“What.”
“What,” repeated Eva.
“What,” Arachne said, “is the big deal?”
The theater-demon turned. “Quiet!”
“It’s true, mother,” Juliana turned her back on her mother once again. “We wanted to hide it from you. We knew you and father wouldn’t approve of our relationship.”
Genoa stepped forwards and gripped Juliana’s shoulders. Juliana flinched away as if struck.
For a moment, they stood at arm’s length. Genoa then pulled her daughter in for another hug.
“Of course I would accept your relationship. Though, Juli, I might have done a poor job explaining some things. Maybe we’ll get your father to talk to you when we get home.”
After a brief session of tears, again, Juliana pulled out of her mother’s grasp. She moved out on the stage, getting closer to the seats.
Eva’s eyes zoned in on a faint glimmer of light a short way above Juliana’s head. It took some concentration and focus before she realized what it was.
“Arachne,” Eva ordered. “Strings.”
The demon didn’t nod, she simply charged.
“Shalise. She has cancer. It started as a cough. Then blood started coming up. Now she–”
Arachne jumped. All of her spare legs swept through the air above Juliana. The shorter blond crumpled to the floor in a heap of her own limbs.
Stepping forwards, Eva placed herself between Arachne and an angry Genoa. Infighting now could be problematic with Willie standing off to the side.
At least, she expected Genoa to be angry. Eva half expected to be trampled in Genoa’s mad rush to Arachne because of some perceived threat to her daughter.
By the time Eva was on stage, Genoa had her daughter cradled in her arms.
“M-mom?”
“Juli,” Genoa said, squeezing her daughter to her chest.
“I’m not pregnant.”
“I–That’s good, sweetie. And did–”
“No, no, no, no, no!” Willie marched up onto the stage. His mask was shoved off to one side. Age lines cracked on his face as it twisted into a scowl. “It was going so well!”
His arms swept out in a wide gesture towards the two Rivas women.
“Their passionate reunion, so strongly desired.” His hands clasped together. One moved up to wipe an imaginary tear from his eye. “Yet their reunion was marred by strife, illness, and forbidden love. They had to push one another away.
“It was perfect.”
“You didn’t have to stop it. I wasn’t going to keep her. Not with that Damned ring on anyway. She even agreed to it.”
Everyone glanced down at the rapidly reddening face of Juliana. She opened her mouth to speak, but the demon beat her to the punch.
“I thought it would make for an excellent jest. Entertainment for my guests.”
Willie’s body bent at the hips, his arms dangled in front of him as he twisted his torso to face Eva. “And you just had to ruin it. They didn’t even get to the best part! Young Juliana was just about to learn that not only did her lover have cancer, but her father does as well.”
The demon had gone completely limp from the waist up. His head hung, lolling from side to side.
Eva blinked. She couldn’t see his face to even guess if he was being serious. Slowly, she turned her head to glance at Arachne.
The spider-demon had her lips partially parted in a look Eva had long since come to recognize as disgust. Every one of her legs twitched at her back while her hair tendrils jittered lightly.
In other words, murderously irritated.
“I didn’t know they aired bad soaps down here,” Genoa said from her place next to Juliana. “Though, it might make sense if a few of them came from here.”
A small seizure jiggled the theater-demon’s strings as he turned. “And you,” he said, “you were doing so well. Then ‘what.’ It wasn’t even a question! No emotion. And everything you said after that paled in comparison to your earlier, tearful meeting.”
Willie sighed. His white-gloved palm met his face. “I know I am working with amateurs here, but the least you could do is have some real genuine emotion at meeting your daughter for the first time in weeks.”
He gave a quick glance over at Juliana. “Oh, don’t worry milady. You performed admirably.”
Looking down at Juliana, Genoa gave her a tight squeeze. Juliana looked up at her with a small smile. “There are some things that are just too strange to hear. I started suspecting something around then, but did not exactly have a way to disprove it. It wasn’t until I saw the strings–and Arachne is lucky I saw them when I did or she would be short several limbs–that I realized what happened.”
Arachne gave a small scoff along with a few mumbled words.
Genoa ignored her and talked over the noise. “When we get home, there will be several talks. Some will surely be joyous reunions. A few will embarrass Juli beyond belief–”
“Mom. I didn’t think I was pregnant with Shalise’s bab–”
“And one,” Genoa said with her voice as hard as stone. Her grip tightened on Juliana’s shoulder. “Will be all about how we don’t allow demons to control our bodies. Isn’t that right, Juliana Laura Rivas?”
Juliana bit her lip–Eva could see the blood break free from her skin. Slowly, meekly, she nodded.
“I believe I asked you a question, Juliana.”
“Yes, mother. That is correct, mother.”
“Excellent,” Genoa said. She stood up, helping her daughter as she went. “Let’s get out of here and have a party–”
A deep, rumbling laughter echoed through the theater hall. “Out of here?” Willie laughed again. “Who said anything about you being allowed to go?”
Eva tensed. The moment she moved, wires drew taut around her entire body. Without a moment’s hesitation, she stepped.
There was a brief moment of freedom before more wires stretched around her body. A sharp pain shot through her left calf–straight through her hardened carapace–that would have sent her to the floor had the wires not been keeping her up. Within her blood sight, Eva could see a steady stream of her blood dripping out of a needle-thin hole in her leg.
It didn’t just fall to the ground. The blood dripped along a fine line stretching out parallel to the ground.
She had clipped herself on a wire. An idiot mistake. Looking harder, Eva could see the glint of several thin wires stretched haphazardly around the theater room.
Eva didn’t attempt to teleport again. Instead, she tried to pull on her vials of blood.
It wasn’t responding. The blood didn’t even dance around inside the vial. It stayed still and unmoving.
Eva could think of only two possibilities. Either Arachne had forgotten to dip her dagger into the shed blood or Willie was doing something.
Since Arachne had not charged ahead or stopped by to cut her out, Eva could only assume her companion was trapped as well.
Genoa was under no such complications. She charged the short distance between her and the theater-demon. Both of her daggers seemingly teleported from their holsters to her hands with how fast she drew them. An iron pole started to form in mid-air behind her shoulder, but Genoa did not wait.
As soon as she was within range, Genoa let out a flurry of slashes, jabs, cuts, and strikes.
Not a single one found her target.
Willie flopped around. The sharp blade of a dagger would home in on his eye and Willie would simply fall backwards. His back bent beyond the point where even an accomplished contortionist would be able to extend.
As Genoa reaimed her missed attack to swipe down towards his thigh, the demon slid straight to one side.
Not slid. He was dragged by thin strings holding him up. The higher points of his body were dragged first with his feet scraping along the ground to follow after his body.
Genoa’s blade did manage to clip one of the strings. Despite it being severed completely, both sides reconnected before the cut portion could fully succumb to gravity’s grip.