But it was a start.
So Eva sat and continued to watch.
It managed to hold on for another minute before its head dipped. Jolting awake, the creature snapped its head around. The next slow blink of its otherwise wide eyes came only half a minute after. From there, its eyes started closing every few seconds, increasing in frequency with every blink. As its movements slowed, Zoe slowed down the wind and only swatted at the creature when it tried to escape its containment. Something that it wasn’t trying to do half as often.
All at once, its eyes fluttered shut and stayed there. Perched on its hind legs with its forepaws supporting most of its weight, it managed to stay sitting up for all of ten seconds before collapsing to the ground in a sleeping pile of fur and tentacles. Unfortunately, though the creature as a whole had fallen asleep, the tentacles didn’t care. They whipped around and snapped at everything. Which included both bricks and small bites out of the creature itself. Eva hadn’t actually attacked it. Neither had Arachne or Zoe—aside from some mostly harmless wind. Yet it was bleeding almost worse than it had been when they first came across it.
“We may need to amputate its tentacles,” Eva said. “If only to keep it intact enough to transport to the prison.”
Eva could do it without too much trouble had she a few vials of blood on hand. Really, she should just carry some vials around with her. It wasn’t like anyone would recognize demon blood for what it was aside from the vampire. If asked, she could claim that they were potions of some sort.
Just as easily, she could sever the creature’s tentacles with her bare hands—Arachne as well—should they get close. Unfortunately, getting close would put them in range of those teeth. She could try to burn them off. Or explode them off. However, her fire magic wasn’t that precise. She would probably do more damage to the creature than the tentacles were.
“I don’t suppose your razor wind is good at amputations?”
“So long as your runes will keep it asleep,” Zoe said. Receiving a mostly confident nod from Eva, she raised her dagger and made several sharp cutting motions. With each movement, the head of a tentacle fell to the sidewalk. Each swipe sent a precise blade of wind at the creature. No blade touched anywhere except her targets.
Eva might have given a slight whistle at her ability. It would have been one thing had they been unmoving targets, but they were squirming around like the arms of a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tubeman.
The severed ends were small and almost spherical with their teeth at one end. And they didn’t stop biting. The mouths opened wide and then closed with sharp clicks despite their ability to move around having been stolen away from them. Still, barring a sudden ability to levitate around, Eva felt safe enough to approach.
Squatting down, Eva reached out and picked up one of the still snapping tentacle ends. She turned it over in her fingers. It continued opening and closing at the same rate, apparently unable to tell that it was mere inches away from something real to eat. With a shake of her head, she set it back down and moved on to the main body.
Eva poked at the side of its face. Just a quick test to ensure that it actually was sleeping. She assumed so, as all its tentacles being chopped off couldn’t have been a pleasant experience. Throughout the whole ordeal, none of its four eyes so much as twitched. And, leaning just a slight bit closer, Eva could have sworn that she heard snoring coming from the back of its throat.
Satisfied that it wasn’t going to be jumping up and attacking anytime soon, Eva stood and turned to the others.
“Arachne, wrap it up tight. It should be able to breathe but little else. Stay clear of the little mouths,” she said, pausing to reach down and pick one up. It had been eating into the cement sidewalk, chewing it up and spitting it out the severed end. As it did so, it started turning more gray than its natural black. Squeezing it in her fingers, Eva found it much tougher than the one she had picked up just a moment ago. “They’ll probably just eat through your webbing. We’ll need to find a way to contain them. Preferably without them eating whatever they’re held in.”
Zoe aimed her wand once again. The tentacle heads all rose from the ground, hovering in the air around Eva. They only stayed by her for a moment before they moved off to the side, still up in the air. “I’ll handle these if you figure out how to transport it.”
“I don’t have a truck handy.”
Nobody had recovered Devon’s vehicle from when they had gone to attack Sawyer. Devon did have a new one that he got from somewhere, but she highly doubted that he would let her borrow it anytime soon. He might bring it over to pick up the creature himself, but that could be hours from now. If he even bothered. Better to simply bring it to him. To that end, she turned to look at Arachne.
“Feeling up to carrying this thing all the way to the prison?”
Arachne’s eyes had never left the sleeping form of the creature. She still took a moment to respond. “So long as it stays asleep. Though I suppose I can tear its wings off if it starts to wake up. That should make catching it again much easier.”
“Sounds good. Let’s get moving.” Eva stepped away from the body, letting Arachne move in to pick it up. “I don’t know if you can teleport with those,” she said with a pointed finger towards the little mouths that were now levitating in front of Zoe, “but we should be able to find some way to contain them at the prison.”
“I’ll call up Wayne. He should have a vehicle for me.”
As Arachne hefted up the creature, Eva knelt down to the sidewalk where she had etched in her runes. Dragging her finger around the entire array, she used her burgeoning earth magic skills to free the small chunk of cement. Carrying it along with her should keep the creature asleep for the journey. “Great. We’ll head off first. Stay safe.”
With that, Eva started running just behind Arachne. The entire time they ran, Eva just thought. She didn’t speak with Arachne. She barely paid attention to where her feet were stepping.
Enigmas had fallen from the sky. And demons, or things that felt slightly like demons. Until Eva could confirm that a real demon had crossed over as Arachne had, she would be reserving judgment.
But the thing in Arachne’s arms was not a demon. It looked like one. Felt almost like one. But it wasn’t one. Eva had theories about what it might be. Or had been. It had been an enigma. Just like all the others. Dog-like with tentacles, too many limbs, sharp teeth, and violet blood. But something had happened to it that had made it more human-like. Or demon-like. Both.
Sawyer’s enigmas had eaten a few of the vampires she had recruited while attacking his ritual circle. There hadn’t been much time to investigate given the situation, but Eva had definitely noticed something. The enigmas that feasted on vampires had changed. They turned more like a vampire than whatever enigmas were.
The same thing had to have happened to this enigma. It had consumed demons. Perhaps a succubus? Stripping away the tentacles and fur, it might be quite attractive to people who weren’t Eva, though in an androgynous sort of way. The tentacles were a holdover from it being an enigma. For the fur… maybe it had consumed a hellhound? Maybe even a cerberus. The wings could have come from a succubus or just about anything else—a great number of demons had wings.
That brought up the question of what had happened to the demons it had consumed. Did they die for real? Did Void pull them deeper into Hell to let them heal like normal? Most of all, could the creature talk? It had a humanoid face. It might have to be taught to talk. Was its brain developed enough to facilitate proper communication?