Void Domain, Book 03 полностью

“Don’t know. Get me out, please.”

The eye and mouths vanished as the mass of tentacles increased. They wormed their way right next to Eva’s skin as they burrowed into the elephant’s flesh.

Eva could feel the tentacles as they started pulling away from her. The elephant split apart, crumbling as it did so. The smell was rancid, but Eva was happy to be out.

“You’re all fleshy!”

Lucy had moved to right next to the elephant, all the while still churning the multi-armed creature in her tentacles across the way.

“I thought humans needed clothes?” She rubbed her fingers over the black trench-coat she wore. “Mistress Martina said never to ever take clothes off no matter how much they get in the way.”

“First,” Eva said, “humans just don’t like to be naked most of the time. Second, give me your trench coat.”

“What? I can’t!”

Eva rolled her eyes. “You have other clothes on and I have none. Don’t worry. If Martina Turner complains, tell her it was all my idea.”

Lucy seemed to mull it over for a moment. Eventually, she nodded. At the end of her nod, all of her dissolved into a pillar of tentacles. They squirmed out of one of the trench coat sleeves and reformed into Lucy a step away, still wearing the suit she had on beneath.

Eva picked up the trench coat and slipped into it. There was some slickness on the inside, but she didn’t feel sick or hallucinatory so Eva paid it no mind. The coat was too big for her, she noted with some distaste.

“Third,” Eva said as she turned back to the still prone form of Irene. “I need you to take her to one of the school nurses. Very carefully. No toxins, no squeezing too hard, just gently carry her to a nurse. Do you understand?”

“What about all the monsters?”

Eva frowned. She needed her dagger back. Without Irene, she could teleport and grab Arachne. Together they’d be able to plow through everything.

“What is the rest of the security force doing?”

“Daru is killing things. So is the old guy and the elf. The children are protecting the other children with teachers.”

“Okay, then the old guy and Daru can take care of the other monsters. Once you get her to a nurse, you can rejoin fighting.”

Again, Lucy mulled it over before nodding. She deformed and reformed with Irene in her arms.

Her suit must be part of her body. There was no way it could just float in the swarm of tentacles and put itself back perfectly.

Eva idly rubbed her fingers on the trench coat. It might be tentacles too. Just a sheet of tentacles that had been colored and detached from the mass. It probably wasn’t since Daru wore an identical one, but the possibility was there.

Maybe I’ll get a new trench coat for master, Eva thought as Lucy ran off with Irene. His got more raggedy every time she saw it.

Eva shook her head. Not the time.

She sat down in the shadow of the elephant and started to carefully channel magic into herself for an infernal walk.

Five minutes and a quick flay through Hell had Eva stumbling out of her gateway circle in the prison.

After taking another minute to collect herself, Eva grabbed her old, crystalline dagger and her spare bloodstone–the one from Weilks. Fitting, she thought with a sardonic grin. The bloodstone was still unmounted, still too large to fit, but she could cut and then touch the bloodstone to the blood.

In fact, Eva thought. She slit open her arm and coated the bloodstone in enough blood to keep it aloft on its own. Quickly healing the cut, Eva rummaged through her spare vials of blood. Her stock had not recovered from Genoa’s attack. Less due to a lack of Arachne blood and more due to the shattered vials she hadn’t replaced. She pocketed two vials–enough for one good blood-claw, a dismemberment ring, or a small shield–and marched outside.

The area still looked like a war zone. They were supposed to clean up after themselves. Maybe they decided the day wasn’t over yet and they could clean up later. Eva couldn’t hear any signs of battle, so they must be done or taking a break.

Except they hadn’t ever taken a break while she was around.

Frowning, Eva headed towards Ylva’s domain. She pulled open the door.

A curled up Nel sat in front of Ylva’s throne. Her knees were pulled up to her chest. Very reminiscent of how Irene was acting before everything went to hell.

As Eva got closer, she could hear Nel mumbling to herself.

“They’re coming for me.”

An excerpt from Supernatural Flora, Fauna, and Things that Just Do Not Fit by Carlos T. Rivas:

How is one to classify magical life?

Mundane scientists begin with deciding whether or not the item of their interest is living. A reasonable starting point. They then categorize it based on its characteristics. Is it an animal? A plant? Fungus? And so on and so forth. They then further divide it down a list of taxonomic ranks until they end up with a the item’s scientific name.