Seeing where the woman was aiming all too clearly, Eva used both of her hands to keep her open hand away. Eva could do without a little air for a short time. She had lost her eyes once already and that was beyond enough for her.
Having been curled up, Eva’s legs were crunched up against her chest.
Between her body and the hunter.
Eva found herself grinning despite the vice-like grip on her neck. She kicked with both legs, sending the woman flying across the room with her letting out a short scream.
Flipping back to her feet, Eva rubbed her throat as the hunter got to her feet.
And she found her fingers running over her bare neck.
Thoughts of the hunter gone, Eva turned her attention to the floor around her. Searching, eyes roaming over everything.
“Looking for this?”
Eva’s eyes snapped to the hunter.
One hand was held up in front of her. From it, a thin black band dangled, swaying slightly in the air. A small black sphere hung off the band.
Arachne’s beacon.
“Give that back!”
“Hmm,” she hummed, tapping a finger to her chin. “You know? I don’t think I will.” She dropped the band, not taking her eyes off Eva as it bounced lightly against the floor. Moving the tip of her shoe over the beacon, the hunter grinned. Her voice took on a sing-song tune as she spoke. “I wonder what would happen if it were destroyed.”
“I said. Give. That. Back.”
“I–”
The hunter cut herself off. She blinked, taking her eyes off Eva and giving a glance around the room.
Eva took a step forward.
The hunter took her foot off the beacon. She had to in order for her to take a step backwards. She didn’t make it very far. When Eva had kicked her, she had slammed into a wall and hadn’t moved far from it. Far enough for a single step.
As Eva took another step forward, the hunter’s face twisted into a snarl.
She lifted up her foot and brought her heel down on the beacon.
As if in slow motion, Eva watched as the orb cracked and shattered to dust. A spiderweb of cracks started from her heel and spread out over the surface. The webs contained within exploded outwards, latching onto the hunter’s foot.
Eva saw red.
— — —
It is time.
Chapter 027
It is time.
Arachne growled as awareness returned to her. Her face ached. It was as if it were on fire. Given that she had used her head as a shield for Eva, the pain wasn’t too unexpected.
Lifting an arm, Arachne ran her needle-like claws down the smooth chitin that made up her face. Her fingers nimbly moved between her eyes, not scratching a single one.
A simple action, but it brought back memories. After being cast down to Hell, her body had been corrupted by the jealousy and envy of false gods. Her mind hadn’t been touched. Left unmolested, Arachne had found herself in a whole new body. One with all sorts of nuances that she hadn’t been used to.
The simple action of rubbing her forehead could have wound up with her gouging out an eye. Her natural regeneration made accidentally puncturing an eye much less of an issue than it otherwise would have been, but it still hurt. The first time, she hadn’t even known that she would regenerate like she did. With eight eyes, her vision was somewhat different from humans. It was like being suddenly colorblind even though she could still see.
Needless to say, she had panicked a little. Well, a lot. She had already been panicking over the fact that she was a monster, imprisoned within a desolate island in the middle of a pitch black ocean, and was hearing voices inside her head. The color blindness and pain had just been the icing on the cake.
Not to mention the fact that rubbing her forehead didn’t really do much for her. Her carapace wasn’t like human skin. She got very little feeling out of touching anything. What feeling she did get was more of a sensation of pressure. She couldn’t feel. Petting a cat did nothing for her.
Most of that was in the past. She had centuries to come to terms with herself, centuries to grow used to her new state of being. That wasn’t to say that Arachne didn’t find herself wishing things were different. Being able to hug Eva as a more than a mechanical gesture and to feel her hair through her fingers were sore points with Arachne.
At the same time, she wished that her carapace was harder. Stronger. Had it been better, she might not have died when struck by that lightning bolt.
As it was, she had merely been restored. Her face felt the same as it always did. In one piece, which was nice. Arachne had come out half formed before. Just recently, the carnivean had been missing her eyes and head tentacles.
Clenching her fists, Arachne slammed them into each other. Is it ‘just recently’ still?
There was no way of telling the passage of time within Hell. At least, not within her domain. Other demons might have ways, she wouldn’t know. Arachne refused to slave herself to her peers just to learn a few secrets of being a demon. Well, for the most part. Her current agreement with Void notwithstanding.
But the last events that she could remember in the mortal realm had to have happened somewhat recently. She didn’t feel like a half-century had passed. Void had promised her return in a relatively short amount of time, but that could mean a week or a decade.
If too much time had passed, she would be considering their agreement null and void, consequences be damned.
Swinging her legs—all eight of them—out of the nest of webs that made up her bed, Arachne stalked through the halls of her cavernous domain. She had wasted enough time lying around.
Most of her domain had been designed with her in mind. No one else would be able to climb around the holes in the walls. Any guests or intruders would be relegated to the front entryway. Unless they could fly. Or were as good at climbing craggy walls as Arachne was. Even if that were the case, the tunnels between rooms twisted and wound around like a giant maze. It was entirely possible to leave a room from three separate tunnels only to loop around and reenter the room without passing through any others.
Though it was something of a moot point. Never once had someone invaded her domain. Arachne had never had a visitor stop by. Not unless she counted Eva after her kidnapping. Even if she did count that, Arachne had carried Eva around during her visit.
Arachne charged into the gate room.
And found herself scowling.
The gate room was inert. No glowing patterns in the walls or floors. No feeling of a pathway to the mortal realm.
“You bring me back,” she shouted to the walls, “and my beacon is destroyed? It’s time? Time for what? Me to sit around doing nothing?”
Arachne swung out an arm, cutting five large gouges into a stone pillar.
Seething, Arachne turned from the gate room, ready to rush to Eva’s domain. She likely wouldn’t be around at the moment, but perhaps she still made regular visits. Even if she didn’t, Arachne could leave a message before returning to her domain to await a summoning.
Eva couldn’t summon Arachne herself, not without violating the tenets of Hell. Devon would. All she needed to do was get a message to him.
But, in turning from the room, a shimmer in the air caught her eye. A faint purple haze back in the far corner of the gate room.
The haze grew solid, forming a thick line in the air.
Arachne’s fingers twitched as she watched it spread apart. She spread her legs, steadying her stance and readying for combat.
The first thing that came to her mind was the creatures that Eva called enigmas. Monstrous little beings—by Eva’s description—that had been attacking Hell. The second thing was the purple streaks in the sky that had appeared just before the ill-fated venture to the nuns’ church. Purple streaks that were supposedly related to the enigmas.