Lurcher - Tower Curator's Void Domain

001.028

Posted on September 9, 2015February 13, 2022 by Tower Curator

“Spencer!”

Eva crushed a glass vial in her hands. She glared up at the teacher. Or the black band of leather over her eyes glared up.

“Gloves off in this class unless they’re lab gloves.”

“I was doing fine until you shouted at me.”

“You’ll soak up materials you don’t want to walk around with.” Professor Lurcher glowered down at the girl. “Gloves off.”

The steel spoon bent in her other hand. Grains of paradise spilled over the table. Eva grit her teeth. She threw down the spoon with a clatter and marched out of the classroom.

Juliana sat for a moment longer, watching her friend leave. She nimbly dodged a stool someone left out as she stormed out.

How the girl compensated for her blindness, Juliana didn’t know. Eva mentioned she could see blood, but Juliana very much doubted that stool had blood in it.

Her hands were another matter. They were obviously Arachne’s hands, but Eva didn’t want to talk about it. She just folded them up into some gloves and went about her day. The gloves only came off inside the dorm room before they left for school.

Juliana hadn’t seen Arachne in a week, since before Eva’s disappearance.

Before Eva came back to school, there was talk that she had left.

The flesh golems and their subsequent cleanup by the Elysium Sisters had simultaneously frightened and reassured the students. Eva was rumored to be one of those scared away, or pulled by her parents.

She showed up at the start of the day, much to the surprise of everyone except Zoe and Juliana. Eva had been hiding out inside the dorm.

There was a brief buzz of surprise before everyone’s eyes drifted to Eva’s lack of eyes. The thin leather band stretched over her eye sockets did nothing to actually hide the emptiness.

No one spoke to her, not even Jordan and Irene. Everyone stared for a moment and then quickly pretended she didn’t exist. She spoke to no one in return.

She sat with the group during lunch. Even there, everyone was silent. No one knew what to say. At least, Juliana didn’t. Max didn’t even speak up and Juliana had pegged him as impulsive enough to start up some kind of conversation.

He didn’t.

Professor Lurcher was the first to call attention to her while she was around. That she refused to remove her gloves did not go unnoticed by the class.

The room went silent in the wake of her departure, but murmurs started up soon after.

“–saved by the Elysium nuns.”

“How does she see?”

“Think she was a necromancer?”

“Watch the nuns, one of them gave her a nasty glare at lunch.”

Juliana dropped her flask of antimony oil on the ground. Loudly. She made sure it would shatter by helping it drop with a strong swing of her arm.

The classroom went silent.

She got up and walked to the door.

“Rivas,” Professor Lurcher said, “you both have detention with me on Saturday.”

Juliana opened the door and walked out into the hall, ignoring the murmurs of her classmates that were already starting up.

She’d taken too long. Eva wasn’t anywhere in sight. Juliana sighed as she headed towards the dorms. If Eva wanted to be found, that’s where she would be.

If she didn’t want to be found, Juliana couldn’t do much about that.

— — —

Nel tried to stifle a yawn as she leaned back in her chair. It wasn’t so successful. She waved away the lingering wisps of frankincense as she turned from the floating strand of hair. She replaced the large sack of beads in her desk drawer and pulled out her laptop.

“Another unimportant status update,” Nel said as she typed.

Keeping near constant surveillance on the abomination was taxing work. None of it was particularly interesting. The last line in her report consisted of a couple of broken lab materials. Accidentally no less.

Most of the last week consisted of the girl trying to get used to her hands, both with gloves on and off. She never sneaked off at nights to murder other students. There was not consorting with any demons, not even the one Nel saw her with the first night.

Her biggest crime was chopping down nearly a full tree in pencils just trying to hold them without breaking them.

Nel turned to the floating black leg–she’d been told it was a leg anyway–and concentrated. Sister Cross destroyed five legs in holy fire as abominations. The last leg had been squirreled away to the augur’s chambers.

The demon sat still. The same position she’d been in for half a week. The other half of the week had been spent resting and recuperating, by the looks of it. She never left the small room she was in.

Nel had been ordered to keep an eye on her, though why Sister Cross didn’t go to destroy the demon while she was weak, Nel didn’t know.

No one ever told her anything.

With a sigh, Nel added another line to her report.

Pops rippled throughout the small room as Nel cracked her knuckles. She shut and locked the armoire containing a leg and a hair. Her eyes glowed with righteous light as the protective enchantments settled into place. It would take a metaphorical tank to break in.

Or someone with the authority, like Sister Cross.

She pulled her wimple over her head and attached her collar and veil. Nel straightened her cross and adjusted the rosary at her belt.

“I hope this is perfect,” Nel said to herself. Appearances gave a lot of authority, and she wanted to project as much as she could.

Nel crossed the tiny room to the door.

The Sister on guard jumped at the door opening. She quickly caught herself and smoothed out her scapular before lightly clearing her throat.

“Is there something you need, Sister Stirling?”

Nel took a deep breath of the fresh air. “I have run out of frankincense beads.”

“I shall send someone to fetch more at once.”

“I shall get them myself.”

Sister Mable’s shook her head. “Sister Cross has instructed that I keep you here until we are absolutely sure it is safe.”

“I don’t mind if you guard me, but it has been a week since I left this room.”

A look of pity crossed over Sister Mable’s face. “I’m sorry, Sister Stirling. Sister Cross’ orders.”

Nel took one last deep breath of the fresh air. “Very well. I expect the frankincense will be delivered within the hour.”

She turned inside and shut the door without waiting for a response. People in authority didn’t wait for underlings to acknowledge an order. They expected the order to be taken care of promptly and efficiently as soon as the words were given.

“At least,” she sighed and deflated a little, “that’s how Sister Cross does it.”

She pulled off her veil and almost threw it across the room. She stopped. That might wrinkle it. An augur couldn’t be caught showing disregard to holy items. Instead, Nel set it on the rack, nicely and neatly. She took off her wimple and collar as well. Nel started to take off the rest of her habit, but paused.

The nuns would be delivering frankincense soon, even though she didn’t need it. She wouldn’t be able to take much of a nap before she had to check in on the girl again.

With a sigh, Nel undid the enchants and locks on the armoire and pulled out the strand of hair.

At least she could see outside her room for the next hour, even if it wasn’t anything interesting.

— — —

“Next is,” Martina Turner glanced down at her notebook. She ran a finger down the paper. Halsey would rely on Orgell for any of her meetings. Turner fired the man the day she got in the office and had yet to replace him.

When she paused in her notebook, her sharp eyes turned straight at Wayne.

“Ah yes, Mr. Lurcher. You gave two girls detention this Saturday. The reasons?”

Wayne glared back at the new dean. “I don’t see how it is your business how I run my classroom.”

“Detentions are handed out rarely at Brakket. I’d like to know what kind of trouble these two got into to warrant such drastic action.”

Her tone wasn’t harsh or accusatory, it was just a question. He grit his teeth anyway. “Spencer refused an order to remove her gloves during class. Both girls damaged lab equipment then stormed out of class.”

“I see. Damaging school property is certainly grounds for detention.” Turner made what looked like a check mark on her notebook. “Next–”

“You are aware, Mr. Lurcher, that Miss Eva’s hands were severely disfigured during the recent events?”

Wayne glanced over and narrowed his eyes at Zoe. She hadn’t warned him at all, yet she knew Spencer was coming back looking like she did.

“Disfigured how?” Turner asked.

“Her hands and arms were mutilated during her abduction. The Elysium Sisters were unable to heal her when they rescued her.”

“That’s not all,” Carr spoke up. “I didn’t notice at first… Eva walked into my class as if everything were normal and took her usual seat. She didn’t pull out a notebook to take notes, but then she never does.” The history professor sighed. “Nobody does. It wasn’t until she raised her hand to ask a question that I got a good look at her face without her hair over part of it. She had a thin band wrapped around her eyes.

“Or, around her face. I don’t think there were eyes behind the band.”

“No eyes?” Yuria looked aghast and brought a hand up to her mouth. “Eva’s blind? What happened?”

A mumbling of shock and questioning went among the teaching staff.

Wayne had been wondering that as well. He hadn’t been so inattentive as to miss the band around her eyes when she walked in. He expected her to sit back and not touch anything. Instead, Spencer went about the classroom as normal; even going so far as to collect lab materials and start working.

Zoe looked distinctly uncomfortable. She shuffled in her seat and a small twitch developed at her eyebrow.

“I’m unsure how she is compensating,” Zoe said. “She said the necromancers were experimenting on her. It could be related to that.”

Turner drummed fingers on the wooden meeting table. “Black magic?”

“Possibly.”

Yuria gasped.

“If it was forced on her,” Turner said, “and is how she is getting around a lack of eyes then I do not see a problem. At least as long as it isn’t a danger to other students. Keep a watch on her though, I’d like to know exactly what it is.”

“I’ll see to talking to her about it,” Zoe said.

“Good. Now then, I expect everyone to treat this girl as normal with respect to her vision. Offer assistance if she needs it or asks, otherwise don’t make a big deal out of it.”

There were nods among the teachers. A few of them, notably Twillie, seemed more skeptical.

Wayne counted himself among the skeptical.

There was so much delicacy in alchemy that required eyes. Needing to see the color of a brew to tell if she should add more of an ingredient or even seeing the result to tell if she completed a potion correctly.

If she could compensate, fine. If not, Spencer would be a danger to the entire class as much as herself.

Wayne would be watching. So long as she swapped her long gloves out for proper lab gloves. If she made a mistake, he’d see her removed permanently.

Turner tapped her finger on the counter. The room slowly quieted. “Sister Cross has informed me that their chapter will be staying in Brakket for the time being. Supposedly for our protection against one of the necromancers they were unable to apprehend. However,” she paused to glance over the staff, “I believe they have ulterior motives of recruitment. One of their nuns was making a ‘pitch’ to a sixth year girl.”

Another murmur ran throughout the staff. The tone seemed to be generally negative. A frown creased across Zoe’s face.

Wayne didn’t much care one way or the other. Kids would need to find jobs after school. If they wanted to spend the rest of their lives hunting down necromancers and the undead, it didn’t hurt him at all. The Elysium Sisters were far more reputable than working as a cashier in some magic shop. Or worse, getting a nonmagical job.

The negative tone seemed to please Turner, in any case. Wayne did not miss the corner of her mouth flicking upwards.

“While I have the utmost respect for their work keeping Brakket safe, I personally find recruiting out students to be distasteful. So long as the necromancers have been routed, I would very much like the sisters out.

“If any of you have ideas for ending their stay here peacefully, I am very much open to them. Other comments or concerns about the sisters are also welcome.”

She looked around the room. No one said anything.

“Well, we will bring this up in future meetings, I am sure. The last thing,” Turner said as she made another check mark in her notebook, “isn’t immediately relevant, but I would find it prudent if we began talking about it. There are two years, or two and a half years until the end fate of our academy is decided.”

Most of the teachers slouched down. Zoe perked up. She had high confidence in her candidates this year as well as last year.

Wayne wondered how she managed that with one student at home, her return tentative at best, and another student disabled.

“I only received this position a short time ago. Personally, I’d be disappointed if my tenure here was so short-lived. I’m sure many of you would like to see Brakket remain open as well. Perhaps even thrive and flourish.”

Turning the state of Brakket around would sure look good on any future job prospects, Wayne thought with a barely suppressed scoff. Turner was young. Not Zoe or Yuria young, but not far off. Spending a decade turning a dump into a castle would be time well spent.

“I have plans for next year, but I’d like to hear ideas for giving our students a sporting chance in the more immediate future.”

Kines spoke up, much to Wayne’s surprise. “I ran a mage-knight club until Dean Halsey shut it down for being too ‘dangerous’ to our student’s safety.”

“Excellent, restart it. Anyone else?”

“The seminars many of us run over summer are intended to keep our students sharp,” Zoe said. “The attendance rate is abysmal. Even the students who attend hardly listen. They mostly come because of boredom or because one of the teachers personally requested it. Promoting them towards the end of the school year may help.”

“Think on the best ways to do that.” Turner glanced over the teachers expectantly. No one spoke up. “Think on that over the week. We are adjourned until next Monday unless anyone has any further business?” She looked around for a moment. “Very well. I will see all of you in a week.”

Turner vanished. A light scent of rotten eggs was left in her wake.

The smell quickly cleared away the rest of the staff from the meeting room. Only Zoe and Wayne stayed behind.

Zoe whisked her dagger out and cleared the air. “That’s horrible,” she said.

“Whatever it is, it isn’t going through between. Frankly, I don’t care to know.” He waved his hand across his face to help clear the remnants of the smell. “I’d offer to teach her to go between. I don’t think I’d like to spend that much time with her.”

“She’s better than Rebbecca, at least as far as keeping the school running.”

“I’ll try to keep my hopes from getting too high.”

Zoe narrowed her eyes, probably at his tone.

“But,” Wayne said before she could comment, “Eva.”

“I honestly don’t know more than I said.”

“She crushed a stainless steel spoon in one hand.”

“That’s,” Zoe bit her lip. “Don’t try to see her hands.”

“Excellent choice of words if you want to inspire me to catch a glimpse.”

“Wayne.”

There was a story there. Wayne could tell. Something Zoe was keeping from him.

He sighed. “You’re giving that girl far too much leeway.” Especially if it is something she wouldn’t talk to him about.

“Probably. For now I’ll handle this myself.”

“I hope you know what you are doing.”

— — —

Shelby was furious with her twin. Jordan and Max too, but they weren’t around to be vented to.

“We can’t just pretend she doesn’t exist.”

Irene looked at her like she was crazy. “I didn’t see you striking up a conversation.”

“You and Jordan are closer to her than I was–I am–but if you aren’t going to talk to her, I will.”

“And what am I supposed to say. ‘Oh, hello Eva, sorry about your eyes. By the way, it is really freaky how you get around without them.'”

“Yes. That would be perfect. Maybe she’d just say how she gets around and we could all get along again.”

“I don’t want to know. What if it is something horrible.” Her twin was shouting now. Not a thing she often did. Irene was supposed to be the calmer and more level-headed of the two.

Shelby sighed. She stood up from her desk and crossed to Irene’s bed. She took a seat beside her sister and wrapped an arm around her. “You’re lucky she doesn’t live next door right now.”

She had a feeling she knew what the problem was. Irene’s problem, at least. Shelby didn’t know why Jordan hadn’t tried to talk to Eva. Maybe, like Shelby herself, he thought she would talk about it on her own. Maybe Eva still would.

Max hadn’t said anything because the boy was awkward; he’d admitted as much after alchemy. A good thing in her book. He would have said the wrong thing.

Maybe that was Eva’s own problem.

“I know Halloween scared you. I know Eva’s mysterious dance partner scared you. Max’s story of her scared me too. But she saved Shalise, she’s not a bad person.”

“We haven’t seen Shalise since then.”

“You haven’t. You were hiding in your room for a week, remember? I spoke with her before she left. She seemed a bit… well, traumatized–”

Irene scoffed. “After hearing Max’s story about the phantom, I can’t imagine why.”

Shelby swatted her upside the head.

“You hid in the room for a week and you didn’t even see anything. How would you feel if you were attacked by zombies. I doubt that she even registered Eva’s dance partner saving her.”

“And how did Eva save her? Shalise had a chunk taken out of her arm by a zombie! There’s no cure for that.”

Shelby shook her head. Her twin could be so dense sometimes. “Doesn’t matter. Eva saved her. How isn’t for us to know, at least not right now. Maybe we could ask that too.

“Now tomorrow, we are going to apologize. All of us.”

“Apologize? For what?”

Shelby flicked her twin’s nose. “For all but ignoring her. Then we are going to ask her if she wants to talk about anything. After that, we’re going to treat her like normal.”

She kept her finger tapping on Irene’s nose. “For you, that means treating her like before Halloween. I will be very cross with you if you don’t. You’re not a cruel person, I know you better than anyone. Being afraid or hating someone because they saved someone else is not your style.”

Shelby bounced off the bed and rounded on her sister, pointing a finger at her face. “Do you understand me?”

“Yes mother,” Irene pouted.

“Good.” Shelby turned back and sat down on her own bed. “I am your older sister and it is my job to set you straight. Call me mother again and I’ll turn you over my knee until your rear turns red.”

Irene stuck her tongue out before flopping over on her bed, shutting off her light as she did so.

With a sigh, Shelby did the same.

Another day like today couldn’t happen again. It felt too gross. Everyone sat around stewing in their own thoughts.

It was a good thing Juliana went after Eva during alchemy. If they managed to talk a little, perhaps that would help in the morning. She’d been surprised that Juliana didn’t say anything during classes or lunch. Juliana, at times, seemed just as awkward as Max.

Shelby doubted that either of the girls had any friends before coming to Brakket.

All the more reason to be friends now.

>>AN.001<<

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001.023

Posted on August 23, 2015November 20, 2021 by Tower Curator

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“It was trying to climb up onto the counter. I just added spikes to the bottom of my shoes and stomped on it. Professor Baxter and Sister Cross came into the room a moment later.”

Eva leaned back, listening to Juliana’s story. She’d already heard it once, though that one was a lot different. A shame really. All the good parts were left out of this version.

Of course, the audience might not be able to take the unsanitized version.

Irene sat across from Eva. Her pork riblets had been shoved to the side after the initial description of the flesh golems. Her face grew greener almost every time Juliana said a line. She kept flashing a look at Eva as well.

A bit odd. Eva pegged her for the braver of the twins based on how she initially wanted to see Arachne.

Shelby also stopped eating her goulash, but she almost seemed interested in the story rather than scared or disgusted. Almost.

Jordan listened to the story with rapt attention. He shoved his food aside more for concentration than loss of appetite. “So where was Eva for all of this?”

“In the Rickenbacker medical center with Nurse Naranga,” Eva said, glad she and Zoe Baxter had come up with that cover story. “It was quite a shock to return to the room.”

“It was a shock to smell the hallway,” Irene grumbled, more to herself than anyone.

Eva gave the girl an understanding smile. The room smelled worse, but not by much. The real surprise for Eva was walking down the hallway.

At some point, the room entered her sphere of blood sense. She could almost ‘see’ the entire kitchen from the hallway. All the cupboards and the furniture, she could even tell where the ceiling was from the splatter that landed there.

It was all a bit disorienting.

Irene just shivered and looked down at her plate.

“Still though, first Shalise and now you?” Max glanced over at Eva. “Better be on your guard, you’re next.”

Shelby elbowed him in the side. Hard. Max doubled over, groaning.

“You can’t say things like that,” Shelby said. “What if she really gets hurt? Then how would you feel?”

Eva let her smile drop, but didn’t respond. They were probably after her in the first place.

Arachne now waited in their temporary room as a guard, just in case. If Eva had to run to the prison again, she’d probably bring Juliana with her. Eva was still unwilling to have the spider-demon anywhere near the nuns patrolling the campus.

Outside of their dorms, the nuns had almost tripled overnight. Two stood around the cafeteria and a fourth seemed to patrol between the tables every minute or so. Unnecessary, in Eva’s opinion.

She was still unsure what to make of Sister Cross’ theory of another necromancer in town. It seemed far-fetched. That there would be two separate groups of necromancers in town with both having run into Eva, or at least Eva’s room in the second case, she found to be incredibly unlikely. If it was true, however, they likely wanted the book as well.

What Eva really needed to do was inform the necromancers that the book was destroyed. For some reason, just hanging up notices like missing posters for a lost cat did not seem like it would do the trick.

“I can’t imagine having to sleep in that room.”

“We don’t,” Juliana said. “We’ve been moved to room three-eighteen until the room has been ‘sterilized.'”

“Even then, it can’t be pleasant going back to it.”

“I’m more concerned with my clothes. The things landed right by my bed. Some blood and puss got into my drawers.” Juliana sighed. “I think I have to burn the entire thing.” She pulled at the tee-shirt she had on, the only student in the cafeteria who wasn’t in uniform. “These are Eva’s even. Not that they’re bad or anything,” she said quickly with a glance at the owner.

Eva lightly chuckled and waved her off.

“Oh,” Irene perked up for the first time since lunch started. “We’ll go shopping after class ends. We’ll have to be quick though, curfew has been moved to an hour before sunset after your thing.”

“That seems odd,” Eva said. “A student is attacked in their dorm so now we have to be in the dorms sooner?”

Jordan looked up at Eva’s comment. “Professor Lurcher assured us that additional wards were being erected to prevent another incident,” he said.

Then why weren’t they erected after Halloween.

Eva didn’t have much confidence in the school. She had half a mind to erect her full blood wards when they moved back into three-thirteen. Sadly, such a thing would be hard to subtly key in everyone to the wards. Eva couldn’t very well go around to the entire faculty and ask for a blood sample.

Not to mention the wards might be detected by the Elysium Sisters. Their complete capabilities were still a mystery to Eva.

“No more zombie talk,” Irene said, flicking a finger at Jordan. Her finger whirled around to Juliana. “We’re going to get some new clothes and a new uniform for you with no talking about zombies either.”

The bell rang with only half of them having finished even part of their food. Together they sauntered off to alchemy.

Alchemy was the odd class out. Unlike all the classes with proper desks, they had counters with sinks and gas valves poking out the top. Four students could fit at each counter rather than the three per desk.

Normally, Irene sat with Eva and Juliana.

Today, Eva watched with furrowed eyebrows as the brunette stopped and hesitated. She glanced at her usual seat at Eva’s side before hurrying over to Jordan’s table, taking a seat beside Max.

Eva shot a questioning glance at Juliana. The blond shrugged and shook her head, looking just as confused as Eva felt.

Without Shalise, their table was down to two.

Understanding dawned on Eva as she moved to the stool next to Juliana. Most of Wayne Lurcher’s lessons were for pairs. Without Shalise, there would be an odd person out. It might be weird for Max to have a partner for the first time since school started, but it probably worked out better this way.

Wayne Lurcher got the lesson started the moment the bell rang. He pulled a bucket of crystals out from behind his counter. Eva recognized them immediately as crystallized magic spanning all six colors of thaumaturgical magic in various shapes and sizes.

“Today we will be melting this entire stock into liquid magic.” He held up one of the sapphire spheres. “Water is the easiest. As many of you may remember from Calvin’s class, getting it into the crystal form is the hard part. It wants to be liquid.”

That was an understatement. The water crystal class had been the worst general magic class so far. They’d had small glass bowls of water to turn into crystal. Getting it into a crystal form wasn’t that hard. Keeping it there was. A good portion of the class tried to pick up their crystals before they stabilized, despite warnings from Professor Calvin. The moment they touched it, the crystals would explode into liquid magic, soaking everyone around.

Shalise ended up soaking Eva and Juliana more than once.

“Earth,” he picked up one of the jagged green crystals, “is the opposite. It wants to be solid, though I imagine you’ll have less problems than you did getting water into a crystallized form.”

He held up a small lump that looked like a potato. If potatoes were transparent and had raging sandstorms inside of them. He put a glove on his other hand before lifting a pointed red crystal that had very visible heat waves emanating from it.

Eva did not miss Juliana’s wince at the sight.

“Both air and fire can simply be melted with heat. Extreme heat in fire’s case. We have special ovens for that.”

Only two types remained. “Order and chaos are the two odd ones. We will be dissolving and then distilling the two.” He tapped the smooth white sphere against the black box. A loud hiss echoed through the room. A portion of each crystal vanished. “It might look gone, but the essence is still in the air. It will dissipate after a few minutes. With a special still to trap it, we can condense the two into liquid order and liquid chaos.

“If you mess up, you’ll have homework of making more crystal of whatever type you ruined.”

The rest of the class was spent making large flasks of each type of liquid magic. Wayne Lurcher showed more in-depth ways of liquefying each type of crystal. Neither Juliana nor Eva had any problems.

The only group to wind up with any of Wayne Lurcher’s homework was the Jason Bradley and Peter Mason duo. They somehow screwed up making liquid fire. It was so simple. The fire crystal was placed in the oven and liquid fire dripped into a flask. How they messed it up Eva couldn’t fathom, but a large pile of slag had replaced their oven.

Max didn’t mess up anything, which came as a surprise to Eva. Probably due to Irene rather than any bouts of competence from her partner.

The moment Wayne Lurcher dismissed the class after the bell rang, Irene ran over and half dragged Juliana away. The poor blond gave a half-hearted wave to Eva as she vanished through the door.

That Juliana seemed to be done with her cold shoulder was nice. Four days of living in the same room right next to each other, without school even as a distraction, was awkward. She didn’t even have any good books to read. Almost her entire collection, including the as-of-yet unread necromancer books were all out at the prison.

Eva would have to thank the necromancers for sending those flesh golems before tearing out their hearts.

In the meantime, she had work to do.

Once inside dorm three-eighteen, Eva stepped straight to her desk. She had moved all of her supplies the night before.

Arachne peeked out from under her covers in spider form. She glanced around the room. A moment later, Arachne shifted into her human form, already reclining on Eva’s bed.

“It was boring without you around,” Arachne said.

Eva held up her finger to her lips.

“What?” Arachne whispered. She looked around the room again, getting up from the bed in an alert stance.

“I had the theory before,” Eva said as she pulled out a stack of fresh paper and a pen. She’d use her good ink after she was sure of her runes, the anti-scrying papers were getting exceedingly complicated, but it was a fun problem to work out.

Eva continued, “Juliana’s description of the golems seemed to confirm it.”

“Confirm what?” Arachne whispered.

“It also revealed a massive flaw I can’t believe I didn’t correct earlier.

“I’m pretty sure that those flesh golems couldn’t see thanks to my runes. I mostly expected that. After all, skeletons don’t have eyeballs yet they can still see. Those flesh golems seemed to hear Juliana’s footsteps.”

“Your runes don’t block sound?”

“No.” The oversight made Eva sweat buckets when she first thought about it. “If someone heard one of our discussions in the shower…”

“They’d just think you were with Juliana or Shalise, right?”

“I can’t say that you sound like either of them,” Eva said. “Not to mention the things we talked about were definitely dangerous.”

“So you’re going to fix that?”

“At least for our room, I will.”

Eva set to work. She started with a blank piece of paper. It was easiest to start from scratch and then tie the sound runes into her already existing anti-scrying runes rather than try to get everything working at once.

Waves in the air cause sound. It seemed a good place to start.

Isaz tied to aesh to freeze the air. She tied them together and set up a boundary similar to the scrying runes. A uath and naudiz would be tied in later to cause fear and distress in anyone attempting to listen. For now, they were just to the side, unconnected. With the simple array in place, Eva charged the runes.

Nothing happened.

Of course nothing happened. She’d need to try to listen in. Eva didn’t know how to do that.

Eva looked up to ask Arachne if she had any way of testing.

She tired to speak, but no words came out.

A small feeling of panic settled in.

Eva took a big gasp of air. Relief replaced panic as air flowed into her lungs. She wasn’t sure if Arachne needed to breathe or not, or how often, but Eva still needed air. Adding pargon power runes might have solidified the air. If she had frozen the air so solidly she couldn’t even move, she would probably still be able to overload the regular ink, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Glad nothing went seriously wrong, Eva tore the paper in two, ending the effect.

The mistake was an obvious one, one she’d learned when she first made her anti-scrying runes. She forgot the praecantatio rune attached to the isaz rune.

Her first runic sheet blinded herself and Juliana, scaring the poor girl for a minute.

Praecantatio changed whatever it was attached to into magic, in this case, freezing magic that interacts with the air. Hopefully most forms of magical listening would pick something up from the air.

Eva quickly redrew the paper, changes in place, and activated it.

“Arachne,” Eva said, “know any means of scrying with sound?”

The spider-woman shrugged and nestled back into Eva’s bed.

Eva didn’t expect any other response. In all her years knowing the demon, Eva never once saw her casting any magic. Her blood was magical, very magical if Eva’s blood magic was any indicator, so she could in theory. Arachne was probably just too lazy to learn.

“I’ll be heading to the library for a few minutes then,” Eva said.

The runes were a good start. They felt promising, at least. It wouldn’t do to leave them untested. They almost assuredly needed testing. Hopefully, she would find a book on the subject.

Arachne perked up.

Eva was quick to crush her hopes. “I’ll only be gone for a minute. Stay here. We don’t want to run into any nuns out in the halls.”

Arachne fell face first onto the bed. She grumbled something into the pillow. Eva had a decent guess as to what she said.

Eva moved up next to her, patting her on her back. “Don’t be like that. They’re to our advantage right now. Plus there are at least thirty of them, probably more.”

Another set of grumblings rumbled out of the pillow. It sounded suspiciously like, ‘eh, I could take them.’

Eva ran her fingers through the semi-stiff hair tendrils running off onto the bed. “One other thing. Juliana is out shopping with Irene. When she comes back, Irene might help carry things into the room. It is safer for you to be a spider when that happens.” At further rumbles in the pillow, Eva added, “they won’t be back until curfew, I bet. Just keep an ear out. If you hear anything, change into a spider quickly.”

She gave a quick pat on Arachne’s head and headed down to the library.

The musty scent of the Rickenbacker library filled the air as usual. It seemed to have gotten worse after snowing. Students tracking in snow made the books moist.

If Eva were in charge of the library, there would be several runes set up around the entrances to keep dampness at bay. She’d done that at the prison and her Florida home.

David Sunji wasn’t Eva. He sat at his usual spot behind the counter and gave Eva a polite nod. He made no effort to make sure her shoes were clear of snow and water.

They were clear, of course. She cranked up the temperature in her shoes at the prison the night before to help dry any wayward snow.

Her next task at the prison was to inscribe some more permanent runes along every path in the prison. Something to keep the winter away while walking around.

Sadly, winter proofing the prison was not an immediate concern. Necromancers were. Ensuring privacy in dorms came pretty close to necromancers.

Eva made her way to the section she found the scrying book at. There had to be something around that she could use.

It didn’t take long before she found a book that looked promising.

Claircognizance: Clairvoyance, Clairsentience, Clairaudience, Clairalience, and Clairgustance

Written by Claire de Puységur

Rather than the smooth pools of water her other book instructed to use, Claire insisted crystal balls were the best form of clairvoyance possible. Unfortunately, crystal balls weren’t easy to come by. Filling a bowl with water was far more convenient.

Eva skipped to the clairaudience section. By burning fresh needles from pine trees, a good amount of smoke would be produced. Using a wand to channel magic into the smoke and focusing on a location, clairaudience could be achieved.

That seemed doable. Too doable. A crystal ball might be hard to acquire, but books like these shouldn’t be accessible by children. That was just asking for trouble.

Still, that was why Eva was working on her new runes.

There were pine trees in the small section of woods behind the outdoor auditorium.

Eva snapped the book shut. The auditorium wasn’t far. A jog from the dorms would take less than ten minutes and another ten minutes to get back.

Half way there, Eva started regretting coming. She should have gone shopping and picked up some boots. The paths were shoveled or at least trampled between school and the dorms. The path to the auditorium hadn’t been used since school started.

Snow a good five inches deep filled the entire area. The heating runes were not keeping up. Eva shivered, wishing she was better at fire magic.

Once far enough away from the dorms and the nuns, Eva started stepping. Skipping huge amounts of the snow helped a little, even if that little was just to get her out of the cold sooner.

In retrospect there were probably pine trees in the Infinite Courtyard. Most of its paths would probably be trampled down after two days of school. At least ones far enough in to reach a pine tree.

Eva toughed it out. The auditorium sprawled out before her, covered in snow. She’d just step straight past and be done with the cold for the rest of the week.

Just before the tree line, Eva withdrew her dagger. She tapped out just a tiny amount of blood. It formed an intense heating rune on each of her shoes. Blood wouldn’t last long for making the entire rune, but she’d rather walk on hot coals on the way back than trudge through the snow.

With steam rising at every step, Eva went up to the nearest pine tree and started pulling needles. They were slightly sticky. The self-cleaning enchantments on her school uniform better be up to the task.

She filled her pockets and took an extra double handful. After clearing a spot on the ground, Eva set the needles on a spot dried by her shoes. Might as well test her existing rune and clairaudience while she had the spare needles to gather if she screwed up.

A small, controlled flame was much easier to create than a fireball and that is what Eva used to get a smoldering clump of pine needles. As the book said, she channeled magic, wandlessly, into the smoke and visualized room three-eighteen.

Nothing happened.

If her rune was working, she wouldn’t be able to tell if she was doing the spell properly. She tried to focus on the dorm cafeteria which usually had at least someone in it.

Still nothing.

Eva pulled another handful of pine needles off a tree and added it to her pile. She settled down, ready to try again.

She spent a half hour testing various locations before she heard even the faintest murmur of noise that wasn’t from the near silent woods around her. There was a conversation going on in one of the classrooms in school. It wasn’t clear enough to make out details or even what the speakers sounded like.

At least the spell worked. Closing eyes seemed to help more than anything.

Nothing.

That might be because Arachne was quiet and Juliana wasn’t back. Not for the first time, Eva wished she had a way to contact the spider. Zoe Baxter seemed to use a cell phone for her long distance communication. Eva almost thought about buying one for her and another for Arachne, but didn’t think Arachne would like it so much. She didn’t wear clothes and would probably crush it any time she tried to type on it.

There had to be a proper magical way to communicate easily. If she could teach Arachne clairaudience, that might be a solution. If they both used it at the same time. And always had piles of the sticky pine needles on hand.

Sighing, Eva opened her eyes.

A large, murky spike of ice jutted out of her pile of needles.

Eva scrambled backwards, looking upwards to make sure she was in the clear from other icicles.

Her cheeks heated up with a wave of foolishness as she realized what the icicle was.

Huh, she thought as she tipped over the spike, I suppose isaz worked.

A light chuckle escaped from her lips.

The chuckle and any accompanying smile vanished as snow crunched behind her.

She pulled her dagger out from its place on her back and glanced around the woods.

“No demon to watch your back tonight?”

Eva whirled, sending a splattering of blood in the direction of the voice.

A large flesh golem jumped in the way of the blood, shielding its masters.

She snapped her fingers and the blood flashed. The golem staggered and collapsed to the ground.

“I’m quite capable on my own,” Eva said with far more confidence than she felt. The golem fell due to luck, more than anything. Had that been Arachne’s blood, the golem would have vaporized.

And she still hadn’t gotten around to having Arachne refill the vials she’d used on Halloween.

The skinny figure behind the fallen flesh golem clapped his hands twice with a wide grin on his face. “I thought that was blood magic the other night. It was too dark to tell for sure.”

A spectral hound growled at Eva from between the two men standing before her. Ectoplasmic foam dripped from its mouth to the snow. Around ten flesh golems stood around the two men.

The wider man shot a glare at his companion. “We’re here for the book, not for compliments, Sawyer.”

“Book?” Eva said with false swagger. “Oh, you must mean the pile of ashes I scattered to the winds after Halloween.” She ticked her finger back and forth. “Shouldn’t have shown your hand. Especially to me.”

The large man started forwards. Three more flesh golems jumped forwards with his movement. Sawyer placed his hand on the larger man’s shoulder, but the golems didn’t stop.

Eva jammed her crystal dagger into her arm. She drew a thin thread of her dark blood into a razor wire in front of her.

With a snap of her finger, the wire whipped out from her. She slashed it across the nearest golem.

The golem staggered, but kept coming.

Eva thrust out, wrapping the whip around its neck. She snapped her fingers, decapitating it.

The other two barreled onto her. She stepped straight behind them, forming a small blood needle in each hand as she moved.

The golems each got a needle in their backs. With a snap of her finger, the needles exploded. They collapsed with damaged spinal cords.

Eva whirled on the remaining group. None of them had moved. “Come on,” Eva said, trying to contain her anger. “I’ll take on the rest of them and you.”

Revealing her stepping was not something she wanted to do. Especially without her wand in her hand. She tried very hard to make her finger ring more obvious.

Sawyer just laughed and clapped again. His grin never left his face.

“What a ferocious display.” He leaned over to his companion. “If that’s what they teach kids at that school, I might have to enroll my daughter.”

“Sawyer,” the man growled. “No jokes. If she destroyed the book…”

“It isn’t like the book was our main plan.” Sawyer paused and brought his finger to his chin. “It was expensive. We’ll have to gather just recompense from the young lady.”

A golden glint passed through his eyes as he spoke. It sent shivers up Eva’s spine. She quickly glanced around the woods. A number of flesh golems wandered up to form a loose circle around her. She almost stepped away when Sawyer’s companion spoke.

“I don’t care about the Elysium whores.” The word was all but spat out. “I want my book.”

None of the golems moved and their footsteps would crunch the show if they did. She’d have warning enough to step. Information might be more handy at the moment.

“What do you want with the Elysium Sisters?”

“Nothing much. Every chapter travels with an augur. We just want her skull polished and carved into a container. Her soul can stay inside until we tire of her blathering.”

“That doesn’t sound like something Death would like much.”

Sawyer shrugged without breaking eye contact. “It isn’t like we’re turning her into a lich. Did you even read those books you stole?”

Eva shifted uncomfortably.

His voice dropped to a low rumble. “Those who squander knowledge are the worst sorts of people.”

Eva opened her mouth to retort only for it to snap shut. A cold chill gripped her spine. The cold branched out to the tips of her fingers and the bottoms of her feet. Even the boiling runes in her shoes couldn’t fight off the cold.

She tried to step away. Even towards the necromancers when she couldn’t turn her head.

Instead, Eva teetered and fell into the snow.

“That took longer than expected,” Sawyer’s companion grumbled.

It took all her concentration to lift her head up. She struggled to look at the necromancers. Her head moved slowly, like she was in a pool of honey.

“Don’t fight the possession, my sweetie. You’ll just hurt yourself.”

Eva didn’t listen. She fought as hard as she could. Slowly she got to her feet.

It wasn’t her doing.

“Well?” Sawyer’s companion barked out.

“Something’s strange,” a voice said. “She’s strange,” Eva’s voice said. She lurched forwards. Her dagger tumbled out of her twitching fingers.

The large man walked up to Eva. He gingerly plucked the dagger out of the snow. Only his forefinger and thumb touched the hilt.

If only he accidentally cut himself.

He gripped Eva’s chin with a meaty hand and pinched her mouth open. A cold liquid flooded into her mouth.

“Make her swallow.”

Eva tried to spit. Tried to avoid swallowing. Cold tendrils snaked through the inside of her mouth. The potion was in her stomach soon enough.

If only she was further along in her treatments. The drowsiness wouldn’t have taken hold.

“Now,” Sawyer’s voice came through murky water, “what were we talking about?

“Ah yes, recompense.”

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001.020

Posted on August 12, 2015November 20, 2021 by Tower Curator

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Wayne Lurcher had never been one for passive action. The very phrase was an oxymoron he couldn’t stand.

And yet here he sat, in a meeting room, listening to Rebbecca Halsey panic. The dean had called an emergency meeting to try to figure out what went on last night and what the damage was. If the senile woman had any clue, she would realize that no answers would be found in a meeting with the faculty.

Especially because the only one who might have any answers at all was absent.

He cast a sullen glance at the empty seat next to him. Zoe had gone off to a meeting of her own. He only hoped she knew what she was getting into.

Wayne didn’t trust Eva Spencer. He had a bad feeling in his gut when they met with the girl’s father. The feeling got worse when she ran away in the alley. Every time he had seen the girl outside of class and half the time when she was in class, his gut said there was something wrong.

The girl was trouble.

At least that meeting might be productive, Wayne thought as Yuria stuttered out a report of her actions last night.

Wayne ticked off two more students’ names as Yuria finished her report. Five students dead was five too many. At least with her report finished, all the students were accounted for. There wouldn’t be any more ticks on his list.

Townspeople were another matter.

Halsey would be relieved of her post, he was sure, if not imprisoned. Zoe had warned her about the zombies in the house, the suspicious characters wandering town, and even the crypt full of skeletons a few miles out-of-town. The old woman had done nothing, probably at the insistence of the slimy secretary standing just behind her.

Of course, he wasn’t wholly innocent in the matter. He knew the dean had done nothing. Could the kids have been saved if he had taken more drastic measures? Maybe. Maybe not.

“And Zoe’s report?” Halsey glanced at the empty seat next to Wayne. She lurched to her feet, one hand darting over her mouth. “Oh no, where is Zoe? She didn’t…”

“Baxter is fine,” Wayne said as he took to his feet. That the old bat didn’t notice her missing until just now made hackles rise on the back of his neck. “She is dealing with a couple of students, one of whom was injured last night.”

“Oh.” Halsey sat down, patting her chest and taking deep breaths. “That’s good. She’s with children then, are they alright?”

Wayne shifted his feet to one side. He didn’t want to come off looking uncomfortable, but this topic unsettled him. “Baxter and I were patrolling the same areas last night, I will supply the report for both of us.”

He started with the regular stuff, the same things all the other teachers mentioned. The routes they took, number of deceased redeceased, and if they knew anyone. He reluctantly mentioned the two students Zoe had been forced to dispatch.

Then he got to the more worrisome topic. Zoe asked him to leave Spencer’s name out of it. He would, but only out of respect for Zoe.

“A third-party intervened last night. They engaged the necromancers behind the incident, though did not manage to eliminate them. I do have descriptions,” Wayne passed around papers describing the men. “Baxter got them from said third-party while I tended to the aforementioned injured student.

“They were my main concern, you will have to get additional details on the third-party from Baxter herself at a later date.” He glanced around the room, daring any to request more details. Secretary Orgell looked like he wanted to speak, but he stayed silent.

“The injured student was Shalise Ward, first year, Rickenbacker three-one-three. She had injures consistent with being bitten by human teeth as well as several other injures. Before you go marking her off,” he said as a few of the instructors moved their pens to the sheets in front of them, “she is alive and well.

“I inspected the wound myself and found no trace of rot or infection.”

“Preposterous,” Twillie jumped to his feet, “there is no cure for a zombie bite.”

“That is what I said. However, the third-party insisted they had a potion to halt the effects. The other members of Rickenbacker three-one-three confirmed that Ward was bitten by a zombie and administered a potion soon after. Ward herself was regrettably, though understandably, unconscious.”

Wayne glared at Twillie until the man retook his seat. “Baxter is watching over her at the moment, just in case this ‘cure’ doesn’t take.”

Wayne retook his seat. Everyone continued staring at him. He didn’t blame them, but he’d said his piece. Wayne glanced at Kines and nodded for him to start his report. The last one of the meeting, thankfully.

Eventually, Kines took the hint. He had had a rather tame evening, being one of the ones assigned to watch over the dorms.

The meeting wrapped up shortly after. Halsey wanted to reconvene in twelve hours to decide future actions. In the meantime they were to speak with each of their students, check in on them and make sure they were alright. The parents of students who were ‘directly affected’ by the night’s events would be getting personal visits from Halsey during that time.

Wayne ignored that order. He had few students and had visited them all already. The closest any got to danger was Jordan and Maximilian. They had a run in with a small horde of zombies as they ran back to the dorms in search of friends. Jordan managed to hide the two of them with chaos magic.

Jordan was a point of pride for Wayne. The young boy showed remarkable bravery and talent for a thirteen year old. Most importantly, he was not a troublemaker unlike a certain other instructor’s students.

Rather than visiting his students again, Wayne elected to return to town and continue sweeping it for any remaining creatures.

The familiar wrongness of between almost overwhelmed his gut in the brief instant it took to appear in town. Getting Zoe to agree to learn that spell had taken months of prodding. When she finally relented and learned from him, she spilled her lunch the first several times. She had told him that she never intended to use it again.

Unfortunately for the both of them, its sheer utility outweighed the sickening sensation it caused.

Wayne walked down the street. He kept an ear out for anything unusual. He patrolled around, suppressing any lingering idle thoughts. Distractions could get him killed.

He froze at a movie theater. There was something off about the building. It looked right, no blood or displaced posters. But it bothered him. It bothered his gut.

Wayne growled and marched towards the building, tome at the ready. There would be zombies inside, stragglers from the night before. He was sure of it.

His gut told him so.

— — —

Shouts pierced the wall of Rickenbacker three-fifteen.

Irene pulled her covers over her head and tried to avoid eavesdropping. Even with the privacy enchantments on the rooms, such a task was near impossible today.

“Zoe says you have been afraid to leave your room for three days.”

“Zoe doesn’t know what she is talking about. The first day, I had an injured roommate I was looking after. The second day I went to the hospital with that injured roommate and stuck by them for most of the day. Today I decided to stick around the dorms since you were coming. I can see that was a mistake now.”

“Juliana Laura Rivas. Do not talk to me that way. Gather your things, we are leaving.”

They had been arguing for the better part of an hour. Pretty much from the moment Mrs. Rivas arrived. It had been silent at first, then their voices escalated. It triggered the safety systems in the enchantments to let distressed voices through–in case of an emergency in another room–and they hadn’t let up since.

Irene shut her eyes and desperately wished humans could shut their ears. Such a feature would certainly help with Shelby’s snoring.

She almost wished her mother had shown up to pull her out of the academy. Irene was the one who hadn’t left her room in three days. Sadly, her parents hadn’t come. Her parents originally wanted Shelby and herself to attend a different school. Since her father lost his job during government reorganization, the prospect was off the table.

Several other students were already home. The prospect of near free schooling was outweighed by unchecked hordes of zombies that the staff apparently knew about for months.

Irene doubted that claim.

While the zombies were scary, and she definitely did not wish to come across any, they weren’t her main concern at the moment.

Some Elysium Sisters arrived to investigate earlier in the morning. They were famous for being the most experienced organization in matters of undeath. They’d have whatever mess happened on Halloween cleaned up by the weekend.

Her issue was with the thing living in the neighboring room. Irene knew the ‘spider’ Eva had shown them wasn’t a real spider. She knew it. Every time she brought it up with Jordan, he would just hum and shrug with a smile.

He also knew it wasn’t normal.

He probably knew what it was.

If Jordan knew what it was, she definitely didn’t want to be near it.

Luckily for Irene, it had stayed out of sight for most of her time at Brakket. She’d only seen it once or twice during study sessions. Even then, it was mostly just the thing’s legs poking out of Eva’s shirt.

Until Halloween. It showed up, just glaring at them–at her–wearing human clothes. It took a few minutes, but Irene made the connection. Eva and Juliana’s reactions helped. Shalise, oddly enough, just looked confused.

Irene wished she could have seen Jordan’s reaction through his stupid shadow mask.

Shortly after, she made the excuse of being sick. Lucky too. Irene and Shelby arrived at the dorms before anything truly terrible happened.

It showing up at the same time as the zombies couldn’t have been a coincidence.

Still, Jordan acted nonchalant about the entire thing. He’d rushed to the dorms with Max and stayed with the twins over night. He was far more worried about the zombies. Even when Irene asked about the thing, he just shrugged and said it wasn’t his business as long as they stayed out of his affairs.

Max told his story of how the thing tore apart zombies with its bare hands.

That did nothing to make Irene feel better.

Irene peeked out of her covers at the empty room around her. It was only Shelby and herself in room three-fifteen and her other half wasn’t scared of leaving the room.

Shelby was afraid of the zombies, but decided the opportunity to hang off Jordan’s arm without Irene around was worth whatever fears she felt.

Irene sighed and put her back to the room. Hopefully things would make sense again when school started back up. She missed the routine and the learning.

Both were major stabilizers she needed right now.

— — —

The house Lynn Cross stood in front of looked much better than it had in the past.

The peeling paint had been replaced by a fresh coat of tan. Gone were the rickety stairs leading to the door. The door knocker looked new and the window didn’t have the large crack running down it.

Lynn gave the knocker a good three knocks and stepped back. Excited shouts brought a small smile to her face. A middle-aged woman opened the door a moment later.

Gabrielle Mendoza looked over her guest with surprise worn clearly on her face. “Sister Cross? We weren’t expecting you for a few weeks.”

“I apologize,” Lynn said with a slight bow, “I won’t be able to make our previous appointment. I was in town today and thought I might drop by. If it is inconvenient, I can go, of course.”

“No, no,” Gabriella waved her hand quickly and opened the door wide. “Please come in. The children would have my head if I turned you away.”

Lynn gave her a polite chuckle as she walked into the front hall. It wasn’t much of a hall, just a small room that was barely kept separate from the rest of the building by a low wall.

Three little heads peeked over that low wall. When they saw who walked in, excited cries of ‘Sister Cross’ squeaked out of them and they dashed around the small wall. One tried to climb over the barrier.

“Slow down there Tim,” Lynn said. She plucked him off the barrier with her gloved hands and dropped him on his feet, saving him a near head first fall. “I’m not going anywhere yet.”

“Did you bring us gifts?” Cody asked.

Lynn put on a fake pout. She knelt down and tapped his nose. “You haven’t seen me in a year and I don’t even get a hello?”

Cody had the good manners to look embarrassed and then he wrapped Lynn in a friendly hug. Tim and Lisa joined without a moment of hesitation. She returned the hug.

After disentangling herself from the three, they took a seat in the nearby sitting room. Lynn asked each of them how they were doing, if they needed anything, and other such general questions.

They talked quite excitedly about school and friends. Lynn entertained them for the hour. She liked children, especially these kids, but time was dragging on. She had a real reason to visit the group home aside from a social call with the three runts.

She waited for a lull in Lisa’s rapid fire speech about a painting she drew for school. When the lull came, Lynn tapped her forehead. “Silly me,” she said, “I forgot. I did bring you kids gifts.”

Lisa immediately forgot about her painting and joined the other two in trying not to look so eager. Well, joined Tim in trying not to look so eager. Cody made his excitement clear.

Lynn reached into the small bag she brought and withdrew three small boxes, each neatly wrapped with some simple but nice wrapping paper. “I know it is a tad late for Halloween and very early for Christmas, but if you promise to be good, you can have these.”

The three quickly agreed and Lynn handed them out. “Run along and play now,” she said with a smile. They thanked her and ran off into one of the children’s rooms to inspect their new bounties.

Gabriella chuckled lightly. “Thank you,” she said.

“It isn’t anything much.”

“It means a lot to them.”

Lynn just nodded. She packed up her bag and headed towards the door. There was one more thing she needed to do before leaving, but she didn’t want to raise the point. It might add unnecessary attention to both of the subjects.

Luckily, Gabriella spoke up first. “Before you go, would you mind visiting Shalise?”

With her carefully practiced ‘mild-surprise’ face on, Lynn said, “I thought she was up in Montana, schooling. Is it vacation time already.”

“There was…” Gabriella looked down, rubbing her hands together. “An accident. She won’t tell me the details, but about a week ago she shows up covered head to foot in bandages. She barely speaks and barely eats.”

Lynn frowned at that. She’d heard Shalise was injured. Bandaged head to toe seemed different from the report. Not eating definitely wasn’t in the report.

“I know you’re busy,” Gabriella said quickly, apparently taking Lynn’s failure to respond as hesitance. “It would mean a lot. To all of us.”

Lynn forced her frown into a small smile. “Of course, Gaby. She’s up in her room?”

The caretaker nodded.

Lynn took the stairs to the second floor. She stopped just outside the first door and knocked lightly.

No one responded.

“Shal? It’s Lynn.”

Nothing.

Undeterred, Lynn opened the door a small crack and peeked inside.

Shalise sat on her bed, propped up by a multitude of pillows. Stuffed animals covered every available inch of her bed, and much of the floor where several had been knocked off. The normally chipper girl would always pick them up and replace them on her bed. But they just lay there, abandoned.

The poor girl’s arm was up in a sling, bandages visible on the hand sticking out of it, or perhaps that was a cast; Lynn wasn’t sure. Her face had a deep red gash stretching from her nose to her ear. A bandage might have been there at one point, a bit of medical tape clung to her cheek. Her other hand rested in her lap, also wrapped in a bandage. If the lump under her blanket was anything to go by, she had a cast on as well.

Lynn felt a twisting in her heart as she looked at her girl. Her face was as blank as a corpse.

Shalise’s large brown eyes just stared dully out the window, half turned from the doorway. They were unfocused and didn’t seem to track to any movement outside. She didn’t spare a single glance towards the woman standing in the doorway.

Lynn had only a vague idea of what happened at that school. When the request for assistance came in from the school’s dean earlier in the week, they had sent a few cursory investigators. Preliminary reports were about rogue necromancers unleashing zombies on the town.

She’d hoped to get a few inside details from Shalise, but nothing warned her that it had been this bad.

Lynn stepped into the room and shut the door quietly. She discreetly pulled her wand from the holder on her back and put some simple privacy protections on the room. Anyone who even accidentally overheard anything would suddenly feel a need to be in the opposite end of the house.

With the protections in place, Lynn replaced her wand–Shalise being none the wiser–and moved to the empty chair beside Shalise’s bed. She placed a hand on the girl’s knee, confirming that she was wearing a cast. She slid her hand up to the girl’s thigh only to draw back at the girl’s shriek.

Stuffed animals went flying as she scrambled back against the pile of pillows. Shalise stared, wide-eyed and far more focused. It took a moment before recognition set in and Shalise slumped back against the pillows.

“Hey kiddo,” Lynn said. She offered a sad smile.

“Sister Cross. I thought I was going to die.”

Lynn wasn’t sure if she was talking about just now or back on Halloween. Possibly both. “I’ve told you, call me Lynn.” The stubborn girl just shook her head. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

They sat in silence for a minute. Lynn replacing her hand on the girl’s thigh seemed to set her off. She burst into tears and leaned into Lynn’s shoulder.

At least she didn’t pull away, Lynn thought as she patted the girl on her back.

Shalise started talking about her time at school. Learning magic, her roommate’s creepy pet spider, the teachers and how one of them named Yuria something–the poor girl let out a sudden sniffle as she said her last name–was her favorite, and on and on about her friends and roommates.

Then she got to Halloween, or the preparations for it. How Shalise agreed to go to a party despite her roommate’s apprehensions.

That was something Lynn wanted to follow-up on. Did they know something was going to happen?

She chose her costume and helped a friend choose one. She went over the party and her roommate dancing the most awkward dance she’d ever seen with some stranger.

Her voice was excited and animated, if a bit tear filled. The fun she had brought a small smile to Lynn’s lips.

Then she went silent.

“Shal?”

“I don’t really know what happened after that. I was on the ground and in pain.”

She went silent again. Lynn gave her a light squeeze.

“I was attacked by a zombie. Then its head just exploded in front of me. All over me. That’s where I got most of my injuries.”

Lynn frowned at that. The reports didn’t mention she was attacked by a zombie. How she was even sitting in front of her had to be a miracle.

Shalise lifted up the arm in her sling. “Doctors say I might not be able to use my hand again, too much of the wiring… eaten. I’m lucky it doesn’t need to be amputated. When a magic doctor says you’re out of luck, you know you’re really out of luck.” She sighed. “My leg broke when I fell to the ground and the zombie landed on top of me. My other hand isn’t healing properly, though that injury saved my life so I suppose it is forgivable.”

Lynn quirked her eyebrow at that. “An injury saved your life?”

A brief grimace of panic crossed Shalise’s face before she settled back into her melancholic look. “I was supposed to tell all the doctors and teachers and anyone else who asked that a potion stopped me from becoming a zombie.”

“It was something else, then?”

Shalise brought her eyes to meet Lynn’s for the first time since she entered the room. She searched back and forth, looking for something.

Lynn couldn’t hide her disappointment when the girl dropped her eyes back to her lap, apparently not finding it.

“My friend said I’d get the person who saved me into a lot of trouble if I ever told what actually cured me. I think I owe her enough to stay silent.”

Lynn sighed at her reluctance. She couldn’t remember the last time Shalise kept something from her. That it was an injury that cured her spoke of black magic. She thought for a moment about asking Shalise to see the wound, but decided to let it be.

From the sound of it, Shalise knew this person, this ‘her,’ outside of whatever incident this was. Probably not a necromancer that grew a conscience. Someone who was at the club? A friend then.

Something to look into later.

“So what are you going to do now?”

Shalise just shook her head.

“You sounded like you were having fun, learning magic and being with your new friends.”

“I…” She leaned back and turned her gaze out the window. “I think I need time, for now.”

“I understand. Don’t take too long to decide, you’ll fall behind in class.”

When Shalise didn’t respond, Lynn stood up and ruffled the girl’s brown hair. “I have to go. In fact, I’m going to Brakket.”

Shalise’s eyes snapped over to Lynn. “You? Why?”

“Didn’t I ever tell you? The Elysium Sisters are necromancer hunters.”

Shalise’s eyes spread wide open. Lynn was quite sure she didn’t know that the order of nuns was even magical.

“They hurt a good friend of mine so I’ll be going personally to oversee the operations.” She fluffed up Shalise’s hair once again. “I have to make it safe if that good friend decides to go back to school.”

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001.019

Posted on August 9, 2015February 13, 2022 by Tower Curator

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“Terrible night, isn’t it?”

“Is this an attempt at small talk?”

The man grumbled something under his breath.

Zoe took her eyes off searching the streets and glanced at him.

Wayne’s eyes searched the tops of buildings as they walked down the deserted street. He, like her, was fully dressed in his usual black suit. He held a large tome open in one hand as if he was in the middle of reading it. He wasn’t, of course.

Zoe had never understood why he used a tome as a focus. Their storage capacity surpassed staves. One could pen down spells into the tome’s pages to avoid the concentration required for more complicated spells. Wayne never used spells that took advantage of those traits. As far as she could tell, he used the tome like any other focus.

Tomes were heavy and unwieldy, yet it was all he used outside of the classroom.

“Ahead,” he said.

Zoe broke her thoughts and snapped her eyes forward.

Another group of the creatures shambled around the corner of the street.

Six of them looked old and rotted. Two had bright red blood still dripping from their wounds. Their clothes were less torn and one wore a Halloween costume. Fresh victims.

Still, no mercy would be shown. Zoe readied her dagger. She already had to put down one of her students, she only hoped neither of the two fresh corpses were students.

Zoe lanced a lightning bolt at the nearest one’s head. She sustained the bolt for a few extra seconds. A normal person would go down with a heart attack, brain damage, or nerve damage, depending on location and power. A zombie didn’t care about such things.

She held the bolt until the zombie’s eyes exploded. Another few seconds and the zombie crumpled to the ground with smoke rising from its body. The putrid stench of burnt flesh filled the street.

The crack drew the attention of the rest of the creatures.

Wayne didn’t hesitate for a moment. He immediately sent out a blast of fire, enveloping a zombie.

Zoe took a step backwards, casting a heavy wind in the direction of the zombies. Two of them stumbled and fell to the ground. A follow-up razor wind took the head off of another.

Wayne threw a blaze of red fire over the two on the ground and caught a third in the inferno.

Thick shoes clomping behind her made Zoe spin. Out of the alley stumbled one more creature. Wayne was incinerating a zombie to her side. This one fell to her. She raised her dagger and prepared to fire.

A small black sphere splattered against the neck of the zombie from its side. It flashed white a moment after.

The zombie’s head fell to the ground with its body crumpling after it.

Zoe whirled around to where the attack came from.

A woman stood next to a younger black-haired girl. The woman wore a suit–much fancier than Zoe’s own–splattered with blood. The sleeves were torn at the wrist and she had long black gloves tipped in sharp claws. What really drew Zoe’s eyes was the half-black, half-white mask with thin slits for eyes and thick cords that ran from the top of her head down her back.

The black-haired girl quickly placed something behind her back while Zoe was distracted with the masked woman. She wore much more normal pants, tee-shirt and a jacket.

It took a double take before Zoe recognized the girl. Zoe forced herself to relax and put on a calmer face.

“Eva, what are you doing here?”

The young girl looked up at Zoe with cold eyes. “Same thing as you, I imagine; cleaning up the town and hunting necromancers. Found any?”

“You’re covered in blood.” She wasn’t exactly covered in it. Not as much as her companion, at least. There was definitely blood, especially on her hands.

She looked down at herself then back up at Zoe with a small smile. “It isn’t mine.”

Zoe did not match her smile. If the blood was hers, she was injured. Not a good thing when zombies are running around. If the blood wasn’t hers then it was zombie blood.

“Eva,” Zoe started, calmly and slowly, “are you infected?”

The tall figure standing next to her tensed at the comment. Zoe couldn’t tell her facial expression beneath the mask, but she looked about ready to pounce. Judging by the blood dripping off of her clawed gloves as well as over her undamaged clothes, she was quite good at pouncing.

Eva held her hand to the side and gave a small shake of her head. The woman immediately relaxed.

“Don’t worry,” Eva said, “I took an anti-zombie potion.”

Wayne bristled at that. “No such thing,” he grunted.

“People keep telling me that.” Eva crossed her arms beneath her chest. “We’ll see who is a zombie in the morning and who isn’t.”

Zoe didn’t doubt Wayne’s knowledge of potions. She knew of only one way to counteract the infection from a zombie and she did not have a corpse flower handy. “You will become a hindrance if you are infected.”

“So you’re going to kill me then?” Eva half snarled. This time both of them tensed.

Zoe did not like how quickly the girl was ready to fight. She had one hand behind her back. Zoe did not know what was back there except that it was undoubtedly a weapon.

“Quarantine,” Zoe quickly said. “In the morning you can, if you’re you, teach Wayne how to make your potion.”

“Can’t,” Eva said with a wave of her hand, “I didn’t make it. My mentor did. It was delivered by,” she paused and glanced at the tall woman next to her, “his associate.” Eva relaxed, dropping her arm to her side. The woman next to her didn’t.

“Does this associate have a name?”

“Yes.”

“Why’s she wearing a mask?” Wayne asked.

“It’s Halloween, isn’t it?” The woman in the mask had a confident but very artificially modulated voice. Just four words came out like they weren’t being spoken by a proper mouth or vocal cords.

It set Zoe on edge. More on edge than she already was.

“Quarantine, Eva, is–”

“A waste of time. If you have no information on the necromancers behind this, then I believe it is time to go.” She turned, though the woman next to her did not. “Believe it or not, I am mildly fond of you. Don’t try to stop me. It would be… unpleasant.”

“Take one of these at least,” Zoe said. She pulled out one of her business cards and held it out. “If you do find the necromancers, let us know. We can help.”

Eva reached out and almost took it. She pulled her hand back mere inches from the card. “I’d rather not risk getting blood on you,” she said.

Zoe set the card on the ground and took a step back. Eva picked it up.

“If I do use this, I highly recommend not touching either of us without sterilization. Even if we’re badly injured.”

With that said, the girl turned and used her false blink down the street. The ‘associate’ remained–glaring if Zoe had to guess–for a moment longer before she sprinted down the street. She jumped straight to a rooftop that Eva blinked to and they were gone.

“You shouldn’t have let them go.”

“I don’t think we had much choice. I have no doubts that the thing next to her was not human. I do have doubts over how much we could have hurt it before it killed us.”

Wayne just grunted. “Come on,” he said, “night’s far from over.”

Zoe followed after him. She kept alert for any movement, but her thoughts were elsewhere.

A mysterious nonhuman associate. A weapon that she kept hidden even when she suspected an attack. A cure for zombie infection.

As long as she did end up not becoming a zombie. She seemed very confident about it, if exhausted.

Zoe let herself smile for the first time that night.

Wayne really had missed out when he let her slip by. Zoe just hoped the trouble Eva caused would be worth it in the end.

— — —

Eva stepped to another rooftop and paused, catching her breath. Arachne caught up a moment later.

Leaning into the spider, Eva sighed. The amount of blood she used drawing the ritual circle wound up taking more out of her than she thought. Combined with slaughtering a town infested with zombies and Eva felt ready to drop.

“You need to take a rest,” Arachne said. “They can finish cleaning the streets.”

Eva picked herself off of Arachne. “No. We’re going to find them.”

“You can barely stand. You may be half demon, but you aren’t a full one yet. You will die if you keep this up.”

“I will be fine. I’ll just avoid using blood magic for a while. I need to practice regular magic anyway.”

Arachne did not look convinced as she slid her mask to the side.

“And I’ll be relying on you,” Eva added.

“As much as I like to hear you say that, I’d rather you head in for the night. If you really want me to, I’ll continue scourging this town of the infected.”

Eva smiled at her concern. It was nice. Touching to have the woman care about her so. “Good thing we decided to get you that full mask. I’d rather have Zoe Baxter thinking of you as just a spooky associate than a demon.”

Arachne side and slid the mask back over her face. “I’m not going to talk you out of this, am I?”

“Try again a few zombies later. I might be more tired then.”

“I didn’t know you cared about the humans in this place enough to strain yourself so.”

Eva frowned at that and gave it a long thought before responding. “I suppose I don’t. Not humans in general anyway. These necromancers hurt my friends and are making a mess of the town I currently call home.” She paused, looking over Arachne for any cues. She found none.

“If I was the one hurt,” Eva continued, “you’d have brought the entire town to rubble until you found the culprit. So don’t say I’m going overboard over a couple of ‘measly humans.’ They’re my friends right now, just like you are. I’d do the same for you.”

Arachne smiled at that. Even with the mask in place, Eva could tell. The twitching of her hair tendrils and the slight tilt of her head gave it away.

How she had gotten to know Arachne so well over the last few months felt odd. Like a twisting in her stomach. She wasn’t sure if it was a good twisting or a bad twisting, but being friends with Arachne had been beneficial, if nothing else. The real twist in her stomach was that she actually meant it when she said they were friends.

Devon always warned her away from even speaking with demons, outside of orders, and definitely disapproved of being friendly. He vehemently disapproved of Arachne’s interest in Eva. Once she started taking interest, Devon sought to keep them apart save for her treatments and a select few jobs.

Eva never saw the harm in it.

Even Ylva, who could kill someone merely by brushing her hand over them, had been very polite to a frightened Eva. She even left a gift. Sure, Eva had apparently given her some great boon, but there was no contract for the gift. Eva foolishly gave the phylactery to the demon. She could have just left and gotten a free boon.

After the experiment ended, what would her master do? Keep her around for observations, surely. Start treating her like one of the demons he summoned? Not if Eva had a choice in the matter.

Eva sighed again and realized Arachne hadn’t said anything. The spider-woman had gone very still. “Something the matter?”

“Are you sure you don’t want to head back?”

“I’m sure. Why?”

Arachne hesitated just a moment before responding. “There’s a group of zombies in the street below. I can hear them.”

Eva went silent to listen. Her hearing wasn’t as good as the spider-woman’s. Still, she could hear faint moaning when she concentrated.

“If you promise to stay here, I’ll go finish them and be back in less than a minute.”

Eva shook her head. “Like I said, I could use practice with regular magic.”

Arachne slumped her shoulders. “Alright,” she said, “but let me carry you down. We don’t want you leaving half yourself behind again.”

“That happened once,” Eva said as the spider woman lifted her into her arms. “I was brand new and panicked at the time.”

“And this time you are very exhausted.” Arachne stepped off the edge of the building. She absorbed all the shock of the landing and set Eva down in one smooth motion.

Eva whipped her arm out and launched a fireball towards the zombies. It came out less as the basketball she envisioned and more as a ping-pong ball. Eva sighed as it sailed right past the group of zombies and dissipated harmlessly against the asphalt.

It did manage get their attention. Unfortunately, their attention went to where the fireball dispersed–in the opposite direction.

Eva shared a glance with Arachne. Despite the mask, she felt the demon was very desperately trying to hold in laughter.

Eva shook her head and concentrated. She pictured a boulder of flame and rock being catapulted against a castle wall. With that image in mind, Eva lobbed another fireball.

The ball slammed into the shoulder of one of the zombies. If the golf ball sized orb did more than singe the flesh, Eva couldn’t tell in the dim light of the street lamps.

Eva sighed. At least the fireball was bigger this time, maybe. If I squinted. “Maybe I’m actually not a fire mage,” she said to Arachne.

The zombie she struck turned around and started shambling towards her. Eva wasn’t worried. They were slow and uncoordinated. The only real danger was them sneaking up and with Arachne at her side, Eva doubted that was possible.

Arachne stuck nearby rather than jumping into the fray. It had been several groups of zombies since she decided sticking by Eva’s side was more important than wanton slaughter. Heartwarming in a way, and here it gave Eva a chance to practice.

She tossed another few fireballs without doing much damage. The other zombies had been attracted by the light. Eva just calmly walked backwards with Arachne at her side.

Zoe Baxter had used a gust of wind to completely remove a zombie’s head. Eva tried the same thing. Sneezing might have done more.

“You’re just not cut out for ‘proper’ magics.”

Eva was sure there was laughter in the demon’s voice. “It is my second month of schooling. I’m sure I’ll get better.”

“May I?” Arachne asked with a gesture towards the approaching zombies.

Eva just nodded her head and stopped walking backwards.

Arachne took a look around before calmly walking forwards and decapitating each one with a swipe of her hands. She did so quickly and without needless gore as she had done with some of the earlier groups. Arachne walked back to Eva’s side.

With the zombies dead, Eva slumped her shoulders and sighed. Maybe her lack of ability was exhaustion. No, not maybe. Definitely.

A nap sounded amazing at the moment. Curling up under some warm blankets with Arachne huddled around her had never sounded better. Alas it was not to be.

A thunder crack put Eva on full alertness. She turned at the noise. A horde of corpses streamed into the street from an alley. They less shambled and more ran.

A similar crack shook the street somewhere behind Eva. Another horde materialized out of thin air.

“These aren’t zombies,” Eva said.

They were more like skeletons that had been shoved into the fresh meat section of a grocery store. Flesh and skin hung off the bones. None of the bones seemed to be from the same creature either. Not a one looked human without heavily squinting your eyes.

They shambled and twisted until Eva was backed against the wall of a building. Arachne kept a few paces in front, flinging any that got too close down the street.

“We need to get out of here,” Arachne said.

Eva couldn’t agree more. She was about ready to step away when the flesh golems stopped. They left about a ten foot ring around her and just stood, staring.

Arachne growled, flexing her claws but not moving forward. She started pacing in front of Eva.

“Well,” a voice above Eva echoed down into the street, “what do we have here?”

Two men stood on a roof looking down at Eva and Arachne. Two spectral hounds flanked them, both barking and growling at the two in the street.

“Two party goers lost out on All Hallow’s Eve,” the skinny one said.

Eva narrowed her eyes. She didn’t doubt for a moment who these two were.

Arachne kept moving around Eva as if expecting one of the flesh golems to lunge at any moment.

“The dogs are saying she was the one at the crypt.”

“She’s the one,” a voice shrieked out. Stephen Toomey stumbled forward past the two men. He collapsed on his knees and pointed the only finger left on his hand at Eva. “I swear. I sold it to the little girl.”

“Oh?” The bulky man stepped to the edge of the roof and looked down. “I have doubts about that pathetic display of fireworks. There were a good hundred skeletons taken out. The dogs might be wrong, or it might be the other woman. If you’re sure you sold the book to her…”

“It’s her. Now please, let me go. I just–”

The blond man clapped Toomey on the back with a friendly smile. “Looks like we won’t be needing to visit the dorms after all.” He stood up, dragging Toomey to his feet by the shirt. “Selling out a schoolgirl in an attempt to save your own life?” He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “Disgusting.”

He gave just a light push.

Toomey tumbled off the edge of the roof. He let out a short cry before he was silenced. A sickening crunch spread through the air.

“A vain attempt,” the skinny man said with a wide smile.

“Thank you for caring for our tome, but we’ll be taking the book back.”

The flesh golems shuffled back and forth, eager to advance. If they attacked, things could get bad. The spectral dogs would make running more difficult.

Eva leaned back against the wall, trying to look casual, and placed her arms behind her back. “What book?” Eva said with more confidence than she felt.

“What book?” The larger man looked to his companion. “Sawyer, you’ve killed the bookkeeper too soon.”

While the man was turned, Eva carefully slipped her dagger out of its sheath. She touched it against her other arm. Blood marbles began forming behind her back.

Her body wasn’t quite at a real danger point. She’d survive enough blood loss to take out the dogs. Maybe the two necromancers if she was lucky. If this turned into a long confrontation, she’d be in trouble.

“She’s lying.” The skinny man’s eyes never left hers. His smile still stretched from ear to ear.

Eva frowned at his words. Why does everyone seem to know when I’m lying.

The man turned back to her and frowned. “You don’t want to test us further. You will regret it. Hand over the book.”

“Oh, I just hand it over and you’ll let me go on my way?”

“Of course not. There are worse things than death, my sweetie.”

“Sweetie?” Eva controlled her voice very carefully. “If we are so familiar, why not introduce yourselves.” She tapered off the flow of blood and healed her cut. Ten marbles totaling about a pint of blood hovered in the small of her back.

“Your last warning. Hand us the book or–”

The skinny one interrupted. “She doesn’t have the book. Obviously.” He managed to roll his eyes without taking them off Eva.

“Take us to the book or–”

“Don’t know where it is,” Eva interrupted. The man seemed to be going a bit red in the face. “Ask your friend if I’m telling the truth.”

The moment his head swung to the side, Eva launched four blood orbs. One at each of the dogs and one at each of the men.

Arachne noticed the orbs whizzing past her. She turned and grabbed Eva, smoothly jumping over the horde of golems without a pause.

Eva barely had time to snap her fingers before Arachne bolted down the street. Over Arachne’s shoulder, she could see the two figures atop the building still standing there. Neither crumpled or appeared to be in pain.

One of the spectral dogs chased after her through the air. It barked and snarled as it closed in faster than Arachne could dash. The other dog was nowhere to be seen.

One out of four isn’t bad, she thought as she launched another two orbs. They passed straight through the dog as if it wasn’t even there. A snap of her fingers and the orbs exploded within. The dog howled and vanished into green motes.

“Dogs are dead,” Eva said to Arachne. “Take me back, I want another shot at the necromancers.”

“No.”

“Arachne?”

“You’re shaking, shivering even, and covered in sweat that wasn’t there before. You need rest.”

Eva held her hand in front of her. She couldn’t hold it steady as much as she tried. Arachne’s running didn’t help. “Shaking and sweating from excitement.”

“Don’t lie to me Eva. Your breathing is ragged. You were supposed to be done with blood magic for the night. I could have dealt with them. Call your teachers if you wish. We’re going back to our home.”

Eva sighed and leaned into Arachne’s shoulder. She didn’t close her eyes. If she fell asleep, no one would be able to keep an eye on pursuers. “Can’t call them. Zoe Baxter has the book. Too dangerous to have her engage.”

“Relax, Eva. We’ll find them again. Maybe we will send Ivonis after them.”

“Oh? Did they introduce themselves to you while I wasn’t looking? I must have missed their names.”

Arachne’s mouth split into a small smile. “Another demon then. I’ll go even. Once you’re safe and rested.”

“We do need to warn Zoe Baxter.” Eva scanned the streets behind Arachne, waiting for someone to show up. “And retrieve the book from her.”

“Shall I hunt her down?”

“No, I have her card. Take us home and we’ll call her there, someplace far away from here.”

“She can teleport, right?”

“It will take us time to get there. Time for the necromancers to vanish.”

“Or cause more problems.”

Eva sighed. She wished her master were here. He’d know what demon to summon to clean up the town.

Maybe he will be at the prison.

— — —

“I just got a pulse from Eva.”

Wayne tensed up immediately.

They hadn’t seen anything for the last half hour. Not a zombie, not another person. The other instructors were still checking in every so often, but it seemed like most of their excitement died down as well.

“Where at?”

“Not sure. About fifty miles outside Brakket.”

“Found the necromancer’s base? Or captured? Worse?”

“Just a moment.” Zoe took her dagger and sliced straight down in front of her. A tear in space widened to a small oval in front of her face. Zoe peered into the pure white of between.

And immediately pulled away, clutching her head.

“Zoe?” Wayne set a firm hand on her shoulder.

She shook him off. “Nothing. Same effect as when trying to look around her runes at the dorms. Which means it is probably a safe area.”

“Safe for her. Or the necromancers use the same thing.”

Zoe attempted scrying again. This time, she picked an area half a mile off. “No protection over here. There’s an unmaintained road leading up to a large black area.” Zoe winced. “The black area is the protected area. It triggers the same effect, though not as bad as when I tried to look in directly.”

“Any people or zombies around?”

“None that I can see from the hill.” Zoe frowned. She tried to avoid looking directly at the black area, but it was huge. “Each one of her rune packets is just enough to cover one room. This place is probably the size of the entire school plus one of the dorm buildings, maybe the other as well.”

“Are we going to go?”

“I’d rather not leave a student in trouble. We can be gone in an instant if it looks dangerous.”

“Unless they’ve got wards set up against that.”

“If we can get in, we can get out.”

Wayne just grumbled. He moved over and peeked into her scrying window.

Zoe readied her dagger and went between. The street fell into a white void and was replaced by a sagebrush filled hillside. Wayne appeared at her side an instant later. Zoe turned, looking out over the area that was covered in darkness.

“A prison.”

“An old one,” Wayne grunted.

“Do we go knock?”

Wayne shrugged and headed down the hill. Zoe followed after him, careful to mind her step down the rough hillside.

As they approached the main gate, Zoe made out the young girl leaning against the bars.

“Eva, are you alright?”

The girl before her looked like she could barely stand on her feet.

“Just tired for the most part. Took you long enough to get here.”

“I couldn’t see into the prison. Your runes, I assume. We were forced to arrive on the hill.”

“When you didn’t show up, I figured it was something like that. I had to come out here to keep you from wandering the prison.”

Wayne took a step forward, peering down at the girl. “Something we shouldn’t see inside?”

“Tons of things,” Eva rolled her eyes, “mostly didn’t want you running into one of my mentor’s wards. You would find that very unpleasant.”

“Unpleasant?”

“Explosively so.”

Wayne growled.

“In any case,” Eva said, “I’m fine. I need the book. Recent events have convinced me that it needs to be destroyed sooner rather than later.”

Zoe did not like the sound of that. “What events?”

“Oh nothing much. Ran into two necromancers. They killed Stephen Toomey right in front of me and had about a hundred flesh golems. They found us with some ghost dogs that were tracking us from when we found out the name of the book.” The black-haired girl smacked her face. She half shouted, “Which is something I didn’t think about until just now.”

The edge in her voice set Zoe on edge as well. Eva rarely was perturbed by anything.

“There is one more person I didn’t tell you who went with us. Well, two, but my mentor’s associate can take care of herself. Juliana on the other hand…”

“You took Juliana with you?” Eva putting herself in danger was one thing. One thing Zoe didn’t like. She couldn’t do much to help it aside from confining Eva to her room. She doubted that would even hold her. Not if she’d set up a home out here with enough facilities to make it livable.

Bringing other students into it was crossing the line.

Not to mention that it was Juliana. Her mother would raze Hell itself if anything happened to her daughter.

“You said there were hordes of skeletons.”

“Not that many.”

“Mr. Carter was injured so badly you haven’t even seen him since.”

“It was just a flesh wound.”

“You said you were lucky to have escaped with your lives.”

“Nothing wrong with a bit of embellishment. You’re making a much bigger deal out of this than you did when it was just me and my mentor.”

“You are wrong about that, Evaleen Spencer.” The girl winced at her full name. Zoe hadn’t forgotten how her father went on about the ‘ungrateful brat who won’t even call herself by her birth name.’ “I remember very distinctly scolding you for a good half hour.”

“Well, we don’t have time for another scolding. If they tracked me down, they might go to the dorms. They might already be there, I escaped from them over an hour ago.”

The young girl looked calm, but she started sweating. In the cold air, that was something of a feat.

Zoe knelt down and placed a hand on Eva’s shoulder. She felt a tremble beneath the shirt. “Eva, calm down. The dorms and school have very thorough alarm wards set up. If anyone were hurt or even taken somewhere against their will, all teachers would know instantly. Nothing has happened yet.

“Professor Twillie along with a full complement of local police are watching over it. Wayne,” she glanced at her companion, “will head over and check on Juliana.”

Eva nodded and looked at Wayne. “Shalise was injured at the party earlier. Bitten by a zombie.”

Zoe couldn’t help but gasp. Wayne shifted.

“She’s fine, not contagious nor infected.” Eva held up her hands. “Though you may not believe that when you see her injuries. We thought about taking her to the hospital, but Juliana believed that would be a bad place to go on a night like tonight. She’s hopped up on potions and being watched over by Juliana.”

“More of your zombie immunity potion?” He made his disbelief clear in his tone.

Eva nodded.

Wayne grunted and vanished.

“Now, Eva, we are going to talk about everything that happened tonight.”

“I’d rather get to destroying dangerous books and then bed. I am feeling a very bad headache coming on.”

“Eva.” Zoe gave the girl a hard glare. “We are going to talk about everything. People died tonight. I had to rekill two students. This is not okay.”

The girl tried to shake her hand off, but Zoe kept a firm grip on her shoulder.

“None of that is my fault. I am not a necromancer. I didn’t bring them here. I warned you that Halloween was a dangerous day.”

“I know. I’m not blaming you. You are more involved in this than anyone else save for the missing Mr. Carter, that is why we will talk.” Zoe gave her a smile and a squeeze on her shoulder before releasing her. “Are you going to invite me in?”

Eva shuffled her feet and shifted her eyes away from Zoe. “There are no good areas to host guests outside of very heavily protected wards. Well, there are, but you probably won’t like solitary.”

“And you can’t key me into the wards?”

“I… could. We talked about incriminating things already once. A similar idea applies here.”

Zoe didn’t respond to that. She already had an idea of what the elusive Mr. Carter was into. The ‘associate’ of his that had been with Eva earlier was another piece to the puzzle. There were few humanoid creatures that could move and jump the way it did.

“My office then,” Zoe said.

“That’s…” Eva put her hand to her forehead. “I’d much rather stay here. I’m quite confident in my wards and their ability to repel even very powerful creatures. Not to mention A–my mentor’s associate will get antsy if she finds me missing. She may become… unpredictable.”

“Eva. I am willing to look over Mr. Carter’s demonic associations.” Eva snapped her head up, eyes wide. So easy to read, Eva. “So long as Mr. Carter truly means no harm to anyone and keeps his…” Zoe ground her teeth, “things under control. And is against the necromancers currently assailing our town.”

There were another hundred stipulations Zoe should add to the list. She’d have to report this to… to someone. Whatever Mr. Carter was, he was against the necromancers. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy. And I will use that enemy to defeat my enemies.

“For now,” Zoe added. She’d think of how to break Eva away from the man after their current crisis was over. Eva mentioned the man saved her from death. That surely created a strong connection.

“As amusing as your baseless accusations are, they aren’t the only issue. The anti-zombie potion kept me from becoming a zombie, but it has left me with massive headaches, shaking, sweating, and general exhaustion. I am in no state to speak on anything tonight.”

Zoe looked the girl over again. She hadn’t moved from leaning against the metal. The sweat she had thought to be from worry over Juliana hadn’t stopped. The girl was telling the truth about this, at least.

“First thing in the morning. I will be at this gate as the sun rises. If you are not here, I’ll hunt you down. Confidence in your wards or not, all wards can be broken.”

“That is grim, but agreeable.”

“I wouldn’t hunt you down to kill you, Eva, if that is what you are thinking.”

“Not that, that my wards might be brought down. Still, even if someone hammered against them all night, I should be fine. I’ll have someone watching over me as I sleep.”

Zoe frowned at that, but didn’t say anything. Baby steps, she told herself. She pulled out another business card. “Just if anything happens.”

“Don’t aimlessly wander through the prison, you might not survive.”

“I appreciate the warning.”

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001.014

Posted on July 22, 2015November 20, 2021 by Tower Curator

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Classes at Brakket were far more interesting than any class at a non magical school. That was simply by virtue of most classes having magic flying around them. The teachers themselves weren’t all that different. Class might be better if Eva had been more new to the whole magic scene.

The school building itself was a boring affair. Eva felt sure it was built by regular people. None of the rooms even had the oddities that the dorm study rooms had.

The only exception to this was the courtyard. The building was a ring with a large three-story section to one end. The center held a massive forest that was given the wildly inaccurate title of the Infinite Courtyard.

Trees, plants, bushes, benches, grass, even large ponds and hills all fit in the courtyard. Bridges arced over streams, huge weeping willows hung over the dirt paths. Birds chirped and flittered about. Other animals occasionally stalked within sight of the pathways. Eva was almost sure she saw a cait si at one point.

As you went further into the courtyard, space expanded. Apparently the dead center was several miles away from any part of the building. There were paths set up to go along the edges before the space really expanded, and all the paths had signs stating the nearest part of the building.

Had she known about it during the summer, she might have explored it a bit. There was bound to be something interesting left behind by previous students.

Weekends were a possibility depending on homework situation. Unfortunately, she now had class during most of the week. A young mage named Yuria Something-or-other stood at the front of Eva’s current class. She was almost as young as Zoe Baxter, but missed the title of the youngest by just two years.

“This class will be on a rotation. Mages tend to have one element they can cast very well, almost effortlessly, two elements that they are adequate at, and one they might be lucky to cast a single spell from.

“So don’t be discouraged if you cannot cast whatever spell we’re attempting for the lesson. I myself am a class two water mage.” She moved her wand to her other hand and a globe of water hovered above her hand. “The schedule is set up so that Professor Calvin of your general magic class will take over for fire spells. He’s a class one fire mage so he’s more than qualified.”

Eva had no idea what her elemental affinity was. Juliana had been teaching her elementary earth magic, which she seemed alright at. She could move around dirt inside a small pot. Enough to dig a hole and drop a seed into at the very least.

If asked before Yuria’s lesson, she would have said chaos was her affinity. That was apparently not an option. Chaos and order were considered universal magic. No one was especially good or poor at either.

Professor Calvin’s general magic class taught spells not considered part of any of the six schools of magic along with some very simple order and chaos spells.

The first spell involved breaking an object into its base elements. Not periodic elements but the magical elements. They were each given a rock to turn into a crystal of pure earth magic.

“It takes concentration and time, but it is an essential spell for alchemy and is usually not found difficult by new students. Reducing an object is an excellent way to get a feel for magic and how it moves through you and into your wands and then to the stone itself.”

He went through the process, instructing them to visualize their rock turning into pure earth. “You’ll feel a tingle in your gut moving out to your arm. That is you channeling magic into your wand. You’ll then channel from your wand to the rock itself, all in one smooth action, while visualizing your end goal.”

Eva tried it without her wand until she started seeing results, then attempted it with her wand. It felt faster and smoother without her wand, though that could be just that she was used to no foci. Eva was considering not using the wand at all, it seemed an unnecessary liability and just an extra step for what she could do on her own.

It took the entire class period, but Eva managed to turn a regular stone into a shiny green crystal.

Juliana had a green crystal in front of her in less than half the time; a combination of experience and earth being her elemental affinity, according to her. She then moved to Shalise to walk her through the process, earning the approval of Professor Calvin as he assisted the rest of the twenty or so students.

Shalise didn’t seem to catch on near as quick. It was understandable. She only started doing real magic for the first time over the last week when Juliana taught her to dig holes in a pile of sand. Still, she wound up with several green crystals growing out of her rock.

Jordan sat behind Eva’s table along with Shelby and Max. He and Shelby got their crystals with time to spare, if only barely. Even with both their assistance, Max managed less transformation than Shalise.

Irene had been exiled to another table on account of there being only three chairs per. She managed to reduce her crystal almost as fast as Juliana and then proceeded to assist her partners with their own reduction.

The rest of the class had mixed results. Most managed at least a few green crystals, but some had nothing to show for an hour’s worth of efforts.

“I’m just saying, I don’t think it was as simple as you all make it out to be,” Max said as he spewed half chewed sandwich bits across the table.

Eva shot Shelby a pitying look as the poor girl wiped her face with a napkin once again. But the girl had been insistent on sitting next to Jordan. That Max had decided to sit across from him was simply bad luck. She made a mental note to never sit across from Max during mealtimes.

They had all met up after Professor Calvin’s class for lunch. The school gave them the choice between ham sandwiches and some kind of cheese soup Eva wasn’t about to touch. The smell drifting over from Shalise’s bowl almost made Eva gag.

“Shalise never touched a wand before last week and she managed way more than you,” Juliana said, “did you even try any magic during summer?”

“Hey,” he said, turning his spittle in Juliana’s direction. Luckily for her, she seemed to be out of range. “I managed to keep a leaf aloft on nothing but air. It isn’t my fault I was born to parents that barely heard of magic, let alone practiced it.”

“To be fair,” Jordan spoke up, “we were preoccupied over the summer with all the homework Mr. Lurcher gave in his alchemy seminars.” He turned towards Eva and said, “I’m surprised we didn’t see you there, with all your potions you had before school.”

“To be perfectly honest, none of the seminars seemed designed for people who hadn’t already had some schooling. I only went to Zoe Baxter’s seminar because she basically ordered us to.”

“He did the same to us, though I can’t disagree with that. Half of it was over my head and I thought I knew something about brewing.” Jordan slumped back in his seat. “And he made us do the homework while it was optional for everyone else.”

“Professor Baxter never gave homework,” Juliana said, “I’m not sure if I should be glad or disappointed. Summer was exceedingly dull. It might have occupied some time, at the very least.”

Eva shook her head. “I’m glad she didn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to read near as many books if she had.”

“Not to mention your other activities,” Juliana said.

“Other activities?” Irene asked. She leaned forward to see around Max’s bulk.

“Eva would sneak out once or twice a week and spend the night somewhere else.”

“I didn’t sneak out. I’d always tell you or leave a note.”

“Oh,” Irene perked up, “a little rendezvous with a mysterious stranger? Who is the lucky guy?”

“Just Rach,” Eva said. “I’m sure you remember her.” She didn’t miss the frown that crossed Shalise’s face, nor the slight paling that Shelby went through. Arachne herself wiggled slightly beneath her shirt at the mention of her nickname.

The spider-demon didn’t like the name. Eva didn’t like it much either, but she thought it up spur of the moment when she decided not to say Arachne’s full name in front of other people. Too late to change it now.

Irene leaned back. She hadn’t been near as afraid of the spider on their first encounter as her twin. Still, Eva didn’t think she was very fond of Arachne. “I don’t think I want to know,” she said.

The conversation died for a minute before turning back to magic, mostly how bad Max performed during their general magic class. A chime rang throughout the school and the group packed up.

Their final two classes of the day were held out in the inner courtyard, though not far enough from the building for them to have to walk several miles. The two classes offered the ecology portion of their schooling.

Their first stop looked more like a zoo than anything. A shorter man named Bradley Twillie taught the wildlife portion of ecology. Sadly, their first day consisted of listening to the man go over safety procedures in a small lecture room outside the zoo itself.

The students were never to enter a creature’s habitat without both his presence and his permission. They were never even to enter the zoo part without his guidance. If a student found themselves in a habitat, say by falling in, then they were not to antagonize whatever creature lived within. If that creature was hostile and looked about ready to attack, the student was allowed to defend themselves, but only using minimal force.

He seemed to go over that last bit very reluctantly. Bradley Twillie came across as a man who cared far more for the animals than the students.

They never even got to enter the zoo before the timid instructor dismissed them.

Franklin Kines, on the other hand, seemed very passionate about his subject. He also was ready to get the students into a hands on lesson. Unfortunately, his subject was the plant life portion of ecology.

The first lesson consisted of half safety instructions, though they were rushed through with the excuse that anything dangerous would get special attention during the lesson. The other half ended up being hands on in a greenhouse. Hands on dandelions.

If there were anything different or magical about these dandelions than the kind seen around every lawn in the spring and summer, Eva couldn’t tell.

“The dandelion is not magical in the slightest,” Professor Kines said after a few students grumbled about the plant. “However, in gardening it is very important. Because it is nonmagical, it doesn’t affect magical plants as they grow. It can be planted as a companion to an absurd number of more magical plants.”

Professor Kines whipped his wand at a dandelion. It sprung from the soil and turned over, showing a thick, lengthy root. “Its root brings up nutrients for shallower plants as well as adding minerals to the soil. It releases a gas that helps other plants to mature. On top of all that, it works very well to attract pollinators.”

His speech did nothing to make the actual tending to dandelions more interesting. Eva glared at the clock, as if that would make it go any faster. Eventually, the chime rung and class was dismissed.

“Hopefully we get into some more interesting plants,” Max said as they headed back to the dorms.

Eva couldn’t agree more.

The next day started them off with Zoe Baxter’s magical theory class. The stern woman sat on top of her lectern until class had filled in the seats.

She started off launching a lightning bolt at a wall with a wand. Eva noted with satisfaction that half the class jumped as the thunder crashed around them. The half that didn’t jump were the ones who attended the instructor’s seminars.

She then set her wand on her desk and repeated the motion. A few of the class flinched as if another lightning bolt would spring from her hand. Most didn’t.

“Who can tell me why I cannot cast a lightning bolt without a wand?” She looked straight at Eva, but called on a different student. “Mr. Dewey.”

“A lightning bolt can be cast without a wand. You just require an alternate focus to focus your magic.”

“Pedantic, Mr. Dewey, but wrong.

“Foci are improperly named. A more correct name would be ‘storage device’ or something along those lines. Foci do less focusing and more storing of a mage’s magic until the magic has reached a sufficient point to exert the mage’s will upon reality.”

She glanced around the class as if expecting a rebuttal. None came and her lips quirked into a small smile as she slipped off her lectern. “Humans, or at least human mages, can process magic at a truly alarming rate. More so than any magical creature I know of save about three. Perhaps Mr. Twillie could add to that, but I can’t.” At a slight shuffling of students, Zoe added, “rest assured that humans are magical creatures. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be able to do any magic at all.

“The problem with humans is that we have no ability to store that magic. Imagine for a moment that you need to count to ten to cast a spell. Seems easy, right?” She glanced around the silent class. “Now, imagine that every time you add one number, you have to subtract two, to a limit of zero. It becomes impossible to count in that situation. That is what human magic is like.

“A wand does not negate the subtraction aspect. Every time you count to one, that one gets pushed into your wand and you go back to zero. Rather than counting to ten, you count to one, ten times.” She whipped out her wand and threw another lightning bolt at the wall almost instantly. “Obviously, humans do this very rapidly.”

“Mr. Anderson,” Zoe said, nodding.

Eva looked behind her just in time to see Jordan lowering his hand.

“Many magical creatures do not need wands or other foci, they store magic on their own then?”

“Excellent question, Mr. Anderson. Let us take elves as an example. They are among the three magical creatures I mentioned earlier that process magic at very high speeds. Around human like, if not higher. However, their blood has the ability to store this magic and expel it as a focus would for humans. Essentially, their blood is their focus.

“Goblins, on the other hand, produce magic at a very slow rate. Their blood can not only store the magic, but because of a unique physiology, they can retain the magic as well. A newborn goblin won’t be able to cast the simplest of spells whereas a hundred year old goblin will have had a hundred years of storing up magic. Never underestimate an old goblin, they will likely lay waste to all around them with a snap of their fingers.

“Because of these traits, elves might find use in foci, or at least be able to use one. A goblin never would.”

Eva sat back and absorbed the rest of the lesson. She had a brief thought on whether this was how Zoe Baxter normally started her first year class or if she had specifically chosen this lesson for Eva. It seemed like a good first lesson; foci were integral for magic use and throwing lightning bolts was a good way to garner attention. It was the not infrequent glances Zoe gave Eva that irked her suspicions.

When the chimes rang for the end of class, Eva half expected to be told to stay after. Zoe did no such thing. She dismissed the class and went to clearing the whiteboard of diagrams on how foci worked.

That didn’t stop Eva from half sneaking out of the class.

Alari Carr welcomed the students into her history class with a chipper attitude. Rather than start with a lesson, Professor Carr had the students go around and introduce themselves.

There was always that one teacher, Eva thought. Most of the rest of the class seemed to share her opinion if the groans were anything to go by. Still, the class went ahead and did their introductions with a single fact about themselves.

Juliana Rivas introduced herself with mentioning that her mother used to be a mage-knight. That got a few awes from the class. Shalise Ward offered up that she was the eldest of six siblings.

Eva stood up as her turn came around. “My name is Eva,” she said, “and I am fairly well versed in the art of runes.” She ignored the handful of snickers and retook her seat.

The rounds came to Jordan’s group. He introduced himself as Jordan Anderson, son of Alex and Lydia, two high-ranking people in the magical government. Why he went to such a disreputable school as Brakket went unsaid.

Maximilian Weston was the youngest of three brothers, neither of whom were magically adept. Shelby Coggins used the fact that she was twins with Irene, much to the latter’s displeasure. Apparently she wanted to use that. Instead Irene said that she could play the piano.

Introductions continued around the room until they ended at Timothy Dewey who was descended from John Dewey. He neglected to mention who that was or why it was significant. Eva supposed if he was important, she could probably find him in the library.

The chime rang and Eva couldn’t be happier. Hopefully the next history class had less touchy-feely crap.

They sat down together for lunch, a choice between pizza with some kind of pitch black sauce and chicken nuggets. Eva chose the pizza. The sauce was a bit salty, but not bad.

Everyone else picked the chicken nuggets.

“I didn’t know you knew runes,” Irene said.

Juliana replied before Eva could finish chewing her pizza. “What do you think is in those black envelopes stuck to your ceiling?”

“I never thought about it. Some sort of enchanted trinket, I assumed.”

“Black envelopes?” Jordan asked with a quirked eyebrow.

“Just a little girl’s secret,” Shelby said with a wink.

Lunch ended and they headed off to their final class.

Alchemy was the only class that the freshmen had in the three-story wing of the building, though it was on the first floor. The alchemy lab was completely modernized. Fume cupboards lined the walls. Counters in the center had full sinks as well as small pipes poking up out of the edges.

Wayne Lurcher sat at the front desk, reading a book until the students filed in.

With four seats around each counter, Irene took a seat next to Eva rather than the group she had been sitting with in the other classes.

The chime rang signaling the start of class. Professor Lurcher snapped his book shut with a crack.

“Some of you may have heard the term alchemy used alongside things like gold, transmutation, eternal life, and potions. And potions may be associated with cauldrons and crones. Sadly, few of these things constitute proper alchemy these days.

“Transmutation,” he flicked his wand at a stone resting on his desk which turned shiny and silver, “is done with a wand in modern thaumaturgy. Gold is illegal to create or transmute, and not actually that hard. Eternal life still eludes us, but solutions for that issue are commonly thought to come from other areas these days. Potion brewing is about the only element left of traditional alchemy, and that has modernized far from the bubbling cauldron archetype.”

He walked up and down the aisles as he spoke. This was the longest single period Eva had ever heard Wayne Lurcher speak for. All of her other interactions with him had been barely five words that always seemed to be given grudgingly.

A small bit of her wondered if he just liked alchemy enough to talk about it, or if it was just his role as an instructor he was getting into.

“Like many of your classes this week, we will be discussing safety in the lab. Fume cupboards, precise measuring tools, goggles, and gloves have all increased the safety of even the more dangerous experiments we will be attempting. That does not make them safe.”

Class ended just as he finished assigning homework. The only teacher to do so on the first day. The homework consisted of writing an essay on the safety procedure during a hypothetical emergency such as a potion burning through a fume cupboard and being released into the main room.

Eva was at a bit of a loss. Neither she nor her master ever had any of the safety equipment and yet never had any major problems. Their equipment was far more outdated than the advanced lab materials the classroom had. Eva supposed he might have been required to go over all the safety rules by some school board.

Or maybe they would just work on far more dangerous potions than she and her master ever had. If that was the case, Eva very much looked forward to the class.

The group headed back to the dorms. They all gathered together in the astronomer’s study room to work out their first bit of homework.

It wasn’t actually that difficult of an assignment. Wayne Lurcher said the essay should be as long as it needed to be and left everything up to their own devices. Most of it simply consisted of restating the safety procedures they went over in class.

Still, it was a time-consuming endeavor. They almost missed the hours for the dorm’s dinner. They completed their meal in a jovial mood and parted ways. First with Jordan and Max, then with Irene and Shelby.

When Eva got to her door, she found a hunched over master sitting on a bench outside her room. He looked up at the group’s arrival.

Juliana immediately tensed and brought her wand out.

Eva waved her off. “Don’t worry. I know him.”

The blond lowered her wand but did not put it away, nor did she relax.

“This is my mentor, Randolph Carter.” She gestured towards man wrapped up in a brown trench coat. “Mentor, this is Shalise and Juliana.”

Shalise gave a hesitant nod. Juliana remained still with her wand out.

“Charmed,” he said in a voice that was anything but.

“It has been a week, have you found something already?”

“Not exactly. Next Friday evening we might be able to check some of your issues out. Meet me at,” his eyes flicked over Juliana and Shalise, “the place.”

He turned and stalked off. He got to the window at the end of the hallway and stepped out to the ground below.

“He seems friendly,” Juliana said as they entered their room.

“Oh yeah, real softhearted that one.”

Shalise dropped her bag on her desk. She turned back to Eva, leaning against her chair. “That was about the necromancers then?”

“I’d assume so. Guess I won’t know until Friday.”

Shalise frowned, but nodded. “I hope it is good news.” She gathered up some clothes from the drawers beneath her bed. “Unless either of you have objections, I’ll shower first.”

Neither girl said anything.

Shalise slipped into the shower.

Juliana stared at Eva. She waited, just staring.

Eva shuffled to her desk and pulled out a paper, trying her best to ignore the blond’s gaze. She had been working on a new version of the privacy runes. The new sheets should cover the entire main room so she wouldn’t have to do four copies for every customer the next time the runes wore out. Their business had gone a bit too well; Eva doubted she would have time for all of them with school going on.

The moment the shower water started, Juliana whispered in Eva’s ear. She had moved right next to Eva without her noticing. “Take me with you,” she said.

“What?”

“I want to fight these necromancing scumbags too. You’ve seen me against Professor Baxter. You know I can fight.”

“You lose against Zoe Baxter. Every time.”

“I do better than you do.”

“I wouldn’t lose at all if–” Eva cut herself off, biting her lip.

A silence hung in the hair between them. Only the sound of flowing shower water filled the air.

Eventually Juliana sighed.

“I know you have secrets,” she said. “There’s no way you get taken on bounty hunting jobs with just runes and not knowing any spells aside from blink. You have so many secrets I wonder if anything you’ve said is the truth. But I don’t care about that right now.”

She stopped and cocked her head to the side, listening to make sure the shower was still running. She returned her attentions to Eva and spoke in an even quieter whisper, “I don’t care if you’re a necromancer yourself so long as it wasn’t you who killed that family.”

“I’m not a necromancer,” Eva hissed.

“Good. Then I don’t have to worry about that, at least. I still want in.”

“I can’t just show up with someone else.”

“He said Friday. It is Tuesday. You’ve got a few days to ask–no–tell him someone else is coming along.”

Eva was going to retort when the shower water cut off.

Juliana noticed as well. She stood up, moving her face away from Eva’s. “I’ll shower next,” she said. And turned to gather her own clothes.

Eva was left staring after her even as Shalise exited the bathroom. She only stopped once Juliana disappeared behind the closed door.

Shalise seemed to notice something wrong. She walked up to Eva and said, “don’t fight. We are roommates. I don’t want to have you two hate each other.”

“It wasn’t a fight,” Eva said. She wasn’t so sure. Was that a fight?

“Good.” Shalise said. She patted Eva’s shoulder only to freeze solid.

It took Eva a moment to realize why. Then it hit her. The poor girl had just patted one of Arachne’s legs through her shirt.

“It really just hangs off of you then?”

“She and yes, most of the time. She was with me all day today and all day yesterday. And you’ve seen me after showering with her still latched on me.” Eva felt a bad for that. She hadn’t changed her habit of wandering around and sleeping without clothes. Shalise started screaming when she saw Arachne latched onto Eva’s chest one morning. The poor girl thought Arachne was attacking Eva. It took a while to calm her down.

“If you’d like,” Eva said, “I could bring her out, nice and slowly, and you could touch her directly. Maybe it would help?”

Shalise took a quick step backwards, shaking her head in the negative even as Arachne tapped out no repeatedly on Eva’s shoulder.

“I think not,” Shalise said. At least she hadn’t stuttered her first word. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that in the future. Not now.”

Arachne tapped no again as Shalise said that. Eva doubted the spider-demon would do anything if Eva asked her not to. She might not like it, but for Eva’s roommates at the very least, Arachne might have to compromise on something.

Shalise slipped back to her bed and pulled out the general magic textbook. She flipped through it until Juliana left the shower.

Eva hopped in. The room was already hot and steamy, borderline sauna. Eva didn’t mind. If anything, it could stand to be a little hotter. Cold, moist air was the worst.

Eva twisted the shower head, aligning her new runes. She wasn’t sure if the other girls used the regular water or her runes. She’d told them, but they never mentioned anything other than a ‘too hot for my tastes’ from Shalise.

After kneeling down to the floor, Arachne hopped off Eva. She stood up in human form, ready for one of their shower chats.

“I say let her,” Arachne said before Eva could even ask her question. “If she dies, whatever. It is a good test of loyalty. Of course, if she turns traitor then I will rip her into so many pieces not even Humpty Dumpty could put her back together again.”

Eva frowned at the demon. Not so much at her threating to tear Juliana up, Eva was used to the spider-demon’s empty viciousness, but the other bit. “I’m not sure that is how the nursery rhyme goes.”

The spider-woman shrugged. “Besides, I’m sick of sneaking around. If I could at least walk around the room… and now we have that Shalise character. Juliana is one thing. Are you sure I can’t eat Shalise?”

“No eating any students. Or hurting any in general. Even if they do ‘turn traitor’ whatever loose definition you have for that.” Eva sighed. The demon wouldn’t do anything, she was mostly sure. It didn’t hurt to reiterate. “If things do happen, we’ll just leave. You, me, and master. If we can’t find him, we’ll summon Ivonis again after we settle down somewhere.”

“That’s disappointing,” she said. Eva didn’t think her pout looked very serious.

“If we are actually taking Juliana, we’ve got to find master and let him know. He won’t like it.”

“Leave it to me. I will impress upon him the need for her to join us.”

“No bullying master.”

“Wouldn’t touch a hair on his head,” Arachne said.

“You’re excited about this.”

“It is one step on my plan to not be in spider form constantly.” Arachne was already shifting back into said spider form.

Eva sighed, standing up into the stream of hot water. Her shower had gone on long enough. She shut off the water. As Arachne climbed back up her chest, Eva mumbled, “I’m sure not excited about it.”

>>Extra Chapter 001<<

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001.011

Posted on July 11, 2015February 13, 2022 by Tower Curator

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Eva’s bed was empty once again this morning.

Ever since she disappeared for two days a few weeks ago, Eva spent the night someplace else about once a week. And she wouldn’t say where.

If Juliana had to guess, Eva ran around with her mentor going on fun adventures and bounty hunting.

But the girl didn’t trust Juliana. She avoided, dodged, deflected, or otherwise ignored any questions about herself. The times she did answer were either obvious lies or so vague they could describe anyone.

Then there was her obviously magical spider that Eva insisted was some generic tarantula. The spider that reappeared after a month ‘hunting’ right after Eva’s first disappearing act.

It still frustrated Juliana to no end that she had been unable to find the creature in any of the books she’d bought on creatures. That just meant it was in books not for student’s reading.

And that meant dangerous.

Hopefully at least. Juliana would be disappointed if it was just a rare tarantula.

If Mrs. Baxter hadn’t charged her with befriending the girl, Juliana probably would have found a different friend. Maybe even more than one.

She sighed as she stepped into the shower. I might be being hard on the girl. As long as personal questions were avoided, she wasn’t that bad. Plus she knew all kinds of crazy things.

Chaos magic and runes? What kind of first year knows chaos magic, not to mention doesn’t know what chaos magic is. What kind of anyone knows runes?

The runes were another puzzle. A puzzle that made Juliana money, but a puzzle nonetheless. Juliana looked up some runes not long after their business got going, mostly looking for other types of runes they could sell. She found a way to make an area unscryable. But the book listed around three characters. Eva’s anti-scrying papers covered the entire sheet. Either Eva was very bad at runes or those papers did a lot more than stop scrying.

Though, to be fair, they stopped scrying very well. The headache she had after testing lasted half a day. That had not been a happy day.

As long as the extra runes weren’t hurting anyone, Juliana didn’t much care. Though she felt they should be charging extra for whatever extra features were on their rune papers.

Juliana almost felt bad. Eva’s runes were over half of the Rickenbacker and business was spreading across the street without any effort on Juliana’s part. Eva had to spend hours drawing out and charging the runes while Juliana just delivered and got money.

Juliana pushed thoughts of her wayward roommate from her mind. She had her own plans for the day.

To say the area around Brakket Academy was dull would be an understatement. The ‘entertainment’ district and shopping areas had worn themselves out within two weeks. While Eva seemed happy to read through the library, and Juliana didn’t mind either, books were missing that spark of excitement Juliana needed.

Eva might be keeping from going stir crazy with whatever weekly escapades she disappeared on, but Juliana had nothing of the sort.

Her mother would never have taken her on any of her bounties. The few safaris she’d been on with her parents didn’t give her the exciting tales her father had.

Her solution might be a poor man’s substitute, but in the boring town of Brakket, Juliana would take what she could get.

She pulled open the drawer of her desk that held all of her exploring gear. She dumped the contents, a notebook and pens, a map of the town, a heavy-duty flashlight, gloves, binoculars, and rope, into her backpack. She checked the battery level of her camera and grabbed a few bottles of water from the fridge along with a few granola bars.

With that, Juliana put on a light jacket and headed out into the early morning air. She had her sights set on a very specific building today.

Business buildings were pretty easy to tell if anyone used them. If a business building was closed for any reason other than holidays or renovation, it was probably out of business. A for sale sign would be a for sure sign but that usually means the inside has been cleaned out unless it used to be a big factory. Boarded up windows indicated a goldmine.

Residences, on the other hand, were harder to tell. Even if no one went in or out for weeks, it might still be a summer home. Or in a school town like Brakket, a winter home for students during the school year.

The house Juliana had her sights on today hadn’t been used all summer. It had looked interesting at the start of summer, but Juliana couldn’t tell for sure back then. So she had discretely stuck a bit of painter’s tape over the doors and garage. They hadn’t been disturbed once.

That combined with yellowing grass from a lack of water, general disrepair of the exterior, and a broken window on the second floor led Juliana to believe it was, in fact, abandoned.

If it was intended for use during the school year… well, school was going to start in two weeks and no one had shown up so far. If she was supposed to live in it, she’d probably just choose to live in the dorms rather than spend the effort fixing the place up.

Juliana made a quick staircase out of earth and hopped over the wooden fence, flattening the earth once she landed. She wasn’t particularly worried about neighbors being nosy, but going in through the back door would give her more time to get in without displaying her obvious breaking and entering to the whole street.

All the residences in Montana, or at least around here, were very spread apart. Large houses on larger properties. This house wasn’t the biggest she’d seen, but it was decent sized. There was bound to be something interesting inside.

Juliana removed the bit of tape on the back door. The front door still had the bit of tape over it. She tried jiggling the handle and was surprised to find it unlocked. Won’t have to force my way in at least, she thought as she cracked the door open.

Reeling back, Juliana began coughing and gagging. There was something foul in there. Wishing she was a better air mage, Juliana slapped a cloth over her face.

Right inside the back door was a small dining room and kitchen. Dishes had been left all over the table. There might have been a meal on them but flies and maggots swarmed over the whole thing. The fridge was hanging open and full of even more bugs.

Underneath the cloth, Juliana smiled. This was interesting.

She carefully moved forward with her wand out. It wouldn’t do to be surprised by some rabid animal that managed to get in. A quick test of the light switch produced no results. As expected of an abandoned building.

Carefully maneuvering her hands, she brought up the flashlight to her hand holding the cloth. Enough light was coming in through the large windows, but some corners still ended up dark. In all honesty, she should just toss the cloth. It wasn’t helping much anyway.

The dining room connected with a small room at the front of the house. Several couches and seats were set around a low coffee table. Several shelves of books lined one wall. Sadly none were both interesting and something Juliana didn’t already own.

There was a fancy mask hanging off one wall. It was half black and half white with what looked like tarot cards cut out over the eye holes. A fake gold medallion hung in the center of the forehead depicting a moon encircling a sun. Several sheet music covered curls sprang off the top.

Juliana plucked it off the wall. It felt flimsy in her hands, like papier-mache. She replaced it on the hook. If she wanted it, she’d get it when she left.

The rest of the ground floor had nothing of interest. A small office with some computers set up, a room with a big couch and a bigger television, and a bathroom.

Juliana crept up the stairs to the second floor. She made it to the top and frowned. Not a single step creaked. What kind of abandoned house didn’t have creaking stairs.

The stench, however, followed her up. It might have been stronger on the second floor.

The first door she tried led to a bathroom with nothing of interest. The second door was a bedroom. A single, small bed lay inside. Juliana poked through the dresser. Each drawer was full of small boy’s clothes.

Juliana’s heart hammered in her chest.

Something was wrong here. A half eaten meal she could see. The family decided to eat before abandoning the town. All the books, all the furniture, and an expensive looking mask were suspicious. But full drawers of children’s clothes? Either this kid had a lot of clothes or this family left in a hurry.

And the smell. Oh the smell. It got worse as Juliana crept towards the last door.

She threw it open.

And almost threw up. The smell assaulted her the same time the sight did.

A king sized bed had its sheets torn off. They were wrapped up at the foot of the bed. White sheets were stained black. A gray foot stuck out from one end. Maggots crawled all over and in it.

Juliana was about to shut the door quietly when the sound of a bare foot slapped against the hard wood hall. She slammed the door and spun around.

A half-naked woman stood in front of her. Her jaw hung slack. Her clothes were torn to shreds. A kitchen knife stuck out of her chest.

Her skin most definitely was not alive.

Rustling and a moan could be heard through the door behind her. Retreat was not an option.

Situations like this were why her mother trained her. She sucked in her fear and got serious.

Juliana flicked her wrist. Her flashlight melted in her hand. She launched bits of sharpened metal at the woman’s head. She swiped her hand over the brass doorknob before the shards even struck. Brass marbles flew from her fingers into the woman’s chest.

They sunk into her with a sickening squelch, but they managed to stagger her.

Juliana sprinted past, knocking over a small table in the hallway on her way.

The doorknobs melted into her hand as she ran past. Juliana desperately wished the banister down the stairs was made of metal. The supports holding it up were made of metal and she settled for grabbing that as she flew down the stairs.

Juliana dashed out the back door, not waiting to see if the zombie followed her. With another flick of her wrist, columns of earth erupted from the back porch to completely cover the door and window. Another few flicks of her wrist saw other windows being covered.

She jumped the fence with the help of a large earth mound and covered the windows in the front as well. Not waiting to see if anything had already made it out, Juliana created a platform on their front grass about twice as high as a person.

Finally she relaxed atop her platform. She could still smell that stench she knew was rotting flesh.

From her backpack, she pulled out a small business card. She gave it three taps and the circle began glowing faintly. She gave it three more taps. Then three again.

Finally Mrs. Baxter appeared next to her on the platform.

“What is it, Miss Rivas. I am quite–” She cut off as she noticed the house half encased in earth. “Mind telling me what is going on?”

“Zombies,” Juliana breathed out. She felt like choking.

“Zombies?”

“At least one. But I saw another corpse and I swear I heard it moan. Plus there was a kid’s room but I didn’t see any kid corpses.”

Kid corpses. Juliana knelt and hurled her breakfast off the edge of the platform.

A light rubbing on her back brought her out of her fit. She leaned back from the edge. Mrs. Baxter had her phone out and was typing something into it.

Juliana wiped the spittle off her lip just as Mr. Lurcher appeared on the platform.

“Zombies,” he grunted.

“Indeed.”

He gave a few gruff sniffs of the air. “I can smell it from here.”

“Zombies?” Juliana asked.

“Death.”

“Juliana,” Mrs. Baxter said, “were you injured in the slightest?”

She shook her head. “I just ran past one as it stumbled. It only got…” How close? Too close.

Juliana slumped down on the platform.

Mrs. Baxter knelt next to her and put an arm around her shoulder. “Hold on,” she said, “we’re going back to the dorm. Wayne, keep an eye out for anything unusual.” She pulled out her dagger and hesitated. “And Wayne. Do not go in until I return. I would hate to have to explain to Dean Halsey why our alchemist is a zombie.”

With that said, reality folded away. The sky, the house, all folded into nothing. A moment later, her dorm room appeared and Mrs. Baxter gave her a light push into the room.

Juliana felt herself spin around and get pulled into the bosom of Mrs. Baxter. The instructor held her close and began whispering that it was going to be alright.

After a minute of Juliana pretending she wasn’t crying into the woman’s chest, Mrs. Baxter pulled away.

“Let me get a good look at you,” she said. She looked Juliana up and down, carefully inspecting her hands and face. She walked around until she was satisfied. “Alright. Wayne and I can’t leave this sitting, but I will be right back as soon as we look around. We’ll have a talk then.”

Mrs. Baxter stepped away, pulling her dagger out once again.

“Wait,” Juliana said, “both the creatures were on the second floor. One in the hall and one in the master bedroom. The door was shut but I destroyed the handle for a weapon,” Juliana said as she lifted the metal still swirling around her left arm.

Mrs. Baxter nodded. “You did good. I’ll be back in half an hour.” And she vanished.

Juliana took off her clothes on the way to the shower. Eva was still gone and even if she wasn’t, it wasn’t like the girl cared about modesty anyway. And right now, Juliana didn’t care either.

She sat and let the hot water wash over her body. She took deep breaths of the hot, humid air.

Juliana finally had an exciting story. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to tell it.

— — —

That girl is going to be the death me.

Devon threw a glance over his shoulder at the smoky figure standing in the shadows. Red eyes gleaming in the shadows narrowed sharply at his glance. He almost got whiplash turning back to his work.

That girl is going to kill me.

At least whatever she said to it didn’t result in Devon waking up with his limbs spread across the room. It just wasn’t fair. He was supposed to be the demon summoner and she was supposed to be the blood mage. Yet she had the service of a haunter.

It is that damn Arachne. I know it.

She had been far too unstable before she ran off with Eva. It was getting to be a menace. If he didn’t need her, he would have banished and forgotten her long ago.

For a moment he wondered if being alone with Eva for a few months improved her personality at all. The haunter in the corner of his eye banished all such thoughts. This seemed like her idea of a joke.

He dropped the last notebook into his suitcase and double checked the workshop. Everything he needed was accounted for.

Devon turned to the haunter, keeping his gaze on the floor, and walked towards the shadows. Slowly. He took a deep breath and stepped into the shadow.

A claw gripped his arm. He suppressed a cry as his shoulder popped out of its socket. The claw tightened, puncturing his arm at no less than four points. This was such a bad idea, he thought as the floor dropped from below him.

He landed hard, hoping he hadn’t just injured his still tender leg. Devon stumbled forward not even half a step before his nose cracked against a wall.

The haunter released its grip and half spun Devon around in the pitch darkness.

“Thank you Ivonis, that will be all.” Eva’s voice came muffled through a wall.

Probably standing under the brightest floodlights possible.

Still, the demon’s presence vanished from Devon’s side.

“Are you insane, girl? Sending a haunter after me?”

His voice echoed strangely around him. He felt out the room to find it incredibly tiny. Only a few square feet of floor space and the entire room felt like cement except for one metal panel.

A small flap opened up in the metal panel, flooding the tiny room with light. A number of red eyes peeked through.

“He has already been paid in full,” Arachne said.

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust a traitor’s words.”

The red eyes narrowed. The flap slammed shut sending painful echoes through the tiny chamber.

The entire wall pulled away a moment later. Eva stood in the opening. “You’re being far too melodramatic, master.”

“Yes, well, let’s see how you react when you wake up to a damn haunter leering over your bed.”

“He did his job and you are,” her eyes flicked to the blood dripping down his arm, “mostly unharmed.”

Devon scoffed. “Mostly.” He slammed his arm against the wall, suppressing another cry. It wasn’t the first dislocated shoulder he’d had, and he doubted it would be the last. Unless she has worse ideas for sending me home.

“Well, if you would have shown up or simply sent a letter, we wouldn’t have to resort to these measures. Didn’t you read the note?”

“Note?” Devon thought for a moment. “That chicken scratch? Did you read it?”

Eva gave an uncertain glance towards a grinning Arachne. “No,” she said. “But there were pamphlets there too. That should have been plenty of information.”

“Yeah, plenty of information on how amazing this school your going to is. And then you just up and left me with a damn cat to heal me? I’m surprised you still call me master.”

“Arthfael did that as a personal favor. I hope you gave him plenty of fish.”

“Well,” Devon slumped slightly, “yeah. But at least he stuck with me.”

Eva shook her head. “I had a plane to catch. Maybe if you hadn’t hopped yourself up on potions, we could have had a proper discussion.” She put her hands on her hips. “If you have any more whining to do, perhaps you can do it after we’ve started the treatment. I’m disappointed it took so long to find you and am eager to get a move on.”

She turned and walked down the hall with Arachne hanging off her shoulder.

Devon frowned as he grabbed his equipment and followed. The girl was getting far too uppity. And far too excited about her treatments. She should be fearful or at least wary.

He supposed it was an improvement over the dead-inside little girl who started the experiments. It was too much in the opposite direction. And the way Arachne hung off her, she didn’t even react. Devon doubted it even entered her mind what Arachne was capable of doing. What she had done in the past.

And Arachne, fawning over the girl like a child over a stuffed animal. One of its fingers idly twirled a lock of the long black hair. That simple action disturbed Devon more than Eva’s reactions, or lack of reactions. Eva could be attributed to simple naivety or ignorance.

No. Arachne had something deeply wrong with it. If Devon didn’t know better, he might have mistaken it for some other magical creature. A scary looking fairy perhaps. Ever since Eva’s treatment got underway, the demon stuck to her side. It even called her ‘sister’ on occasion.

The group moved outside the tiny building. Several more buildings, much larger than the one they just exited, were arranged with connecting pathways. Dry, yellow grass filled the gaps between the buildings. A rough wall could be seen surrounding the entire place. The tiny cell block they had just been in combined with bars on every visible window let Devon know what kind of place he was in.

“How did you get the haunter on your side?”

Eva half turned with a bit of a wince. “There are fifty dead cows, buffalo, goats, horses, and sheep inside cell house two.”

“Forty-six,” Arachne corrected.

“Right. Ivonis left two sheep and two cows. It doesn’t smell very pleasant in there at the moment. We’re headed to the opposite end of the compound, so don’t worry about that.”

Devon didn’t like the sound of that. It was less morally reprehensible than five humans, he supposed, but if the animals had been stolen off a farm… fifty animals was a lot to lose no matter if they planned to eat or sell them. They might as well have just killed the farmer and his family. It’d be a quicker death than starving, in any case.

Eva brought the group to a stop outside a small gate set in a nicer looking wall.

“I’ll need a bit of your blood,” she said as she withdrew a dagger. She smiled. “Unless you want to experience my wards first hand.”

Devon held out his already injured arm without a word.

Eva frowned at the droplets of blood already dripping off his fingertips. “Arachne,” she said, “could you grab a few potions to handle these cuts?” She looked back to Devon and said, “I’ll still need to make a fresh cut with the dagger.”

Eva leaned close and drew a small orb of blood into the air. Devon grabbed her shoulder as soon as the demon had disappeared into the building titled ‘WOMENS WARD’.

“You trust that thing far too much,” Devon said. “It is not human and it is not your friend. Demons should be tools and nothing more.”

Eva blinked twice. “Do they teach you that in demonology school? I’ve found being polite and treating demons like people seems to work alright.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed, girl. And take seven years of experiments down the drain with you.”

“I’m so touched you are worried about my health, master. As for Arachne…” she trailed off for a moment, thinking. She shrugged. “I like her. She is surprisingly thoughtful at times, if a tad protective. Without her,” she waved a finger around the air, “none of this would be possible. She found this place, spent a month cleaning it up, and has generally been good help.”

Devon frowned and released Eva as the demon in question emerged from the building. It walked down the short path to the gate and handed Devon a light blue vial and a yellow vial.

Eva walked just inside the gate with the small orb of blood floating above her hand. She snapped her fingers and the blood marble vanished. “Alright,” she said, “you should be able to come in now. You’re not keyed into my room, so don’t try it.”

Despite grumbling at her use of the word ‘should,’ Devon walked through the gate. Nothing bad happened as he walked up the path to the single story building.

The main room had some nice looking chairs and tables shoved off to the side. In the center of the room, two old-fashioned looking barber chairs had been set up in the center of a partially drawn ritual circle.

Devon pulled his notebook and flipped to the page with a copy of the circle. He had the entire thing completely memorized, of course. But it always paid to be careful. He wasn’t about to risk all the time and effort he’d spent on Eva, not to mention the wrath he’d undoubtedly get from Arachne, on a malformed ritual circle. He pulled out a stick of chalk and set to work.

“So,” he said, thinking it was about time for more pleasant topics. Despite his chewing her out, he wasn’t unfond of the girl. “Have you been learning much at this school?”

“No,” came her quick reply. “School hasn’t actually started yet, so I still have hope.”

“It hasn’t started yet? Why did you leave so damn early?”

Eva shrugged. “‘To settle in and attend seminars’ were the reasons given to me. Settling in took less than a day and none of the seminars are designed for students that haven’t even had a year of schooling. Although the seminar with my advisor is at least interesting. It is basically combat training. My adviser is apparently a highly rated combatant. Speaking of,” she smiled a smile Devon didn’t much like, “she wants to meet with you.”

“You told her about me?”

“Didn’t have much option. I implied your name was Randolph Carter, so you don’t have to use Devon if you do meet her. She knew I was at the museum thanks to my runes and wanted to know what dangerous object we stole that had the nun’s habits in a bunch. I told her a phylactery that was destroyed and not to worry.”

Devon groaned. “Don’t even remind me.”

“How is your leg?”

“Better,” Devon snapped. And it was. Mostly.

That killed the conversation. Devon quietly finished the circle.

Eva already stripped down and took a seat in one of the chairs. Arachne took the other. He set to hooking the two up. Tubes connected various points on their bodies together. Magic kept them all going one way, from Arachne to Eva. He dropped a warded jar near Eva and attached a tube from her into it. She liked to keep the filtered human blood she shed for whatever blood magics she used.

Devon stripped and sat in a small circle within the larger ritual circle. Without even waiting to ask if they were ready, Devon let his magic flow.

Immediately the two subjects slumped in their chairs. Black blood flowed down the tubes from Arachne to Eva. A light pattering of bright red blood hitting the bottom of the warded jar filled the air.

Once the ritual began, Devon was no longer needed. He stood up, dressed, and moved to examine his research subjects.

He pulled one of Eva’s eyelids open and shone a light over her eyes. The wide pupils constricted immediately. Her pupils had developed tiny nubs at the top and bottom, and they were becoming less circular. No one would notice unless she got an eye exam, but in a few more months, maybe even by the time of her next treatment, people who paid close attention might start noticing. In a year’s time she wouldn’t be able to hide it without cosmetic contacts.

Though her irises might need contacts sooner. The red displaced the brown-hazel of her original eye color around the edges. Now that they’d crossed the half way point, the changes would only accelerate.

Devon flipped through the Subject Eva notebook. He made a detailed sketch of how her pupils looked while constricted along with some notes.

Devon set the notebook down and wrenched open her jaw. He ran a finger over her teeth. They were changing at a far slower rate. Her eyes were more of a side effect, the cells being replaced during normal body operations. The sharpening of her teeth was purely magic. They were already barely noticeable and hadn’t changed enough since their May session.

Her tongue might have been slightly elongated and thin, but that could just be her tongue. Unless more drastic changes happened, he’d note it as normal for a human.

Eva’s mouth was a healthy red and her saliva clear and smelled normal. He wasn’t about to taste it. Many demons had toxic saliva and he wasn’t about to take a chance. Of course, she could have developed separate venom glands, especially considering who the blood donor was, but there was no evidence of that.

Her skin color was normal. As was her hair, even at the roots. That was one of the things that surprised Devon the most. He expected some change, especially her skin, but it was the exact same as when she was six years old. Perhaps now that they’d crossed the fifty percent mark something would happen in the next few months or years.

Her muscles and body were developing well. She didn’t appear weak or fatigued earlier, though Devon made a note to ask about any strange feelings when the girl woke up.

All in all, Eva seemed healthy. Far healthier than expected, if Devon was being honest. His research had him laughed out of demonology circles for being too dangerous. Though they might have meant the result would be dangerous, not the process itself.

Her mental health seemed to be there as well. From their May treatment until she left early June, she acted consistent with her own behavior and not significantly different from a regular human her age, her experiences included. There would be a full examination after she awoke, of course. Based on how she acted between his arrival and the ritual, Devon didn’t expect much. Not unless Arachne had its claws in the girl deeper than he wanted.

Devon decided to stick around for a while. To check out this school and the environment his life’s work was being raised in. He wanted to do so over the rest of summer, he didn’t expect the girl to leave the day she told him about the school. Between his injury and the Elysium Sisters swarming around looking for him, Devon scarcely had a moment’s rest.

He moved to a seat in the corner of the room and organized his notes. There he’d wait until the magic within the ritual circle consumed itself and the treatment would finish.

At least there were no Elysium Sisters up here.

<– Back | Index | Next –>

001.008

Posted on July 11, 2015January 31, 2022 by Tower Curator

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“Welcome to Brakket Magical Academy.” Zoe Baxter looked over the students. She quickly spotted her candidates. Eva Spencer and Juliana Rivas looked already acquainted. Good.

Zoe was a bit disappointed in the lack of Shalise’s presence. She would have to make another visit to the girl’s orphanage and impress upon her the importance of attending a proper magical school, namely Brakket.

Jordan Anderson, one of Wayne’s candidates, stood close to Eva. He had a small entourage around him all of whom seemed to know each other. Whispers went back and forth between all six students. Two of them kept shooting wary glances at a small pet carrier in Eva’s hands.

That must be the tarantula Eva mentioned. The girl must have shown them. Judging by their looks, they didn’t like what they saw. Zoe planned to avoid her candidate’s room as much as possible once they moved in.

Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as she imagined.

Zoe let her gaze move past the other students. Some she recognized as being candidates for other teachers, others she drew a blank on. Altogether there were only twenty-two students. Seven less than last year.

Hopefully the school wouldn’t shut down before the students had a chance to prove themselves.

“You were all personally met by an instructor before you came here. They will be your primary advisors.” Zoe paused, gesturing to herself. “I am Zoe Baxter, instructor of magical theory.” She waved her hand towards her companion. “This is Wayne Lurcher, alchemy instructor.

“We will be taking a short bus ride to the dormitories where we will meet the rest of the teaching staff. If you forgot who your primary advisor is, find either myself or Mr. Lurcher and we will assist you. There will be a short orientation of the dormitories when we arrive. Afterwards, you will be free to do as you wish, though there will be a meal provided free of charge after the orientation.”

Zoe surveyed the students once again, looking for any sign of confusion. Her search came up short, but she still elected to ask, “any immediate questions?”

A slightly rounder boy standing near Jordan Anderson raised his hand. Zoe nodded towards him.

“Are the dorms co-ed?”

Zoe frowned while Wayne answered with a terse, “rooms are divided by gender, but you’ll all be in the same building.”

“There are detectors,” Zoe added, “to ensure no untoward behavior with the opposite sex occurs on school property.”

The boy made a comment to his peers that Zoe didn’t catch. They gave a few chuckles and quieted down.

“If there are no other questions,” Zoe paused and glanced around the room. When no one raised a hand, she continued, “the bus is waiting.”

They got the students loaded up and set out on their way.

Zoe kept an eye on the students as they drove. She listened for any comments or questions. Most of the students looked fairly tired however and the rest looked hungry. Not much chit-chat went on between them.

She did keep a special eye on her candidates. Eva almost looked like she wanted to come up and speak with her when they first boarded, but had moved on to sit next to Juliana. At one point, Zoe caught the girl peeking down her own shirt. She gave a sigh while Juliana looked on with a tired look. Zoe didn’t think the black-haired girl had much to complain about, at least for her age. Still, Zoe smiled sadly, remembering all too well her own feelings when she was younger.

The bus lurched to a halt outside the Rickenbacker Hall. The students were brought into the lounge where the other instructors waited. Before they could separate to their advisors, Zoe called their attention once again.

“This is the Rickenbacker Lounge. The noticeboard,” she gestured towards a simple bulletin board, “will have all important information regarding anything the school feels you need to be made aware of. Students may use it to post their own notices so long as they do not interfere with school information. I encourage you to make a habit of checking it each night before you sleep. You may find your advisors now.”

The group dispersed to the various instructors. Eva, Juliana, Jordan, and the round boy, Maxwell maybe, stuck behind.

“You didn’t find a third after all, Wayne?”

“I don’t see a third for you.”

“She is just wrapping things up at her home. She’ll be along before school starts.”

Wayne just huffed. “Come on, boys.” He marched off. The two boys shared a glance and followed after him.

“What was that about?” Juliana asked.

“Originally, Eva was to be one of his candidates.” Zoe glanced towards the girl in question. “He got in a bit of a tantrum when you ran away, and I snatched you up.”

“Candidates?”

“Just who we all picked to enter the school, like I did for each of you.”

Eva spoke up. “Did no one want come to this school without being recruited by an instructor?”

Zoe spared a glance at the other few students who had yet to leave the lounge. This was not a line of questioning she wanted to get into in front of others. “Let me show you to your rooms. You can ask questions there.”

She led the girls up to the third floor and stopped in front of a room.

“Room three-thirteen?” Juliana asked.

“What luck! I’d sure hate to be those poor folk in room seven-seven-seven.” Oddly, Zoe didn’t detect much sarcasm in Eva’s voice.

“There are only three floors in both dorms, room three-twenty is as high as it goes.”

Zoe ignored Eva’s scoff as she held out two black cards. “These will open the door to your room with a swipe. They will also open all amenity rooms in this building as well as anywhere else you have access to across the entire campus. Don’t lose them.”

She pulled out her own card and opened the door. Inside was the standard dorm room for the Rickenbacker. Three beds with plenty of storage drawers beneath them and a desk at the end of each bed. Two windows gave plenty of space between the beds. There was a small kitchen and dining area. No open stoves but there was a fridge and microwave.

A single bathroom lay through a small door.

“You can fight amongst yourselves which bed you want. There will be a third member of your dorm arriving sometime this summer, so do keep the spare clean.”

The two girls immediately darted for the beds with walls. They set their things down on their respective desks and Eva turned back to Zoe.

“Should I be worried that our extra luggage isn’t here?”

“It is being brought in a second vehicle. It should be delivered by the time we finish eating. If you did not put your name on it, there is an office adjacent to the lobby that has a lost and found.

“Unless I am mistaken you had concerns about our recruitment methods?”

Eva sat on the bed she had chosen and regarded Zoe with a wary look. “I’m not complaining. I doubt I would have even attended any kind of magical schooling without you. However, I’ve heard rumors,” she said as her eyes flicked towards Juliana who had taken a seat on her own bed, “that this school is barely holding together.”

Zoe thought about deflecting completely, but decided to edge around the issue. “Our reputation is poor, it is true. Yet every student in all six years of this school are on the same scholarship that you are. If we were so poorly off, we would not be able to afford such things.

“As for our reputation itself, well, it is a complicated issue. You will learn more about it in the future, I am sure. For now just focus on your schooling and rest assured that plans are already in motion to elevate our school in our peer’s eyes.”

Eva did not respond, she just frowned in thought. Juliana looked bored by the short discussion, like she wanted nothing more than to flop down on her bed and sleep.

“On an unrelated note,” Zoe lied as she pulled a small pamphlet out of her breast pocket, “there is a seminar that will meet several times this summer. It is meant for older students, but I ask that you attend even if you cannot participate right away.

“You can ask me questions if you have them later.” She dropped the paper on the small dining table. “Lets finish up our tour before we miss dinner. After that, I am sure that Miss Rivas at the least would like to sleep.”

Thankfully, Eva left her pet carrier on the desk.

The two girls followed her on the tour through the building’s facilities. They stopped by the alchemy lab, though both seemed disappointed they would not be allowed inside without supervision until they finished their second year. The library seemed of particular interest to Eva though she seemed a bit disappointed by the small size. Zoe quickly stressed that there was a much larger library within the main school building.

The recreational areas seemed to please the girls. The pool disguised as a massive beach and the hot tubs that looked like natural hot springs atop a snowy mountain were especially well received by Eva; she seemed more happy that there was actual magic present than she was about the water.

Juliana found one of the study rooms to her liking. It was a smaller room with a ceiling that showed the sky and stars above as if there weren’t light from any source, regardless of the actual time of day.

At the end of the tour, the two girls began whispering to each other. Eva spoke up. “We can take our meal in our rooms, right?”

“I don’t see why not,” Zoe said with a shrug. “There is a communal kitchen near the lobby we started at, they will serve you meals there. There is a large dining room adjoining the kitchen if you wish to socialize with some of your future classmates.”

“I’m exhausted,” Juliana said. “I will probably fall asleep the moment I get food in me. I’d rather not have to climb stairs between the eating and the sleeping.”

Zoe wondered for a moment if that was an excuse to get out of her presence. The deep rings beneath the blond’s eyes convinced her otherwise.

“Very well.” Zoe pulled out two of her business cards and handed them to the girls. “If you have an emergency, you know how to use these. Otherwise I will see you at the seminar.”

The two children walked off down a hallway that was almost the shortest route to the kitchen. She didn’t correct them. They would learn in time.

The moment they were out of sight. Zoe withdrew a thin silver dagger and flicked it across her chest. The walls of Rickenbacker hall trembled and tipped backwards into the ground. The pure white space of between rushed to fill their vacancy. Another flick and reality reconstructed itself in the form of the staff meeting room.

She walked from between into the room and took her usual seat. A plate of roast and mashed potatoes materialized in front of her and she ate while waiting.

Soon enough other instructors began entering the room. They tended to use far more normal methods, such as the door. They would move to their chairs and sit down. Some would eat the meals that appeared while others chatted about their new students.

Wayne appeared directly in his seat. He ignored the food and turned to Zoe. “Did you get a look at her spider?” he grunted.

“I saw its cage. I didn’t ask.”

His face split into a feral grin. “My boys were talking about it. Big as her face, they said, and it climbed all over her head. She didn’t even bat an eye when its deadly fangs rested on her forehead.”

Zoe glared at him, looking for any sign of a lie. She didn’t find one. “An exaggeration, surely,” she paused, looking at him again, “or a poor jest trying to frighten me.” She wasn’t about to tell him it was working. “I did my research after she mentioned having her pet. They didn’t look near as bad as I first imagined.”

Sure many might be poisonous and have poisonous bristles sticking out of them. But domesticated tarantulas were supposedly calm and didn’t attack unless they felt threatened.

Wayne grunted. “Don’t come cryin’ to me when you want someone to hold your hand during inspections next week.”

Zoe paled at that. She had yet to find someone to take over that responsibility and she doubted she would be able to.

“Did you ask her about the museum?”

“Must have slipped my mind.”

“The Elysium Sisters reported a dangerous object was stolen with the aid of runes, a system hardly anyone uses these days, the same day your girl used the same runes in your presence. She also met with a mysterious mentor later that night. And you don’t question her?”

“Very long-winded of you Wayne.” Zoe glared at the man.

“I’m just sayin’ if the dorms explode in a ball of black magic, don’t come cryin’ to me.”

The dean popped into the room at the head of the table alongside her secretary. Conversation died out as she cleared her throat.

Zoe started tuning the woman out before the first word bumbled out of her mouth. The woman was the cause of half the academy’s problems and this meeting was a waste of time.

But, Zoe didn’t want to be fired. And she had a job to do. So she smiled and nodded along with whatever the dean was talking about.

— — —

Eva awoke at her usual time. At least, she thought it was her usual time. The black sky outside her window suggested otherwise.

Time zones, she thought with a sigh.

Stretching and yawning, Eva sat up in her bed. A heavy lump fell off her chest and into her lap.

She poked Arachne tentatively. The spider twitched and sprung to her feet. Her frantic glancing around gave Eva a spur of giggles. The spider leapt and half tackled her back to the bed. Arachne clasped her legs around her and just sat.

Eva just sat back with Arachne on her chest. She half wondered if Arachne had a nightmare. After five minutes she patted the spider’s back.

“Going to take a shower now,” Eva said.

Arachne’s grip did not loosen in the slightest. Eva shrugged and walked straight to the bathroom.

With the hot shower water poring over the two, Eva patted Arachne’s back once again.

“Hey, you alright?”

One of her legs finally unclasped and lightly tapped Eva’s right shoulder.

“We’ll spend some time this week finding a place where we can be ourselves a bit more. In fact,” Eva said, “if you want to run around today while I’m shopping, that would be perfect. Well, perfect as long as you stay out of sight and don’t attack anyone.”

There was a bit of hesitation before Arachne tapped her right shoulder again.

“Alright. Good. For the record, I liked the hospital much better than master’s place. If we could find something like it, that would be best.”

Eva shut off the shower. It wasn’t half as good as her old shower. The runes she carved into the metal shower heads were the perfect temperature. Or maybe she just got used to the temperature. Eva made a note to look into recreating it.

After toweling off, Eva stepped out of the bathroom and froze.

Juliana had sat up in her bed. Her eyes locked with Eva’s. A moment later they flicked downwards, staring at Arachne, then downwards again before snapping back up to Eva’s eyes.

“I’m not used to other people around,” Eva said slowly.

“Not a problem,” Juliana stood up, revealing simple white pajamas. “I just didn’t expect you to be telling the truth when you said you showered with Rach.” And with that she disappeared past Eva into the bathroom.

Eva sighed and looked down to find Arachne’s eight eyes staring back. “Maybe I should buy some–” Eva cut herself off with a shake of her head. “Too late I suppose.”

Arachne climbed off and unfurled herself to her human form. Eva hoped the squelching noises were covered up by the sound of the shower. Once human, four legs sprouted from her back and wrapped themselves around Eva. Her clawed hands ran themselves through Eva’s hair.

“You’ve been hugging me non stop for almost a full day now.”

Arachne pulled back with a wide grin on her face. “I know. I wanted another one.”

Eva bit her lip and decided to ask again. “Are you sure you are alright?”

“I’m great. Why?” Her grin might have stretched a little wider.

“You just acted a bit odd this morning.”

“Well, as long as we’re going to be together for a year, might as well be together during it, right?”

Without waiting for a response, she turned and slid the window open. The screen fell out with barely a tap. Both Eva and Arachne leaned out the window and watched it land in some bushes below. They shared a glance and both shrugged.

Arachne climbed out, using her spare limbs to attach herself to the wall.

“Be careful.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t be seen. You stay safe,” she said, one of her long legs poking at Eva. “If you get even a scratch on you, I will tear this place to pieces.”

“That’s a bit much for a scratch.”

“Then you’d love to see what I’d do if you were seriously injured.”

With that, she disappeared up the building into the morning darkness.

Eva shut the window and got dressed. They were in Montana and its vastly different climate. Still, it was June. A skirt and tee-shirt should do.

Juliana emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed, and sat down at her desk. “So,” she said.

Eva smiled and sat on the edge of the as of yet unclaimed middle desk. “I’m planning on heading into town for shopping. School supplies among other things. Do you want to come?”

“It might be too early to get uniforms,” she patted herself, “just in case. But nonperishable alchemy supplies and books would be nice.”

Eva nodded. “I need a focus as well. And a new set of vials with anti-decay enchantments.”

“A focus?” The blond tilted her head to one side. “You lost your old one?”

“Never had one.”

“Oh. I just expected with all those potions you had, that you would have had a focus as well.”

“Don’t need a focus to brew potions.”

“I suppose that is true,” Juliana said with a nod. “Shall we grab some food before we head out?”

“Sounds great.”

The girls headed downstairs and scrounged up a light breakfast in the kitchens. They met some other early rising students and exchanged pleasantries. Only when the other students mentioned the time did the girls realize it was far too early for shops to be open.

They killed time in the dorm library. Eva was a bit disappointed, if unsurprised, to find no books catered to her specialized interests. There was a book on runes that Eva had never read before. Juliana poured herself into a book on magical creatures.

Soon enough they left the library and headed outside. Rickenbacker Hall was one of two dorm buildings built across from each other. They each held three years worth of students.

Turning down one path led to the school. A large but mostly flat building except for a three-story wing at one end. It was a modern structure, mostly made out of large cinder blocks with lots of glass and decorative metal. Not at all what Eva expected a magical academy to look like.

The opposite direction led off campus. There was a large town built around the school. It was similarly modern, though none of the buildings looked more than two stories high. According to the school pamphlet, a lot of entertainment areas filled the immediate area outside the school campus. Regular shops and homes lay further beyond.

The reality couldn’t be worse. There were shops around campus to be sure. Entertainment buildings as well—however a number of them looked closed. And not just closed because it was still early in the morning.

At least Arachne would have plenty of selection.

Eva doubted the situation got better further away from the school. There were probably tons of homes where the owners had packed up and left the dying city.

“Shall we start with your focus? It is always fun to get one.”

“Sure,” Eva said with a shrug. “If we can find a place that sells some.”

“I came here during summers when my brother still attended. I think I remember my way around.”

“Lead on,” Eva said. “I’ll follow.”

Juliana grabbed a surprised Eva by the hand and led her right past the first line of shops. They came to a circular plaza that looked like the perfect area for school supplies.

Outside a clothing shop, a set of school uniforms performed a tuneless waltz. The bookstore’s sign was a giant book that flipped pages every few minutes. Eva wondered if the text was actually anything other than nonsense filler words. The potion shop, focus store, general equipment store, and a good handful of other stores all had similar eye-catching advertisements.

As Eva’s initial surprise at the sights wore off, she noticed there was not a single person milling about. The benches were all empty. The guy sitting behind the Gooble Gobble Gourmet Grub kiosk was obviously playing some sort of game on a tablet and hadn’t even looked up once.

Perhaps it was because of the early morning. Just after the shops opened maybe no one was there. Eva doubted it.

Undaunted by the worries that plagued Eva, Juliana dragged the black-haired girl straight to Foible Foci.

Wands were the prevalent foci on display. Wooden ones, metal ones, simple ones, jeweled ones, all laid out on shiny racks. Given that wands were what magic was instructed with at the academy, that was probably a good idea.

Still, Eva found herself wandering to the alternate foci. Rings, large red spheres, staves, crystal capped rods, daggers and other weapons, even books specifically designed for use as foci.

The rings were obviously the most enticing for the combat aspects Zoe Baxter had mentioned. With Juliana at her side, Eva began her search.

Eva purchased a simple wooden wand. It would suffice for classes and Eva had no intention of using it outside class. For rings, Eva chose a full fingered version. According to the shopkeep, it had far less capacity for raw magical power than something like her master’s dual ring and bracelet combination. Juliana didn’t expect it to be useful aside from the most mundane of spells.

Eva didn’t think that would be much of a problem with her natural abilities. Unnatural abilities? Either way, she could do magic on her own.

They soon left to the alchemy and potions shop where they both picked up a large number of brewing supplies. Eva picked up a lot of fresh ingredients that Juliana avoided. She had to leave most of her potion cupboard at home and she didn’t intend to be caught with only what she had in her satchel.

Juliana bought out half the bookstore when they arrived there. She wanted every book that she didn’t already have at her personal library at her home. Eva wondered how she planned to transport them all back when the girl pulled a small suitcase out of her pocket. It grew to a regular sized suitcase and she dumped the books in. They still went over the edge, but when the blond zipped up the zipper, not a spot looked like it had even the slightest bulge. She then dropped it back in her pocket with a small wink to Eva.

“I want one of those.”

“Family heirloom,” she said, once again showing her rare smile. At Eva’s frown, Juliana continued, “there are mass produced versions at shops, maybe one down in the general equipment store. They will be far inferior and still very expensive.”

Turning to leave the store as soon as she heard that, Eva ran straight into a person coming in. She stepped back with a hastily mumbled apology as two men brushed past her without a word.

Juliana came up next to her and whispered, “rude.”

It was Eva’s turn to grab the blond’s hand. She led the girl back towards the dorms.

“We’re not heading to the general store?” Juliana asked as they left the circular plaza.

Eva barely heard her as she walked, but she managed to register the question a minute later. “No. Think I’m a bit fatigued of shopping for now.”

“Those men bothered you?”

“Would you believe bad vibes? We’ll come back another day. I still want one of those suitcases,” Eva said with a big smile.

The smile disappeared as she turned forward again.

There was something off about those two men. And it wasn’t just that they were the only two customers Eva had seen aside from herself and Juliana.

It might not have been noticeable from a distance, there was something covering it up, but Eva’s nose had been right in the man’s chest. She took a brief inhale of two very familiar scents. One was the coppery tinge of blood.

The man wasn’t a blood mage though. If he was, he wasn’t a very good one. Every drop of blood spilled by a proper blood mage is consumed whether in spells or to heal yourself, as such the scent doesn’t stick around long or that strong.

The other scent was far more worrying. A scent she had only ever found on long decayed corpses.

The scent of rotting flesh.

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001.007

Posted on July 11, 2015January 31, 2022 by Tower Curator

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“A cat carrier?” The security agent quirked an eyebrow.

“It just has a few books in it,” Eva said with a shrug. “I’m planning on coming back in a car and bringing a cat with me. I figured I could use it as a carry-on for the flight.”

Too much information? Did I offer an explanation too fast? Eva suppressed a nervous swallow. If she was caught, there would definitely be problems. When the officer didn’t say anything, Eva prodded, “is there a problem with that?”

“No, I suppose not. Run it through the x-ray.”

Eva nodded and set the carrier on the conveyor belt. She pulled off her mostly empty book bag and set it next to the carrier. She stepped through the body scanner.

With no items that could be considered contraband, Eva knew she didn’t have anything to worry about.

That did nothing to stop the sweat and adrenaline. Everything could still go so very wrong. At best she would be kicked out of the airport and have to find another way to her new school. At worst she would be arrested and throughly searched. They would find all her black magic books, among other items.

She gave a sigh of relief when she made it past the checkpoint. She picked up her bag and the cage and had to stop herself from running to the bathroom.

She locked herself in the furthest stall and finally relaxed. Now she had to wait. There was forty-five minutes before her flight was scheduled to leave. Eva moved books from the carrier to her book bag, all except for two. One she cracked open and started to read, the other was left in the carrier.

It didn’t take long before the ceiling tile above her moved. It lifted just a crack and eight red eyes glowed from within. A second later and the tile moved to the side.

A large spider silk net slowly descended into her stall. Eva caught it and pulled out her daggers, the black skull, and her blood and potions. She tossed those into her backpack.

Arachne crawled down the wall and into Eva’s lap after sliding the ceiling tile back into place. She wrapped her legs around Eva’s own legs.

They sat like that for twenty minutes. Just waiting down the time Eva had to spend in the company of other people.

Eva knew most of her worries were unfounded, despite the horror stories surrounding flight security these days. Being around a number of unknown people still made Eva a bit nervous. The feeling was only compounded by her carrying around two daggers, tons of books she shouldn’t be caught with, an artifact of unknown power. And Arachne.

She knew she wasn’t in any danger between her own magics and Arachne. The people around her might not be so lucky.

All that combined with the nerves of having never flown before and Eva could barely sit still. Arachne on her lap was a huge comfort of a familiar situation. Sadly, even that couldn’t last forever.

She stroked the back of Arachne’s smooth carapace. “Arachne,” Eva whispered, “into the cage.”

Arachne slipped her legs beneath Eva’s shirt and started to skitter under.

Eva clamped her hands around her waist. “No, we talked about this.”

If Arachne had a human mouth instead of fangs, Eva imagined she would be pouting. She crawled into the cage in the most dejected manner a spider could.

To be fair, Arachne’s spider form had very long legs and not a small body either. The small cat cage was not made for someone of her dimensions. Eva frowned at the eight red eyes glaring out of the dark cage.

Eva placed the book in front of Arachne and shut the door. Arachne held the book up against the grate. There were still holes in the top portion of the cage but Arachne mostly blended in with the dark bottom.

Satisfied with the camouflage, Eva picked up the carrier. She took a new seat in the waiting benches for her gate. She quickly pulled out a much more benign book than the one she had been reading in the bathroom and buried her nose in it. Hopefully the people around would see a girl involved in her book and not try to make small conversation.

Her plan seemed to work. Not a single person approached her between sitting and her flight being called for boarding. The attendant checking her ticket questioned the cat carrier, but Eva just tilted it back to show the two books carefully pressed against the door. The attendant smiled and waved her through.

The plane was much smaller than Eva anticipated, but much fancier looking. She had seen images of jets before on television or at school or the library and they were nothing like this. She expected rows and rows of seats. Instead she got couches.

There were seats closer to the front than the couches, but they looked more like someone took two recliners and cut off the arm rest in the middle. Definitely not what she thought airplane seats should look like. There were four sets of two, all facing the front of the airplane. A little table was set out a decent space in front of each pair of seats.

Eva could see a second compartment similar to the one she was standing in through a small doorway.

She stood right at the front, hesitating. No flight attendant had led her to her seat. Her ticket didn’t have a seat number on it. She doubted the seats even had numbers. Numbers would just blemish the lounge atmosphere.

A small group of teens around her age sat at the couches. Two girls and two guys. There was clearly space with them, but they hadn’t even looked up when she entered. They quietly chatted away with each other.

A young girl sat in the window seat of one of the pairs of recliners nearest to the couches. The girl’s blond hair was almost as long as Eva’s own black hair. It came down to just above her waistline. She wore a lavender sundress with a light floral pattern.

Eva didn’t want to walk past the group on the way to the rear compartment, but she didn’t want to appear entirely unsociable either. Not if these were going to be fellow students. So she chose the paired seat next to the girl.

In contrast to her bright aesthetics, the girl was downright depressed looking. She had her feet up on the seat with her arms wrapped around her knees and her head buried in her arms.

“Is this seat taken?” Eva asked.

She lifted her head just long enough for a quick glance at Eva. Her bright green eyes were marred by the heavy circles of sleep deprivation.

Maybe she doesn’t like flying, or perhaps stayed up too late. Without an objection, Eva took the seat next to her and set Arachne’s cage beneath the table in front of her.

A moment after Eva sat down, another teen about her age walked aboard the plane. He had a big smile on his face and walked right past Eva without even a glance in her direction. Eva didn’t bother to look to see if he moved to the couch or to the cabin beyond.

The overhead speakers crackled to life. “This is your captain speaking,” a gruff voice said. “We have three more stops to pick up students. A light lunch will be served around one o’clock. If we happen to fly over a time zone and skip one, well you’ll just have to starve.” Eva heard the group behind her give some polite chuckles.

“We’ll be arriving at our final destination by six o’clock mountain time. In the mean time, get yourselves comfortable. We’ve got a long trip from Florida to Montana. Doubly so with our extra stops.

“It is a long flight but you’re free to move about the cabin when we are in the air. We might be on the ground for a while on our stops, but I ask that you do not leave the plane. We might just leave without you. There are drinks and snacks available from our flight attendants and bathrooms between the compartments.

“With all that said, we’ll be taking off shortly. Enjoy your flight.”

The speaker crackled again and cut off.

Eva glanced around the cabin. The group of students resumed their talking, or maybe never really stopped. The blond next to her never even moved a muscle during the captain’s entire speech.

A flight attendant came out and began pointing out exits and showed how to use oxygen masks in the event of an emergency.

Eva wasn’t sure what kind of emergencies were common on flights, but felt that oxygen masks were probably more of a placebo than anything. The fact that seats doubled as flotation devices might have been comforting if they were going to Europe or somewhere, but there just wasn’t that much water between Florida and Montana.

After her speech, the flight attendant went behind a curtain up front. A few minutes later and Eva felt the plane jerk forward.

She almost wished she took a window seat for her first flight, rather than sit next to the curled up girl. Luckily the windows on this plane were fairly large. Not quite car window size, but larger than she had seen in movies.

Eva sighed. She was sure Arachne would have liked to see as well.

Eva had no doubt that the spider-demon was getting restless already. That they would be stuck in the plane, and her in her cage, for over thirteen hours could only be making it worse.

As long as everyone on the plane were students, maybe she could bring her out. At least let her stretch her legs so she wasn’t all folded up for a whole day.

Eva watched past the blond girl as the plane made its way to the runway. It stopped and sat. And sat. Eva felt a jolt of adrenaline as a worry came over her. Maybe there was something wrong.

Maybe they found out about all the contraband she had on her person. Her bag was still slung over her shoulder, but maybe they had magical detectors and had detected her ritual daggers. Or Arachne.

The plane began to move forward and Eva felt relief wash through her. The runway moved past the window as the plane picked up speed. The plane tilted back and Eva found herself pressed into her seat.

A familiar sensation gripped and pulled at her stomach. Eva almost started giggling. It was like jumping with Arachne.

The ground disappeared beneath the plane as it rose into the sky. Even as strong as Arachne was, she would be hard pressed to even hit half the height they were at now. And the plane was still rising.

As the plane leveled off, Eva was brought speechless. The sun glinted off the tops of clouds and the ground beneath was so very tiny.

Eva knew what planes were. She even had an idea of how they worked with wing shape and lift. Yet looking out the window was something special. Not magical, she knew how magic worked better than how planes worked, and nothing about planes was magical.

Well, she thought, maybe this plane. But it was probably close enough to a regular plane that the view wouldn’t be different.

Eva leaned back in her chair and just started to relax when the flight attendant popped out of nowhere. She asked if either of the girls wanted anything to drink and started listing off drinks she could serve. Eva was pretty sure some of those drinks weren’t supposed to be served to someone her age.

Of course she ordered one. A twisted doe.

She had alcohol in the past and didn’t much care for its taste or effects. She was, however, always on the lookout for new things.

The girl next to her spoke for the first time in almost thirty minutes. For the first time as far as Eva was aware. She barely tilted her head up and mumbled, “a coke.”

That had been good enough for the flight attendant. She nodded and walked away. She returned a moment later and set down a bubbling cola in front of Eva’s blond companion. Eva got a clear liquid in a fancy glass.

It didn’t smell like alcohol. She took a cautious sip. Blueberries. Nothing especially special, it just tasted like blueberries. If it had alcohol in it, it was covered up enough that she couldn’t tell.

Her second sip set her on edge. It was most definitely the taste of strawberries without a hint of blueberry. A third sip got her bananas followed by a fourth sip of pineapples.

She smiled and set the glass back on the table. It was a simple concept, but a fun drink. While she knew quite a bit about magic, she had no idea where to even start to make something like this.

If school taught her things like this, it might be really amazing after all.

Her attentions turned to the girl sitting in the seat next to her. She hadn’t even touched her drink. Eva bit the inside of her cheek in thought. Finally, she decided.

“Are you alright,” she said in a quiet voice.

The girl lifted her head slightly and turned to the side. She didn’t say anything and dropped her head back to her knees, still tilted to the side.

Eva reached into her book bag and withdrew the small satchel of potions Arachne had sneaked in with. She held them in her hands, hesitating for just a minute before flipping the flap open. “I have some potions, a number for healing and restoratives, if you think they might help.”

The girl’s head lifted again. This time her eyes narrowed as she examined Eva’s face.

Eva thought she made a mistake in offering the potions. But there was no way potions could be as bad as blood magic or having a demon sitting at your feet. The book list even had alchemy books and supplies. That was basically the same thing. Probably.

Eva’s fears were unfounded. The girl gave a light nod and watched as Eva ran her fingers over the tops of the vials.

“You’re not injured, so these wouldn’t help,” Eva lied as she skipped past a row of poisons. Her finger stopped on one of the light blue vials. “General remedy, try this.”

The girl nodded and tipped back the entire vial. “Thanks,” she whispered as her head dropped back to her knees.

“My pleasure. I’m Eva, by the way.” She held out her hand. It was a bit awkward being so close, but the girl made the effort to shake it.

“Juliana.”

“Nice to meet you.” Something clicked in Eva’s head. “Juliana Rivas?”

The blond’s head snapped up and she narrowed her eyes again. “You know me?”

“Only your name,” Eva said quickly. “Zoe Baxter, a teacher, mentioned we would be roommates with another girl.” As the blond relaxed, Eva said, “I wonder what the odds of sitting next to you are.”

Juliana dropped her head back to her knees. A muffled voice leaked out from between her arms. “Probably pretty good,” she said. Eva raised an eyebrow and the blond continued. “We’re not exactly going to the most prestigious magical academy around the country. More like the laughing-stock to be honest. I doubt there are more than ten freshmen girls including the two of us.”

“Ah,” Eva murmured with a frown. Neither the pamphlet nor Mrs. Baxter mentioned anything about the school being poorly regarded. Not that it was really something to advertise. Not to mention she wouldn’t be going anywhere at all without the scholarship provided by the school.

“Don’t worry about it. My brother said that the teachers are decent. It just uses teaching practices that are ‘untraditional’ in his words.” She shrugged, cracking her neck from side to side before dropping back to her knees. “Besides, if you are the one who brewed that potion, you’re probably at least a few years ahead of any school. In that department at least.

“Now,” she said, “I’m going to try to get some sleep.”

Eva nodded. “I’ll try not to disturb you.”

With that, the blond’s head dipped back to her knees.

Eva leaned back in her chair. She took a quick sip of her drink, lemon this time, and decided she may as well sleep too.

—

Two guys and a girl got on the plane at the first stop. All three headed straight towards the second compartment after hesitantly glancing about.

The captain had come on again repeating his speech, but this time saying that they would be waiting a good half-hour before departing.

Juliana stirred awake at the loudspeakers’ noise. She seemed to be feeling much better. Whether it was the nap or the potion, Eva didn’t know.

An awkward silence settled between the two. They exchanged greetings after she awoke, but Eva just didn’t know what to talk about. She never had much of a social life apart from Arachne and Devon. Maybe a handful of other demons that she or her master regularly summoned. Nothing they discussed seemed like a very safe topic with regular people.

Just as she was about to ask a few general questions about magic and the academy, the group that had been sitting on the couch approached. Two guys and two girls, all looking Eva’s age, stood around.

Eva felt a pit in her stomach. She had never been a victim of bullying in her old school, not unless you counted the minor annoyance that was Todd Farkas. This could be dangerous. At least, Eva thought so until the boy with brown and short, wavy hair offered his hand.

“Jordan,” he said.

Eva hesitantly shook his hand. “Eva,” she said.

The group then went through and introduced themselves to both Eva and Juliana. Maximilian liked to be known as simply ‘Max’. He was a bit taller and had the beginnings of brown facial hair poking off his face.

Irene and Shelby were twins. They didn’t really look it; one had brown hair and the other had black, Shelby seemed a bit more developed than Irene as well.

Jordan and the twins grew up together and all decided to attend Brakket despite the twin’s parents wanting them to go to a different school. They met Maximilian while shopping for school supplies and became fast friends. At least, according to Max. The face Irene made while he was telling his tale led Eva to believe it was a bit tall.

“I couldn’t help but overhear earlier,” Jordan said as soon as introductions were over, “you gave her a potion?”

Eva grimaced. “Yeah, is that a bad thing? I don’t know much about magical society.”

“Oh no. At least, I don’t care. I doubt anyone else would either. I’m quite interested in brewing myself though and was wondering if you might let me take a look.”

Eva shrugged and pulled out her potion case. She withdrew another light blue vial and handed it to the boy.

He held it up to the light of the window and rolled it back and forth. Eva wasn’t sure what he was trying to learn from it. After a moment of everyone just staring at him, he eventually handed it back with a nod. “Pretty good,” he said.

Eva wasn’t sure if that ‘pretty good’ had qualifiers attached to it like ‘for an amateur,’ but she decided to take it as a compliment anyway. “Thanks.”

Maximilian had knelt down during Jordan’s examination. Eva froze as she saw him try to peek past the book blocking the front of the carrier. “Who is in here?” he asked far to innocently.

“Aww,” Shelby cooed as she knelt down. “Have you got a little kitten?”

“It’s– I–”

The black-haired girl started to stick her fingers into the small holes at the top. Eva lurched forwards and grabbed her wrist. She wrenched the poor girl’s hand away far harder than she probably should have.

“Not a cat. She’s probably cranky from being cooped up and I don’t want her needlessly agitated.”

She didn’t apologize as the girl rubbed her wrist. What kind of lunatic sticks her fingers into dark enclosed areas anyway. At the group’s stunned silence, Eva glanced over to Juliana. The blond was no longer buried in her knees and appeared far more interested in the cage than she had been before.

Eva sighed. “I was planning on letting her out at some point. This flight is way to long to leave her in there.”

She could hear Arachne already rustling at her words. The rest of the group apparently heard as well. Juliana leaned in closer, trying to peer through the holes. The twins gave an uneasy glance at each other.

“You have to promise not to scream or shout or really do much of anything. I had to smuggle–” Eva paused for a split second and tried to think of a good nickname. “Rach,” she decided, “past security and I doubt she’d take it well if a flight attendant tries to separate us.”

“That’s reassuring,” Juliana said. The girl was far too interested for her own good.

“Rach?” Jordan questioned.

Eva frowned. “Rach is a West African tarantula. Very large and a bit old. For a spider anyway.”

Shelby looked like she was going to be sick. She brought her hand closer to her chest as if being near the cage was going to hurt her.

Eva reached down to the clasp of the carrier door, but paused. “The moment she starts running around the plane or looks like she might even be considering thinking about the possibility of even scratching anyone, she is going straight back into her cage for the rest of the trip,” Eva said in a stern voice, mostly for Arachne herself.

Eva opened the door. Four long, black legs stretched out of the carrier.

Shelby shook her head and walked straight back to the couches, mumbling ‘nope’ over and over.

The rest stayed and watched as Arachne emerged from the carrier. She crawled out, each leg making a careful step. She turned around slowly, examining all the group with her eight eyes. Arachne turned back towards Eva and twisted her body a little, like she was trying to cock her head to one side. She felt out with her legs against Eva’s own, as if she was making sure who she was.

Eva frowned. The spider-demon was obviously showing off. For intimidation or for attention was up in the air. Probably both.

She scurried up Eva’s legs with frightening speed, eliciting a gasp from Irene. She slid right under Eva’s shirt and continued climbing out the neck hole. Arachne settled herself in on the top of Eva’s head, wrapping some legs around her chin. Her fangs drifted lightly to the top of Eva’s vision.

“Show-off,” Eva mumbled out the corner of her mouth. Juliana quirked an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. Eva snapped her mouth shut and suppressed a sigh.

“Well,” Eva said aloud, “meet Rach.” She brought her hand up and slowly stroked the smooth chitin.

The group as a whole did not look like they knew how to react. The sole exception being Maximilian. “Can I touch her?” he asked.

Arachne immediately tapped her left shoulder.

Eva shook her head. “I’d rather not needlessly upset her. Perhaps after we get to school and she gets acclimated to living in a new place.” Eva gestured at the fangs hanging into her vision. “You wouldn’t enjoy being on the business end of these.”

The larger boy withdrew his partially outstretched hand. He gave a half chuckle and said, “personal experience huh?”

Eva gave a short laugh at that. “I’m not sure I’d be around to tell about any personal experiences, if I had any.” Second hand experience, I might be able to talk about…

“Oh,” was his only response.

Irene spoke up for the first time since her introduction. “We should be getting back then, don’t want to crowd your spider after all.” She gave a nervous giggle and all but dragged Max away.

Jordan, however, stood there. He just stared at Arachne.

Eva fidgeted under the look. “Is there anything else?” she eventually asked.

“A West African tarantula, is it?” he asked with a bit of a skeptical look.

Is he already suspicious? Eva suppressed a groan. If some kid her age suspected within a few minutes, Arachne would be outed as a demon before the week was through if she wasn’t more careful with who saw the spider-demon. “From West Africa. The scientific name is long and hard to remember.”

Jordan gave a small ‘hmm’ noise. “Well, Eva, I’ll head back with the others. Let’s talk again sometime.”

“Sure thing.”

With the strange boy gone, Eva relaxed back in her seat. The relaxing only lasted a moment.

Juliana quickly had her face right in front of Eva’s. Eva pressed herself back. She felt Arachne’s abdomen pinched between her head and the seat, but the spider could take the meager amount of pressure of Eva’s head. It would also help keep the spider from launching at the blond.

The girl’s eyes didn’t even register Eva’s distress. After staring at Arachne for almost a minute, the blond sat back in her chair. Eva relaxed slightly.

“She’s very pretty,” Juliana said.

Eva rolled her eyes at Arachne repeatedly tapping her right shoulder.

“Smart too.” Her eyes were glued on the tapping leg.

“That’s just… She’s well-trained.” Eva frowned at the single left shoulder tap. “I’m glad no one started screaming, unlike the last time I showed people Rach, but you seem very comfortable.”

Juliana waved a dismissive hand. “My mother is a retired mage-knight who frequently goes on ‘safaris’ with my father around the world. They catalog and frequently return home with various creatures. Safe, dangerous, magical, mundane. It’s all the same to them.” She wiggled a finger across her face. “When I was eight, I woke up with a very poisonous centipede crawling on me. It was probably as big as your spider.”

“That’s…” Eva felt a slight tremor go up her spine.

“You shiver at that while you have a giant spider on your head?”

“I know Rach. I’ve been around her for as long as I can remember.”

The crackle of the overhead speaker stalled their conversation. The pilot said they would be taking off momentarily.

“Rach,” Eva said as she lowered her head and patted the table.

Arachne climbed off and turned to face Eva, cocking her body to one side again.

Eva gestured to the window. “It is quite a view when we take off.”

The spider-demon walked to the edge of the table near the window. She gave a sidelong glance at Juliana before resting her abdomen against the table.

The blond raised an eyebrow in Eva’s direction.

Eva shrugged. “I thought she might want to see. Don’t worry, she’s clean. We took a shower this morning.”

Juliana smiled. Probably the most emotion Eva had seen so far, discounting the vested interest in Arachne. Eva’s face flushed red, but she couldn’t just say that Arachne took a shower on her own.

As the plane rose in the air, Eva smiled as Arachne actually perked up. She leaned forward, pressing two legs against the glass. Juliana found it very amusing if her smile was anything to go by.

After takeoff, Arachne crawled under Eva’s shirt and latched around her chest; After Jordan’s suspicion, Eva didn’t really want to interact with any flight attendants or students. Juliana did give a quirk of her eyebrow as Arachne slipped out of sight, but she didn’t comment on it.

They passed the time with small talk, mostly about Juliana’s parents. Several stories about her run ins with various creatures. Her mother’s job, mage-knights, were apparently some sort of elite bounty hunters that went after dangerous magical criminals.

That made Eva more than a little nervous.

She felt a bit bad about deflecting most personal questions. There was just so much that she wasn’t sure if it was safe to mention. She mostly stuck with her school life, work at the vet’s office, and a partially made up home life.

Their next stop had them picking up around ten students. They split off, some in the back cabin and some sat in seats near Eva and Juliana. None made an effort to introduce themselves and Eva wasn’t going to get up and wander with Arachne under her shirt, even as hidden as she knew the spider would be.

The moment they were in the air again, lunch was served. Eva was a bit unhappy with the food. While the sandwiches and fruit were good, great even, they were just a bit disappointing compared to the drink from earlier.

Only two students boarded on their last pickup.

Eva kept Arachne under her shirt the rest of the flight. She would occasionally peek down and check on her, but the spider seemed more than content to just nestle between her breasts. Eva had been petting the spider for a time, over her shirt, until she realized how odd that must have looked to others. She definitely caught Juliana’s odd look every once in a while.

The plane touched down in Montana. She decided to leave Arachne beneath her shirt, pulling her out in the much more crowded plane didn’t seem like a good idea. She gathered up her belongings and departed with Juliana.

Jordan’s group joined them outside the gate. Shelby was notably keeping her distance. Her eyes were all but glued to the pet carrier. Eva just smiled and gave her a little wave. If only she knew where Arachne really was.

Waiting in the lobby to greet the new students was Zoe Baxter. The gruff voiced man who had been with her in the alley stood just behind her.

“Welcome,” Zoe Baxter said, “to Brakket Magical Academy.”

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001.001

Posted on July 11, 2015November 20, 2021 by Tower Curator

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A friendly chime rang throughout the office as the door closed.

“Just a moment,” called a voice from the back room. After a brief scuffle of footsteps, the owner of the voice appeared next to the front counter. “Ah, Eva. Good to see you again,” the woman said, “and who have you got there? Another stray?”

Eva shrugged her shoulders, hefting the sleeping kitten in her arms upwards. “Not a stray this time. His collar says ‘Mr. Mist’ but there is no owner information.”

“I can’t say I’ve seen him before, but I’ll check and see if he’s registered in the system.”

Before the nurse could go to the computer, Eva said, “Mrs. Vallenger, that isn’t all.” Eva knelt and allowed the kitten to fall forwards, supported by her arms and knees. The kitten’s hind leg had a deep gash down one side. Blood matted its fur down as well as covered the entire front of Eva’s white tee-shirt. “He was mewing beneath some wire around the library’s parking construction.”

“Oh,” she made some quick clicks with her tongue. “I’ll see if I can get Doctor Thompson to take a look at him.” She carefully took the kitten out of Eva’s arms and marched him straight into the back room.

Left on her own in the empty lobby, Eva walked straight to the bathroom. The young girl sighed in front of the mirror. Another shirt ruined. At least this one was ruined for a good reason. She gave a small snort and started washing off her arms.

With her arms cleaned off, Eva looked down at her clothes; she was stumped as to how to clean them. Apart from getting her shirt completely soaked, not something Eva was willing to do even if the summer heat was settling in, nothing sprung to mind.

Eva sighed once more and left the bathroom. She walked straight through the door marked ‘Employees Only’ without any hesitation. She might not be a member of the staff, but she had been through many times before while volunteering to care for the boarding animals.

The door marked ‘Surgery’ did give her pause. The light was already on, either Doctor Thompson had another patient or he was already working on Mr. Mist. Voices coming from the other side of the door soon answered the question.

“.. of a deep flesh wound, but nothing important. Get me a bag of fluids while I stitch his leg up.”

“Yes doctor.”

Eva backed up half a step and tried her best to look like she hadn’t just been listening in. She raised her hand as if to knock just as Nurse Vallenger opened the door. The nurse looked surprised for half a moment before a light smile spread across her petite face.

“I’ll be back with you in a moment, Eva,” she said as she walked down the hall towards the storage room.

Eva gave the woman a light nod and looked back to the room the nurse had left wide open.

The elderly Doctor Thompson hunched over a table with the black and white cat. He looked to be just about to start the stitches when he apparently noticed the door was open as well, for he gave a light sigh. “You can come in, Eva, if you promise not to touch anything.”

With a nod, Eva walked in and stood opposite the doctor at the table, intent on seeing the remainder of the process. She did her best to hide her excitement, but some must have shown through as Doctor Thompson gave a light chuckle. She couldn’t help it, it was the first time they’d let her in during a surgery, after all.

The doctor set to work on the cat without another word. They stood in silence until the stitches were about half way through the leg.

“Not very squeamish, are you. I’ve seen people who’ve gone through the entirety of med school get queasy at the sight of open wounds. And you’re what, ten?”

“Thirteen sir, and I’ve seen plenty worse than Mr. Mist’s cut.”

Doctor Thompson looked up from the cat. “Worse?”

Eva blinked and a small frown appeared on her face as she quickly back pedaled, “I mean, like, the poor animals that get hit by cars.”

He gave a noncommittal grunt and went back to work on the kitten.

Nurse Vallenger returned a moment later. Eva moved aside, a bit disappointed by just how much her short time in the surgery room did not live up to her expectations. Maybe now that they let me in once, I’ll be invited to observe a bigger surgery.

The nurse hung a small yellow-orange bag from a hook and slipped a needle into the cat’s front left paw. After taping down the tube, she pulled a small camera out of her pocket and tried to line up a shot. “Hmm, should have taken the picture before inserting the IV.”

“I’ve got it,” Eva said. She waited until the nurse gave her a nod and then removed the bag from the hook and held it, along with the tube, off to the side.

“Thank you my dear.” She snapped the picture. “Now, lets leave the doctor to his work and go make a few fliers. I checked just a moment ago and we don’t have a Mist in our system.” Mrs. Vallenger started walking out of the surgery room.

Eva glanced at the kitten, but followed behind the nurse. There wouldn’t be anything more interesting there anyway.

“I’m sure someone out there is very worried about such an adorable cat,” Nurse Vallenger said, “I’ll make a few calls to some of the other vets in the area, see if any of them have heard of a Mr. Mist.

“If no one responds back in the positive, we’ll hang some fliers around town and maybe you can take a few to hang up in your school. That will be your job.” Nurse Vallenger rummaged through the front desk before turning back to Eva. “We’ll scan it in and put the picture on it, so leave a space.”

Eva nodded and accepted the large marker and sheet of computer paper.

Half an hour later, Nurse Vallenger finished contacting the other veterinarian offices and spoke to Eva, “No one has seen Mr. Mist. Not all that surprising in a cat so young. How is your poster coming?”

Eva held up her masterwork. “Just finished.”

Mrs. Vallenger nodded. “Good. We’ll scan it in, put the picture on, and print out a handful of copies to spread around town.” She took the paper, but hesitated, looking around the sheet. The hesitation passed and she slapped the paper down on the scanner.

A few clicks on the computer and the machine whirred to life. Eva moved around to get a better view while the nurse worked. Once she cropped the image of Mr. Mist onto the paper, the machine came to life once more and spat out copy after copy of the fliers.

Nurse Vallenger took a copy and checked for any errors. She hesitated again, her eyes flicking down to Eva, before biting her lip. Flipping the paper towards Eva, she said, “those circles around the edges… you’re not learning magic, are you?”

“I just thought they’d help catch the eye,” Eva said with a shrug, “no magic or anything.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Vallenger said, failing to hide the disappointment on her face. “I figured so, but couldn’t be sure.”

Eva gave another apologetic shrug. “I don’t suppose you have anything I could wear home? Walking around with a blood soaked shirt is going to draw all the wrong kind of attention, even if it is mostly dry by now.”

“Oh!” The nurse slapped her forehead. “You should have said something sooner. That can’t be sanitary.” She left the computer and headed to the employees only area.

Eva sat back in the computer chair and looked over her poster. The circles were definitely not magic, though the skills she gained by marking out rituals and runes over and over again definitely found their way into the eye-catching design. Hopefully not many people come to the same conclusion. That’s just attention I don’t want.

The employee door opened and out walked Nurse Vallenger, shutting the door behind her. Draped over one arm was…

“A lab coat?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone here wear a lab coat.”

Mrs. Vallenger chuckled. “The doctor used to like them, years and years ago, until one day he decided scrubs were more comfortable. Now we have a closet full of them, just gathering dust. He hasn’t touched them since.

“Your shirt, I’m sorry to say, is probably ruined beyond recovery. If you would like, I can throw it in our incinerator?”

Eva nodded and began pulling her shirt over her head. A startled peep escaped from the nurse. Eva found the nurse facing the opposite direction once her shirt was out of the way. “We’re both women,” Eva said in her best chastising voice.

“We’re in the lobby, with big glass windows, in case you forgot. And the doctor could walk in.”

“The entrance doesn’t face the street. Besides, I checked, no one was coming. And you’re between the doctor and me, he’ll knock you over before seeing me.” Eva paused and lightly cleared her throat. The nurse timidly glanced over her shoulder. Eva held out her bloodied shirt. “If you’ll hand me the lab coat, I can have it on before someone actually does walk in.”

Nurse Vallenger hesitated for a moment longer before exchanging the shirt for the coat. She stood, almost guarding the employee door, while Eva casually buttoned up the lab coat. The lab coat’s design left a small v-neck, but not enough to show off anything. Not that she had anything to show off. Someday, she sighed.

Just as Eva finished adjusting the coat, the door chime went off. Nurse Vallenger nearly jumped ten feet in the air.

Eva couldn’t help but giggle.

Nurse Vallenger shot a glare at Eva before turning all smiles to the visitor. “Ah, Mr. Williams. If you’ll head to exam room A, just down the hall,” she gestured away from the employee door, “I’ll get you and Bart signed in and will be with you in a moment.”

The man smiled, and headed down the hall with a smile. “Anything for you, Kattie.”

The moment exam room A’s door shut, Nurse Vallenger turned to Eva. Before she could comment, Eva said, “good thing you didn’t hesitate longer before handing me the coat.”

That got a glare from the nurse. “You remember how to sign people in for checkups?” At Eva’s nod, the nurse continued, “Dean Williams with his dog Bart. I’ll dispose of your shirt while you take care of that.”

“Of course,” Eva said with a wide smile, “anything for you, Kattie.”

Nurse Vallenger huffed out a “creep” as she walked back into the employees section.

—

“There we go,” Eva mumbled to herself. She took a step back and looked over the newest addition to the library’s bulletin board. Another missing pet poster hung just to the side of the one Eva just posted; that one is looking for a dog rather than looking for the owners.

Several of the businesses between the Thompson clinic and the library now sported Eva’s poster in their windows. The owner would hopefully be found in no time.

Eva walked out of the building with a spring in her step, waving goodbye to the librarian on duty. She skipped past the under construction parking garage to a small fast food joint. Eva wolfed down the burger and a small order of fries.

Her next destination was the abandoned retirement home. A small brick building that had been superseded by a more modern, and better funded, dwelling for the elderly. She had turned the entire second floor into a home away from home. Or rather, a home away from her father.

She left the main downtown street to follow the more direct path through a few of the back roads. A slight chill went up her spine the moment she walked down the second road.

“Eva Spencer?”

Eva spun towards the gruff voice. A man and a woman stood at the mouth to the backstreet. They stood casually, not looking like they were about to chase after or attack. They didn’t look like police as both wore three-piece suits, but that just meant they could be something worse.

“I’m not supposed to speak with strangers,” Eva said, taking a few cautious steps backwards. “Especially not ones who approach me in an alley.”

The woman held up her hands in a placating gesture. “We just want to talk.”

“Not something we can talk about in public,” the man grunted.

Eva took another step backwards, glancing over her shoulder. The end of the backstreet was unblocked and a side alley led off between a few shops. She looked back to the people. Neither had moved while her head was turned. “You’re not cops?”

“No, we’re–”

Something worse then. Before the woman could finish, Eva turned and sprinted. She rounded the corner of the side alley and almost ran into a chain link fence. Undeterred, Eva spotted a point about twenty feet past the fence and stepped. She stepped another twenty feet and turned down a second alley between two buildings.

Eva spotted and stepped to the top of a fire escape. She climbed the last few steps and made her way onto the rooftop. Careful to avoid much noise, Eva walked across the roof towards where she had left the two people.

Rather than the heavy footfalls of a dedicated pursuer, only calm voices could be heard from the alley below. Eva peeked over the edge of the building to find the two standing next to the fence she had stepped through.

“Her father said she never comes home, and she runs off when we try to talk? Surely there are more worthy candidates.”

Eva frowned at that. If they spoke with her father, things couldn’t be good.

The woman shrugged. “She had a point. Two strangers show up in a dark alley? Maybe we should go with my plan this time.”

“She’s had her chance,” the man all but growled. “She doesn’t want to be found, leave her be and lets find someone excited to come. I’m done.”

“This fence?” The woman grasped the chain link fence with one hand and rattled it. “She didn’t climb over it. She was at the end of the alley before we even turned the corner.” She shook her head. “We couldn’t have started more than ten feet behind her. That’s talent the academy desperately needs. If you’re going to pass her up, I’ll happily take over from here.”

The man huffed and walked away, muttering under his breath too quiet to hear from the rooftop. Whatever it was, the woman found it amusing. She laughed a rather jovial laugh. Both people vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving an empty alley with a cold blast of air.

Eva sighed and stepped thirty feet in the direction of home. She took a few seconds to rest before stepping again, no need to strain herself. Normally the bus would more than suffice for getting around. But in times like this, getting home quicker meant getting away quicker.

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