Well, Void wanted to lobotomize the thing. Chopping off a few tendrils couldn’t hurt more.
With that thought in mind, Eva set to work, slicing away at the meat of anything that wasn’t a part of the main mass. Soon enough, she wound up with a fair pile of tentacles. Eyes covered some. Others were tipped in razor-sharp maws. All of them were in desperate need of immediate disposal.
Without the flames from the avatar, she wasn’t entirely certain how to go about that. Her own fire wouldn’t be sufficient. There was almost no doubt about that. Just shoving them off to the side probably wouldn’t be healthy once the ritual started up again. Right now they were inert. The blood wasn’t even pumping through the main body, let alone the tentacles. Yet Eva wouldn’t bet a penny that they would stay that way.
Eva shaped her blood into wings once again, bringing the sharp points of blood together. Slowly pulling them apart, she stretched a long thin strand of liquid blood out. The strand expanded and grew as she started wrapping up one of the tentacles. Like a spider cocooning prey. No matter how much blood she coated it with, the blood coating Eva never lessened. In fact, she wasn’t entirely certain that it was coating her anymore. Looking at herself through her blood sight, she couldn’t detect the thin layer of skin beneath the blood except around her hands and legs.
Under other circumstances, she might have found herself concerned about that fact. She liked having skin. Arachne’s carapace was nearly impervious and protected powerful muscles, but her skin was more comfortable. Sitting in a chair or even lying on a bed just wasn’t quite the same anymore with Arachne’s legs.
And yet, she found herself oddly calm about the suit of blood. Maybe it was just whatever had been making her head fuzzy during the ritual. Maybe she just didn’t think properly anymore.
Either way, she had finished her task. Ten tentacles taped to the tip. More blood was weaved out from the ends of her wings and crushed the tentacles into a sphere of blood. Holding the sphere by two points of her wings high above the ritual circle, Eva clapped her hands.
She winced away from the flash of light. Entirely unnecessarily, as it turned out. She had expected an explosion of blood and viscera. None came. Peeking open her eyes, dust scattered to the winds. There wasn’t anything else left.
“That worked out better than expected,” Eva mused to herself.
“Did you have to use those things coming off your back?”
Eva turned with a half shrug to face Zoe and Genoa. “Probably not. But they give me range and I didn’t really want to get close to the tentacles.”
“Are we going to talk about them? Or why you look like you do?”
“So other people can see me,” Eva said with a note of false surprise in her voice. “I was beginning to wonder. Nobody else said anything.”
“You’re probably intimidating them.”
“Even Genoa?” Eva said, glancing in the mage-knight’s direction.
“I figured it was some demon thing,” Genoa said as she approached just behind Zoe. “Strange things happen and you learn to start ignoring them. If you weren’t bothered by it, I wasn’t going to be.”
Zoe just sighed. “Everyone’s ready. Are we sure about this?”
“Not at all,” Eva said as she pointed towards Vektul. “Those holes need to be smoothed over, Genoa. Once that’s done…”
It would be time to start up the ritual again.
Chapter 021
The light of the ritual circle blazed to life as Eva pressed a slight bit of magic into the center of the circle. Around her, back in their spots, everyone knelt with far more nervous faces than they had when they first started out today—if that was possible.
They weren’t kneeling because they were forced to. At least not yet. Despite the glowing violet light of the ritual circle having reached the outer edge, both avatars were still entirely inert. Apparently, when Arachne had first started changing, a few of the others had hit the ground hard enough that they scraped their knees. Zoe had said that it was lucky nobody had cracked their kneecaps. By kneeling in advance, they were hoping to avoid a repeat.
That was, everyone except Catherine and Genoa. Catherine had been able to resist kneeling before and had no inclination to start kneeling now. Genoa… hadn’t said why she was standing. Perhaps because she didn’t believe that either of the avatars were worthy of kneeling to and she wanted to resist. Which Eva could respect.
Eva had no intentions of kneeling to something that had attacked her. Neither would she kowtow to Arachne’s possessor. Not even if she found out Arachne was genuinely alright. It should have found another way. Maybe by sending another empty vessel like Vektul. That might be cruel. Vektul had acted rather like a person. Killing two of them to summon some Powers would have still been better than Arachne. Eva very much believed in protecting those who were close to her first and everyone else later.
Crossing her arms and slowly turning around, Eva watched for anything amiss. The first time they had activated this half of the ritual, lightning had been raining down on them and bringing with it a whole load of monsters. The avatar’s fire had kept it all at bay. This time, if everyone else wound up kneeling permanently, Eva might be the only defense for a while. Though perhaps with Juliana’s help. Eva still didn’t want Juliana directly interacting with the ritual. She was perfectly capable of ejecting anything dangerous from the area.
But nothing dangerous was happening. A lightning bolt struck far off in the distance. The earth rumbled—only a little, barely enough to make Eva need to widen her stance. Still nothing actually touched the ritual circle itself. The avatars stayed dormant and the portals overhead remained stable.
Just as she was about to try to shut down the ritual in order to further confer with Catherine and Zoe, a thin beam of light struck Vektul.
The mass of flesh immediately started stirring. The tiny stubs where Eva had chopped off tentacles twisted around impotently on the body, just reinforcing her decision to remove the limbs. More flesh started growing outwards from the nubs.
Eva hadn’t started the ritual unprepared.
A clap of her hands exploded a small portion of the avatar. Prepared spheres of blood covered its mass of flesh, each primed and ready to go off. It wouldn’t last forever, but maybe long enough to finish the ritual.
Glancing over her shoulder, Eva started scowling. While the Avatar of Life was growing active, the Avatar of Void was not. It remained in its spot where it hadn’t moved since the ritual collapsed. Two legs and two arms propped it up while its head stared straight at its foe, though its eyes were still empty. No light. No life.
A scream tore Eva’s attention back in front of her. One tentacle stretched out across the ritual circle. This one was not aimed at her. She clapped her hands together almost reflexively, detonating a series of her spheres around one tentacle nub. She made it in time to keep the tentacle that had grown from reaching Shalise. But the explosion didn’t stop it completely. The dismembered thing slithered across the ground.
Serena, still dressed in her poofy winter gear, darted across the ritual circle. Her feet didn’t even touch the ground until she crossed half the distance to Shalise. Then, she touched once to keep up her momentum.
Eva wasn’t entirely sure what she should do. She had been somewhat nervous about having Serena close to the ritual. She was an enemy of the Elysium Order and, therefore, likely an ally or agent of Life. The only reason Eva had agreed to her presence was because they were summoning Void. If a Power couldn’t handle one little vampire, they were in dire straights indeed.