The shake of her head almost sent her stumbling. Not because of the all-encompassing though gradually lessening pain of her body. It was almost like she was shaking too hard, despite not moving her head any faster than normal. Her hair wasn’t there to act as a counterweight to her brain. Probably her imagination, but the sensation was there.
Without waiting for a response from Irene, Eva sprinted back to the stairwell and climbed it to the top. From the roof, she blinked straight out towards the nearest building. It was a bit too far. Eva reappeared mid-air. She blinked again before she could fall more than a full foot, landing on the roof of another building.
About three inches away from a circle drawn in chalk that was not quite shackles but was definitely unfriendly towards demons.
“That could have been bad,” Eva hissed to herself as she took a step back. She double checked to make sure that there wasn’t another circle behind her before doing so.
Scanning the rooftops, Eva frowned. They were a veritable minefield of shackles. Concentrating harder on more magical effects, she found a number of spherical wards set up around the rooftops and down on the streets. Some might be barriers. Some Eva couldn’t even tell what they might be used for.
Best to avoid them.
However, in scanning the rooftops, Eva spotted her target.
The bright red hair made her difficult to miss.
Eva had no doubt that she had been spotted. And yet, the hunter made no motion. Not a twist of her head or an attack slung in Eva’s direction. For a moment, Eva thought she might be a mannequin designed to lure people closer into some larger trap, but she caught the hunter’s eyes moving ever so slightly.
A couple of roofs away and who knew how many traps in between, Eva now had her target in sight.
Author’s Note: Analyst 001.002 up over on the preview site.
Chapter 021
Juliana turned away from Eva with a slight shudder.
Her skin had cracked and broken in the blast. If her hair loss had been the extent of her injuries, that would be one thing.
It had taken an effort to not throw up when she first saw Eva coming up the stairs. Between her charred black skin, cracks in the char looking like a dried desert, and a red almost glow emitting from between the cracks, she did not look well. Worse, if such a thing was possible, Eva didn’t even seem to notice herself. She walked up with only a ghost of a limp.
‘Terrible’ was the understatement of the century.
But then, while she had been talking, Eva’s skin changed. Some of the charcoal flaked off, replaced by fresh skin. The red glow dampened. She didn’t heal. Not all of her, at least. But the start was there.
It was somewhat creepy.
“Mom,” Juliana said, turning away from the staircase once Eva had disappeared. “She’s going alone.”
“We established that during our conversation. You heard her. She’ll be fine.”
“Not even Arachne is with her.”
“She’ll be fine, Juliana. Stay here and help me.”
“Help you?” Juliana marched over to the window and stared out at the fight below.
“I’ve done nothing so far. What am I supposed to do now? Throw stones at him? I can’t make a giant golem to fight for me and you won’t let me go down there.”
Juliana paused as Arachne moved from her webs at the edge of the fight, darting into the fray. The swordsman tried to move out of the way, but Arachne’s bulk still clipped him. He came out of his flash step in a stumble. Though his step carried him a good way away from Arachne and Genoa’s much slower golem, the doll was on him in an instant.
He twisted out of the way of her first slash and blocked a second with his sword. The stumble and the twist both put him off-balance enough that he didn’t have a steady hand while blocking the strike. He managed to keep a grip on his sword, but it still got knocked to the side.
Leaving him wide open.
The doll brought down her sword again in an overhead strike, apparently intending to split the hunter straight in two.
Ducking his head, he caught the sword right in the center of his off-hand’s vambrace. It didn’t stop the sword completely. The blade bit into his armor far enough to strike his forearm. Bright red blood ran down the blade, dripping to the ground from the end of the hand guard.
Both the doll and the hunter pulled back. The former attempted to strike again, but the hunter activated his speed and once more found himself with a small bit of breathing room.
The golem and Arachne moved in, keeping him from having too much breathing room and pressing their advantage over his injury.
“And what would you be able to do if you went with Eva?” Genoa asked as her golem moved to the hunter’s injured side. “Imagine fighting another one of these people. What would you do against them?”
“I don’t know. Something. Something more than I’m doing here. At least Eva wouldn’t be fighting alone.”
“Or you could find yourself in over your head. These people will not stop with their blades at your throat and ask you to surrender. They will run you through without a second thought.”
She threw her arm out in a wide sweeping gesture out the window. The action came at a cost in her concentration; her golem froze solid, missing an opportunity to grapple the hunter.
He took advantage of the lapse, diving between the golem’s arm and body, using its bulk as a shield against Arachne.
“Look at what they’ve done. There were people out there. Students. Human children. They essentially bombed this place, showing little regard for anyone’s life in trying to hit their target. It is a miracle that everyone had run indoors beforehand.
“If, somehow, they end up walking away from this, I will be personally taking out a bounty with the mage-knights on these demon hunters. Fighting demons? Fine, I can understand that. Attacking a school? Unacceptable. It wasn’t like they were sieging the school. The demons, by all evidence and observation, were behaving and simply attending the school as well.”
Except the demon who the doll killed, Juliana thought. One student had fallen into his trap, possibly more. If the doll hadn’t come along and gotten rid of him, who knew what might have happened. Half the school could be trapped in his delusions.
She refused to believe that her mother had forgotten about him, given Irene and Saija had just told everybody about it less than an hour ago. But, by observation only, the school had been running fine.
Even if the demon hunters knew about Timothy and his indiscretions with his contract, they hadn’t done anything about it. They had gone after Eva and Arachne. Nobody else. Or rather, anybody else had just been a bonus target.
So her mother’s explanation still fit.
“But that doesn’t change a thing. They’re still here now. Eva is still going off on her own. You, Arachne, and the doll are holding off this knight. He only has to fail once and he dies. But even if the other one is severely injured, she could still be a match for Eva on her own. I can’t do nothing.”
Juliana turned, preparing to head up the stairs and see if she could catch up to Eva.
A hand on her shoulder stopped her.
“Juliana Laura Rivas. I won’t stop you. But you come back.”
“Of course I will.”
“Good. I love you.”
Juliana turned back around, staring at her mother. There were no glistening tears in her eyes. Not even a hint of moisture. Her mother was much too hard of a woman for that. There was a certain tightness to her jaw.
“I love you too, mom.”
Genoa gave a curt nod before releasing Juliana’s shoulder. “If your father asks, you hit me over the head and escaped my grasp. In my weakened state, I could do nothing to stop you.”