Max, Shalise noted, still sat in his seat. He fidgeted, torn between following after Juliana or just leaving with the rest of the students.
“I honestly didn’t mean to,” Eva said to the blond. “Although, I can’t say I’m going to lose sleep over it.”
“You’ve got to watch your new legs. I mean, I didn’t even get my turn to fight her.” Juliana sighed as Arachne slipped out of her hands.
The spider launched herself at Eva. Once on her, Arachne immediately burrowed beneath Eva’s shirt. A few of her red eyes poked out of the holes.
“Hey, what was that all about?”
All three of the girls turned to face the new voice. A well-built student stood in front of them. Even disguised beneath his loose clothing, Shalise could see some serious muscles on him.
It took a blink and half a second longer to realize that he was the fire throwing mage who first fought the professor. He looked a lot smaller up on stage.
“Like I told Zoe Baxter, he tried to trip me. Hopefully, he learned his lesson.”
“He’s my brother.”
“That does not change anything about my previous statement.”
The two stared at each other for a good minute while Shalise fidgeted. Juliana had a bored look on her face, though Shalise noticed her wand somehow got in her hand.
Eventually, Eva sighed. “Are you going to fight me or something?”
Shalise hoped not. Between Juliana and Eva, he’d surely end up in tears and in the infirmary alongside his brother. Seeing older students in tears didn’t sit right with Shalise.
That was, of course, if Arachne didn’t jump in first.
It was a good thing he shook his head. “Papa always said to never hit a girl.”
“Shame he didn’t say anything about tripping a girl.”
“I don’t know what your problem is with my brother, but you keep away from him. He wouldn’t shut up about you for five minutes these past few months.”
Eva frowned and cocked her head to one side. “I forgot he existed until just a few minutes ago.”
“Sounds like unhealthy obsession to me,” Juliana said as she crossed her arms. “Oh, maybe he likes you.”
The glance Juliana got sent her into a short burst of laughter. Eva just shook her head.
“Curious,” Eva said, “if I were a monstrous demon that was hell-bent on murdering you and your brother, would you hit me then?”
The Burnside brother gave her an odd look. Shalise couldn’t blame him.
“Just something to think about. Not every bad guy is actually a guy.”
“U-um, maybe we should be going now?” Shalise said. She took Eva’s arm in her hands a lightly pulled her away. Thankfully, Eva didn’t protest.
“Y-You’re not actually going to kill them, r-right?” Shalise whispered.
Eva looked at her like she was crazy. If she had eyes, Shalise imagined that Eva would be rolling them. “Of course not.”
“Good,” Shalise said with a smile. “Sometimes, it is hard to tell if you’re joking or not.”
Chapter 003
Brakket had become polluted since this time the previous year. At least three demons freely walked the streets. Their stench wafted through the streets as a dead skunk on the side of the road might. It wasn’t so much a smell as it was sense, but that was just how Arachne explained it.
Still, the news worried Eva. There were apparently three demons running around where Eva was certain there had been only two.
That was not including Arachne herself.
There were traces of others. According to Arachne, those were more like wisps in the air; either they left, went back to Hell on their own, or were banished.
These three demons as well as the other wisps excluded both Arachne herself and Ylva, of course.
One, of course, was Zagan. Both Eva and Arachne decided together to stay as far from him as possible. They had been allies of sorts while the nuns were in town. The mutual enemy left and Eva wasn’t willing to test the waters.
Another was the lesser succubus associated with Zagan. Likely not willingly. She didn’t smell very powerful, according to Arachne, but the association made her dangerous. That the succubus was Martina Turner’s secretary was a minor footnote.
But the third… Arachne took a deep breath of the early evening’s air. “The third smells weak. Not laughably weak, but weak all the same. I want to tear it apart. I haven’t torn things to bits in so long. You wouldn’t even let me fight that nun.”
“Did you want to get between her and Zagan?”
Arachne’s frown turned into a growl. “She hurt my Eva.”
Eva simply shook her head. “Focus on the future. Next time, Sister Cross might do something stupid enough that warrants having her fight you. For now, let’s concentrate on this other demon.”
The other two weren’t hostile at the moment. Even if they were, Eva wasn’t entirely sure what she would do about it.
“Maybe,” Eva said, “it won’t be very friendly. If you do start tearing it apart, try to keep the eyes intact. I want them.”
The third demon, however, was in the complete opposite direction. As far from the academy as one could get without actually leaving Brakket–which wasn’t actually that far.
Especially not for someone like Arachne.
Or someone with Arachne’s legs.
Eva ran alongside Arachne over the rooftops. They hopped over the gaps, ran some, and hopped some more. It had taken some lessons with Arachne over the weeks, but Eva managed good enough control for the small hops.
Jumping the gap between the streets was out, however.
Not because of any fault in the legs Arachne gave her. The legs were working fine and proper. The problem lay in Eva’s spine and hips. Namely, they were still too human. Too weak.
She wasn’t willing to risk the impact without learning how to properly absorb shock in her legs. If it was even possible to do that without stressing the rest of her body.
A worry for another time. For now, running along the rooftops sufficed.
“It is gone,” Arachne said as she came to a sudden stop.
Eva slid across the roof as she tried to stop herself. She lost her balance and had to catch herself on her hands. Tick off another good thing about Arachne’s carapace, Eva thought; the hard chitin didn’t get skinned as her hands and knees hit the ground.
It was a good thing she chose to wear a skirt. After the thrashings that Zoe Baxter gave her in the last two seminars, Eva did not need any more holes in her remaining pairs of pants. She hadn’t planned on clothes shopping until just before school started back up, but that proved impossible with her new legs.
At the rate she was damaging clothes, she’d have to go shopping again.
Picking herself up to her feet before Arachne could say or do anything, Eva turned to look at the demon. “What’s gone?”
Arachne stared for a moment. She watched as Eva brushed off her knees. With only a sly smile on her face, Arachne said, “the demon was either killed, sent back, or went back on its own.”
“Can we at least find out where the demon was?”
The hair tendrils swayed side to side as Arachne shook her head. “Somewhere in the general direction we were headed. If I remember right from when I was looking for a home like the prison, the buildings soon end and houses start up. They have some distance between the neighboring houses, but are still numerous enough to take a while to search.”
Eva sighed as she turned back in the direction they had been running. She couldn’t actually see much of anything, aside from the rooftops she had coated in a thin layer of her own blood. No people lived in the buildings they had been running across. Several windows were broken or boarded up.
An abandoned section of town.
“Nothing to narrow it down?”