Behind the woman, two void portals swallowed up the remains of what could only be her guard demons.
The woman looked up, locking one green eye and one red eye with Martina’s eyes.
Martina took a casual sip of her drink as she looked over the woman. She held no obvious focus. No wand, no book, no gemstones. She had no rings on. Not a mage?
But she had just killed two demons. Granted, she may have ambushed them, but it looked like she had torn them apart with her bare hands. And with that eye…
“A half-demon? Or did you graft the eye?”
“Hellfire?” the woman said back. “You know that’s made by mortals who thought it would be a cool name? No relation to demons at all.”
Frowning, Martina brought the glass to her lips once again. Of course she knew that. She had become addicted to the taste long before she summoned her first demon.
And the hunter hadn’t answered her question.
“Here to talk?” Martina asked. That would be the best case scenario. Anything to delay until Zagan got off his ass and finished up with the armored hunter. Or even until Catherine returned. “Or here to fight?”
“Here to kill.”
“I see.”
The hunter dashed across the room without further preamble.
Martina dove to the side, dropping her glass as she moved. She forced her magic into the summoning circle in the center of the room, hidden beneath a large rug. There was no enticement set. She was opening the portal, a calling to any demon who might answer.
Frankly, she didn’t care what kind of demon she got. Though she was hoping for something marginally stronger than an imp. It was doubtful that such a pathetic being would even give the hunter pause.
There were no shackles around the circle either. A good thing in this case. So long as the demon went after the hunter and not her. Normally Zagan would be present. He was the best deterrent to any subterfuge, better than any set of shackles created by man, in any case.
The hunter jumped away from Martina, landing in the center of the circle. She clenched her fist and slammed it down into the floor.
Audible cracks ran through the floor.
Martina felt her magic backfire before she saw it. A sudden twist of her magic in a way that was not meant to be.
She cut off channeling her magic into the circle.
Too late.
The damaged circle rumbled before exploding outwards, filling the air with dust and debris.
Martina flew back, hitting her hip against the edge of her desk. Groaning out, she breathed in a cloud of dust. She descended into sputtering hacks and coughs. Pulling up the edge of her shirt to cover her mouth, Martina tried to breathe in a lungful of filtered air as she looked around for her opponent.
The cloud of dust obscured everything more than a foot away. There were shadows around.
One moved.
Martina used her rings to fire off a sickly green bolt of lightning.
“Summoning more demons? Tisk, tisk.”
She whipped her head around and immediately shot off another bolt into the corner of the room.
“I appreciate a fight as much as the next hunter, but I’d say that we have our work cut out for us with what is already around.”
A different corner, where the sound had come from, exploded from another lightning bolt. More dust and debris filled the air, sending Martina into a fresh set of coughs.
Her eyes burned. The shadow was moving around faster and faster, making Martina dizzy as she tried to follow it around her room.
“You kill me,” she coughed through her shirt, “and Zagan will be off his leash. You don’t know the destruction he will cause. He’ll kill everyone around. Innocent students, teachers, children.”
“Ah, I’m sure Clement will be broken-hearted to hear that. Unfortunately for you, you mistake me for someone who cares.”
Martina didn’t launch another lightning bolt. That tactic was obviously not working. She had to try something else.
Building up her magic, Martina tried for a teleport.
Only to collapse to her knees as she felt like she had run head first into a brick wall.
“Zagan,” she shouted, “help me–”
A cold hand pressed around her mouth, cutting her off.
“Calling for help? Is that all you can do? That is why you will die. One less summoner around will make our job much easier.”
Martina gripped the hand. The arm led somewhere behind her, but she couldn’t take the chance of missing again.
With the hand still around her mouth, Martina cast a sickly green lightning bolt straight at the arm.
Her body was wracked with pain, convulsing as the lightning tore through own flesh.
Still, she kept it going. More lightning, more and more. It was tearing through the hunter’s body just as much as it was hers.
Steam pouring off her body, Martina collapsed to the ground as her mind went blank.
Chapter 026
Eva snapped into being on the gate she had made within her new dormitory room. She wasn’t even that wobbly from the teleport. Still, she took a moment to steady herself before moving around.
In that moment, she glanced around. Both with her eyes and her less mundane senses.
She immediately froze.
The very first thing that she noticed was Zagan. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel him. His overwhelming presence occluded everything else. Whatever had happened, he wasn’t trying to hide in the slightest.
It was terrifying and awe inspiring at the same time. Her heart hammered in her chest, screaming at her to run despite her mind claiming that Zagan was an ally.
Eva held her ground. It was all she could do to stand still. Digging her feet into the ground, Eva focused on calming down. Deep breaths helped, but only marginally.
No other presence, not even that of Ylva’s, could be felt through Zagan’s blanket of power. Prax and Catherine had both left the prison before Eva and she couldn’t sense either of them.
Hopefully that was just Zagan overpowering them and not something worse.
Prax and Catherine should at least be nearby. Ylva would be off with Zoe and Juliana. Given that the dorm room was empty of everyone else, Eva was assuming that they were out at the apartment building. Maybe even helping Zoe pack, unaware of the event out here until Ylva arrived. Though, Juliana might be wherever her parents were staying. Even bedridden or wheelchair bound, Eva had a hard time believing that Genoa would miss what was happening at the moment.
In fact, she would be surprised if regular mortals couldn’t feel Zagan.
Eva couldn’t see anything out the window. It looked out the back of the building, away from Zagan’s presence and the main Brakket Academy building, so that wasn’t all that surprising.
What she did notice were the purple lines in the sky. Since they had first appeared, they had been somewhat dim. Faint and barely visible in the daylight while simply there after nightfall. Now they were bright and almost glowing.
Whether that was because of Zagan or because Martina had summoned so many demons was a question better left to Devon.
Of course, he hadn’t come with her.
Eva had left after everyone else because she had taken the time to warn Devon.
Even discounting the issue that he couldn’t teleport alongside her without winding up as ground meat, Devon wanted nothing to do with demon hunters. He was perfectly content to watch Brakket City burn so long as he was left alone. He had even tried to stop Eva from coming.
Something Eva would hear nothing of.
She had friends here. Friends that might need help.
Zagan could hold his own. Whatever he was doing, Eva was sure that he would come out successful. Juliana and Zoe should both be away from the school and with Ylva. Eva considered running after them, hunkering down while Zagan solved all the problems.