Eva stared. Or observed. Her conversation with the blended girl had brought some attention, but now even those who had been ignoring or oblivious to her turned to stare. Each person brought more gasps or gapes, in turn drawing more people.
The chain reaction of stares couldn’t be stopped.
Flee, address students, tear out the girl’s throat, release Arachne.
Instead she started building up magic within herself–preparing for an infernal walk. She wanted to leave immediately, but wasn’t willing to risk a one way trip to Hell with a botched teleport.
Juliana rushed up to Eva’s side. A pillar of earth stretched from the ground and wrapped around Eva’s hand before breaking off, hiding it from view.
It took Eva a moment to realize what was happening. She almost punched the blond’s face in before she realized she wasn’t being attacked.
“What are you all staring at?” Juliana shouted. “Got nothing better to do than look at my friend?”
Eva shook her head. “Stay, Arachne,” Eva hissed. She waited a moment for the spider’s movements to die down. “It’s too late,” she said, setting her still gloved hand on Juliana’s shoulder. With a flexing of her hand, the brittle earth broke away. Eva reached over and pulled her other glove off.
That got several more gasps. Even a scream as she set it back down on Juliana’s shoulder.
Zoe Baxter was pushing her way through the crowd of students, but Eva wasn’t about to wait around for her. It was too late, her magic built up enough to safely teleport.
“Let Zoe know I’ve gone back to the prison,” Eva whispered in Juliana’s ear. “Try to keep her from incriminating herself, if possible.”
Before the room disappeared, Eva heard the blended girl say something.
“Just wait until my daddy hears about this,” she said. “He’ll be so excited.”
—
Eva groaned as she stumbled out of the gate. She could still feel the sizzling heat on her skin. It was all in her mind. But it sure didn’t
Infernal walking became far more tolerable after swapping out her legs for Arachne’s legs. For whatever reason, neither her legs nor her hands suffered the burn. Her chest and face still flayed off during the teleport.
She had no idea how Martina Turner did it. The dean was fully human as far as Eva could tell. There had to be a trick to teleporting without the discomfort.
Arachne slipped out from underneath her shirt and vest. The moment she had a few feet of clearance, she grew back to her regular human size. Without warning, she stepped up and wrapped her arms around Eva.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “we can live here until we find a new place.” There was a slight pause while Arachne ran her fingers down Eva’s back before she said, “what exactly happened?”
Eva sighed. “Come on,” she said, “might as well explain it to my master while we’re at it.”
“Isn’t he back in Florida?”
Her blood wards and her sight already fed Eva the information that he was, in fact, not in Florida. Eva silently led Arachne into the women’s ward kitchen.
A one-armed man stood hunched over the kitchen stove. He had a pot of water in his one hand and appeared to be just now turning on the burner’s runes.
Devon glanced up at their arrival. He gave a short snort before turning back to the stove.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in Florida?”
“Nope, and I don’t think you should be back there either.” He shook his head with a frown. “Hunters are wandering around lately.”
“Looking for you?”
“Donno.”
That was slightly unnerving. She had visited just a few months ago to collect the last of her things from the abandoned hospital. Had she stuck around, she might have run into them.
They might have shown up because she went back.
Eva suppressed a shudder and looked back at Devon. “What are you doing in my kitchen?”
“Boiling water,” Devon grunted. “You’ve got a working kitchen. I don’t.”
Eva frowned, but didn’t have much to say against that. So long as he kept to the kitchen, that is.
“You’re here at an abnormal time. Something happen?”
“Gloves got pulled off in front of most of the school. Lots of staring. One or two screams.”
Her master let out a short sigh before sliding the pot off the burner. “I warned you,” he said. “I warned you and you didn’t damn well listen did you?”
Eva didn’t say anything. She thought about protesting. Her hands being Arachne’s wasn’t exactly her choice. Devon wouldn’t care.
“Do we need to leave?”
“Don’t know,” Eva said with a shrug. “I expect Zoe Baxter will stop by. We’ll take what she says under advisement.”
Devon grumbled under his breath for a moment before stalking out of the room. “I’ll start packing.”
“I hope we stay,” Arachne said once the front doors slammed shut. The amusement in her voice was borderline hysterical. “Just so he has to unpack again.”
“Quite evil of you.”
