Eva hoped that none of them wound up caught. She didn’t know what the enigmas had done, exactly, but something told her that they would be tougher, better regenerators, and possibly contagious. With any luck, they wouldn’t like the sun all that much. Maybe the sun could even kill them permanently.
Unfortunately, Eva had no time to test.
“We’re going to be moving up towards Sawyer,” Eva said.
Nel was back to gripping Eva’s shoulders for support, but she nodded an acknowledgment.
After dispatching one more enigma with a ring of blood around its neck, Eva shut down her shield and started running. She built up a fireball and tossed it towards the vampiric enigmas as she ran.
Vampires didn’t like fire, so why should vampiric enigmas?
That was the theory anyway. Eva didn’t stop to observe the results of her handiwork. She ran straight for the hill that Sawyer was once again standing on top of.
At the base of the hill, she stopped.
Something strange was going on. Her vision and sense of blood were not matching up with what Sawyer saw.
To Eva, the enigmas were fighting with the vampires down on the field. Or, they were being distracted by the vampires. After watching one of their number get quartered and eaten alive, they were being a little hesitant in engaging directly.
Standing atop the hill, Sawyer calmly watched as three of the enigmas turned. They started snarling at him. After a brief moment, they started running. Two of them brushed past Eva on either side of her.
Looking in person, the nearest enigma was some distance away, snapping at the heels of a vampire that jumped over it.
Eva could feel a headache forming again. Just when her nausea had started to dissipate as well. Something was going on and it was messing with Sawyer’s head. Her head by extension.
She had a feeling that she knew what it was, but she couldn’t actually see Serena anywhere around.
The three enigmas in Sawyer’s vision charged up the hill, running straight up to the necromancer.
He stood by as unconcerned as he could be even as the enigmas started circling around him. They growled and occasionally sent out the whistling thunder inside of his head. Sawyer flinched every time, but was otherwise entirely too calm for the situation.
Still, he was distracted.
Eva couldn’t waste the opportunity.
Gathering up one of the vials of Zagan’s blood, she formed it into a large ring and sent it whizzing up the hill towards Sawyer. With Nel still on her back, she ran up after it.
At the same time, one of the enigmas lashed its tentacles around Sawyer’s leg. Eva could feel it squeezing and constricting. The pain just about sent her stumbling in her run.
Sawyer just looked down, his grin widening.
Something was definitely wrong.
Just before Eva’s blood ring could make it to Sawyer, his hand darted out to his side. It gripped
In her blood sight, Eva just about started to panic.
The ring of blood flew straight towards his outstretched arm.
Eva just about dropped Nel in an attempt to clap her hands together.
She stopped just in the nick of time.
Sawyer swung his arm around. Eva’s blood splattered across an invisible woman in his hands.
The illusion in Sawyer’s vision died off and Serena shimmered into being, clutching and grasping at her throat, clawing away at Sawyer’s skin.
He didn’t seem to care as blood started dripping from his hand. His smile just grew wider.
“Serena is in trouble,” Eva hissed as she doubled her efforts in getting up the hill.
As she ran, she tried to salvage as much blood as she could from Serena. A lot of it had soaked into her clothing, becoming unusable. That which Eva could scrape up, she gathered just on the back of Serena’s neck. Normally, such a thing would have ruined the blood. It would have gotten mixed up with sweat and grime. Being a vampire, Serena didn’t sweat. Her body was dead.
With Sawyer holding her facing him, it was the perfect spot to hide the blood without him noticing.
“I say, you two are quite the sight,” Sawyer said, turning a grin in Eva’s direction.
Eva glared. She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to.
Nel gave a slight squeak as Eva unclasped her hands from the augur’s bottom. She almost fell to the ground as Eva dropped her, but managed to remain on her feet with a little help.
“Is this one with you?” Sawyer asked as he turned back to face Serena. “She’s a much rarer strain than those riffraff,” he swept his stitched hand towards the valley below. “Almost a shame what I have to do.”
Muscles and blood within Sawyer’s arm started moving. He was squeezing Serena’s throat.
Wasting no more time, the blood from behind Serena’s neck moved around, coating the back of Sawyer’s hand. Given that his hand was throttling Serena’s neck, the blood didn’t have far to move. He didn’t have a chance to pull away before most of the blood got onto him.
When he did release Serena and pull away, it was far too late.
Eva clapped her hands together.
