“Last time, I bit off her arms. Human bone is nothing against my teeth,” Arachne said with a vicious grin. The grin quickly slipped into a frown. “But I don’t know that I can get her whole leg in my mouth. I could bite it off in chunks, but that might get messy.”
Devon grit his teeth and rubbed his forehead again. “You haven’t even decided on how to do this? And Eva’s already drugged herself up?” No wonder they wanted him to help. This was a disaster waiting to happen.
“Stab Arachne with my void dagger,” Eva slurred. “I’ll detach my own legs with her blood.”
“How do you know you’re not going to detach something important?”
“I have an acute sense of my own biology thanks to blood. I took numbing potions, not stupid potions.”
“Really? It’s hard to tell.”
Devon was certain that Eva tried to glare at him. Even if she had eyes, she couldn’t lift her own head.
“Fine,” Devon said. “And how are we getting Arachne’s legs off? You’re going to bleed out in seconds with your legs gone.”
“I can keep myself from bleeding out. Probably.”
Devon shut his eyes. A headache was on its way. “Probably?”
“Well, I’ve never recirculated my own blood before. There’s no reason why I can’t. Right?”
“You’re the blood mage,” Devon said with a shrug.
“And,” Arachne said, “she can remove my legs the same way. She’s done it before. Not to mention taking off Zagan’s arm.”
Eva winced in spite of the numbing potion. The last time that name was mentioned to Devon, several hours of angry shouting occurred. Mostly directed at Eva.
“So,” Devon said, pointedly ignoring the name for now, “why am I here?”
“If something does go wrong,” Eva said, “you would do everything you could to save me.”
“I’m considering finding myself a less troublesome test subject.”
“Liar.”
Devon sighed. “Where’s your knife? I really want to stab Arachne right now.”
“Table.”
The women’s ward common room wasn’t that large. Large enough to hold several cells, but the cells weren’t gigantic. In it, there was only one table. The small coffee table that normally occupied the center of the room. It had been shoved off to one side for the treatment the other day and hadn’t been moved back.
Devon found the dagger without trouble and, without waiting for any ready signal, plunged it into Arachne’s stomach. At least, it would have been the stomach on a human. He wasn’t sure on the minor details of its anatomy.
The knife dug only an inch or two into it. Either the knife was something special–a possibility due to its void metal nature–or Arachne had done something to allow the knife in. He’d seen Arachne shrug off knife attacks from men far stronger than Devon.
If it did die from such a little stab, he’d at least have something to gloat to it about whenever Arachne managed to pull herself back together in Hell.
Unfortunately, it didn’t die. Actually, a good thing. The decades it would require to revive itself would invalidate Eva’s experiment. He’d have to find a new subject and a new demon.
Arachne’s grin widened as it wiggled itself further onto the dagger’s blade.
Streams of blood poured out of the wound. They formed rings. Two went and encircled the tops of Eva’s legs while another two mirrored the spot on Arachne.
Arachne moved to sit almost on top of Eva. Legs sprouted from its back to hold itself up.
“Ready?” Arachne asked.
“Yeah.”
Devon waited with bated breath.
And waited.
He let out his breath in a long sigh. “Are you going to do this any time soon? Some of us have better things to do than stare at nothing.”
“I can’t clap. Or snap.”
“I thought that was just a crutch.”
“Well, yeah. Just because something is a crutch doesn’t mean you can just take it away.”
“Figure it out. Imagine yourself clapping,” Devon said as he walked over to a pushed aside couch. He sank into the couch and shut his eyes. “I can’t give you the antidote until we’re done. Unless you want to feel all the pain of your own legs coming off.”
“Not particularly.”
“Or you could call the whole thing off.”
“Not a chance.”
Devon sighed and decided it was a good time for a light nap.
Light popping noises and a cry of joy woke him some time later.
Sure enough, both of her legs and both of Arachne’s legs were lying detached from their owners. Remembering his task, Devon quickly jammed the dagger into her leg stumps. Supposedly, she could control it without the dagger. Neither of them wanted to take the chance with such a large amount of blood.
“Don’t forget to keep yourself from bleeding out,” he said.
Arachne was already in motion. It carefully placed Eva’s legs to the side. After centering and aligning one of the black legs on Eva’s body, Arachne placed its hands over the limb.
“What now?”
“Just like I did for her hands. Sure, I had my domain assisting me, but demons do this all the time in the mortal realm. I am positive I can do it.”
“That is not reassuring.”
