Void Domain, Book 09 полностью

Really, she was lucky that demon blood was black or everyone would put two and two together. Or would they? Even if people saw her turn the blood to crystal, would they really make the connection? After all, where would all that blood have come from?

Obviously, she hadn’t been doing any blood magic. It had been a demon thing.

All the more important to keep it secret while she could. Especially because the nuns probably suspected at the very least. She didn’t need to give them another reason to chase her around.

“Are you alright?”

“Perfect,” Lepus said with a terse frown. “Did you have a reason for intruding in my office?”

“This is still open hours, right?”

Her frown lessened slightly as she nodded her head. “I prefer a knock next time.”

“I’ll try to remember.”

“See that you do.”

There was a slight pause while Eva stood around, still trying to figure out just what had happened. The professor said she was alright and who was Eva to disagree. Sticking her nose too far into more problems would just add to her workload.

Deciding not to pursue the matter further at the moment, Eva took one step into the room.

Only to find Professor Lepus glaring at her once again. “Your friend can wait outside,” she said, flicking her eyes towards Arachne. “It is bad enough that she follows you around all day. However, my open door policy is for students only.”

“With everything that’s been going on, she’s just been a little protective,” Eva said before turning to Arachne. “But I’ll be fine. Keep an eye out for the vampire or the nuns and politely scare them off if they wander by.”

“But–”

“Professor Lepus isn’t going to attack me.” As Arachne opened her mouth, Eva held up a hand. “I’m one room away. In the extraordinarily low chance that she does decide to attack me, I’ll just shout out for you.”

Arachne actually glared at Eva for a moment. Not long. And not a very harsh glare either. She turned a far more vicious look towards the professor before storming out of the room.

Eva just sighed as the door closer did its job closing the door. “Sorry about that,” she said, moving up to take the seat on the opposite side of the desk.

It was the first time she had been inside her warding professor’s office. Unlike her classroom, which was fairly spartan, the office was well decorated. She had several classical looking paintings hung up around the room. The most prominent of which was of a fairly empty landscape with a bunch of melting pocket watches.

Eva only got to glance around for a second before Professor Lepus started speaking.

“Vampires,” she said with a disbelieving huff. “I remember when this institution had some integrity. Dean Halsey’s mismanagement threw much of it in the trash. Turner’s questionable associates didn’t help. Don’t even get me started on Anderson.”

Eva kept her mouth firmly closed. She was not interested in any kind of rant on the school’s staff.

Seeing that she wasn’t about to continue her discussion, Professor Lepus sighed. “Anyway, did you need something?”

“Warding help, actually.”

“That is my specialty.”

“I’ve been working on a bit of an extracurricular project. An experiment, though really only to test myself. I need to create a large ward to keep out rain and snow.”

Turning to a large grandfather clock to the side of her desk, Professor Lepus nodded her head. “Alright. Four minutes. I will teach you the necessary thought patterns. After that, actually constructing the ward will be up to you.”

Four minutes? That was almost no time at all. She had anticipated spending the better part of the evening with the professor. Then again, she was only going to teach the thought patterns, not supervise the creation of a test ward.

But that should be decent enough. All the practice she had been giving herself in her free time would help.

“Why don’t you tell me how far you’ve gotten on your own.”

“Alright,” Eva said, settling into her seat. She would leave any mention of the ritual out. If asked what the ward was for, it would be to keep the weather out of the cracked roof in a house. She didn’t always live at the dorms after all. Most teachers knew that. One more wouldn’t change anything.

“I volunteer.”

Everyone in the room turned to look at Eva.

Nobody knew what the event would be. Wallace Redford had been keeping extremely tight lipped about the matter. Eva knew that more than one demon had tried following him around. Probably several humans as well. Then there were the other schools which probably had their own spies. If they had found anything, they weren’t sharing.

They were supposed to be discussing possibilities. Personally, Eva was just hoping for straight up combat. Maybe a secondary objective of a flag or something. Nothing strenuous and, more importantly, nothing weird. She had enough weird things on her plate as it was.