Wayne Lurcher, looking much better than when Catherine had last seen him, was standing near another human female. One who was half-standing in the waters. In the actual waters.
On a closer look, she might not have been human after all. Catherine hadn’t seen many humans naked, but she had seen plenty of bare arms and most arms didn’t have eyes all over them.
Still, standing in the water wasn’t safe. If the woman slipped and fell in, even for just a second, she could find herself whisked off to who knew where.
The woman had huge dark circles beneath her eyes. Her face was somewhat gaunt and she looked ready to tip over if a stiff breeze came her way. That only further compounded Catherine’s feeling that she really shouldn’t be in the water.
An innate, succubi sense picked up on something about the woman. She was bothered by something. And not in the simple sense of being disturbed–though she certainly was that as well.
In the end, Catherine simply shrugged it off. What did she care about, well, anyone anyway?
Everyone else walked right up to the edge of the water in front of the woman. Catherine caught up and stopped a few paces behind. She wasn’t
“You found Shalise?” Baxter asked. “Is she alright?”
“I don’t know. I mean, her hair is the same, but…” The woman in the water brought up a hand to rub just above her eye–her regular, in the right place for humans, eye. “Did Shalise take up weight lifting? And, um, exhibitionism?”
Catherine blinked. Unless she was very much mistaken, they were talking about one of the mortals Zagan had dropped off in Hell. That meant the person was a student and Catherine was quite certain that there were no exhibitionists running around at the school.
She, of all people, would have noticed.
“Exhi–what? What are they doing to her?”
Catherine took a step forward, not wanting to miss out on hearing that explanation.
“Nothing. I mean, no one is around. I searched everywhere I could think of. It is just Shalise. She doesn’t… I mean, she’s just…”
The woman in the water cupped some in her hands and brought it up to slap against her cheeks. Some futile attempt at cooling her body temperature. After a deep breath, she started to explain.
— — —
“Silence servant. I am trying to concentrate.”
Shalise couldn’t see anything but the insides of her own eyelids as Prax continued to fail at attempt number thirty-seven.
It was depressing. Sort of. Unless Prax was feeling the same emotion that she felt, she didn’t really feel anything but her thoughts. Upon reflection, that was probably the biggest reason behind her general blasé attitude and lack of constant panic. She knew, in her head, that she should be running around like a chicken with its head cut off about the fact that she was
But it was difficult to care without the proper chemicals fueling her panic.
That said, if there was one thing she wished Prax would do, and that was opening their eyes. While it was an emotion that Prax was not feeling at the moment, boredom was driving her insane. Combined with the sheer irritation and anger projected by Prax, it was a very unpleasant situation.
“Stop thinking!” Prax shouted at her–there was no one else around. “Do you
Prax’s silence was telling.
Not that she needed his silence to know she was right. Over the past
Prax hopped off the over large throne and started marching down through the castle’s corridors. He was in something of a rage. The scorch marks left beneath her feet gave Shalise an odd tingling sensation, but nothing more.
It wasn’t anything new and something Shalise had grown used to. Prax had been temperamental, to say the least, since they arrived in his domain.
“I think,” he said slowly, “that I will be taking a brief intermission from my attempts at escaping your worthless sack of flesh.”
“Something cathartic sounds excellent. I have just the place.”
