“I am perfectly content with that plan,” Emily said after a moment of silence. “I mean, I don’t want to speak bad about my school… but I’m probably the only one left. They…
Eva glared. She wasn’t angry. But she was on a time limit.
“That’s great. We can all have a heart to heart and be friends later. I left Rachael up there with the dryad and I’ve got a bad feeling. Let’s go.”
She took a step, preparing to jump up the stairs to the top, but paused and turned.
“Though if you could turn the stairs back to normal, I’m sure Randal would appreciate it.”
Randal was still within her blood sight range. He was struggling. A lot. He was trying to brace himself against where the stairs would be and the decorative slope between the stairwell and the main pyramid walls. Every now and again, he slid down.
Eva didn’t wait to see if Emily would comply. She half expected Rachael to be watching from the top, yet there was no silhouette against the moonlight sky. They might try attacking Randal, but he could probably handle it if they did. Especially if his magic canceling orbs worked on Elysium Order magic.
She hopped and hopped and hopped until the topmost plateau came in range of her blood sight.
A swear escaped her lips that would undoubtedly be censored over the airwaves.
Eva hopped to the top of the pyramid. Before her feet even touched the ground, she blinked and reappeared next to the vine-wrapped pillar.
A swipe of her fingers had several vines snapping, freeing Rachael. She slumped forwards. Only the tension of the vines had been holding her upright. Her hand pressed up against two bleeding holes in her shoulder.
“He was just waiting for you to leave,” she said, voice soft and lethargic.
Eva didn’t need to ask who ‘he’ was. The vampire had taken more blood than Eva would be comfortable with. Rachael
Probably.
Rachael’s wand was missing as well. Stolen or perhaps flung off the pyramid along with the Faultline wand. Eva had spares from the other members of Faultline. Unfortunately, they were worthless unless Rachael was actually up to the task of wielding one.
“I knew I should have thrown that dryad off the pyramid.”
Rachael let out a few low chuckles. “There are slots for the marbles,” she said, pointing towards the center of the pyramid. “It opened up into an elevator. They went inside. You might be able to catch them before they win this.”
“I hope so,” Eva said as she looked to where Rachael had pointed.
Sure enough, there was a shallow indentation right in the center that looked like it would be the perfect size for the marbles they had received to determine their teams.
But they must have gone pretty deep into the temple. Eva could see the dryad having slipped by her blood sense, but the vampire stuck out like a sore thumb. She hadn’t sensed either of them on her ascent back up the pyramid.
Eva’s first instinct was to run to the elevator, drop her marble in, and give immediate chase.
But then it would be her versus the dryad and the vampire. Alone. Exactly the situation she had been trying to avoid by dragging along the trainee nun this whole time.
Eva blinked to the edge of the stairs.
At least Randal and the others weren’t fighting. And they were hurrying up the stairs. But, only being halfway to the third landing, they were going far slower than Eva needed. Despite having started all the way at the base, Randal had passed by the two girls.
Cupping her hands to her mouth, Eva shouted down at them. “Move it people!”
Both Anise and Emily looked up at her with identical expressions on their faces.
They stared up at her with open mouths, panting as they used her shout as an excuse to stop moving.
But they didn’t have to be so slow about it.
That simply wouldn’t do.
