Eva raised one eyebrow at that. “Well, they’re no friends of mine. You going to help out? If not, leave before you get caught in the middle.”
“Or fight us,” Arachne said with a feral smile. “Though you look too old to last long.”
“Demons first, Arachne. Then we can posture all we want.”
Wayne paid no attention to their byplay. He focused solely on the husk of a house. “What are we up against?”
“Two demons.”
“One strong. The other is,” Arachne gave a small sniff, “odd.”
“Odd?”
“If you want to know more, run in and ask.”
“Reinforcements?”
“None for us,” Eva said. “Not unless you have some favors to call in.”
A terse grunt answered her. “Plan?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Arachne said. “Run inside and say, ‘come out, it’s time to play,’ and then tear them into so many pieces that they’ll be spending centuries putting themselves back together in the void.”
“Sounds terrible.”
“Maybe more subtle than that,” Eva said as she reclaimed the unused blood from her shield. “I’d rather avoid entering. Zoe’s house can’t be structurally sound after that fire. If Arachne starts plowing through walls…”
“Draw them out then? What are they doing inside?”
“Searching for something?”
“While it was on fire?”
“Probably immune,” Arachne said.
“The stereotype of a flame and lava filled Hell is mostly inaccurate,” Eva elaborated, “but demons having an affinity for fire isn’t.”
“For the most part. A good dedicated fire will still hurt. And things like your pet hel might–”
“We’re getting off track,” Wayne said.
Arachne sneered at Wayne before her expression froze. Her face twisted to a wide grin as she crawled towards the house. “I agree. Less talk, more tearing! Some things in there have far too many limbs.”
Eva ran to catch up. Ten orbs of blood followed after her.
Wayne trailed along behind. His head swiveled around as he looked for any threat that might jump out.
That was fine with Eva. Having someone else to watch their backs wasn’t unwelcome. Unless he was as useless in combat as Devon.
The house entered her range of vision. Two creatures within stood just behind the walls.
One was large and round with no protruding head. Not quite Arachne’s size, but large enough to make Eva wonder how it got through the door without bringing the house down. She couldn’t get a good read on its fangs without sending a possibly noticeable amount of blood in its direction, but it definitely had fangs in each of its three mouths.
Flecks of blood that neared its hands burnt away. Both were either on fire or hot enough to destroy Eva’s blood.
The shorter one was somewhere around half Eva’s height. It had fairly normal proportions for a human. Its hair was distinctly inhuman, however. Each strand was as thick as Eva’s arm and contained part of the creature’s circulatory system. Two larger tentacles hung down on either side of the creature’s head.
They stood together, making gestures at one another with their respective limbs.
“Stop,” Eva said.
Arachne froze at the edge of the property. The spider-demon half-snarled at Eva. The snarl ended with a soft sigh. “Come on. I can taste them.”
“They’re talking just inside,” Eva said as she crept past the sulking demon.
The wall was only partially intact. Eva’s blood particles mapped out a rendition of it in her mind. The roof took most of the damage, but the walls still looked somewhat like swiss cheese.
She ran up and crouched next to a less damaged section. Voices filtered through the wall just loud enough for her to hear.
“–of the Damned,” rumbled a deep, feminine voice.
“Doesn’t count,” a higher pitched voice squeaked. “Woman wasn’t wearing it.”
“Do you think that matters? If she ever wore it even for a moment–”
“Who cares. Now we have it. It is what the master wanted, right?”
Three orbs of blood merged together and formed a lithe snake. It slithered through a burnt out section of the wall. Keeping it out of the creatures’ eyesight, Eva directed it right next to the smaller of the creatures.
A loud groan followed a smack of flesh on flesh. “It would probably kill master if he put it on,” the voice spat. “Then again, maybe we should…”
“Encourage him to put it on?” A high-pitched squeal of glee echoed through the burnt out room.
“Plot against master later. Worry about the fires being gone and the demon outside.”
“Doesn’t matter. They can’t find us.”
Eva frowned at that. She was pretty sure she found them.
In an instant, the blood snaked up the demon’s leg. Two rings formed at the base of either. With a clap of her hands, the rings detonated.
The screams of pain or anger and the collapsing of a legless demon body never came. As soon as her blood rings obliterated, the circulatory system shimmered out of existence. A second body materialized one step to the side.
Only a small chunk the size of a finger was missing from the leg closest to where her blood rings were.
