Arachne and Devon followed the blond up the angled tunnel. Eva stayed behind for an extra minute and grabbed another few books. No sense leaving them for the enemy after all.
She headed up the tunnel until Eva met up with the group. Devon snorted at the pile of books in her arms. Eva just shrugged. Her master was taking losing an arm far better than she thought he would. Eva lost a leg on one of their jobs, but it had been recovered and reattached. Devon incinerated his arm before heading up the tunnel.
Juliana flicked her wand side to side, sending dirt to be compressed against the walls of the tunnel. The process went a lot slower than Eva expected. Juliana must have been working hard to have dug so far. Either that or she was slowing as she exhausted herself.
Eva hoped it was working hard. The thought that Juliana would collapse and leave them to dig their way out by hand sounded like a terrible idea.
Her fears were unfounded as Juliana broke into the night’s sky.
Devon immediately stepped in the direction of the prison. He didn’t leave a single word before parting.
With a flick of her wand, the tunnel collapsed behind Juliana.
The spider-demon shifted back into a seven legged Arachne-mode. She helped Juliana onto her back, if a bit begrudgingly, and then swooped down and picked up Eva, books and all. Arachne’s chest still oozed blood, Eva noted as the demon took off at a much slower pace than she had taken to get to the church.
As they got a steady pace going, Eva couldn’t help but ask, “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” Arachne said.
“Arachne…”
“Eva. I’ll be good as new tomorrow. I just need to rest for a bit.”
Eva went silent and wriggled up against Arachne. It took a minute before she thought to ask the other member of their group.
“Juliana, are you doing okay?”
The soft sound of Arachne’s steps was all that answered her.
“Juliana?”
“Shouldn’t we have collapsed the tunnel inside the church?”
Eva smiled as a thought occurred to her. “Did you see how they handled the stairs? I doubt they can climb ladders.”
“They were shooting bows and arrows at us.”
“That’s…” Eva felt her face slip into a frown. “We’ll tell Zoe Baxter when we ask her to destroy the book. She can decide what to do about it.”
— — —
Juliana sat on the couch in Eva’s… home? She tried very hard not to look sick. She tried extra hard not to throw up. Something she was slowly getting a grip on as the night progressed.
She especially didn’t want to look weak in front of Eva. Not while the girl was nonchalantly wandering about the place like nothing even happened. Who knows, maybe nothing had happened for her.
The skeletons hadn’t bothered Juliana near as much as a single zombie had. They were far less grotesque and she was more or less waiting for something like that to happen. Doubly so after passing by the huge piles of bones on their way in.
She had asked Eva’s mentor–master, she thought Eva said once–if she should block them up. Maybe if he had agreed, the man wouldn’t be missing an arm.
Was it wrong to think that way? It felt a bit vicious.
The man’s arm had been lying there on the cot. It looked as bad or worse than the zombie’s she had seen in the abandoned house. It was sickening, but the worst was when he just flicked his wrist and enveloped it in the same horrible fire he used to destroy the book. He did it like he didn’t even care.
She hadn’t seen him since they returned. Apparently he had taken over one of the other buildings in this prison.
For being a prison, Eva’s area did have a certain warmness to it. She had rugs and warm wooden furniture. She even had working showers that used the same rune configuration as she set up in their dorm.
Juliana gratefully accepted when her black-haired roommate offered the use of her showers. They were insanely hot for her tastes, but she’d accept a little scalding to get rid of the musk of those crypts. She had been a bit depressed at the thought of putting on her old clothes until Eva walked into the shower room–not even caring that Juliana was completely naked–and set down a clean set of her own clothes. Clean clothes she accepted with thanks.
It was like the girl could read her mind. Maybe she could. The girl had her shield and that spell she used at the very end. They were like nothing Juliana had seen before. Certainly nothing she ever used in her fights with Mrs. Baxter.
Juliana thought that said something about the powers. Something dark.
Then there was Arachne. Arachne currently sat on the other couch in the room. She had her head resting in Eva’s lap while the girl stroked her hair tendril things. It would have been sweet, but there was something off about the way Arachne reacted when Eva offered her lap.
Juliana knew the spider wasn’t just some tarantula. When she introduced herself as Arachne, as
