Eva’s shield, or what remained of it, collapsed into solidified daggers of blood as she blinked straight to the hunter. If they were hovering orbs, they wouldn’t blink with her. Daggers would.
And with much of his armor missing, he had plenty of soft spots for Eva to jam the daggers into.
Eva aimed for a particularly soft spot right around his armpit.
His body wasn’t there by the time her dagger reached her target.
Eva blinked again, not really aiming anywhere in particular. Just so long as she wound up far enough away from that sword.
Srey moved in to Eva’s vacancy, letting the sword pass harmlessly through his ethereal vapor form. The moment it was safe, he solidified.
When he did so, he wasn’t in the form that Eva had become accustomed to.
He looked humanoid, but his body looked like molten vapor. Dark plumes of smoke erupted from a white-hot mist that made up the solid portions of his body. He reached forwards, hands passing through the helmet of the hunter. He retracted his hands almost immediately in apparent pain.
But not before Eva heard a cough.
The hunter stumbled slightly as he coughed a second time.
Eva wasted no time. She didn’t know how long they might have even a slight advantage.
She blinked forward again, arm already posed to bring a dagger down into his shoulder.
He moved a gauntlet up, catching the solidified blood with the back of his hand. Shards split off. Some larger chunks dug into the metal. Other smaller bits sprayed around the area.
Eva clapped her hands together anyway, blinking away as she did so to avoid his raised sword.
His gauntlet protected him from the explosion. Partially. Most of the metal scattered around the area in tiny shards—shards that burned her skin anywhere they touched. She obviously hadn’t blinked far enough away.
But he was still in a worse state. Save for a few fingers, he no longer had a gauntlet on his off-hand. Unfortunately, save for a slight blemish, his actual arm was otherwise untouched.
He was still coughing. More frequently than before.
Before Eva could blink back in and offer him the other dagger, he disappeared.
Eva’s head whipped around as she searched for where he dashed off to this time.
Except, neither her eyes nor her sense of blood could find him anywhere nearby.
Eva pulled out her cellphone, speed dialing Nel before it even hit her ear.
The augur picked up the second the ring sounded.
“Talk to–”
“The eye patch woman is going to crack the sky again!”
“Vektul,” Eva shouted. “Portal to anywhere that isn’t here! Everyone else, get through it.”
It took only seconds for the demon to comply. Eva dashed into the portal alongside the others, chased by the white beam of light crashing down on their position.
Conversations
“Wow.”
Eva rested her head on the table with a soft sigh. She had tried to keep her discussion quiet. That had failed within seconds.
Vektul, as Eva had asked of him, had gone around and warned the other demons of the sky cracking idol and the demon hunters. Unfortunately, he had gone around and told everyone during lunch. Everyone, in this case, included more than just the demons. Eva would be surprised if anyone in the whole school didn’t know what had happened the night before.
Having only gotten back to Brakket early in the morning, Eva had promised to tell her friends what she had been up to the night before as soon as school was out and they could have some privacy. After Vektul created an uproar, Eva figured that she might as well explain now.
“There were some flashes on the horizon. Shalise actually woke me up after the first one. I had been asleep.”
“I was just studying,” Shalise said. “I thought it was lightning, but there weren’t any clouds.”
“I can’t believe you ran off to all the excitement without us again,” Juliana said with a half-hearted glare.
Shalise shifted, glancing between Eva and Juliana. “I could do without all the excitement, personally,” she whispered.
“Says the girl who tried to convince Arachne to fight her without even talking to me,” Eva said, pretending she hadn’t heard Shalise’s hushed comment.
“I said I was sorry.”
Eva waved a hand. She really didn’t care if the two sparred or not. It was heartening to see Arachne consider Eva’s feelings. However, as long as she kept herself under control, they could spar all they wanted. There were more important things for everyone to worry about.
“But there wasn’t supposed to be anything exciting last night for you to miss. Just a simple terrain survey and cleanup.”
“You still haven’t explained what for.”
Eva glanced around the cafeteria.
