“I know dad. I’ve lived with her for fourteen years.”
He just chuckled. His voice turned somber as he continued speaking. “The scar across her chest wasn’t received while saving innocents or looting treasure. She was betrayed.”
Juliana frowned at that, but waited in silence for him to continue.
“I’m not sure on the details, I’m not sure she knows the details–it took her a long while to get back to normal. She was supposed to have been working with the demon. It attacked her. She lost.”
“Did mom summon the demon?”
“She said she found it along the way and it offered to help.”
“Did she make an actual contract?”
“I don’t think so,” Carlos said with a shake of his head. “You would have to ask her.”
Juliana leaned back against a tree. Something crawled onto her shoulder almost immediately. It went flying off into the distance with a flick of her metal coated finger. She was too busy running through every bit of knowledge she’d gleaned from Eva’s book to concern herself with insects.
“Demons are summoned to fulfill a task, generally one the summoner doesn’t want to do themselves,” she said after a few minutes. “They’ll form a contract that generally includes some sort of ‘go home afterwards’ clause. Unless they’re a familiar. I’m not entirely sure what that entails.”
There were two separate rituals for familiars which were not detailed in her book. Only mentioned briefly.
Juliana shook her head. She was rambling. “What I’m trying to say is that demon was probably already contracted to someone. Its master was the one to betray mom. I wonder if we could find out who. Does she know what demon it was? Its name?”
“You would have to ask her,” Carlos said after a small pause. “You seem… knowledgeable. Do they teach about demons at Brakket?”
Juliana snapped her mouth shut. She didn’t know where to look.
Her father turned to stare at her through his coke bottle glasses.
The forest floor became very interesting all of a sudden. All the little twigs and brush illuminated by the lantern looked somewhat moist in the cool night air.
“Juli, do you have something you want to tell me? You know I won’t be upset or judgmental.”
Sighing, Juliana pulled her eyes from a small beetle on a leaf to look at her father. “You can’t tell mom.”
“Why don’t we hear what all this is about first.”
“My friend, Eva, the one you met at Christmas.” Her father nodded at her to continue. “She’s got a demon contracted to her by the name of Arachne.”
“That would be the interesting spider you wrote about last summer.”
Juliana nodded. Her father caught on quick. As usual. “That was before I knew she was a demon. I thought she was just a magical spider. It gave me a bit of a fright when I first saw her shapeshift.” She paused, but quickly added, “not that she was bad or anything. I even rode on her back. She gets, uh, big.”
Juliana held her hands as far apart as they went even though she knew that wasn’t close to the size Arachne could grow to.
“I can’t say she’s nice, but she lived in the dorms for several months before the nuns showed up and never hurt anyone. She even helped save Shalise.”
“And this is the demon that fought all the Elysium Sisters?”
“No, that was some bull demon. I think Eva knows who its contractor is, but she didn’t say.”
Her father made a low humming noise as he readjusted his glasses. “This is a lot to take in,” he said.
“She’s a good person. Eva, that is.”
Under the flickering light of the gas lantern, Juliana watched as he got a look on his face. A look Juliana knew all too well. She had to keep herself from groaning.
“Perhaps I should have a long talk with her. And her demon. Without your mother around. Let’s invite them to dinner at our home when we get back.”
“I don’t know,” Juliana said. She was happy her father was willing to give them a chance. Even if part of that chance came from wanting to inspect Arachne. Unfortunately, there were other problems with meeting so soon.
“Eva might not be used to her new legs by then.”
— — —
“This is not a good idea, girl.”
“It is a fine idea, Eva.”
“You’re contaminating the experiment. You’ve already contaminated it with your hands.” Devon sighed and rubbed his forehead with his only hand. That hand fell to his chin and caressed his scruffy goatee. “I should have chained you to a wall and thrown away the key when I first found you.”
Eva frowned. “I don’t think I would have liked that version of the experiment,” she said with slightly slurred words.
“You wouldn’t have known any better. You were six. Your whole life would have been nothing but your treatment, chains, and a wall.”
“Glad we didn’t go with that then,” Eva said. “Now, are you going to help us or are you going to risk losing your precious test subject.”
“At least don’t go further than your ankles. What if you hate it? You’ll never be able to wear skirts again.”
“Everything will be fine. Don’t you listen to him.” A sharp, needle-like finger ran down Eva’s cheek. “He’s just jealous that he hasn’t found anyone to donate an arm.”
