Juliana kept her breath very slow. Her pounding heart told her to run, to throw up, to scream, to attack. She ignored it.
With the slightest flick of her wand hand, the metal covering half of her body came to life. It swam over her skin, building thick around her stomach, chest, and neck. She took a slow, careful step towards the door.
They noticed.
Her foot touched the ground. All three stopped moving and pointed towards Juliana.
She froze.
They didn’t.
Slowly, almost uncertainly, one squirmed in her direction. It clambered over the top of one of its companions.
Juliana internally cursed as it left a trail of blood on its way towards her. She needed more metal or earth, neither of which were available. The large sphere she had from the crypt was still in Eva’s prison. All the furniture was wood. The fridge might work, but it was halfway across the room.
Metal shifted beneath her black shirt. Some coalesced in her hand. It formed into a single sharp blade about a foot long. The rest she spread as thin as she could over the rest of her body, leaving only tiny slits for her eyes.
The things didn’t look like zombies–
Juliana waited.
The thing crawled to her feet.
Juliana gripped her makeshift sword in both hands. She waited until the last moment. With the creature at her feet, Juliana slammed it straight through what she hoped passed as the creature’s head.
The thing squealed. Rapid, high-pitched noises pierced the air.
She pulled back her hand and jammed it in again. The sword slid, chopping off a large chunk of meat.
The screams continued. The sword was left behind as Juliana stumbled backwards, pressing her hands over her ears.
It didn’t help. The shrieks rattled around her metal helmet.
She almost missed the two other things crawling towards her. There was no peripheral vision in her helmet.
They moved much faster than the first one did.
Juliana made a dash into the kitchen. Jumping onto the counter, she put one foot through the microwave and both hands into the fridge. She reinforced her armor as much as she could before the two things arrived.
She shoved the remains of the microwave off the edge of the counter, landing on one of the creatures trying to climb up.
It screeched louder than the first one.
Juliana shut out the noise the best she could and turned to the last pile of meat.
Its fleshy fingers slid over the smooth surface of her legs.
She took an instant to admire her metalwork. It was a good thing she reinforced her armor if the way it tore her pants was any indication.
More metal flowed from the fridge onto her free leg. It formed long spikes out of her foot.
With all her effort, she kicked.
The thing squealed like the rest as she kicked again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
And again.
“Juliana.”
And again.
And again.
“Juliana!”
And again.
A cry of her name startled her. She looked up, ready with her sword.
The sight of Zoe Baxter alongside one of the dark robed nuns stayed her hand.
Juliana looked down at the slaughterhouse that had once been her kitchen. All three corpses lay in pieces around her. The one she initially stabbed must not have been dead, it lay to one side of the kitchen. No less than forty of her small swords stuck out from various places.
The legs and arms of the one beneath the microwave were spread across the room.
The final one was little more than chunky salsa covering the floor.
Juliana looked back to the two adults standing at the precipice of the gore.
“It’s okay, Juliana,” Zoe said softly, “they’re dead.”
Juliana avoided looking down. She kept her gaze up and tried to swallow the rising bile. Her helmet was the only thing keeping Zoe from seeing whatever her face looked like. Not something she wanted to parade around.
“It took you,” Juliana started. Her voice echoed in her helmet She had to stop and take a deep breath. “Took you long enough.”
“Someone has tampered with the wards,” Zoe said. At least she sounded apologetic about it.
“Eva’s runes?”
Zoe shook her head. “I tested them, they only interfere with magical means of visual observation. There are several wards to detect trouble. At the very least, one should have detected the broken glass. Another should have detected blood, a third should have detected excessive use of magic. There are more but needless to say, none worked.”
It was probably them. Neither her mother nor Eva seemed to like the sisters. They probably took down the wards to draw out an attack like this.
Not that she’d voice her suspicions right in front of one.
