One of those three beasts was actually on its side, face bloodied and raw from charging head on into the shackles repeatedly. The other two were more prodding at them than ramming themselves into them.
It was almost disturbing how intelligent they appeared.
“What’s taking so long?”
Irene jumped. Her sister’s voice came just as one of the creatures scraped a few tendrils around the barrier. For a moment, she had thought it shattered. It took her mind a second to process that she was hearing words for the first time in a long time.
“Taking so long?”
“Shouldn’t more security guards have shown up by now?” Shelby asked with a nervous glance at Lucy. “Or a professor? One of the others had to have told someone.”
“You saw the sky.” Irene bit back the tremble in her voice. She wanted to keep strong for her sister’s sake, if nothing else. A moot effort, in all likelihood. Shelby wasn’t so oblivious that she would miss how tense Irene was or the slight shakes in her arms.
Then again, Shelby wasn’t the epitome of steady at the moment either.
“Who knows what all is going on outside. They probably decided that Lucy could handle such a small thing on her own while they deal with other matters.”
“Well,
Irene clamped her mouth shut. Shelby could make all the inferences she wanted, but Irene couldn’t offer up any response.
“We’ll be fine,” Jordan said, stepping up next to Shelby. “If anything happens, I can have the three of us at the stairwell in seconds. It won’t be hard to run.”
“Should we run?” Irene asked, grateful for the change in topic and not willing to let it slip away with just what he had said. “If these things escape, they could go on a rampage. Maybe some students haven’t got out of the dorms.”
She hated being contrary. Especially because the contrary position was to stay. But, as she had thought about earlier, she just couldn’t leave. It would be nice to be any other ignorant student, able to run off and bury their head under a pile of sand.
Her eyes had been opened to a larger world.
Could she run knowing that a single one of these creatures had held a being like Catherine for as long as it had, all while fighting off a number of older students?
Even if they stayed, what could they do? The older students hadn’t done any good until they worked together to freeze the creature. She might have slowed it down by manipulating the tiles at its feet, but that had been with the assistance of Randal.
Irene had no idea what room or even which dormitory building Randal was housed in.
“Wait,” Irene said before either of the others could call her crazy. “We can’t fight them. But maybe we can trap them? More permanently than they are now, at least.”
The ice had been fairly permanent. Long lasting enough to get everyone away safely and Eva in to set up her shackles.
“You have a plan?”
None of them were water mages. Though none of them would be able to conjure up the water necessary anyway. Maybe they could have run the water in one of the dorm rooms.
A moot point without any of them being a water mage.
Irene’s mind immediately latched onto what she had done to the creature back in the diablery class. Turning the tiled floor into a sort of mud-like quicksand to hold them in place. It wouldn’t be easy. Tiles were just rock, but rock was far more difficult to manipulate than dirt and loose earth.
True, she had needed Randal’s help during class. This wasn’t class and the creatures were not already loose. She had the time to concentrate.
Her arm being properly set into her shoulder couldn’t hurt either.
She didn’t know how an air mage would help contribute, but Jordan could help. He was an earth mage.
Moving a few steps down the hall, Irene pointed her wand at the floor. “Step back, near me please. Jordan, help me out. I’m making quicksand.”
Once they complied, Irene set to pushing her magic into the floor. Lucy was left on the other side, still between the shackles and them, but Irene wasn’t entirely sure what to do with the demon. She didn’t exactly have a shovel to scrape her off the floor.
She’d probably be alright. She was a demon.
To protect them properly, the quicksand would need to stretch the entire width of the hallway as well as be a few feet long. She couldn’t risk them jumping over it. “Shelby, if you have any ideas on how to help, feel free to jump in.”
“Into the quicksand?”
Irene shot a glare at her sister. “You know what I meant.”
The quicksand wouldn’t be deep. Maybe an inch or two at most. That was the problem with working on a building. But, unlike regular quicksand, hers could be hardened as the monsters trampled over it. She should be able to stretch it up and trap them. At least for a short amount of time.
