Her mother would probably kill Eva if she knew what her daughter wanted to get into.
The only real advantage Juliana had going for her was that she wasn’t a demon. None of the traps would work on her. At least, none of the ones set up to counter demons specifically. Eva couldn’t discount the possibility of generic traps.
As for counterattacking them…
Charging into Sawyer’s lair could have ended extraordinarily painfully had Eva not spotted his haugbui. That had been a stroke of luck in retrospect. He never would have gone to it had he not suspected the vampires of treachery. That had only happened because Eva failed to provide some secret passphrase, which had only happened because the vampire had gotten a call off and she needed to try hiding it from Sawyer.
A chain of luck that probably saved her life.
Even if they spied on the demon hunters for a week, Eva doubted that Nel would see every trap they had set. Even if she did see them all, who knew if she would recognize things dangerous to demons.
She could still remember opening up their apartment door to find Lucy amidst so many anti-demon magical circles that it had taken the complete destruction of the room to get her out. According to the note left behind, Eva had just about stepped into a trap that was supposed to have reduced Ylva to a scorch mark.
Attacking the hunters in their home base would likely leave them facing far stronger and far more prepared defenses.
“I don’t know,” Eva eventually said. “But something has to be done. We need a large place to work with. Their sky cracking thing ruins outdoor locations.”
“You’re just going to leave them alone? They tried to kill you!”
“I know. I’m not going to do nothing. But I’m not sure what to do.”
Juliana fell silent. She idly stirred some green sludge that had been served for today’s lunch. Eva hadn’t seen her actually take a bite of it. She couldn’t tell what it was and wasn’t about to put it in her mouth. For all she knew, it could be poisonous towards demons. Or humans. Both, probably.
“Do you want to talk with my mother? She’ll have interacted with these sorts before. Maybe enough to give you good advice.”
Not really, Eva thought. Seeing Genoa was just a little awkward these days. Avoiding the woman in the wheelchair felt wrong and yet Eva still did it. But… thinking about it a moment longer and it didn’t sound like such a bad idea.
“Maybe,” she said. “Though I’m not so sure about Carlos and your brother.”
“Brother left, actually. His vacation from his job ran out a while ago. ‘Family emergency’ only held out as an excuse for so long.”
Well, that was a positive, at least.
“Of course, if we go there, we might be leading the demon hunters right to your family. With your mother still not up to full speed…”
“I’ve been going there every week since school started,” Juliana said with a shrug. “Given my relation to you, I’m sure they already know about it.”
“But they might not have attacked because they’re seemingly unrelated to me outside of our friendship. This might be just what it takes to warrant an attack.”
“You know what?” Juliana said as she pulled out her cellphone. She held up a finger when Eva went to respond. After tapping twice, she held the phone up to her ear.
“Mom? I– No, everything is fine. Nobody is in trouble… No. Nobody died as far as I know.” She paused, rolling her eyes towards Eva before shaking her head. “I don’t know! Look, no emergency at the moment. I just wanted to ask if Eva could come over and ask you a few questions.”
“Also,” Eva added, “we might be dragging demon hunters to her home.”
Juliana rolled her eyes again. “Eva wants you to know that she is worried that some demon hunters might notice where she’s going and attack you sometime.” She paused while her mother answered on the other end of the line. After a few seconds, she turned to Eva and smiled. “She said that’s very nice of you, but you don’t have to worry about her.”
Back to her phone, Juliana said, “I told her. Yes. Alright, we’ll be over after school. Bye. Love you too, mom. Alright, bye.”
Juliana slipped her phone back into her pocket. “There. No more excuses.”
“They weren’t excuses. I was just concerned.”
“Well, be concerned no longer.”
Eva sighed, but nodded. “Alright. I’ll go.”
Now I need to think up some actual questions.
— — —
Irene watched as Eva, Arachne, Juliana, and Srey took off for the day. During their conversation at lunch, she had kept quiet and tried to draw as little attention to herself as possible. She had already gotten involved in far too many things with the group of them.
Learning about shackles and even demons was one thing. A mildly enjoyable thing.
Being chased around town by demon hunters was another entirely.
And it did not sound appealing in the slightest.
With a sigh of relief at having gone apparently unnoticed all day, Irene started into the dormitory.
Only started.
The exterior door opened up just before she could reach it and she found herself running into another troublesome individual.
“Irene!” A certain succubus said, beaming at her as she skipped the short distance between them. She put her hands on Irene’s shoulders before drawing her close and planting a kiss on each cheek. “It’s been so long.”
Pushing away from the other girl, Irene wiped off both of her cheeks before glaring at her. “You pulled me aside in the halls just earlier today. And what’s with the kissing?”
Saija was a succubus, but she had never been touchy feely like that before.
“Drew said that humans greet each other this way.”
“Maybe in France. And I don’t believe that anyway. It’s just a thing that happens in movies that people think is real.”
Saija pouted. A real lip-out pout. “Then why would he say that?”
“Because he just wants you to kiss him. Next time slap him or something,” Irene said. Drew was such a slime ball. He was supposedly going out with Kristina anyway. What was he doing tricking a succubus into kissing him?
Saija just shrugged, not looking disturbed at having been taken advantage of in the slightest.
Whatever, Irene thought. If the demon wanted to go around kissing everyone, it really wasn’t any of her business. Just so long as Irene didn’t get kissed anymore.
“Was there something you wanted?”
“You ran away from me in the hall earlier today. Did I do something wrong?”
Irene hesitated, about to deny the claim. She thought better of it after a moment and decided to simply answer with honesty. “The people who you have leashed to your little finger are not really the sort of people I hang out with.”
Especially Drew.
“Leashed to my finger? My friends?”
Irene snorted, cutting it short as she shivered a little. Summer had dragged on a little longer this year, but it was still getting to the point where she needed a light jacket while outside. Winter was coming early. She hadn’t brought a jacket as she hadn’t expected to be stuck in the entryway of her dorm for ten minutes.
“If you think those people are your friends…” Irene shook her head. “Well, you’re probably wrong. Is there a reason you stopped me out here instead of somewhere inside?”
“I didn’t want you running away again. If I’m here, then you have to get past me to get to your room.”
“There are side entrances.”
“That’s… Why aren’t they my friends? I thought humans who hung out with each other were friends?”
Irene tried to slip past Saija. The succubus spread her wings out, blocking entrance as she had said she would. While Irene could go all the way around to a side entrance, now that she had mentioned it to Saija, the succubus would probably just move to block her there.