“You fool,” the deeper voice said, “I almost lost my leg. Why did you make that thing so close?”
“It’s easier the closer it is.”
“Idiot.” The tentacled demon’s head turned to face exactly where Eva crouched behind the wall. “Change of plans,” she said.
Eva didn’t wait to find out what the new plan was. She could guess easy enough.
The coiled muscles in Eva’s legs sprung her from the building to the edge of the property. She landed just between Arachne and Wayne.
“Sneak attack failed,” Eva said.
The moment she spoke, the wall exploded outwards in a flurry of splinters and glass.
Both demons stood in the opening as the dust cleared.
“A jezebeth and a carnivean,” Arachne said. “The big one makes illusions. Don’t let the little one grab you.” Arachne jumped into the air with a mad cackle. All of her legs propelled her massive body towards the demons.
She tried to land on top of the smaller demon.
Its tentacles shot out and gripped her legs. Using a few extra tentacles to brace against the ground, the smaller demon managed to slow Arachne down just inches from its head.
Arachne wasn’t deterred. Her body reabsorbed her legs, leaving her massive abdomen to swing down.
Her body connected with the demon with force to spare. It flew back into the home.
Arachne grew her legs back before she hit the ground and ran into the house after the demon.
Throughout the confrontation, the jezebeth cowered away from both the carnivean and Arachne. Soon enough, it vanished and reappeared several feet away, running slowly on its short legs.
“We take the big one then?” Wayne asked with a grunt.
“I suppose so,” Eva said. A wire frame ball of blood was already forming in front of her. “When I hit the little one inside, it disappeared and revealed what I assume was the real one. Make sure there is no illusion and I’ll make sure it has a very bad day.”
A shield formed at Eva’s command. Illusion was a poorly defined ability. Eva wasn’t about to risk thinking she was safe when the many mouthed creature actually had its jaws around her. She sent her blood orbs onto slightly random orbits. If it could do illusions of anything, it wouldn’t do to think she grabbed blood when there was nothing there. Eva knew how the orbits ran, hopefully it would have trouble replicating them.
Wayne wasted no time. As Eva straightened out her blood situation, he swung his heavy tome around and unleashed a massive wall of flame. While she couldn’t see the fire directly and most of the heat failed to penetrate her shield, she could vaguely sense where it was with pyrokinesis.
That and all of her blood flecks in its path burnt out.
Part of it washed over her shield on its way towards the house. Eva idly added a spare orb to the shield to keep it fueled as she concentrated on the circulatory system of the large demon.
The fire wall hit the demon with some force. It knocked back into the wall of the house. The demon’s veins twisted and burnt.
The entire thing vanished. It shimmered the same way the smaller demon had disappeared in the house.
Eva kept her concentration up, looking for the real one. She could see a good distance. Most of the house was well within her range. Arachne was missing a leg, but had somehow managed to tie a few of the carnivean’s tentacles together.
Wayne stood off to one side. Fire danced around him in a ring, giving him something of a shield as well. He scanned the entire yard just as intently as Eva searched for blood.
Yet the jezebeth remained missing.
“Did it run?” Eva asked.
“Flames are moving wrong.”
Eva pulled out her dagger and jammed it into her upper arm. “Where at?” she asked as she formed a second wire ball out of her own blood–she wasn’t going to use Arachne’s blood on a chance.
“Ten feet in our direction from the main window.”
Keeping one hand hovering over Arachne’s blood, Eva plunged her other claw into her blood ball. A massive version of her claw formed out of blood just in front of the indicated location. It dripped and felt unstable. It wouldn’t pierce or pack much of a punch, but Eva swiped it across ground anyway.
And it hit. A large demon cried out a high-pitched curse as the claw hit.
Eva immediately plunged her hand into Arachne’s blood.
A second claw appeared just above where the demon stood. It dropped down and squeezed.
Each needle of her blood claw punctured into the ball-shaped demon like a pencil into an overripe tomato.
Wayne added in a twisting tornado of fire right on top of it.
An uncontrollable grin spread across Eva’s face as it screamed and writhed under her grip.
All three of its mouths opened wide. It roared out a high-pitched squeal.
Eva’s blood claw disintegrated instantly. She pulled her hand from the scorching hot wire frame ball. Sear marks lined her carapace where the blood had touched her.
Her shield wavered, but held. Another orb of blood became fuel as Eva put together a new wire frame ball.
The creature vanished again.
Only one orb of Arachne’s blood remained in its orbit.
