“Dead.”
Eva reached up and rubbed the top of her head.
“I was confused at first,” Zoe said, breathing in deep pants. She reached her arm up and wiped off a slew of sweat onto her sleeve. “You charged out at me. Naturally, I didn’t want to kill you. ‘You’ didn’t seem to have the same reservations.”
Eva shook her head, fuming at herself for failing again at defeating Zoe. Sure, it might have been a bad idea to have tested something new in the middle of battle, but it wasn’t like things were going swimmingly before that point.
“Then your arm came off and everything. It was quite the shock, I almost stopped then and there.”
“Good thing you didn’t,” Eva said with a sigh, “it wasn’t told to stop fighting.”
“What was it?”
“A new spell I found. It’s going to take a lot of getting used to before I try again in a fight. There’s a one-way sensory feedback from it to me, so I saw double of everything. Extremely disorienting.”
Zoe tapped her chin. “Sounds useful if you can overcome that issue.”
“Maybe I’ll practice by sending it to history class.”
“I think that someone bumping into it too hard might raise a few uncomfortable questions. Can you make one of someone else?”
“Not sure. The book didn’t mention anything about that, but I’d need a sample of someone else’s blood at the very least. I’m not sure if they’d get the feedback effect or if I would… or if it would even work at all because they weren’t the ones to cast the spell.”
A musing hum from Zoe filled a few minutes of silence.
“You never said why the sudden interest in sparring,” Eva said. “Not that I don’t appreciate the opportunity to test out my new stuff…”
“Frankly, you’re too much trouble.”
Eva immediately tried to protest. Zoe held up a hand.
“Since you came to Brakket, there’s been zombies, nuns, and demons–so many demons–all running about causing problems.”
Eva pressed her lips together in a frown. “I’ll have you know, very few of those are my fault. Especially the necromancer and the nuns.”
“Be that as it may, the relaxing life of a teacher just isn’t what it used to be. And then there is the thing.” She shook her head from side to side. “I can’t afford to sit around unpracticed while the world turns to chaos around us.”
“So why not Wayne?”
“Oh, we have been sparring. You think this is my first day? He just had a meeting to attend with a parent. I thought you might be interested. And it made for a nice change of pace.”
That made sense. She seemed a lot better than she had during her summer lectures. Until just now, Eva had assumed she had been simply holding back for the students’ sake.
Which just made all those losses all the worse. If Eva couldn’t even beat ‘relaxing teacher life’ Zoe, how was she supposed to compete against a gung-ho version of the woman.
Maybe it was time to go for some hardcore combat lessons herself.
“That reminds me,” Eva said, “I have a little project that I’m working on that I could use some help with. Nothing vital or urgent, just something I’d like to talk to you about in the near future.”
“I have time tonight,” Zoe said. “All my papers are graded and lessons are planned. For the most part. I still have a good amount of work to catch up on from when Catherine took over my post. Taking a break from that for today, however.” She leaned into her shoulder, removing more sweat. Pulling away with a face, she said, “I could use a shower first. We’ve been out here far longer than I wanted.”
“Ugh,” Eva muttered to herself as she peeled away from the tree, healing the small cuts on her back as she moved. She tugged at her shirt. There were more holes than back on it. “I think this shirt has outlived its usefulness. How about in an hour at the women’s ward?”
“You need a ride out?”
Eva shuddered. “No thank you.”
With a shrug of her shoulders, Zoe vanished. A chilling blast of wind, colder even than the ambient February air, gave Eva the shivers.
Building up magic for her own teleport, Eva activated it, fully expecting and preparing for the unpleasant trip through Hell.
She was not prepared for the head-on collision with a brick wall.
Eva collapsed straight to her knees, clutching at her brain. It wasn’t a literal brick wall, but a metaphysical one. Wards.
A female figure appeared in her blood sight, standing just in front of her.
“No one ever thinks to ward against banishment. Who would want to keep demons from being sent back to Hell?” There was a sharp laugh from the woman. “You should have left with the other.”
Eva didn’t have the energy to snip out a witty response. She recognized the blood veins and the object inserted into the woman’s chest. Putting on her most confident expression, Eva glanced up.
“Hello, Sister Cross.”
Chapter 005
“You’re looking… well,” Eva said.
Sister Cross looked anything but. The last time Eva saw the nun, she was in casual clothes. But the time before that, she had been fighting Zagan. During that fight, she had got somewhat beat up. Torn clothes, broken arm, cuts and scrapes.
Whatever had happened to her was apparently worse than fighting a legitimate devil.
As she was now, Sister Cross looked worse than that fight. Her face had bruises aplenty and her clothes were little more than burlap rags. Worse, several of her injuries looked fresh. Her left arm had a definite fracture in it, but she didn’t appear to notice. One particularly gruesome boil on her cheek had a slather of pus running from it.
Even if she had escaped from some horrific battle, she should have taken care of herself before seeking out more trouble. At the very least, did she have no clothes to change into? She could have stolen some. Charity shops would probably have given her a set of clothes for free just for showing up looking like she did.
Eva’s head snapped back, interrupting her observation, as a fist connected with her right eye.
The hand moved back behind Eva’s head. Gripping a fistful of hair, Sister Cross yanked Eva’s head up to look at each other face-to-face.
“Where is she?”
Pinching her eyes shut, Eva bit down on the pain. “Now, now, no need to get violent–”
The hand holding her hair pulled down, ramming Eva’s forehead against a kneecap. Her vision split in two as Sister Cross pulled her head back up.
“I told you before. One chance. And you blew it.” Sister Cross spoke with her teeth grit together. A vein on her forehead bulged slightly. “Tell me where she is and I’ll kill you fast enough that you won’t feel a thing.”
Eva took a deep breath before responding, buying herself a few extra moments to focus past the hammering in her head. “Don’t you mean or?”
The grip on Eva’s hair tightened and started pulling her back towards Sister Cross’ knee.
This time, Eva was ready.
Eva stepped straight past Sister Cross, reappearing at the nun’s back. Without a moment’s hesitation, Eva clasped her fists together and threw all of her weight into knocking some sense upside Cross’ head.
Sister Cross’ rolled with the blow, tumbling to one side before facing towards Eva.
White light burned out of the nun’s eyes.
Eva stepped again, avoiding the path of a blindingly white bolt of lightning by a split second.
Electricity crackled up and down Sister Cross’ skin. Arcs peeled off of her hands, lancing into the ground around her in jagged patterns.
“Get back here!” Cross shouted as she swung an arm towards Eva. Four prongs of lightning trailed after her hand, moving more like a multiple-tailed whip than any sort of bolt.
Given how much it had hurt to be struck by a single and likely low-powered bolt, Eva wanted to keep her distance from the lashes.