Void Domain, Book 06 полностью

No one had heard a peep from the necromancer since Nel had been recovered. Zoe and Wayne had been keeping an ear to the ground about any sign of necromantic activity. That included sleepy little towns with a population barely out of the single digits suddenly disappearing overnight.

Maybe, hopefully, he had gone into hiding after his last encounter with Brakket. And, maybe even more hopefully, perhaps he had decided that operating around Brakket was simply too difficult. Too troublesome to continue.

As far as Eva knew, he hadn’t succeeded in much. She couldn’t say for certain without knowing his plans, but several things had failed without a doubt. He had made off with Nel, temporarily, stole a handful–or armful–of her eyes, and learned how to hide himself from Nel, but that had resulted in his hybrid army being all but destroyed for a second time. Whatever he had been planing with Weilks had failed, as had killing Eva with the dagger.

Eva shuddered at the memory, feeling a phantom pain in the small of her back. She glanced over at the dagger. It sat atop her dresser along with a handful of other items she had acquired since arriving at Brakket. Christmas presents, Ylva’s void-metal skull, and Arachne’s beacon among them.

Thankfully, she had managed to procure a glass case to keep any accidents from happening. The case had originally been designed for a football, but the dagger fit inside. And a good thing too. The edge of the blade barely needed to skim the surface of something to curse it.

Shaking her head, Eva went back to her musings.

Because of Sawyer’s few failures around Brakket, it wasn’t too out of the question to imagine him leaving for greener pastures. And yet, Eva had a gut feeling against the idea of him fleeing.

Rather, every passing day felt more and more like something big was going to happen. Every day gave him more time to build up larger armies of demon-human hybrids.

All while she was too preoccupied with larger issues, such as whatever was going on with Void and the enigmas.

Though confirming that Sawyer had indeed run off would be a weight off of Eva’s shoulders, that might actually be the worst situation. Eva had vowed vengeance and she fully intended to extract said vengeance in the most painful ways that she could imagine. Possibly by finishing him off with his own dagger.

Not that she needed to. She hadn’t signed any contracts or made any magical vows. But she wanted to. She held a yearning desire to rid the world of that man for purely selfish reasons.

Eva thumbed the bloodstone, turning it over in her hand once again.

That all brought her back to her current dilemma.

Back in Florida, this wouldn’t have been a problem in the slightest. All she would have had to do was to take a short walk down the shadier sides of the city. Someone would eventually follow her down an alley with less than pure intentions.

Much like Sawyer, the world didn’t need such people.

Unfortunately, bloodstone creation was much more difficult in Brakket City.

The city was tiny. So tiny, it really shouldn’t qualify as a city. A town at most. A commune?

There was almost no population to speak of save for the students and staff, and everybody pretty much knew each other. There was no police department–Brakket Academy acted more as police than anything else, especially with their new security force–and, as far as Eva could tell, there were actually little to no crimes committed by the general population. Occasionally there would be a story about petty theft performed by students, but nothing more.

It was doubtful that she would find anyone outside at night period, let alone those with ill intent.

Eva bit her lip. Maybe a short vacation was in order. She did have the gate set up back at her abandoned hospital.

Gripping the bloodstone in her hand, Eva reseated it in the slot of her dagger’s sheath.

Yes, vacation was a great idea. And maybe she could use it as an excuse to pry Arachne out of her room.

It would have to wait a while. Perhaps after Juliana left again.

Standing from her desk, Eva headed back out to the women’s ward common room to check on her wayward friend.

And promptly frowned.

Books everywhere. Piles of books surrounded the little coffee table. More were strewn about on top of the table, half-open and half closed. Juliana poured herself over a good three at once while her brother sat in a chair, idly thumbing through one of the more innocuous tomes on the subject of shackles.

“I hope you put every single one of those back where you found them.”

Juliana looked up with fury in her eyes.

“Have you never heard of organization? Or labels? You don’t even have that many books. I should be done by now.”

Eva shrugged. “I’ve adopted Devon’s organization system.”

“Randomization?”