“They can indeed, Miss Ward.”
Eva rolled her eyes before shifting to see over Shalise’s shoulder. “Mister Anderson,” she said in her least sarcastic tone of voice. “Welcome back. We… missed you.”
“Back?” he said as confusion twisted his face. “I haven’t gone anywhere.”
“We haven’t missed you either.”
Eva couldn’t say why she felt antagonistic towards Alexander Anderson. Something about him rubbed her the wrong way. He acted too professional. The way he spoke implied that he cared about the students around Brakket. And yet Eva doubted that was the case.
At least Martina hadn’t lied about it. At least not to Eva.
“Well, I’m glad to see you’ve still got a sense of humor. I hear rumors that you’ve been somewhat on edge lately.”
Maybe it is him who is spying on us. Eva quickly dismissed the thought. He was spying, or he had his demons spying, but he couldn’t be the only one. There were definitely demon hunters out there.
“I was just stopping by while looking for someone,” he said, glancing around the table.
“Jordan’s already gone ahead to class, if that’s who you’re looking for. He wanted to get a question or two in before his enchanting test starts.”
“Good for him. But I was actually looking for Juliana Rivas.”
Eva sat up straighter, narrowing her eyes slightly. A thousand possibilities for his reasons ran through her mind. Most involved her parents. Were they injured or in trouble? Or had they found out that Zagan wasn’t even on the mortal plane and were going to pull her out of school.
“Whatever you’re fearing, don’t,” Anderson said. He shook his head. “It isn’t anything bad. I assure you. I merely wished to discuss a few matters with her. Matters involving demons and the possibility of her becoming one of our dear friends’ host.”
“Oh,” Eva said with half a chuckle. Her sudden tension died almost immediately. “That. I doubt she’ll agree.”
“She had an interest in diablery before, did she not?”
“Yeah. It almost got her mother killed.”
“Ah, yes. The mess with Zagan. I was hoping we might look past that now.” He paused to look around again. “I thought I might ask, at the very least. Yet she isn’t here. Did she head to class early as well?”
“Actually, she is skipping school today. Sort of. I mean, she’s here. But she isn’t going to class. You’ll have to try tomorrow.”
“Skipping school? You’re admitting that to the dean?”
Eva shrugged. It wasn’t like the attendance records would have shown her here.
“She wanted to borrow Arachne. They should be out in the Infinite Courtyard.”
Eva would be out there as well, except she had a test today. She wasn’t sure why she bothered. School was there to prepare oneself for the future and she had no idea what she wanted to do after school ended.
Maybe she would be in Hell. Maybe she could join the Royal Guild of Mage-Knights. At the very least, that would keep her appraised of any bounties that might get put on her head.
For the moment, she figured she might as well learn. Especially golemancy. Poor Basila was still not quite her usual self.
Author’s Note: The first chapter of a new story tentatively titled Analyst is over on my preview site. Meant to have it up a few weeks ago, but delayed because I’m not sure that I write military tactical type things very well. Much less happy with it than I am with Demi-God, but I also wanted to post something. Bigger notes at the bottom of the chapter over there.
Chapter 013
“I don’t see why you need me for this.”
Juliana’s concentration collapsed. Along with it went the few particles of iron that she had managed to conjure up.
She took a deep breath and let it out as a long sigh. “All that progress. Gone. Just like that.”
“Progress? You’ve been standing in one spot for the last hour doing nothing.”
“Didn’t you see all the iron? I conjured that.”
“I saw nothing.”
“Then you weren’t looking.”
Arachne glanced off to the side, looking back towards the direction of the school building.
It might have been her imagination, but it almost seemed as if she let out a small sigh of her own.
“Why am I here again? I know nothing about thaumaturgy. And this doesn’t seem to be a secret thing that you would need to come out into the woods with a bodyguard for.”
“Bodyguard?” Juliana raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you think you’re here for?”
Taking a deep breath, Juliana closed her eyes in mental preparation. As soon as she opened her mouth again, there might be no going back. But she needed this. She had her goals and Arachne was going to help her accomplish them.
Whether Juliana wanted her to or not.
“I want you to fight me.”
The moment the words left her mouth, Juliana sprung into action. She couldn’t let Arachne have the initiative. There was no Eva around at the moment. No one to chide Arachne if she went too far. No one to watch and ensure that Juliana lived.
Arachne would be free to fight however she wanted. Juliana held no doubts that she would. She had picked today specifically because Eva had an exam as soon as lunch ended while Juliana didn’t.
Juliana lunged forward with an arm. A thin blade sprouted out of her wrist as she moved. It extended a good deal out from her body.
She hadn’t been lying to Eva. Affecting metal away from her body wasn’t possible—at least, it didn’t use to be possible before breaking apart that emblem. It was still much too difficult to use in a combat situation.
Luckily, with how she had been taught ferrokinesis, she didn’t need to do anything to metal outside of her body. The metal that she controlled was almost an extension of her limbs. It was much easier to manipulate metal no more than an inch away from her skin, but she could do simple things like extend spikes from a contiguous bit of metal.
She still built her sword from the tip down, extending it outwards as she poured more metal into the construct.
The demon-harming metal in her collection stayed behind. Juliana only used normal iron and steel in the sword.
The special metal was making up her armor. Especially around her neck and head. Just in case Arachne did decide to go all out.
Maybe she wanted Arachne to go a little easy on her. Slashing her with a weapon that would cause severe harm would maybe make her a little angrier than Juliana wanted. They still didn’t completely understand the metal and she didn’t want to permanently injure Arachne. Or temporarily, for that matter.
She wanted a fight. Not a slaughter.
Arachne didn’t even look surprised at being suddenly attacked with a sword. She stepped to one side, dodging Juliana’s lunge before grabbing the sword with her hands. A leg from her back, which hadn’t been there a second ago, thrust forward, snapping the blade just above Juliana’s outstretched hand.
Juliana dodged backwards, rolling along the ground and manipulating the earth as she went to give her just a little extra distance.
Only… As Juliana got back to an upright fighting position, she realized that Arachne hadn’t followed up with an attack. Her dodge had been meaningless.
And even now, the demon was just standing there, staring at her with the bit of broken metal in her claws.
Juliana watched it carefully. In Arachne’s spars with her mother, she had not been shy about catching and returning the rocks and boulders that Genoa had thrown. Usually with as much or more force behind them.
But the spider-demon just dropped the blade, letting it fall straight to the ground without even trying to kick it towards her. She turned and started walking.