Another moment of silence descended on the cafeteria after a brief whisper session to transfer her message around the room. Eva watched with a barely concealed smile as half the room lost a good deal of blood from their faces. Many had probably been planning on following along. Whether they would have kept a distance or walked right up alongside her didn’t really matter. She would have been annoyed with their presence.
Eva didn’t really care whether or not the approaching demons would feel the same. Maybe they wanted to meet a bunch of mortals. If all of them were like Lucy and hadn’t ever been summoned before, they might find it exciting.
Though, some of the paling faces had Eva worrying. A few people almost looked sick—at least as far as she could tell through blood sight alone. Hopefully her words weren’t being too distorted as they made the rounds. The last thing she needed was to have the people farthest away thinking that she was going to kill anyone who followed her.
“In that case,” Shalise said, “I think I’ll stay here. I’ve had enough of demons to last a lifetime or two.”
“They are going to be around the school. You’re going to meet them anyway, most likely. You know that right?”
“Well… yeah, but…” Shalise trailed off into a short sigh. “I wouldn’t mind one year of school that was just nice and normal. No zombies. No trips to Hell. No camping out in the woods.”
Eva shrugged. “You picked the wrong school.”
“But I didn’t pick it. Professor Baxter came and found me.”
“Anyway,” Eva said with a wave of her hand in Shalise’s direction. She glanced between Irene and Juliana. “You guys ready to go?”
“I suppose.”
Juliana shoveled in one more spoonful of whatever was for lunch before she nodded her head.
“Great,” Eva said, standing. She nodded to the others. “We’ll see you guys later then.”
—
“Hello Ylva,” Eva said as she walked up to the demon. “And Catherine.”
Both were standing around the center of the plaza between the dormitory buildings. They weren’t really together, just near enough to speak if they wanted to.
Which created the perfect opening for Eva to slip in.
Catherine didn’t respond save for a shallow nod. She, as always, was absorbed in her cellphone. Peeking over her shoulder, Eva found a lack of a game on the screen. A series of nonsensical scribbles covered the screen. It took Eva a moment to puzzle out just what they were. Catherine zooming out was the clue that Eva needed.
It was section of a ritual circle. Likely a new version of what she had already done.
In contrast to Catherine’s lack of response, Ylva turned to face Eva fully.
“Greetings.”
“I know I technically visited you just the other day when Nel helped to find Shalise, but we didn’t really talk. How have you been? Keeping busy with anything interesting?”
Ylva’s cold eyes stared, forcing memories to surface in Eva.
She suddenly recalled just why she had been avoiding Ylva. Perhaps it was subconscious. Eva didn’t think that she had been thinking much of anything while in Ylva’s presence. At least not towards avoiding her.
But Ylva had killed her—or came close enough so as to be indistinguishable—not so long ago.
“We have been ruminating on the idea of Life being Our opponent. Though the motivations of a Power are difficult to pierce, We believe that We have come to a conclusion.”
“Oh?
“Our mother is a primary target. Hel, being a servant of Death first and foremost, is a direct opponent of Life. Aosoth would be another target as another demon touched by Death. Life is targeting Void because of Void’s alliance with Death. An attempt to weaken Death’s influence and power base.”
“But Death has other, non-demonic… uh, servants?” Eva wasn’t entirely sure what the proper terminology was and Ylva had used the word ‘servant’. She had always called them gods. “The Baron isn’t a demon. He was—or is—a human.”
“And the enigmas have made attempts at breaking into the mortal realm as well. Some through Hell—the issue with your dormitory room was not caused by you, therefore the enigmas caused it. Who is to say that the Baron is not a target?”
Eva fell silent, considering. Ylva was probably right. Life was attacking Death and going through both Earth and Hell to do so. When she had agreed to become a guinea pig for Devon’s demonic treatments, he had failed to mention all the politicking between Powers.
Granted, he probably didn’t know. If he had known, they wouldn’t have been so surprised when the enigmas had appeared in the first place.
As they talked, the demons continued to get closer. Eva had been about to ask Ylva another question.
The question died before she could voice it as she caught sight of the approaching vehicle.
Eva wasn’t sure what she had expected.
No. That wasn’t true.
She had expected a shipping container or a bus. Something large enough to carry a dozen demons comfortably. In that sense, she had guessed perfectly.
A bus rolled up to the edge of the plaza. One of the larger charter buses that would look more at home in Florida than around Brakket City despite the bold text on its side stating the name of the academy. Eva could see and sense a number of demons inside.
What she hadn’t expected was for the bus to look like something out of a junkyard. The sides were dented inwards as if someone had taken a shovel all up and down the length. The windows weren’t faring much better. Not a single one was unbroken. Most were missing entirely.
The top of the bus had been peeled back like the lid of a sardine can. Shards of metal, fiberglass, plastic, and whatever else went into the making of bus roofs all stuck out at odd angles. A portion was gone, but the rest looked as if it had been through a blender.
“I hope they have insurance.”
Eva glanced over to Irene and just shook her head.
“Probably best to sell it for scrap at this point.”
Despite the condition of the bus, none of the demons inside appeared alarmed in the slightest. Their heart rates were calm and their gazes around were cool and collected.
Most of them, anyway.
The poor driver—the only person on the bus with an elevated heart rate—was unable to open the door. Whatever mechanisms opened it had been damaged enough that there was only a slim crack. The first demon to the door just turned into a misty form and slipped through, reforming on the other side.
One demon objected to being forced through the small opening and took matters into his own hands. He tore the door from its hinges, tossing it out to the ground before stepping out of the bus as if nothing had happened.
Three demons elected not to take the door at all. One phased through a shattered window, gliding down to the ground. He solidified, brushing off some imagined dust from his shoulder as another used leathery wings to fly up and out of the bus. She landed with enough grace to make Eva think that she was a succubus of some type. Another demon hopped through the hole in the roof, following after the succubus and landing with a heavy thud against the ground.
At least she didn’t crack the bricks making up the ground when she landed. All the effort gone into restoring the dormitory and plaza area would have gone to waste.
As the rest of the demons filed out of the bus, Eva started to notice something.
Every single demon paused for a moment after getting out to stare at Eva. At first, she thought that they were merely looking in her direction. Idle curiosity at the group of humans and demons that had come to greet them.
She quickly decided that idle curiosity was not the reason for their stares.
They were staring at Eva and no one else. Not Ylva. Not even Arachne or Catherine.
Really, she should have expected as much given how Catherine, Qrycx, and Arachne acted around her. But it was still somewhat shocking to see.
And she didn’t quite know how to react to it. Should she go up and say hello? What would they say in response? Surely they wouldn’t try attacking her. If they did, Arachne would jump in without a doubt. Maybe Ylva and Catherine as well, though with how they left Daru out to hang while the demon hunters were around, Eva wasn’t too sure about them.