Eva stood, blinking in surprise and shock. The lightning hadn’t even left a mark on the chitin. It was just as shiny and black as ever.
Whipping back around, Eva immediately recognized why. Shalise’s glove was covered in runework. The same runes that she had used back when she had first started on the glove. No alterations. Not surprising, Shalise wasn’t an expert or even mildly experienced in runes. The runes that did exist were not designed for seriously harming even a human, let alone a demon. The glove had essentially been solely to surprise Zoe during one of her training seminars.
Clutching at her chest and breathing out a small sigh of relief, Eva closed her eyes for just a moment. “You scared me,” she said.
“I scared you?” Shalise clutched at her own chest as she leaned back against a tree. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”
“You aren’t,” Eva said, voice flat. Being able to see into people’s bodies had greatly increased her ability to tell truth from lies. At least in relation to exaggerations like that. Shalise’s heart was beating, and fast, but nothing out of the ordinary. “But what are you doing out here?”
“Lynn told me to run. So I ran. We already decided on what I should do if something happened. I’m to run out here, pick a direction, run around, and essentially get myself lost.”
Shalise breathed a light, relief-filled sigh. “If you are all she was worried about, I suppose I can go back before she finds me. Unless you’re here to kill me.” She gave a weak chuckle, obviously—hopefully not believing that. “Or kidnap me. Actually, please kidnap me.” Turning her head to her shoulder, Shalise breathed in a few short breaths through her nose. “I haven’t had a proper shower in forever.”
Eva took a step away with a slight wince. The forest and a light breeze was keeping any scent from Shalise away, but no need to take chances.
“I hate to break it to you, but I have no idea where Lynn Cross is. She did something to you and herself to hide the two of you from Nel. We showed up and haven’t seen her.”
“What? Where–”
A crack echoed through the forest. Where it came from was almost impossible to tell by the sound alone. Unfortunately, there weren’t too many places where it could have come from.
“Zoe might be in trouble.” Eva took three steps before realizing that Shalise hadn’t moved. “Coming or not?”
“Lynn–”
“Might be in trouble too. Come on.”
Eva grabbed Shalise’s arm—carefully—and dashed through the woods. Going backwards was hard, the path through the forest was barely clear and twisted more than once.
A plume of smoke rising in the distance removed all need to navigate the thick brush.
Author’s Note: Along with this chapter, the preview site for my writing should now be live. For those who have read the two chapters posted on my Patreon, there is a third now available. For those who haven’t read them, the site should be available to everyone. Unless I screwed up the permissions. I don’t know if comment moderation will carry over from this site or not, so your comments may not be immediately visible. If something looks wrong or you can’t access it at all, yell at me here or there or anywhere.
TL;DR: Preview of possibly new series available at towercuratorpreview.wordpress.com
Chapter 004
Coughing twice, Zoe waved a hand in front of her face. A quick order shield had been enough to deflect most of the debris. Dust still made it through. While it was possible to make a shield airtight, it generally wasn’t a good idea if she wanted to breathe for more than a few moments.
Of course, she hadn’t anticipated all the dirt being thrown up into the air, effectively blocking off her breathing anyway.
With a whip of her dagger, Zoe quickly cleared away the dirt around her, filling the space with fresh air and letting her see once again.
She almost immediately wished that she hadn’t.
Not much of the campsite remained. Shalise’s tent had been knocked over by part of the makeshift bench while Lynn’s tent was completely gone. A small crater had taken its place, as if a meteor crashed down right on the camp. A mass of tentacles attached to an oversized dog writhed from within the crater.
One of the enigmas.
Zoe didn’t know where it had come from.
At the moment, she didn’t care. She was a bit too busy to think.
Zoe jumped backwards, flinging off a few gusts of razor wind at the tentacles stretching towards her. One of her wind blades caught a tentacle right at the base, shearing it clean off. The tentacle flopped to the ground where it twitched and shook before finally falling still.
They couldn’t be killed according to Ylva, Carlos, and Eva. They could be damaged enough to resemble death. At least for a time.
Unfortunately, chopping off a single tentacle wasn’t enough to permanently hurt it.
That only angered it. It opened its rounded mouth and let out a high-pitched whine. The whine built up, growing louder to the point of sounding like a policeman’s whistle.
All at once, the whistle stopped. Zoe clamped her hands to the sides of her head as a cannon fired inside her mind. She just about skewered herself with her dagger. As it was, she was sure that her hair wound up trimmed just a tad on the one side.
Using the distraction, the enigma charged forward before Zoe could respond. It managed to get one tendril wrapped around her wrist, knocking the dagger out of her hand while yanking her towards its gaping maw.
Never one to travel without a backup, Zoe pulled out the wand that she normally used in the classroom. Another blast of razor-sharp wind sliced through the tentacle holding her wrist. Again, Zoe backed away, feeding the creature a few lightning bolts to cover her escape.
Another whistling whine started up. Zoe didn’t let it get any further. With a flurry of arm movements, Zoe sent out a wave of lightning bolts and a deluge of wind. The whistle cut off partway as the enigma was knocked clean on its back.
Six stubby legs wiggled in the air, failing to gain traction. The mass of tentacles on its back took up the position of legs. Rather than flip around, the enigma scuttled forward across the ground.
With grit teeth, Zoe unleashed a blast of fire at the enigma. Not her specialty, but the lightning and wind just didn’t have enough force behind them.
The flames surrounded the enigma, engulfing it in a bright orange ball. With a thought and a twist of her wrist, the flames collapsed inwards to both crush and burn the enigma at the same time. It took time—Zoe didn’t have the spell prepared in a tome as Wayne undoubtedly would—but the enigma was no longer charging forward. If anything, it was shrinking in on itself in an attempt to keep away from the flames.
At a critical moment, Zoe ceased channeling her magic into the flames and brought up an order shield again.
The collapsing flames exploded outwards, filling the air with fire. The explosion took with it Shalise’s tent and the rest of the wooden bench and table.
And a good portion of the enigma.
Though most of its body was still lying on the ground, the tentacles lining its back were all but gone. Vanished, turned to ash, or otherwise removed.
Breathing out a sigh of relief, Zoe quickly voided the oxygen from the surrounding air, freshened up the air again, and finally breathed back in. Fire had a tendency to consume most everything but the oxygen served as fuel. Removing it even momentarily kept everything from catching on fire. Less to put out later.