It shrieked, pulling the tentacle out of his hand before he could do more than superficial damage.
“You’re cheating,” it said.
“Think it’s easy to fight while dragging a woman around?” Devon quipped as he tried to incinerate another tentacle.
“This plan isn’t working,” the professor hissed as Devon shoved her into the path of a tentacle.
Her moving left Devon wide open to another tentacle. It coiled around his tentacle arm and yanked, dragging him out from behind the professor and putting him face to face with an angry carnivean.
Had that arm had bones, he would have suffered a dislocation at the very least.
He clasped down on it and started filling the tentacle with fire.
Another tentacle coiled around his hand and spread his arms wide. The carnivean stood just in front of him with plenty extra limbs left to fight with.
Devon gave a half-glance towards the professor. “Well, I’m open to suggestions.”
“How about you open my damn portal before I tear you in two,” the carnivean growled.
Devon leaned back, winding up. With a grunt, he slammed his head down onto the carnivean’s head.
His vision split into double.
Triple.
Quadruple.
“They make it look so easy in the movies…”
The five sets of carniveans turned black as Devon passed out.
— — —
Nel patiently sat in her chair.
She didn’t have much choice in the matter.
The restraints held her down to her chair as tightly as the day she woke up in it. It had become somewhat disgusting; she tried not to think about it too much.
No. Thinking about it didn’t matter. None of her thoughts could affect the world around her at the moment. No matter how hard she tried, she could not access any form of magic. She couldn’t even get a glimpse of whoever had the necromancer all worked up.
He had called them her old comrades. The nuns probably. All hope of being rescued had died with that simple line.
At least they would kill her quickly. She wouldn’t have to suffer through Sawyer’s experiments any longer.
Nel tried to avoid glancing at the blob of flesh in the corner of the room. It wasn’t easy when half of her was trying to analyze what exactly the bag of flesh was doing with a couple of her eyes implanted within.
As far as she understood from Sawyer narrating to himself, that was a failed attempt at replicating her augur abilities. There was another, more successful eye-blob that had been moved somewhere else. Nowhere near her ability, but possibly on par with glimpsing.
Then again, it might be on par with her abilities now. She hadn’t had any chance to actually test it out, but her entire arm was nothing more than a withered husk of its former self.
That… that freak had stolen her eyes. All of them in one arm, up to her shoulder.
She doubted it even needed to be bound to the chair. The magic that kept her arm shape and function mostly normal had vanished along with the eyes. She couldn’t even feel anything from it. No pain. No movement of any muscles. Just a useless lump of flesh.
Not that it mattered.
It was that stupid girl with the stitches. It was all her fault. She left the door open on purpose. Nel being captive was Des’ fault. If she hadn’t started that stupid attack on the school…
Watching the little girl’s torture session under her father had provided a few delightful moments of catharsis.
Until he had stitched up her mouth and turned his attentions to Nel, that is.
With a sigh, Nel shut her eyes. It was the only control still afforded to her. She wasn’t about to watch the zombie start eating her.
Her eyes snapped open at the sucking noise just in front of her–not unlike the sound of boots being pulled free of mud.
The zombie had five black needles poking through its face. The entire body was thrown against one wall. Blood splattered out as the wall cracked from the force of the impact.
A figure stood, shadowed in the darkness where the zombie had been. Limbs twitched and jittered behind it, looking like skeletal wings of an angel. Eight glowing eyes stared down at her.
Relief flooded through Nel. She would have sunk into her chair had the restraints been looser.
Her relief turned sour as Arachne just stood there. She wasn’t moving.
Just staring.
In the blink of an eye, Arachne had her face half an inch away from Nel’s own. Her white teeth stood out in a very unfriendly smile.
“If you do not save my Eva, everything you have experienced here will look like a vacation to paradise. Nothing Ylva says or does will save you. Do you understand?”
