Pain in her shoulder and upper arm forced her to cry out as she came to a stop. Even through her shirt, Irene could see an unpleasant lump. Her arm wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
Gripping her dislocated shoulder with her other arm, Irene grit her teeth and turned her attention to the scene unfolding before her.
Chaos.
The other students were scrambling around. Some of the older students had their wands out, firing off bolts of electricity or balls of fire at the demon. Others moved to the door, clawing at it in an attempt to escape.
There were still five minutes before the official end of class. Catherine had not unlocked the door yet.
A cynical part of Irene’s mind commented on how much of a fire hazard that was. Catherine could probably unlock it quickly. Unfortunately, she was a little tied up at the moment.
Standing in her fully transformed demonic form, Catherine fought against the demon. She didn’t seem to be doing all that well.
Irene would have thought that an oversized rottweiler would have been easy prey for the succubus.
Catherine had one arm caught in a bundle of tentacles. Her other arm was placed firmly on the demon’s head, trying to keep the tentacles from pulling her arm into its mouth. Her face was twisted into a grimace of frustration.
Behind the demon, the students attacking were not having much effect. Fire washed over the demon’s dark fur without so much as singing. Lightning fared better. Oozing scorch marks appeared around the single spot where lightning had struck.
Since that first bolt connected, the demon had taken to intercepting lightning with some of its spare tentacles. It was somewhat odd to watch it bat away streaks of electricity as if they were physical objects. One tentacle slapped away a bolt, sending it crashing into a desk.
It violated everything Irene knew about electricity–which wasn’t all that much, admittedly.
At least one of the water mages had the good sense to focus on extinguishing the flames that sprung up from the redirected lightning.
With a groan, Irene moved to a sitting position. Even little movements of her arm sent waves of pain flooding through her body.
Still, this was her mistake. She had to at least help fix it.
Pulling her wand from the holster at her side, Irene pointed it towards the summoning circle.
Starting just in front of Catherine’s feet, the ground of the summoning circle started to churn.
It was difficult, concentrating as she was. The pain in her shoulder wasn’t helping matters. Between that, the relatively long distance, and the fact that she was acting on tiled floor–some kind of stone, she wasn’t exactly sure what type–Irene was barely having an effect at all.
She was trying to make pits to latch onto the thing’s legs. It shouldn’t be that difficult. Sure, her final exam the previous year had been manipulating dirt–fairly loose dirt at that, but it was the same basic principle.
Her pits were less hole and more some kind of stone slurry. It was, however, doing something.
Despite Catherine having one arm stuck in place by the tentacles, she was putting up quite the fight.
Anytime the tentacles let up for a moment, to deflect lightning for instance, Catherine capitalized on the moment of weakness. She turned the hand keeping the demon from eating her other hand into a vicious claw aimed straight at the eyes.
Two of the demon’s four eyes were already lying on the floor in small puddles of violet blood.
Her tail wasn’t idle either.
Irene had initially thought that Catherine’s spaded tail was for balance or even decoration. The leathery spade at the tip certainly did not look sharp enough to rend limbs.
Yet that was exactly what it was doing.
The tail darted around almost faster than Irene could follow as if it had a mind of its own. A single cut couldn’t take out an entire tentacle. Each swipe amounted to little more than a shallow cut. The speed is what gave her tail its lethality. A flurry of cuts easily dismembered a snake-like tentacle.
The demon’s tentacles continually tried to interfere. They darted hither and thither, attempting to wrap around and contain Catherine’s tail.
For a brief moment, the demon tried to turn its head back towards the students that were slinging spells.
Catherine reared her own head back before plunging it down into the demon’s head. Her platinum hair went flying around her in a wild mane.
Both of her slightly curved horns came back dripping with violet blood.
With Catherine keeping the demon in one place, it started sinking into the softened ground.
Though nothing changed in her concentration, all four of the demon’s legs disappeared beneath the ground with a loud slurping noise. Its fat belly rested against the tiles, sinking only slightly.
Blinking at the sudden change in the tiles, Irene noted Randal standing nearby. He kept his wand trained on the demon.
No, trained on the ground beneath the demon.
At least someone caught on to what Irene was doing.
Fed up with putting out the small fires around the room, the water mage with burn marks covering her skin started conjuring a large body of water. She managed to rope one of the more panicky students into the task as well.
Before long, a bathtub-sized pool of water hovered over Catherine and the dog-like demon.
Kicking the dog in the face, Catherine swiped her sharp claws and tail straight through the last few tentacles holding on to her arm. She jumped out of the way just as the bathtub of water enveloped the demon.
While the two water mages worked to freeze their water solid, the air mage that had been throwing the largest lightning bolts set to charging up a truly frightening amount of lightning at the tip of his wand.
Steam burst from the watery orb as the most lightning Irene had ever seen outside of a natural storm pierced straight through the demon.
All of the floundering snake-like tentacles seized up. Bubbles of air came from the demon’s mouth as violet blood stained the water.
A moment later and the water froze over. The demon sat within, stilling as the ice froze on the inside as well.
With the demon looking much like an oversized curio jar, the rest of the students started to calm down.
For a moment, there was pure silence.
Well, except for the two remaining students still trying to break down the door.
“You two,” Catherine called out to the students by the door, “do not need to return next class.”
Neither of the two acknowledged her. The locks on the door clicked open as soon as Catherine finished speaking. They both fled from the room without a glance back, shouts and cries fading as they ran down the hall. The noises were cut off as the door swung shut again.
When they were stopped by someone else and asked what was wrong, Irene very much hoped that they would remember the contract that they signed. The consequences of forgetting wouldn’t be pleasant.
Irene had already learned from her actions. Losing her head and fleeing aimlessly was how she ended up nearly dead at the hands of a partial demon just a few months ago. She certainly wouldn’t be making that mistake again.
Brushing back her currently white-blond hair between her horns, Catherine turned in an instant from battle maiden to sultry charmer. The violet blood dripping from her horns and fingers left streaks in her hair. Irene wasn’t quite in the right state of mind to decide whether the blood added to the charm or upped her intimidation factor.
“The rest of you performed adequately. Though Irene,” Catherine said, turning, “should something go obviously wrong again, next time don’t get closer to the circle. I believe that ordeal would have been ended much sooner had my arm not been caught while getting you away.”
Irene grit her teeth. Less because of the admonishment–which she probably deserved–and more because of the increasingly painful ache in her arm. Still, she nodded an acknowledgment at the succubus.