Eva froze. She stopped suddenly enough that Emily bumped into her back. Not hard enough to knock either of them off balance. Enough for Emily’s heart rate to briefly spike as she jumped away from Eva with her wand raised.
“I’m so stupid,” Eva said, ignoring the wand at her back.
Both girls blinked, glancing at each other before focusing on Eva.
“It wasn’t a smell. Why would I think that? How does something even smell slimy?”
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s a demon out here with us.”
Anise immediately turned to scan the surrounding area. Her fingers started to crackle with white lightning.
Emily didn’t take her wand off Eva. “Friend of yours?” she asked with narrowed eyes.
“Normally. Used to be?” Eva wasn’t quite sure. “At the moment, I doubt it.”
“We should move,” Anise said. Her voice was tinged with actual fear. It even trembled slightly. Emily’s heart rate had risen, but Anise was in a whole other league. “We don’t– I can’t– A real demon?”
Eva frowned.
Then again, Anise’s hive mind likely labeled her as an abomination rather than a demon.
“Yes a real demon,” Eva snapped. What was she so worried about anyway?
The answer came almost as soon as she wondered.
The Elysium Order had found themselves embarrassed by demons several times over the past two years. Not a single engagement had gone well for them. At least none Eva had been involved in. Lynn Cross and the Charon Chapter had been driven out of town with a few losses. Ylva had demolished their inquisitorial squad after they had abjectly failed in their mission to recover Nel. Eva had stolen an artifact right from under their nose and dumped it on their front porch after she had finished with it. Which was probably a fairly large embarrassment on its own.
The only damage they had really done to demons in return had been killing Arachne.
Perhaps Anise, being a mere student and trainee, didn’t have the power necessary to pull off a similar stunt.
“It won’t matter anyway. She already knows where we are. Following us won’t be difficult.”
Especially given other demons’ ability to sense Eva. Not that she was going to admit that to her companions.
“We can’t fight a demon. Are you insane?”
Eva glanced at Emily, pointing a finger at herself with an incredulous look on her face.
The Mount Hope student just shrugged and turned a pitying look on Anise.
While they sat around talking, the demon closed in on them. The slimy sensation grew stronger and stronger.
Right up until Eva’s sense of blood registered something other than the few animals and insects that were still around.
Thin tendrils, each no thicker than a pencil, swarmed across the forest floor. They managed to maneuver through the trees and brush without winding up tangled around anything despite being spread out enough to half-surround Eva and her group. The care they took in crawling through the brush kept even a single leaf from rustling.
If it weren’t for her ability to sense both demons and blood, it was entirely possible she wouldn’t have noticed until it was too late.
Though, as she had just said, she doubted there would be an escape.
Eva crossed her arms and sighed.
Tendrils snapped out of the brush, all of them leaping as one.
Emily managed to get off the ground, leaping from a pillar of earth that hadn’t been there a moment ago. She wasn’t quite fast enough. The tentacles caught her in the middle of her jump, wrapping around her waist and pinning her arms to her side.
Anise didn’t fare half as well. Lightning crackled at her fingertips, but she didn’t get a chance to actually fire it before becoming wrapped up like a mummy.
Eva didn’t bother to move. She could have blinked away. She could have fought back with explosive fire. But escaping would have wound up with her leaving Anise behind. Something she really didn’t want to do at the moment. Not until the vampire had been incapacitated.
Neither did she
So instead, she simply stood still with her arms crossed. Even as a bundle of tendrils wrapped around and snaked up her leg, Eva didn’t move. The tendrils lifted her up, swinging her upside down. Eva kept her arms crossed.
And just glared at the main mass that was slowly approaching.
— — —
“T-tentacles?” Hank said with a nervous chuckle.
Zoe pressed her face to her palm, not willing to meet his eyes. “She’s actually pretty nice once you get to know her,” she said slowly.
“That’s… a she?”
“She’s employed by Brakket Academy as a security guard. Or was in the past. I believe her contract expired. I’m guessing that Wallace picked up her contract for this event.”
“Ah hah ha.” Again with the nervous laugh. “Well, precarious situation for our young ladies.”
— — —
“Eva!”
The cheer filled voice came from the main mass of tentacles, filled with far more gurgles than Eva remembered. Of course, she couldn’t see a humanoid body formed in the mass, so she was probably just forming up a mouth in the middle of it all.
