Arachne was moving even before her shout, performing something resembling a back flip through the air while expanding her body into its full form. She landed on all eight legs. Towering over the snow, she started charging towards where the icicle had come from.
Eva blinked on top of her bulbous behind just in time to knock away another icicle. One that had been coming from a straight right angle from where Arachne was running. Sharp needle-like legs tapped into tree after tree as Arachne turned, using the trees like an inclined curve in a roadway. Each one exploded in a flurry of bark and wood from the force of her impacts.
“There,” Eva said, pointing slightly off to one side. As she did so, a ball of fire started growing at the tip of her finger. After Arachne took three more steps, it was built up enough to be the size of a small volleyball. And it was far too unstable to hold on to.
Rather than launch it forwards, she swung her arm and fired it behind them, catching a woman with an eye implanted in her chest by surprise. Eva didn’t immediately recognize the nun so she probably wasn’t friendly.
The fireball struck the nun’s shimmering shield and immediately detonated. The shield cracked but didn’t shatter. Despite that, the nun still stumbled backwards, tripping over her own two feet in an effort to get away.
Oddly enough, she wasn’t wearing the habit typical of the Elysium Order. From the brief glance Eva had from the light of the exploding fireball, the nun looked like she was wearing jeans and a heavy coat.
So not Elysium Order then. Not unless Ylva had taken away the Elysium Order’s habits. But jeans weren’t really her style. If she were in charge of their outfitting, it probably would have been long robes similar to Nel’s. Another rogue nun then? Chris had mentioned a few names that Eva hadn’t recognized. Perhaps this was one of them.
Maybe, if she captured the nun and air mailed her to the Elysium Order, she could get a little heat off her back. Though Ylva was supposedly handling that. Best to have a backup plan in any case.
A consideration for later.
Eva gripped down on Arachne’s shoulders as she twisted around to avoid another ball of ice. She barely caught a glimpse of its spiky shape before it whizzed over her shoulder. A half second later, her back erupted in a burst of pain as the ball exploded.
“Eva!”
“I’m fine,” she said through clenched teeth. “She’s straight to the right. Into the forest. It’s that other hunter, she keeps running away when you get close. Like the other armored hunter, she isn’t teleporting, just sprinting.”
“Call in help.”
Eva blinked, not quite sure that she had heard Arachne correctly. Yet she didn’t argue. Trusting Arachne to dodge enough of their enemy’s fire, she whipped out her cellphone and sent out a group text to Juliana, Genoa, Zoe, and Catherine. Just a short message saying that a demon hunter and a nun were at the ritual circle. She didn’t have enough time for anything else.
Slipping her phone back into her jacket pocket, Eva narrowed her eyes as she glanced into the darkness.
A single glowing red eye stared back.
Chapter 014
Eva honestly wasn’t sure what was going on. Supposedly, two people were fighting her. In reality, the nun hadn’t hit her once. The white fire of the Elysium Order burned through the forest. Another burst of flames would spread out and around the ground anytime Eva and Arachne got out of sight. But that was about the only thing the nun was doing.
A good amount of lightning had come close. Relatively. Never quite close enough to even burn off hairs on her arms. Arachne’s dodging and Eva tossing fireballs to distract the nun let them avoid a lot of it, but she hadn’t hit even once. To be clear, Eva wasn’t complaining. It was just that she had expected Arachne’s large bulk to be hit at least once. Perhaps more than that.
Eva blinked forward just in time to avoid an icicle from her front and a spinning battle-axe made of white light from her rear.
She wasn’t really sure what was up with the battle-axes. Other nuns had conjured them up in the past, but she hadn’t ever seen one put to effective use. Even right now, throwing the battle-axe had a huge wind-up. Eva could see the nun pull back her arm to toss it well in advance. And then it moved slowly. Well, slowly compared to lightning. Had it been a real axe made of metal, it probably would have been going a lot slower.
Though, watching it sink halfway into a tree, Eva couldn’t deny its effectiveness. Had it hit her in the back, it probably would have gone straight through her body. Yet not a single axe had hit her either.
Which was perfectly okay in Eva’s book.
She had enough on her plate with the constant barrage of ice.
The hunter moved too fast. She was probably killing herself. Every time she moved, her body took a second to catch up to her armor. Her organs slammed against her insides because of their inertia. Unfortunately, she wasn’t killing herself fast enough for Eva’s tastes.
Pulling up her hand, a burst of fire rushed forwards and enveloped another spiked ball of ice. The second her flames touched it, it exploded. Shards and spikes of ice darted through the burning air. Blood orbs orbiting around her hands twisted into small shields that covered her body for a bare instant before returning to orbiting her arms. Just long enough to catch the ice.
She only had three vials of blood. Not a single droplet had moved far from her body. The flames burning up and down her arms kept the drops from freezing, but she had tried to attack this hunter in the past with her blood. It had never once worked.
So shields it was. She had already been hit by one exploding spike ball. Never again if she could help it.
With no danger for the second, Eva took stock of her situation. So far, nobody had actually breached the snow dome. Which was perhaps the best news of the night. If all went well, the hunter and nun would be driven off—or killed—without either actually finding out what was beneath the snow. Maybe she shouldn’t melt it all away. It only needed to stay safe for another day. Just long enough for Catherine to finish checking, Genoa to finish shoring it up against earthquakes, and Eva to finish gathering people.
The second she was in the clear, Eva would be accelerating that day as much as possible.
The nun was off behind Eva somewhere, posturing for another attack. A direct hit with an exploding fireball usually sent her running for a half-minute. But the hunter…
The last ice ball had come from ahead, but Eva couldn’t see her circulatory system. She was too far out. And had likely moved again. A blink’s distance off to the side, Arachne slowly rotated around, staring into the darkness.
“Arachne!” Eva called out as Arachne pressed her large body flat against the ground. As flat as it could go, anyway.
A massive boulder made of ice, almost as big as Arachne, skimmed over the spider-demon’s bulbous carapace. It actually cracked chitin along the top curve. The very second it cleared her body, Arachne sprung straight upwards, letting a second boulder roll underneath. As she fell back to the ground, the armored hunter leaped out of the darkness.
A tarnished gauntlet connected with Arachne’s face.
Eva charged, blinking once she got a little speed built up. Her shoulder slammed into the stomach of the hunter. She had to clench down a shout. In rushing at her, Eva had intended to tackle the hunter away. Despite her powerful legs, she was still a relatively light girl. The heavy armor had so much mass behind it that it barely budged.
Her shoulder wasn’t so lucky. It tried to continue forwards and carry the hunter, but instead snapped hard. Jumping back, Eva’s arm hung limp at her side.
It wasn’t a complete loss. She did disrupt the hunter’s follow-up on Arachne. While Arachne had been dazed by the punch, and some of her facial carapace had cracked, she was still alive and had repositioned to be ready for the hunter.