Tag: Eva

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Nel huddled in the corner of Devon’s cell house while the two argued out a plan.

A seizure ran through her body. Nel avoided collapsing thanks solely to her already being crouched down. She tried hard to keep her eyes off of all of the demons they had summoned. It wasn’t easy. Her eyes wanted to look.

It’d be worse if she connected to the source. As it was without being connected, she retained some control.

The female was the easiest to look at. Although whatever she was made from was inhuman, nothing about her triggered any sort of negative response. Nel tried to avoid her anyway. From the vague explanation of that demon’s power, it would be nearly impossible to avoid her eyes.

A hazy figure moving through Nel gave her a start. She cupped her hand over her mouth, not wanting to make another noise. The first time it had happened was understandable. To Nel at least, not so much to the others. Shouting out again would only garner more strange looks.

It wasn’t a ghost. It was too real to be a ghost. Her regular eyes couldn’t see a thing, but it was there all the same. The false-ghost moved up to stand next to the masked demon. A few stood around him and several more were scattered around the room.

As far as Nel could tell, neither Eva nor Devon noticed even when the ghosts moved through them.

A small seizure racked Nel’s body again. Just thinking about the first two had her subconsciously send her eyes to look at the third. That one was where all her problems started.

She could see–through her normal eyes no less–a fang filled maw, hard skin coated with black tar, leathery wings, a tail tipped with spikes, lizard-like legs, its beating heart, lungs, the insides of its stomach, and plenty more.

It wasn’t transparent. Nel could simply see the entire thing, inside and outside, at once. And any time an eye that wasn’t on her face saw it, something broke in her mind.

The demons were on her side–until Eva and Devon deemed her not worth the trouble–but that gave her no solace. She didn’t need them to be killing her. Her augur condition felt like it was actively trying to drive her insane.

“Alright,” Devon said.

Finally.

“Demons are covering us. We get the nun to Ylva’s domain. Once she is safe, we can move to rout the inquisition.”

That was a good plan. Amazing even. It would have been a better plan if she’d never have had to leave, but Nel valued her spine’s current location enough to not complain about that.

“The Lord of Slaves will put itself between us and the Elysium Order. His minions will be our escort.”

At his words, the masked demon reached out and tapped the nearest three ghosts on their shoulders. The wispy forms solidified into people from the point of contact.

One looked like the stereotypical knight in shining armor–if such stereotypical knights wore rusted iron that had been battered out of shape.

The second wouldn’t have looked out of place in a civil war reenactment troupe. He carried an old-fashioned rifle and had a slightly curved sword attached to his side. His uniform was marred by several holes that were still bleeding.

The final ghost wore burlap clothing and a straw hat. His hand gripped a flaming torch that gave off no smoke and no light. Blood dripped from one of his temples.

Devon didn’t react to the sudden materialization of the ghosts. He simply looked them over before giving a reluctant nod.

Eva launched herself away from the ghosts. The two orbs of blood darted around wildly as if she were trying to decide which to attack. Only when none of them made any movement did she calm down.

“You need to stop springing things on me. Something is going to end up dead that we don’t want dead.”

Devon gave her an almost mocking smile. “In addition to not shaking its hand, don’t die around a Lord of Slaves. You’re less useful, but bodies can still serve.” His smile slipped into a frown. “Though, I suppose if you died, you might not care what happens to your body.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

The three slaves moved as one towards the exit to Devon’s cell house. Nel watched as they walked past, carefully keeping her eyes on them and them alone.

They appeared undead. How much good they would do against any members of the Elysium Order was somewhat suspect. The order’s primary abilities were tailored specifically to fight undead. But there was something odd about them. They might be more akin to golems or some other construct.

Connecting to the source would tell her, but she wasn’t that curious. Her eyes would undoubtedly be drawn to the other demons in the room. Not to mention that giving the source time and information to formulate a plan would help their enemy.

The knight exited first, moving with his shield up and his head low. The other two followed behind him. Nel started to follow, but stopped as she realized she was alone.

No one else moved. Not the demons, nor Devon and Eva.

Nel shifted her weight from foot to foot and back again. Why aren’t we going back yet? They were just standing there while the ghosts got further away.

Neither had glassy eyes or any other sign of mental manipulation. At least no sign that Nel was aware of.

“Shouldn’t we be moving?”

“The slaves are moving to engage and distract. Eva’s wards are still active. With their interference, they may just stay up.”

Nel frowned. There were thirty members of the inquisitorial team. What were three ghosts supposed to do?

“But shouldn’t we be running to Ylva’s domain while they’re distracting? They have augur support. They know we’re hiding here.”

“After they engage, more will appear to escort us. We don’t want to be caught outside if her wards fail. This building is far more defensible than open courtyards.”

“Why just three? He has a whole army of ghosts!”

“And they’ll be used later. The marksman–”

A high-pitched whine interrupted Devon. It was a somewhat familiar noise. Nel couldn’t quite place it.

It grew louder and louder as he, Eva, and the demons all looked around for the source of the noise. A blackish-red shield sprung up around the two of them.

Nel was too far away, being much closer to the door than they were.

A mounting horror grew in the pit of her stomach as Nel realized what the noise was.

“Oh no.”

Nel threw herself to the ground as far from the open door as she could reach in a single leap.

White light scarred several eyes that had stubbornly refused to shut. Her eardrums rattled in her skull as a piercing shriek tore through the air. The eyes that had remained open were crying tears of pain. And those were slowly blinking away the white spots.

Dragging herself to her feet–wobbling all the while–Nel patted herself down. Nothing was missing. Ylva’s robes weren’t even burnt. The cell house hadn’t collapsed either–they probably thought the prison was too sturdy to fall.

Their plan was probably to trap her inside this building, away from the one the augurs couldn’t pierce.

Not wasting her good fortune, Nel ran straight for Eva and Devon. The former let her shield down long enough for Nel to get inside.

“…said: what the hell was that?”

His voice sounded like a television’s white noise grinding on brillo pads. It took another minute and his hand gripping the front of her robes for Nel to realize that voice was directed at her.

“Th-they cracked the sky!”

“That means nothing to me,” he shouted. “What is it and how do we stop it.”

Nel pushed away from Devon. Being so close that the unkempt whiskers of his beard were touching her face was not something she wanted to experience anytime soon. He let her go without the expected fuss. As such, Nel bumped her head on the shield.

She winced, rubbing the spot as she answered him. “They fell to their knees before an idol, beseeching the Lord Himself to smite their foes. Us! They got authorization to crack the sky to get at us.” Nel started chewing on a thumbnail. Through her glove.

Devon let out a soft snort. “Got bad news for ya girl, your ‘Lord’ doesn’t give a damn about what happens around here.”

He rubbed his forehead before shaking his head. “No. This idol, it is a legendary artifact, isn’t it. Maybe a grimoire? Channel magic into it and get laser beams from the sky. Sounds familiar, but can’t quite remember. But, we blow it up and it stops. It has a range, what is it?”

Nel blinked. He wasn’t wrong, at least about the last part. “It’ll be nearby. Protected near the rest of the inquisitors… probably.”

“Don’t just stand there. Find out where.”

Nel was about to protest about the lack of frankincense on hand, but he immediately turned to Eva. He wouldn’t listen anyway. Nel closed her eyes.

Glimpses of the surrounding area flickered through her mind. Maintaining any one vision was impossible without frankincense, but quick flashes were within reach.

Starting where she last saw the inquisitors, Nel flickered her vision around. Four of the inquisitors, low rankers by the single bar of gold on their shoulder, held their hands outstretched towards the walls of the prison. Red-black particles of magic siphoned into their hands.

Ward breakers.

Nel made a note of their location, but moved on. The command tent was easy to locate–it was the only tent for miles. They had a map inside along with another augur. A red dot lay exactly where Nel herself was. A few other-colored dots surrounded her.

An altar had been set up behind the command tent. A statue of a man made from petrified wood rested on top of a velvet cloth. His arms were thrown to the sky as tears ran down his face. Four nuns prostrated themselves before it.

Nel stumbled as she ceased the rapid fire glimpses. She rested one hand against the shield wall, glad that it was both solid and not disintegrating her. The last time she overtaxed her glimpses, she had passed out for three days.

She had been heavily injured then. Hopefully her passing out was due more to that than abusing her augur abilities.

“That way,” Nel said, only moving her hand a small fraction. She didn’t want to tip-off any watching augurs that she was pointing out a direction. “Beyond the prison wall, there’s a tent a half-mile out. Behind it an altar has been set up. The idol is there.”

Devon rubbed his hands together as a small grin spread across his face. “Excellent.”

“You better hurry,” Eva said with a small stumble of her own. She had her eyes shut and her face in a grimace. “I can feel my wards unraveling. It isn’t pleasant.”

“There are ward breakers, four of them. I don’t want to point. It might tip-off the augurs. They’re south of the tent near the wall.”

“We’ll worry about them after we get rid of the bigger threat. The wards going down is not the end of the world. Them deciding to hammer the building over and over again with that sky-beam could be..”

The Lord of Slaves reached out and touched another handful of specters. As they materialized in the mortal realm, the large, fractal demon started moving towards the exit. Three slaves ran out ahead of it.

They simply stood outside. Waiting.

Nothing happened.

Nel caught a quick glimpse of their command tent. All the little dots on the map had moved around. “They see you moving the big demon. Probably waiting for it to come out before they crack the sky.”

“Good.”

The map updated in real-time, though Nel kept her glimpses spaced apart. Small dots representing the three slaves moved out in all directions. Another few dots joined the first three in spreading throughout the paths in the prison. All were heading towards the wall closest to the order’s camp.

One of the leaders moved out of the tent. Nel increased the frequency of her glimpses. He spoke to the prostrated nuns before placing his hand on the idol’s head.

“They’re going to crack the sky.”

“Where at?”

Nel opened her eyes to give Devon a glare. “I don’t know that.”

“Whatever. Keep watching.”

Nel shook her head and immediately regretted the action. It made her queasy. She pushed it down and alternated glimpses between the idol and the augur with the map.

A bright light shot off from the idol’s hands, aiming straight into the sky. A high-pitched whine started once again, but far fainter this time. With a screech, four dots disappeared from the map.

“They just fired.”

“I know,” Devon said right as a large black dot sped out of their cell house.

Nel opened her eyes to find the fractal demon was, thankfully, gone. She caught it in a glimpse. Rather than the expected seizure, Nel felt the tiniest tingle of something being wrong. Despite the lack of pain, she chose to go back to the map rather than risk collapsing.

The large dot representing the fractal demon circled around once, picking up a few of the smaller, slave dots on the way.

Both the augur and the high inquisitor started moving with haste not present in their earlier actions. The inquisitor all but ran out to the idol once again. Nel noted that all four nuns had more than a little sweat building on their faces. Some had small patches showing through their habits.

Nel smiled in spite of herself, glad she’d never wear one of the stuffy outfits again. “They’re preparing to crack the sky again.”

“Damn,” Devon said through grit teeth. “I’d hoped it had a longer refractory period.”

“If you can get it close enough to their camp, they won’t risk–”

“Nope. Not going to make it.”

All four of the smaller dots dropped off the larger dot before it zoomed straight ahead. The dot vanished from the map a split-second after.

Nel staggered back against the shield wall as Devon fell on top of her. Eva’s claws gripped his shoulder as both girls helped him get steady on his feet.

“Are you alright, master?”

Devon brushed her off. “It’s still alive.”

“They removed the dot from the map.”

“There isn’t much left,” he said. He shook his head at himself as both the Lord of Slaves and the waxy demon moved up to the cell house exit. “I don’t want to experience that again. I almost lost control.”

“Please don’t,” Eva said. “I can’t dominate these demons. And the wards are slipping more and more. I’d bet they could actually enter the prison now and only experience discomfort.”

“I’m concentrating on getting rid of the idol before that happens.”

Nel cut in to their conversation. “They’re moving out to dispatch the four slaves you dropped. On foot, not cracking the sky.”

“Let them come. If they move past where the demon is rebuilding itself, all the better.”

“The muskets won’t have an effect on our shields, nor can they catch the nuns by surprise so long as they’re connected to the source.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Nel frowned. He was sending those men to their deaths. Though they were already dead. And they might not be real men.

Leaning back against the shield, Nel took one last glimpse of the map before starting a brief rest. It would be a minute or two before the nuns reached the slaves. Two dots representing slaves were moving along the walls, looking for the ward breaker nuns, most likely.

They’d only be a momentary distraction, unless Nel was grossly underestimating their abilities.

Constant glimpsing had her feeling more dizzy than she’d felt in a long time. She decided to carry spare frankincense pellets and find some sort of portable incense burner in the future.

Neither Devon nor Eva were moving much. A quick glimpse showed the slaves moving about, so he had to be managing that somehow.

Eva, on the other hand, looked to be both sick and deep in concentration. Her wards were blood based, using a combination of Arachne’s blood and her own. Nel wasn’t certain on the specifics, but the wards must be tied to her far deeper than any standard thaumaturgical ward scheme. She had never heard of standard wards causing discomfort when taken down.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out as a slow sigh, Nel started up her rapid glimpsing once again.

First the map. It was largely unchanged from her previous glimpse. The few ghosts near the wall had vanished and the nuns were nearing the four undead outside their camp.

Nel switched her view to the soon to be ensuing battle.

Two of the undead were knight types. One wielded a mace while the other carried a massive sword in both hands. The other two carried guns. One looked fairly new, perhaps as late as the second World War.

They crested a small hill overlooking a waiting group of inquisitorial nuns. Three of them had a single gold bar over their shoulders while the fourth had triple stripes. While that did not automatically mean that nun was more powerful than the others, it did mean she had a good deal of experience.

The slaves seemed close enough to vampire slaves that her experience was probably not going to waste.

Nel shook her head and focused.

The nuns wasted no time opening up with lightning. To Nel’s surprise, and the surprise of the nuns, the lightning did nothing. The armored knights continued their forward march without any reaction. Both soldiers did stop walking, but they didn’t appear any more injured than the knights. The only real difference was the smoke coming off their bodies.

Rather than continue forwards, both soldiers dropped to a knee and took aim. Nel wasn’t flickering her glimpse fast enough to spot any bullets, but she did catch the shields flaring up around the nuns. As expected, none of them looked concerned about the guns.

“Wards gone,” Eva said, interrupting Nel’s glimpsing.

Devon gave a small grunt. “Just another minute.”

Where there had been a steady stream of blood or magic or whatever the nuns were siphoning from the wards, there was now a dying trickle. Only one of the four was actually siphoning. Two stood around, watching for threats while the last one was missing completely.

Checking the command center, Nel found the missing nun. She was giving a report to one of the high inquisitors.

“We’re going to have incoming soon,” Nel squeaked out.

“Just a moment. Almost got it.”

Everyone inside the command center stumbled forwards. They recovered in short order and all save for the augur sprinted outside. The poor augur was in the midst of a seizure that looked far more intense than what Nel had suffered.

Again, Nel was glad she hadn’t connected to the source.

The fractal demon stood where the altar once was. Or what was left of it. Both legs and one wing were missing entirely, much of the rest of it was in scraps. And somewhere, Nel couldn’t pinpoint the exact location, it held a statue made of petrified wood between a set of teeth.

Nel watched with a small hint of sadness as the idol turned to dust.

“Unless they have other surprises, we should be clear. I’ve released the demon, so they should be distracted for a few minutes at least. Both of you get to Ylva’s domain.”

“And you?”

“I can’t enter, but between the abdoth and the ruax, and any other demons I summon, I should be fine.”

Eva gave Devon a dubious look, but nodded anyway. She gripped Nel’s hand tight enough that, under other circumstances, Nel might have been worried her bones would snap. Together, they started running towards the door. The shield turned back into a few balls of blood as they left.

Actually moving, Nel discovered, was troublesome. The first several steps were less steps and more stumbles. Eva actually wrapped one of Nel’s arms over her shoulders for support. Every step seemed to bring a pounding headache. Nel would have suspected the headache demon, but it wasn’t even facing them.

It was simply from overusing her ability.

A good number of slaves materialized around them and escorted them out.

It wasn’t far to cell house two, but the nuns weren’t going to stand by and watch as Nel made her escape. The inquisition’s augur had to be watching them, unless she had perished due to the fractal demon. Even if she had, a contingent would catch up to them with the poor rate at which they were moving.

Eight black-robed inquisitors teleported in just as the thought crossed Nel’s mind. They raised their arms and fired lightning with a speed only matched by Eva reforming the shield around the two of them.

Nel’s eyes widened as the black orb in front of Eva shrank noticeably. Their shield was hanging on by a thread by the time the slaves engaged with the nuns. That, at least, stopped the lightning. For the moment. For every body that turned to ash in white flames, another slave ran in to close range.

Without a single word, Eva dropped the shield and did not recover any orbs of blood. If Nel thought she was being rough before, that was nothing compared to now. She dragged Nel around the corner of Devon’s cell house.

The door to Ylva’s domain was in sight.

Nel’s laugh of stress and joy twisted into a cry of pain. Eva’s claw squeezed and dug into her shoulder.

The pressure vanished while the pain remained. Eva released her shoulder to fall straight forwards against the ground. She didn’t even try to bring her hands out to catch herself.

A bone jutted out of the girl’s back. It was sharpened into a serrated blade part way down before the rest disappeared into Eva.

Nel felt gravity take hold of her. Unable to balance herself properly, Nel raised her hands to cushion her impact.

A pair of hands caught onto her and pulled her back upright.

“Thanks,” Nel mumbled as she looked back.

A skeletally thin man smiled back as he moved his hands firmly on her shoulder. “Oh,” he said with a small chuckle, “don’t mention it.”

Eva gave a small wheeze. “You…”

“Yes! Me! Happy to see me again?” He gave another short laugh that sent the hairs on Nel’s neck to standing at full attention. “I’ll say, your eyes fetched four times the price I would have thought. My buyer was very interested. Some unique property or another.”

“Those golems… I knew it…” Eva’s breath rasped as she tried to push herself up. She didn’t even manage an inch off the ground.

“My work, not my plan,” he spoke with a hint of disappointment, but never lost a fraction of his smile. “And you should be more careful. I know the capabilities of your healing. Let’s just say you can keep that dagger. Call it my gift to you, if you survive.

“I’d love to stay and chit-chat, or even invite you back to my place. Sadly, I’ve only time for one. Getting caught up in the order’s inquisition is not a priority.”

Despite the raging headache and the slight dizziness, Nel connected to the source. She wasn’t a good fighter. Information from the source overwhelmed her in combat. She could still fill this guy with enough lightning that he would–

“Ah-ah, none of that.”

Nel felt a prick at her neck and everything went dark.

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Eva took a moment to relax. On Ylva’s throne. It wasn’t easy.

The throne was carved out of the same black marble the rest of the throne platform was made from. It had no cushions, no curvature, and it was far too large. Eva couldn’t sit with her back against the throne’s back without her calves hitting the relatively sharp edge of the seat.

The hel was a skeleton while sitting on the throne. Maybe her nerves didn’t function in that form. Maybe they didn’t function anyway; she was barely better than a corpse while she had skin on.

All in all, it wasn’t relaxing at all. How Ylva managed was beyond her.

A whimper at her side had Eva rubbing her temples once again.

Nel’s self-loathing didn’t help Eva’s relaxation. Not in the slightest.

“I don’t know why you’re worried,” Eva said with a sigh. “Even if they tear down my blood wards and trash the prison, it isn’t like they can get in here. Devon just walks into the real cell house when he tries to open the door. I can’t imagine the nuns will be able to enter.”

“It’s not that–though I wouldn’t put it past them to find a way in; our magic can do fairly strange things under the right circumstances–it’s that they noticed me in the first place. I’m a rogue augur. They aren’t going to let me go.”

“And you’re sure they noticed?”

“I used my own blood to seek out the vial set away in the vaults. Another augur was doing the reverse. With a priest and two prioresses hovering over her shoulder. I could tell they lost track of me, but,” Nel slumped in on herself, burying her head in her hands, “there’s no doubt they saw me.”

Eva nodded. She jumped to her feet. Her blood-covered bloodstone lazily orbited her as she paced. Getting comfortable on the throne was simply impossible.

“How soon could they mobilize against you?”

“Depends. If they send an inquisitorial chapter after me, it could be within the hour. All of them are capable of long-range teleportation. They might decide on a chapter of nuns which would take significantly longer. Maybe even pull Charon Chapter for the job.”

Eva froze. “They could be here in minutes and you’re not watching them?”

“They’ve gone dark! They’re not going to be drawing up battle plans with me hovering over their shoulders.”

“And Sister Cross?”

“Also missing. She did that from time to time, so it might not be related.”

Eva scoffed. “Fat chance of that. They probably pulled her in to find out everything she knew.”

Which included Arachne and herself. Eva pinched the bridge of her nose hard enough to draw blood from her claws. She healed it with a stray thought. Hopefully Zagan would act as an adequate deterrent until the mess at Brakket gets cleaned up.

Nel gave a terse nod, but didn’t comment.

“Keep an eye on the prison’s perimeter. I need to speak with Devon. If anything comes within ten miles of this place, I want to know about it immediately.”

“You want me to leave if they show up?” Nel’s eyes went wide as her head twisted to make eye contact with Eva. She flinched away almost immediately.

Eva neither smiled nor laughed at her discomfort. She kept her voice as deadly serious as her fourteen-year-old self could. “Immediately.”

“B-but–”

“If I get hit by a lightning bolt from a teleporting nun that is after you, and you fail to warn me, I swear I will personally tear out your spine. Understand?”

Nel nodded. A shallow, pitiful nod, but a nod nonetheless.

“Good.” Eva smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

“Y-yeah.”

“Get to watching. I’ll be back shortly.” Eva turned and left Nel behind without another word.

She walked straight across the pit without even a glance down the vast chasm.

Outside Ylva’s domain was… normal. The sun was out, though not incredibly bright. Cold wind tossed Eva’s long hair up and around her. Clouds hung over the land in the direction of Brakket. Ylva’s doing no doubt.

Although there were pockmarks everywhere from whatever battle Arachne and Genoa had had, nothing in her prison was on fire. Yet.

That was always a positive.

Eva stepped. While it had yet to snow, the late November air was not the warmest thing Eva had felt and she did not want to spend longer than necessary outside. There was a wind that constantly blew through some of the buildings around her prison.

She still hadn’t gotten around to heating the entire prison with a rune system. So much to do, so many distractions.

It took four short steps to reach the front of Devon’s cell house.

A few more steps had her at the top of the stairs, right in front of Devon’s revamped penthouse. She opened the door and walked right in.

Devon was leaning back on the hind legs of his chair with a notebook and pen in his hands. His feet were resting atop a desk he had procured for himself.

The moment Eva opened the door, he started to tip backwards. Eva grinned in anticipation of the crash.

An empty chair clattered to the floor.

A cold blade pressed itself against her throat.

“Eva?”

“I might actually have to start knocking,” Eva said. She closed her chitinous fingers around the blade and gently pushed it away.

“As if,” Devon said with a scoff. “Shouldn’t you be in school.”

“Something came…” Eva trailed off as she noticed what was holding Devon’s knife. It curled around the handle three times, denting the handle at one part. “Is that–”

“One of the carnivean’s tentacles. One of the larger, more powerful ones. Yes.”

“You replaced your arm with a tentacle?”

Devon raised an eyebrow. “You replaced both hands and both legs with Arachne’s crap and you took the carnivean’s eyes. I don’t want to hear any judgment from you.”

“Yeah, but you’re kind of weird about the whole demon thing. I expected you to find the most human-like arm possible.”

“Too expensive. Not prices I’m willing to pay.” He gave a small shrug. “Besides, I can always chop it off if something better comes along.”

“Fair enough.”

As Devon tried to sheathe the knife, it slipped from his tentacle and clattered to the floor. “Still adapting to it,” he mumbled as he bent to pick it up with his other hand.

“Takes a while, doesn’t it?”

“Arachne’s limbs are analogous to human hands. This is completely different. I can’t even describe what goes through my mind when I try to use it.” He idly scratched at his goatee with his tentacle. “And trust me, I’ve tried.”

Eva glanced down and flexed her own hand. She couldn’t say that she ever thought much about it. There were extra joints, but none of it felt foreign. Then again, it had been a whole year. She had ample opportunity to get used to it.

“So? What are you ditching school for?”

Before Eva could get a word in, Devon held up his hand. With a frown on his face, he said, “wait. Wrong question. What did you screw up this time?”

“Nothing!” Eva mirrored his frown and crossed her arms. “Why would you even think such a thing? I haven’t screwed anything up.”

Devon gave her a cold-eyed glare.

“I’m pretty sure, anyway. I was skipping class, but that’s not a good reason for an army of demon-golems to attack me.”

“What.”

Eva leaned up against her master’s desk as she told an increasingly agitated Devon the events of the past hour.

“And you just gave this Irene girl to a demon?”

“I didn’t give anything. I ordered Lucy to take her to a nurse. Carefully. No contracts, no barters.”

“That’s not a whole lot better.”

“Well I wasn’t in much of a position to do it. I came here for reinforcements only to find the reinforcements had already been sent.”

“And now we’re defenseless against this nun strike force,” he mumbled to himself. “Alright. We’re leaving.”

“What? We can’t leave. All my books and supplies are here. Nel too, I guess. Surely you don’t want to leave all your research.”

Devon slid open the bottom drawer of his desk and wrapped his tentacle around a backpack. “You’ll learn to pack light after a couple of these kind of things. Besides,” he hefted the bag up, “I last copied these notebooks just a week ago after your treatment. I can recover if I lose them.”

“That doesn’t help me! Let’s at least move my books into Ylva’s domain. They should be safe there.”

“You said they’d be here soon. I don’t want to be caught in the middle. Actually,” he rolled his head to one side with a crack before continuing, “we could just give them the girl, right?”

Eva frowned. “The thought did cross my mind,” she admitted. “The biggest problem is that she belongs to Ylva. She would vehemently disagree with that decision. I’m not too interested in turning her into an enemy, are you?”

A light grunt was all that answered her.

“I didn’t think so. That’s another reason we shouldn’t leave. Fleeing and leaving Nel to deal with whatever is after her won’t… turn out well with Ylva I’d say.” Despite her initial hostility at the woman who had been her monitor for Sister Cross, Eva didn’t actually hate her. At least not anymore.

That said, Nel wasn’t a friend and Eva wasn’t about to die or even get seriously injured for her. She did, however, make a decent excuse not to leave Eva’s books.

“I’ve been thinking,” Devon said after a minute, “with Ylva being gone, this would be an excellent opportunity to disrupt its domain’s connection to reality. Without its domain for support, it shouldn’t be too troublesome to banish it.”

“What?” Eva ceased her leaning on the desk. “Why would we do that? Ylva’s been helping us–protecting our friends and the like. That’s just… betrayal.”

“It has been doing what it wants and nothing more. It isn’t beholden to us or to human morality. We can’t hope to understand the motivations of something like that.” He paused to scratch at his neck before looking back to Eva. “And I don’t like it hovering over us during your treatments. I’m telling you, girl, that thing is bad news.”

“You’re paranoid.” Eva sighed.

Her master had far more experience. A year or so ago, she would have deferred to his advice reflexively. Now, Eva wasn’t so sure. Watching him interact with all the demons around was unsettling. He never referred to demons as anything other than ‘it’ and that never sat right with Eva.

After her final treatment, would she become nothing more than an ‘it’ to be loathed and treated with distrust?

Eva shook her head. She couldn’t perform the treatment herself. There might be needed changes to the circle or timing of the treatment that she simply lacked the knowledge to alter. There wasn’t much to do about his problem aside from convincing him otherwise.

For that, Eva wanted Ylva to stay. Unlike the admittedly psychopathic Arachne, Ylva was calm and collected. She treated Nel with benevolence. Zoe and Juliana as well. If Devon could see that, maybe he’d change his tune.

“But this isn’t the time,” Eva said. “Instead of wasting time talking, we should be moving and preparing.”

Devon sighed and dropped his pack back into his desk. With a twitch of his fingers, the drawer slammed shut.

Eva took a few steps away. She could feel whatever wards he enacted around it.

“So what’s the plan? I can’t enter Ylva’s domain, so barricading ourselves in there isn’t an option.”

“If you open it, it leads to the cell house. What if I open it?”

“Might work.” His thumb slid down his beard as he thought. After a moment, he shook his head. “If we aren’t banishing it, I’d rather not try. Ylva forbade me from entering, violating that could be unpleasant.”

“We could toss you into solitary. If found, you could claim you were our prisoner.”

Her master pursed his lips and gave her a look.

“No?”

“We’re not fleeing or hiding. Despite having backups, I’ll not destroy my research and it will not fall into anyone else’s hands. We’re fighting.”

Devon wandered over to a filing cabinet. He pulled open the drawer for enticements with his tentacle.

Eva watched with interest, wondering what he might pull out. Her master so rarely summoned demons that it was like a special occasion.

He first snatched up a set of handcuffs. They were old and rusted, maybe something that he found around the prison and decided would be useful. Whatever the case, their presence caused one of Eva’s eyebrows to raise. She had no idea what demon associated itself with handcuffs.

A bag filled with what appeared to be oily black tar had Eva’s other eyebrow up. Devon rubbed his fingers over the bag, squeezing the tar. He apparently found whatever he was looking for; with a nod, Devon dropped the bag into a pocket and went back to looking through the enticement drawer.

Eva frowned as her master looked over the third item. “We are summoning demons, right?”

“What do you think we’re doing, girl?” Devon slipped whatever the black cone was into his pocket and turned to face Eva. “Having a tea party?”

“I have no idea,” Eva said honestly. “I don’t recognize any of those as enticements.”

Devon flicked her forehead with his tentacle. Eva rubbed the spot, glad his appendage wasn’t covered in some kind of slime.

“Just goes to show that you don’t know anything.”

Eva grumbled to herself as they made their way out of his penthouse.

He had his own summoning circle set up on the ground floor of his cell house. The shackles around it were some of the strongest Eva had ever seen. She kept well away from them. Every treatment left her feeling less inclined to test the boundaries.

Devon started with the cone–a candle, Eva discovered as he lit it with green fire. He set it down in the center of the circle. As soon as he stepped outside the shackles, the summoning circle activated. The rotation of the symbols picked up speed as the entirety of the candle went up in flames.

In the blink of an eye, the wax expanded outwards. It grew to roughly Eva’s size. A sphere formed at the peak of the cone. Two columns stretched downwards from the base of the cone and two more cylinders stretched out near the top. As its growth slowed, it started shaping itself. The sphere formed into a face, the cylinders into arms and legs.

A waxy, dress wearing girl with green flames for hair stood in the center of the circle.

Eva always wondered how demons like that worked. Most demons ate or otherwise consumed their enticement. Did she have a body in her domain? Was she just a consciousness or perhaps a pile of disembodied limbs?

Devon whipped out his human hand the moment she finished forming. Her eyes snapped open, glowing a bright red as they did so.

The moment Eva made eye contact, a freight train ran into Eva’s brain. She clutched her forehead and fell to her knees. Her claws were poking through her skin and she didn’t care.

It hurt.

A lot.

A small part of her mind screamed at her to stop. If she pressed further, her fingers would pierce her skull. Eva couldn’t think. It didn’t matter if the pain–

The pain ceased. Completely and totally.

Slowly, Eva unclenched her eyes.

Devon stood, barely, with his arm pointing towards the demon. His feet were spread apart and he was wobbling. He took a few gasping breaths–that Eva mimicked–before steadying himself.

“What was that?” Eva said as she pulled herself to her feet. She intended to shout, but her voice came out as more of a whisper. Her wards didn’t extend into Devon’s cell house. The wax-woman wouldn’t have succumbed to them after a few seconds. Had she passed out, she would have been entirely at its mercy.

That was a problem she hadn’t thought of. They’d all need to be added to the wards before they could wander freely around the facility. Not an appealing prospect in the slightest–if Devon lost control for whatever reason, they’d have plenty of time to react. If she concentrated hard enough, she might be able to manipulate the wards around the demons. Then, if they did break free, pain like that would disrupt her concentration and the wards would collapse on top of them.

Eva had never done something like that before, but it was something to try before adding their blood to the wards.

“A ruax. It can induce headaches in people who meet its eyes.”

“That was a headache?” That word seemed far too benign for what she had felt. “I thought my head was going to explode.”

“Yeah. Should be fun to set on our enemies.” Devon went up and broke the shackles. The demon moved out of the circle to stand at his side.

Eva gave an experimental glance in her direction. The flames making up her hair were the only indication that she wasn’t a wax statue. Her eyes lost their glow and she stood stock-still. Eva couldn’t see any blood moving within her. Had she been missing her eyes, the demon would be completely invisible.

“You dominated her?”

“Ruax are chronic backstabbers and love poorly worded contracts,” he said with a flat glare. “Their favorite method is to wait until their summoner is in combat and then start up a headache. Just a little one, you’d barely notice. At the most crucial point in combat, it ramps the headache up to the debilitating effects you just felt.”

Eva frowned. It sounded reasonable. She certainly did not wish to feel that headache again. Watching the ruax stand unmoving at Devon’s side still sent chills down her spine.

Devon wasted no time in repairing the shackles and moving on. He unceremoniously tossed the handcuffs onto the summoning circle and started the process again.

“Any surprises I should know this time?”

“An abdoth. Lord of Slaves. Nothing like the ruax, but don’t shake its hand.”

“What happens if you shake its hand?”

At the glance her master gave her, Eva immediately regretted asking.

“Its called the Lord of Slaves. I’m sure you’re not that stupid.”

Like Ylva’s summoning, the Lord of Slaves grasped his enticement before walking out of the summoning circle. No pomp and circumstance. He wore an iron mask that seemed to be attached to the back of his head beneath a wild mane of gray hair. His hands were bound within a set of wooden shackles.

Apart from the shackles and the mask, the abdoth wasn’t wearing much else. Eva could easily see his ribcage. His arms were little more than bones with skin stretched tightly across. Given that the mask had no mouth hole, he probably hadn’t eaten in an eternity.

Then again, Arachne never ate and Eva skipped half of her meals. That had to be his natural form.

He didn’t look particularly strong, but Devon dominated him all the same.

Devon moved just close enough to the summoning circle to open the bag of tar inside the shackles. The tar jumped out of its bag and latched onto Devon’s hand.

Eva started forward. If something happened to him, she’d have to deal with two demons. Two demons that likely wouldn’t be too happy at their recent domination.

Her master didn’t seem particularly concerned. He just pulled back his hand. The tar tried to hold on, but the shackles peeled it off as he withdrew.

The thing thrashed around on the ground, trying to escape. It ceased moving once Devon started up the summoning process.

More tar bubbled up out of the circle, forming up into a deep pool of the muck.

Eva tore her eyes away from the summoning circle. She could hear a faint beating of wings.

No matter where she looked, she couldn’t discern the source.

It was everywhere.

Or all in her mind.

She shook her head just as a smell reached her nose. And that was all it was. A smell.

It wasn’t pleasant. It wasn’t unpleasant.

Eva glanced back towards the summoning circle.

What are those things?

Eva took five steps back. She forced herself not to flee from the room entirely.

Every time she thought she pinned down exactly what she was seeing inside the summoning circle, the thought escaped and it changed. It twisted in on itself, outside becoming inside before becoming the outside again.

Looking at it hurt. Not the same headache as the ruax.

It hurt because it couldn’t be. Eva could see parts of it that she was certain were covered up by other parts. She wasn’t seeing through it, simply following the contours of the body led to points hidden behind itself.

Eva turned away. Her master let out a soft chuckle.

“W-what is it?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Eva frowned. She considered protesting. With a shake of her head, she decided her master was right. She didn’t want to know.

Devon raised his arm to start dominating the… the thing.

It slammed into the shackles. A flickering wall of transparent green sprouted at the primary shackle line.

The wall of green shattered.

Eva gasped as the thing bounded into a second shackle wall. Both vials of Arachne’s blood shattered as she got the blood ready for her claw attack.

Just as she started to plunge her hands into the wireframe ball of blood, the creature ceased moving. It turned towards Devon and just waited.

Eva held her hands right at the edge of the ball, waiting.

Devon broke the shackles and stepped right next to the thing. With his bare hand, he scooped some of the stuff black tar that dripped from it into the bag and sealed it shut with a twitch of his rings.

Eva wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. The thing broke through shackles. She couldn’t let it out of her sight. “Is it safe?”

“Safe enough. I’ll be sending it back in half an hour. The other two can stay.”

“Half an hour? The nuns might not be here for hours or days. Maybe even weeks.”

Devon looked over with a frown on his face.

“Don’t frown at me,” Eva said with crossed arms. “I clearly stated so as I was explain–”

“They’re here!”

Eva turned to find Nel standing in the doorway. She almost thrust her claw into the wire ball of blood on pure reflex.

It turns out, she needed to do nothing at all. Nel collapsed on the floor, clutching her forehead. Eva caught a glimpse of a glowing-white eye on her neck pinch itself shut and squirm beneath her robes.

“Oh. Right.” Devon had a deep frown on his face. All the demons, save for the waxy ruax, had moved towards Nel. “I told them that anyone in robes was an enemy. Should be fixed now.”

Eva shook her head as she walked over to the former nun.

“Wh-wha–”

“Don’t worry. They’re here to help protect you.” Hopefully.

Nel glanced up, but winced away. The glow in her eyes died out and she tried again. “That’s not any better.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Forget all that,” Devon said as he walked up. He at least had the good sense to leave the demons behind. “They’re here?”

“Thirty members of the inquisition alongside two high-inquisitors. There might be more coming. I left to tell Eva because I didn’t want my spine taken out.”

Devon glanced down. Eva gave him a shrug.

“Where at, girl?”

“South side of the prison, on the other side of the wall next to the big building. They’re trying to break the wards.”

“How long can your wards hold up?”

Eva gave another shrug. “Never had anyone attack them before.”

“Let’s assume about thirty seconds then.”

Giving a short harrumph, Eva crossed her arms. She didn’t disagree, however. That was something she should have talked about with Genoa.

“So,” Eva said, “what’s the plan?”

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