Sprinting full tilt, Arachne grabbed the container of eyes off the ground and ran straight back to Eva.
“Look what I have!”
“Ah, you won’t be able to make those jokes soon enough. Surely there is blood inside these, surely you can tell what they are.”
“That’s correct.” Arachne grinned down at the immobile girl. “As long as you’re lying around not doing anything–”
“And you don’t have to stop that. You didn’t think about your arms or legs at all when we swapped them over, did you? But these things will go bad if we don’t do something with them soon.”
The blood in the air condensed into a bubbling sphere.
“If you delay, we’ll be back to searching for a demon to barter with.”
That got the blood moving.
“I haven’t tried them myself.” Arachne tried to keep the deadpan out of her voice. “But they’re vertically slit pupils. You’ll have fine control over the light entering your eyes thanks to your horizontal eyelids. They don’t look human at all. All the whites are black and the colored part is bright red. Or it was, it dulled somewhat when I detached them.”
“I have no idea. They were only severed from the carnivean ten minutes ago. If they start to decompose, it will likely be painful, dangerous, or even impossible to transplant them.”
“You’re doing an eye transplant here?” Wayne said with a small cough. “Skipping sterility? Anesthetics?”
Arachne didn’t deign to answer the human. She could sense the lesser succubus moving towards their group. He would be out of her tendrils soon enough.
Keeping an eye on the bubbling mass of blood was far more interesting.
Eventually, the blood coalesced into a decision.
“Gladly.”
Arachne plucked the headband from Eva’s face with a snip of her fingers. Carefully moving her fingers to Eva’s eyelids, Arachne inspected the insides.
It didn’t look too bad. Arachne never saw Eva cleaning out the sockets, but perhaps she managed using blood magic to obliterate any dust and debris.
“I’ll need to make fresh cuts for the new eyes to attach to.”
Arachne wasn’t one to argue. Using all of her legs, Arachne held Eva still–she couldn’t have her squirming in pain and dislodging the knife in her chest–and made two quick cuts in each eye.
Licking the small amount of blood off her fingertips, Arachne said, “alright. Putting in the new eyes now. The carnivean was much smaller than you, so they should slip right in.”
“Your hands and, presumably, your legs are shrinking to fit your body size. I imagine they would grow even if they were too small.”
Arachne pulled out the first eye. A brief blow of air hopefully brushed off more dust than it added. She tried not to breathe a sigh of relief when the eye slid into place just as Arachne said it would. She hadn’t been entirely sure on that.
Cutting away at the bone around Eva’s eye sockets was terrifying and appealing all at the same time, but not something Arachne particularly wanted to do.
Eva might banish her to the prison again.
The second eye slid in as easily as the first. Arachne quickly oriented each eye with the slits vertical. She wasn’t sure if it mattered–they hadn’t been precise with either the hands or legs and both turned out fine–but she wanted to make sure nothing went wrong. Eyes were far more delicate than arms.
Of course, they might be upside down. It was hard to tell.
“Starting to join them to you,” Arachne said.
Arachne started channeling her magic.
It was an odd feeling. A foreign feeling. She didn’t like it. Magic never worked properly around her. Some side effect of starting her existence as a human, she was sure. Other demons got by without much problem, even if they relied on their own abilities most of the time.
All Arachne had for demonic powers was the ability to shapeshift. An incredibly common ability among demons. It could never match up to something like Zagan or even the jezebeth.
Luckily, all that seemed unrelated to the grafting of limbs.
The hands had succeeded. The legs had succeeded. Arachne wasn’t about to fail her Eva now. The eyes would succeed.
Unlike the hands or legs, Arachne couldn’t actually see them connect. The only indication that it was working were the winces Eva made.
Arachne had to hold her Eva in place as a slight tremor ran through her body. As soon as the tremor ceased, Eva’s new eyes lit up with a brilliant red light.
The flow of magic ceased as Arachne pulled back from Eva.
“You tell me. Can you see?”
“Off? You’re colorblind?” There was a slight sinking feeling in Arachne’s stomach. She couldn’t have her Eva running around with imperfect eyes. They would do until a new donor could be found, but Arachne doubted she’d be keen on having them cut out again.
