Maybe giant bulls had an enhanced sense of smell.
Zagan ignored her actions, bringing up a thumb to stroke the tip of his chin. “Perhaps the imp brought a creature to its domain whereby the creature was summoned in its place. It could have been invading the imp’s domain much as you and your little friends did to that poor demon I slaughtered.”
Zoe stepped forward, looking Zagan in the eyes. “Does it have anything to do with the situation regarding Hell itself?”
“I suppose we won’t know until we figure out exactly what that creature is. However, I would say that we should eliminate more mundane theories before jumping to something quite so fantastical.”
“Let’s try summoning up an imp,” Eva said. “If it works like normal, then we can probably write this off as some oddity. If we get more of those things,” she thumbed over her shoulder towards the large block of ice, “then we’ll at least know not to summon more imps for our class.”
Zoe turned to face Eva with a sharp glare. “Ah, yes. We still haven’t talked about your ‘class.'”
Eva winced and held up her hands. While she had thought to invite Zoe one of these days, she had intended to broach the subject with far more tact than Catherine showing up and blurting out that something went wrong.
“Martina Turner thought it was a brilliant idea,” she said, trying to force as much sarcasm in her voice as possible. “Take up its inception with her, not me.”
“You’re still teaching it.”
“I’m here to keep the stupid children out of trouble.” And maybe get some help for Shalise and Juliana, she thought with a subtle glance towards Zagan.
The devil was pointedly ignoring the conversation, looking above-it-all as he so often did.
“And a great job you’ve been doing of that,” Zoe said, pointing at the room.
Hands on her hips, Eva frowned. “Well sorry. Being attacked by rogue nuns has a way of making one late to other appointments.”
“Nuns?” Zagan said, attention suddenly on Eva. “The Death nuns, yeah? After the hel’s little temper tantrum, I half expected them to vacate their presence on the North American continent.”
“Hence my usage of the word ‘rogue.'” Eva did not feel it wise to mention exactly who said nun was to Zagan. There was always the chance that he wanted to finish their fight.
Though he brought up an interesting topic. Eva had heard from Ylva about how the inquisitorial division of the Elysium Order had been taken apart–somewhat literally–but she had never heard what happened to the Elysium Order in general. Maybe she would question Sister Cross on the topic provided the nun could contain her vitriol.
That was a laughable idea.
Having Nel spy on her former companions seemed far more likely to get the information.
Unfortunately, Eva didn’t care enough about the Elysium Order to ask Nel to spy. Mostly because Nel was already searching for Sawyer. While Eva planned to solve that issue on her own, if Nel could find him first then all the better for her.
“In any case,” Eva said to Zoe, “if I weren’t around supervising, Catherine would be left to teach the class on her own. And look where that got them today.”
There, Eva thought triumphantly, turn it around and make Catherine and Martina Turner the bad guys.
“Neither of you are responsible adults,” Zoe said, crossing her arms. “You aren’t an adult and Catherine is far from responsible.”
“Martina originally wanted Devon for the project,” Zagan said, oh so helpfully.
Zoe let out a long sigh as she rubbed her forehead. “I’ll be attending classes from now on. And if I can’t make it, Wayne will be there. If neither of us can make it, cancel class for the day.”
Eva blinked in surprise. “You’re… not going to try to stop it completely?”
“As much as I hate to admit it, the idea may not be wholly flawed. Especially given the Hell Convergence issue. Having more humans who are knowledgeable about such things couldn’t hurt.”
“Even though they’re kids?”
Zoe’s lips formed into a thin line. “Are you deliberately trying to get me to have second thoughts about it?”
Eva just shrugged. Honestly, she still wasn’t too pleased with the project herself. She couldn’t exactly say as such in front of Zagan. Not if she wanted his help.
“Perhaps,” Zoe said, “I’ll feel out some of the other staff. We’ll see who might be more ambivalent to the idea of demons.”
“I’ll leave that to you.” Eva almost thought about suggesting a second class for the adults. Unfortunately, that would just take up more time than she was already expending on the class.
Turning to Zagan, Eva said, “is there anything else we need to do while here? If not, I’ve got a prisoner to take care of.”
Zagan brushed his hand off to one side. “Do what you want. I have a few… appointments of my own to keep.” That said, he started walking off down the hall, no longer paying any attention to Zoe or Eva.
Closing and locking the door to the room, Eva glanced around. “Wasn’t there supposed to be a security guard here?”
“Daru left partway through your warding,” Zoe said, pulling out her cellphone. After a few quick taps on the screen, her phone buzzed a response. “Alright, Lucy is on her way. She will keep watch on it over the night. But are we really going to leave it here, in the school with all the children running around?”
“It would be nice if it could stay on ice until Devon got back.” Ignoring Zoe’s eye-roll, Eva continued. “I’m not about to trust that Zagan spoke all of his thoughts about the creature. Even if he did and truly doesn’t know, I’m sure Devon would have something intelligent to say about it. Probably something more useful than ‘it is an enigma’ in any case. Or…” Eva trailed off, biting her lip.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh nothing,” she said with a shake of her head. Both of them started walking down the hallway towards Brakket Academy’s main entrance.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Eva responded. “I just thought of another magizoologist that might find that creature interesting. I doubt Carlos will be all that enthused to receive a letter from me.”
“You haven’t heard from them?”
“Not since Genoa was moved from the school infirmary. Juliana didn’t even tell me what hospital they were going to. She probably hates me,” Eva said with a sigh. “And Arachne too.”
“I can’t exactly fault her for the latter. You, on the other hand, most definitely saved Genoa’s life.”
“If I had better control over Arachne, none of it would have happened. Though, she has made a few interesting decisions as of late.”
Zoe quirked an eyebrow as she glanced down at her side. “Oh?”
“For instance, Sister Cross is still alive. I didn’t even have to warn her off.”
Shaking her head, Zoe let out a disapproving hum. “To be perfectly honest, I would much rather have her stay locked up in her room.”
“I…” Eva sighed. “I just want things to go back to the way they used to be. There is a disgusting, awkward feeling between the two of us at the moment. Hopefully, hunting Sawyer will cheer her up. The thought of it is enough to make me giddy, so it should do wonders for her.”
Walking a step in front of Zoe, Eva smiled slightly as she caught the professor’s lips pressing together in a frown through her blood sight.
“Not going to try to stop me?” Eva said when Zoe failed to respond.
“It is in my opinion that Sawyer needs to be put down. Permanently. I would rather take out a bounty with the Guild or direct the Elysium Order in his direction.”
“But you’re not going to stop me.”
“Just take Arachne with you. Ylva too.”
“I don’t know about Ylva, but Nel wanted to fight. Get herself a little revenge, I think.”