“It is odd,” he said with a nod. “Unless,” he buried his face in his palm, looking about like he wanted to cry.
“Unless what.”
He grabbed an empty vial and threw it. Sounds of broken glass sounded from out of sight. “That damn nun. The pain in my leg isn’t letting me think clearly.”
Eva remained silent, not wanting to draw her master’s ire.
“Well,” he huffed, “I doubt I’ll be able to cash in Death’s boon. Your hel is probably doing that right now.”
“Ah.” At her master’s raised eyebrow, Eva said, “I expected to bargain for her services. She destroyed the phylactery before I could even make an offer.”
Devon sank back into the couch, looking more depressed than angry.
“Well,” Eva said as she scooped the gold jewelery into her bag, “I’ll fetch Arachne and we’ll leave you to your healing and meditations.”
Eva popped out of the room before her master could respond. She stopped by the summoning chamber and retrieved the obsidian skull.
The library of the train station was poorly named. The small office that Devon had added some bookshelves to only resembled a library in that they both had books. Arachne stood between shelves, one needly finger brushing over the spines of the shelved books. She had two books tucked under the opposite arm.
“Arachne,” Eva said, “we’re leaving.”
Eight red eyes turned away from the shelves and focused on Eva. For a moment, Eva just stared, wondering why the undead queen had terrified her with a mere glare. She had dealt with plenty of demons before. Arachne herself was entirely capable of ripping Eva to shreds without a second thought. Yet there was no fear with this demon, unlike Ylva.
“Leaving?” The spider-woman’s word brought Eva out of her reflections.
“I’d like to get home before Master stops being sad and starts being mad.”
A grin spread across Arachne’s face. “Eva’s home?”
Eva found herself frowning. She crossed her arms and said, “I’m still mad at you.”
The grin vanished as Arachne put on her serious aura. “I understand,” she said, “I do not regret my actions.”
Eva maintained her frown for a moment longer. “Come on,” she said as she left the room.
Arachne pulled one more book from the shelf and followed her new master out of the room. Her excitement was almost palpable.
—
“So, this is where you sleep.”
Eva looked up from her log book, which showed only Arachne and herself in the building, to glare at the grinning demon. “Don’t be creepy,” she said.
“I’m not,” she said while glancing about the main lobby. “You place is very… dusty.”
Eva rolled her eyes. “I live on and have cleaned the second floor. But,” she gripped the eager demon’s chitinous shoulder, “you are not keyed into my blood wards. If you go upstairs, you’ll be flayed alive.” Eva paused as a thought occurred to her. “At least, I hope you would be flayed alive. I haven’t actually tested against a full-fledged demon.” Eva replaced the book and turned back to the demon. “Come, let’s go try.”
Arachne folded her arms, her fingers clacking as she drummed them against her armored arm. “Very funny.”
“Suit yourself,” Eva shrugged. She ran upstairs, ignoring the protests of the spider-demon.
Eva tossed her bag onto her bed. Obsidian skull in hand, she made her way to her own summoning room. It was admittedly smaller than the one her master set up in the train station. Far less protected as well. Still, it had the standard level shackles around the universal summoning circle.
It was also the only room not protected by her blood magic. Summoning something only to have them turn into chunky red salsa was a sure-fire way to make all the wrong sort of enemies.
Eva set down the obsidian skull within the shackles. If it was, as her master mentioned, a sort of beacon for Ylva, she didn’t want her popping up anywhere with that touch of death of hers. Eva supposed killing her via her blood wards would be in poor taste, even if she did try to pop in uninvited.
If the obsidian skull wasn’t a beacon, the shackles should still contain most magics until she had a chance to research it properly.
Back in her room, Eva rummaged through her drawers for as many spare vials as she could find. She pulled out ten empty vials and a small cloth bag that had slots for thirty half sized vials. She added in the five vials she used earlier in the evening and headed back downstairs.
Arachne had moved to a bench left in the lobby. Eva almost started giggling at the spider-woman. The normally shiny black chitin of her body had turned half gray simply from sitting on the bench.
“You’re disturbing my dust,” Eva said with a barely straight face.
“Your dust has gotten in all my cracks,” the demon said with a frown. To punctuate the statement, she ran one set of her needly fingers through the joints on her other hand, coming away with a small amount of grime. “Among other places.”
“Maybe you should wear clothes.”
Arachne scoffed at that. “They’d just get torn up when I change.”
