“At least that means that the syringe is probably clean,” Eva mumbled.
Thankfully, Eva couldn’t sense any blood—dried or otherwise—on the glass or needle when Devon pulled the syringe from his desk. The glass looked clear and it even had a little plastic cap over the sharp point.
Eva held out her arm as Devon uncapped the needle and approached. With her main complaints apparently unfounded, she had no real excuse not to let him. Especially with how much he would grumble if she made a fuss about it all.
The blood entering the glass portion of the syringe was as black as Arachne’s. It was the first thing that Eva noticed. Even in the last few months, her blood had still had a faint red tinge to it. Just enough to signify her inferiority.
Now that tinge was entirely gone.
She needed to do some blood tests of her own. If her blood was fully demonic, she wouldn’t need to rely on bloodletting Arachne all the time. She was certain that Arachne would still offer to donate some, and Eva would accept if only to keep her own lethargy down, but being entirely made up of worthwhile reagents would help in plenty of situations where she might otherwise be in trouble.
“Catherine still wants to perform her ritual,” Eva said as Devon withdrew both the needle and the tentacle around her arm.
“After what happened with you? Foolish,” he said. However, after a moment, he shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose earlier is better. Doing so while the status quo hasn’t changed would keep any oddities from happening. And if whatever entity or Power interfered with your treatment expended energy doing so, she is less likely to have anomalies in her ritual.”
“I think that is the opposite of what she is hoping for,” Eva said. She paused for a moment as she considered his words. “Whatever entity or Power? You don’t think that it is Void?”
“Most likely, given the portal and the intention of the treatment. With all the oddities going on, I’ll hold off on ruling out anything for the moment.”
Devon set the syringe on his desk. “I’ll get back to that as soon as I initiate Catherine’s ritual.”
“So, I am going to be involved in this ritual?”
“You haven’t seen any other demons around, have you?”
“Actually, yes. The wax demon is somewhere around here right?”
“Off in solitary confinement with plenty of shackles around her cell. Not going to bring her out for the ritual. Keeping her dominated throughout would be tiring.”
Eva gave a slight nod of her head. Losing control of that one could be intensely painful at best. The headaches it delivered were not to be underestimated. “But I thought you might try one last time to summon a demon or two.”
“It is concerning that we haven’t been able to summon any demons, but not something that should interfere with the ritual. Catherine and I have taken your incomplete nature into account.” He paused in thought for a moment. “It is starting the ritual immediately?”
“As soon as she finishes the modifications to the circle.”
“I don’t know why you bothered to dress,” he said with a slight harrumph. Eyes drawing up to her forehead, he crossed his arms. “Any other changes aside from the obvious?”
Eva pulled off her shirt without hesitation. Turning to face her back towards Devon, she glanced over her shoulder. “Is there anything odd on my back?”
His hands reached out—or a hand and a tentacle—tracing a line from the small of her back up to her shoulder blades. “Is there any pain around here,” he said, moving his tentacle back down her spine.
Eva shook her head. “I feel you, but nothing hurts.”
As soon as she spoke, Devon’s fingers pinched a bit of skin, twisting slightly.
With a yelp, Eva turned, freeing herself from his assault as she swatted at his still outstretched hand. “What was that for?”
“Just ensuring that you do feel pain. Your back has bright red lines, starting from a single ‘trunk’ at your shoulders and branching out in periodic intervals down your back.”
Eva twisted, trying to see something for herself. There might have been something at her shoulders. Without a mirror, she wouldn’t able to see much. “Red lines? What are they?”
“No idea. Physical mutations weren’t unexpected. Your tongue and teeth…” He trailed off with a frown. “Open your mouth.”
Eva complied, wondering just what had caused his frown.
As he ran his finger over her teeth, Devon actually winced and pulled his hand back. Eva watched as a droplet of blood fell to the floor.
Blinking, Eva ran her tongue over the tops of her teeth, feeling the mountains and valleys that now made up her teeth. Her tongue didn’t get cut. Even pressing it down into the sharp blades kept it whole and hearty. Clamping her mouth shut, she found her top and bottom teeth fit in neatly with each other. The triangular teeth interlocked. A smooth wall had replaced the slightly bumpy teeth that she used to have.
“How did I miss that?”
Devon shrugged. “I barely noticed and I was looking for oddities. Perhaps if you smiled more.” He waved a tentacle before Eva could complain. “We should head down and prepare for Catherine’s ritual. If we’re going to do it, best to get it started as soon as possible. I don’t want to be stuck outside all night.”
Eva sighed, but nodded and followed him out of the room. Arachne kept herself positioned close by.
They made it all the way to the bottom of the building before running into a certain carnivean. The shorter demon blocked the way out of the cell block with her hands on her hips and a glare leveled at Devon.
“This ritual was not in our agreement.”
“So you say every day,” Devon said, brushing past her without apparent concern on his face. His heart rate betrayed his nervousness.
“Last time, the Great King forced me. Not this time. I’m not going to do it.”
Devon paused, turning slightly to frown in her direction. “You will and I’ll tell you why. First, we have another demon we can use if need be,” he said, contradicting his earlier statement about not using her at all. “Second, I still have something you want. If you think that there was only the one loophole in our agreement, you’re fooling yourself.”
Qrycx opened her mouth, but Devon held up his tentacle. The same tentacle that Qrycx had hanging off the top of her head. She glared at it almost harder than she had been glaring at Devon.
“Third, you know what we have been pulling out of Hell lately. I don’t know what is going on down there. You don’t know either. But complain and I’ll banish you to figure it out for yourself.”
Without a second glance, Devon pushed past Qrycx and moved outside.
Eva gave the carnivean a sorry shrug as she moved on, but didn’t really feel bad for the demon. It wasn’t like she was losing anything. Catherine might have helped to create the ritual circle, but Devon wouldn’t have let anything happen to his precious research subject. Catherine couldn’t have changed it to kill them or drain them of their demonicness, if that was a thing. And Qrycx didn’t have anything better to do.
Qrycx didn’t respond save to shy away from Eva. That might have something to do with her newfound power—power that Eva didn’t actually feel herself, having to take Catherine’s word for it. Of course, it might also have something to do with Arachne hovering over Eva’s shoulder, glaring at the carnivean.
Arachne had killed Qrycx twice, after all.
Despite her protests, Qrycx followed along a short distance away from Eva as they made their way back to the ritual circle.
“Eva,” Catherine snapped as they approached. She stood right in the middle of one of the donor spots of the circle. “Remove those scraps of cloth and take a seat here.”
With a slight roll of her eyes, Eva proceeded to do as Catherine instructed. As she did so, Catherine went around getting both Arachne and Qrycx into position. Devon hovered about, checking the entire ritual circle.