Without hesitation, she moved up and pulled out her dagger. She dug it straight into her arm and pulled out a long ribbon of black liquid. The blood immediately twisted around into a wide circle, large enough for a human to stand up fully within. Sigils and signs filled in the inside as it moved just above the enigma.
As Eva held out her arm, the circle filled in with a deep black void. So dark that it sucked in the surrounding light, darkening most of the crater. Eva and Arachne worked together to lift and toss the enigma into the portal.
Rather than sit around and watch, Zoe cast a quick telekinesis spell. Two severed and charred tentacles flew through the air, disappearing into the darkness of Eva’s portal.
After a quick double-check around the area for any other enigma parts, Eva collapsed the portal with a clap of her hands. The blood in the air flashed white before vanishing into nothingness.
“Alright,” Zoe said, turning to face the full group. “Any other reason to stay?”
“Just Lynn.” Shalise’s voice was quiet, barely above a whisper.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll catch up with us before nightfall.”
“Even if we wish she wouldn’t.”
Zoe rolled her eyes. Tightening her grip on Shalise, she started building up her magic for a teleport. “We’ll be taking off ahead of you.”
— — —
Eva stayed behind, watching the spot Shalise and Zoe had just been occupying for a moment. She couldn’t leave just yet. Arachne still had to shrink down before she could leave. However, there was another reason she couldn’t leave just yet.
Pulling out her vials of Arachne’s blood as she turned, Eva faced a still burning portion of the forest. Zoe should have helped to put it out before she left, but apparently she forgot. The task fell to Eva, but at the moment, she was more concerned about the circulatory system lurking behind one of the less flaming trees.
“How long are you going to skulk about?” Eva shouted as the orbs of blood started orbiting her.
A certain former nun slipped around the side of the tree. Today, Lynn wasn’t wearing her nun habit. She had a pair of jeans on while being wrapped in a heavier wool jacket. Her shorter hair hung free, unkempt and unbound.
“The last time we fought in a forest didn’t go so well for you,” Eva said. Arachne moved up around her, readying for combat with her extra limbs sprouting from her back. “And I was alone then.”
Lynn eyed Eva, staring first at her before glancing towards Arachne. Her gaze was dull, half lidded and almost bored.
“Have I ever called you a monster?”
Eva tilted her head to her side, half shrugging as she did so. “Probably. I imagine a lot of people have, though I don’t consider myself one. At least not morally. Physically?”
Eva held up a hand, inspecting her carapace. Doing so had become something of a habit of hers whenever her inhuman nature was mentioned. She couldn’t say exactly how her habit had come about. Sometimes she felt like showing off for whomever she was speaking with.
Other times, she almost felt as if she were doing it for herself. Her eyes were blood-red with black sclera, her tongue could stretch a good distance and was dark in coloration, and even her teeth weren’t shaped quite like human teeth anymore.
Yet, without looking into a mirror, her hands were her most obviously inhuman elements. Things that she could use to confirm for herself that yes, she was a monster.
“Yeah, I’d say that I am physically monstrous.”
Lynn shook her head with lips curled into a disgusted sneer. “To think I ever saw you as a child.”
Eva sighed, rolling her eyes. Readying some of the blood for a shield while the rest prepared a wire ball for an attack. “Are you going to fight me or not?”
“The enigmas. I’ve been doing research on them.”
Eva paused, narrowing her eyes. “Go on…”
She kept her blood at the ready, not discounting the possibility of a trick.
“They are sent by a Power. One at war with other Powers.”
They had known as much since Zagan had given Nel the enigma fetter and she had scried on another plane of existence through it. They hadn’t explicitly known that it had been at war, but that was easy enough to guess.
“The Power creating the enigmas is one that has shown up in history on occasion. Every time it turns up, it manifests in some new form. Adapting or perhaps merely mutating.”
“So what? How does knowing that help us?”
“The problem is that these enigmas are not helpful towards humanity. They attack everyone without distinction. Human, demon, monster, mortal.”
“They don’t attack undead,” Eva said, thinking back to her memories of Sawyer. “Or, I know of a necromancer who tamed them. I don’t know if they tried to attack him before he tamed them.”
