The Imp
Brakket had become polluted since this time the previous year. At least three demons freely walked the streets. Their stench wafted through the streets as a dead skunk on the side of the road might. It wasn’t so much a smell as it was sense, but that was just how Arachne explained it.
Still, the news worried Eva. There were apparently three demons running around where Eva was certain there had been only two.
That was not including Arachne herself.
There were traces of others. According to Arachne, those were more like wisps in the air; either they left, went back to Hell on their own, or were banished.
These three demons as well as the other wisps excluded both Arachne herself and Ylva, of course.
One, of course, was Zagan. Both Eva and Arachne decided together to stay as far from him as possible. They had been allies of sorts while the nuns were in town. The mutual enemy left and Eva wasn’t willing to test the waters.
Another was the lesser succubus associated with Zagan. Likely not willingly. She didn’t smell very powerful, according to Arachne, but the association made her dangerous. That the succubus was Martina Turner’s secretary was a minor footnote.
But the third… Arachne took a deep breath of the early evening’s air. “The third smells weak. Not laughably weak, but weak all the same. I want to tear it apart. I haven’t torn things to bits in so long. You wouldn’t even let me fight that nun.”
“Did you want to get between her and Zagan?”
Arachne’s frown turned into a growl. “She hurt
Eva simply shook her head. “Focus on the future. Next time, Sister Cross might do something stupid enough that warrants having her fight you. For now, let’s concentrate on this other demon.”
The other two weren’t hostile at the moment. Even if they were, Eva wasn’t entirely sure what she would do about it.
“Maybe,” Eva said, “it won’t be very friendly. If you do start tearing it apart, try to keep the eyes intact. I want them.”
The third demon, however, was in the complete opposite direction. As far from the academy as one could get without actually leaving Brakket–which wasn’t actually that far.
Especially not for someone like Arachne.
Or someone with Arachne’s legs.
Eva ran alongside Arachne over the rooftops. They hopped over the gaps, ran some, and hopped some more. It had taken some lessons with Arachne over the weeks, but Eva managed good enough control for the small hops.
Jumping the gap between the streets was out, however.
Not because of any fault in the legs Arachne gave her. The legs were working fine and proper. The problem lay in Eva’s spine and hips. Namely, they were still too human. Too weak.
She wasn’t willing to risk the impact without learning how to properly absorb shock in her legs. If it was even possible to do that without stressing the rest of her body.
A worry for another time. For now, running along the rooftops sufficed.
“It is gone,” Arachne said as she came to a sudden stop.
Eva slid across the roof as she tried to stop herself. She lost her balance and had to catch herself on her hands.
It was a good thing she chose to wear a skirt. After the thrashings that Zoe Baxter gave her in the last two seminars, Eva did not need any more holes in her remaining pairs of pants. She hadn’t planned on clothes shopping until just before school started back up, but that proved impossible with her new legs.
At the rate she was damaging clothes, she’d have to go shopping
Picking herself up to her feet before Arachne could say or do anything, Eva turned to look at the demon. “What’s gone?”
Arachne stared for a moment. She watched as Eva brushed off her knees. With only a sly smile on her face, Arachne said, “the demon was either killed, sent back, or went back on its own.”
“Can we at least find out where the demon was?”
The hair tendrils swayed side to side as Arachne shook her head. “Somewhere in the general direction we were headed. If I remember right from when I was looking for a home like the prison, the buildings soon end and houses start up. They have some distance between the neighboring houses, but are still numerous enough to take a while to search.”
Eva sighed as she turned back in the direction they had been running. She couldn’t actually see much of anything, aside from the rooftops she had coated in a thin layer of her own blood. No people lived in the buildings they had been running across. Several windows were broken or boarded up.
An abandoned section of town.
“Nothing to narrow it down?”
“I can tell it existed. But it’s like the others, just an echo in the air.” Arachne took a deep breath of air behind Eva. She immediately dropped into a fighting stance as her gaze turned to the surroundings. “Zagan,” she hissed.
“Coming here?” Eva couldn’t detect anything within her fifty foot range.
