Juliana felt her face heat up as she turned away. With her shirt having been torn off, Eva was practically naked.
Coughing lightly, Juliana said, “I imagine she’ll be fairly happy. I don’t think Eva is enough of a team player to want too many people around her. Especially not people as worthless as those hybrids you gave her.”
Willie hummed lightly in acknowledgment.
“As for what she will do, probably find Arachne.”
“And fight her?”
“I doubt it.”
“Oh,” he said, “that’s gloomy.” After a moment’s pause, he opened his mouth again. “As for your question, whenever I get bored. You, of course, are free to leave at any time. And I will stick to my promise, if one of them kills another, I’ll let the other two go.”
Juliana grit her teeth. “You didn’t keep your other promise.”
“Milady, you wound me.” He clutched at his chest and flopped over to one side, limp save for his strings. “Our promise was so rudely interrupted when they cut your strings. Naturally, I could not allow them to simply leave after such a grievous insult.”
Glancing up at him with a frown, Juliana had to wonder what would happen if she cut his strings. Maybe it would incapacitate or distract him long enough for her to get everyone out. Or at least give them a chance to take him out for good.
Disappointment sunk into Juliana’s chest. Willie, being the first demon to seriously speak with her, hadn’t left a poor impression. He was supposed to have become her Arachne. After treating her to tea and being all polite, Juliana felt that he was trying to do the same; endear himself to her so that she would summon him out in the real world.
And then this happened.
Forcing her mother, her friend, and Arachne into some sort of battle to the death?
She certainly wasn’t going to summon him now. There were tons of other demons out there. The prison and Prax had taught her that, at least. Some of those demons had never stepped out of their domains. Surely they would be willing to be her…
Her what?
Friend?
Bodyguard?
Slave?
Juliana pressed her forehead into her hand.
She saw the ease with which Arachne had barreled over skeletons and… and zombies, things Juliana had a tough time dealing with or locked up completely on. It reminded her of her mother.
Which probably said something very unflattering about her mother. It wasn’t a comparison she would be speaking aloud anytime soon, that was for sure.
The point was that it was a strength Juliana lacked.
In retrospect, borrowing Eva’s book was beyond foolish. Arachne could swat away zombies and skeletons with a flick of her finger. The same zombies and skeletons that had given her nightmares for weeks during that first semester.
Arachne should have been the one in those nightmares.
And now there was an Arachne-like being sitting just to her side, gleefully hoping that her mother or Eva would be dead within the next hour or two.
Sighing, Juliana looked back to the screens. Eva vanished here and appeared there, almost too fast for whatever relayed the image to keep up. Her mother continued to pace back and forth inside the city bank. And Arachne… Arachne had started brooding. Again. She wasn’t directing her swarm. She wasn’t even watching the little screens in her room.
Hopefully, she was thinking up a way out of this mess.
One thing still rankled at her thoughts. Something Prax had said–assuming he hadn’t been lying, of course. If Hell was such a hellish place, even for demons, why was Willie burning possible bridges out?
Surely he wasn’t so foolish as to believe that this battle royale would make Juliana want to summon him.
Having stewed in her own thoughts long enough, Juliana decided to simply ask him.
“What do you gain from this?”
He looked over, the movement caused the mask on the side of his head to slide slightly forwards. It wasn’t enough to cover his face, but it hid one eye. He simply stared ahead without blinking or moving it back. “Gain?”
“I’m not going to thank you for this. I doubt I will summon you because of this. In fact, I’ll be destroying the doll eye you gave me as soon as I leave.”
Willie smiled. Not an Arachne smile. Just a regular, human-kind-of smile. He reached up and pinched the side of Juliana’s cheek.
Juliana slapped his hand away.
“Oh milady, what an inflated sense of self-worth you have. Adorable in a delusional manner. You believe that I need you? That you summoning me would ‘make my day’?”
He scoffed. Twice. The second time, he swung his arm from side to side in a dismissive gesture. “You think you’re the only one to have summoned me in forever? Do you fail to realize that talkina–a species of which I am a most exemplary member–are listed in every treatise on diablery?
“I have been summoned more times than I can count in the last three decades. And that rate has only been increasing as of late. Do not presume yourself to be important on account of one destitute demon of Death deciding to take a liking to you. You, milady, are as desirable to me as a dainty bacterium.”
Juliana bristled all while shrinking back in her seat, away from the demon. She opened her mouth, but Willie was not finished.
“Initially, you were to be a source of amusement. Then you show up here. What a delight, claiming that others would surely be coming to your rescue. Of course you wanted to leave. A distraction here, a tea party there. You never insisted on leaving so I never showed you out. Well, I couldn’t allow that, not while there was a chance of others showing up. Others who had the possibility of not being bound by that Damned ring.
“I could hardly contain my anticipation.” He took in a deep breath.
“This,” he swung his arm out from one end of the giant screen to the other, “is entertainment. Entertainment on my terms. No mortals ordering me around. No humans making me their puppet.”
Willie sighed, apparently content with his speech. He sunk back into his chair, staring intently at the screen.
“Perhaps if they fail to kill one another, we’ll start up a new event with a point system. For motivation, of course. The one with the highest score will be allowed to leave. Second place will stay with me forever. And last, well, I have been thinking about brushing the dust off the old guillotine.”
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. It visibly brightened, like the blazing of an ember getting fresh air. “Now silence, milady, or get out.”
Juliana just stared, wide-eyed.
“Ah, your dear mother is finally acting. I had been considering burning the building down to force some action on her part.”
Slowly, Juliana creaked her head back towards the screen. Sure enough, her mother had thoroughly exploded the entire front of the bank. Bug splatters lay everywhere in the blast area, quickly added to by pillars and spikes made of earth dispatching more of the critters.
Juliana bit her lip. She needed to get rid of Willie. Either that or her mother and Eva needed to kill Arachne. Arachne could survive, even if it would be a while before she would be back.
More importantly, her mother and her friend would be alive and, assuming Willie would actually keep his word, would be home.
— — —
Genoa kicked a stone out of her path. Without expending even the slightest amount of magic, it homed in and gouged out the eye of a nearby monster.
Her ‘troops’ trailed after her, sending occasional attacks at the enemy that drifted too close.
Genoa paid them no mind. It wouldn’t be any skin off of her back if they went and got themselves killed. They were efficient and respectably good at fighting, but they weren’t real.
Worse, they were ultimately under control of their puppet master. From a short discussion she had had with the things, Genoa knew without a doubt that they would stab her in the back if she attempted to act outside this little scenario. In that regard, having them die would actually be the better option.