smile on his face.
Eva knelt in front of him and started prying his fingers loose, one by one. He only had one hand, so it wasn’t like he had all that much to hold onto.
“You know,” Eva said as she accidentally broke one of his fingers, “connecting the mortal realm to Hell is supposed to be off limits for a time. I just wanted you to know how special you are to have an exception made just for you.”
Snapping his pinky finger clean off, Eva stood again.
He was slowly being dragged into the portal.
Too slowly.
Eva placed her foot right on his forehead.
“This isn’t over,” he said, all humor and amusement gone from his voice.