Void Domain, Book 09 полностью

The vampire threw his arms to the side, sending the flying serpent off towards one of the walls. Eva had to grab on tight as it lifted high in the chamber to avoid crashing.

Twisting her neck to see behind her, Eva found the mural back to its default state. No lights and no colors.

Eva looked down. Spotting Basila near instantly, she blinked.

“Anise,” Eva said, dodging the nun’s glowing battle-axe, “I need you to get to the vampire and just hound him. Make him absolutely unable to do anything.”

“Wha–”

“No time to argue. Basila will help keep the plants off your back. Just find him and lock him down.” Eva used the blood within Basila to send her off in the direction of the vampire. He was fast. Far too fast for her to expect Basila to get a hit in, let alone coil around him.

But that was what Anise was for.

“Follow Basila, she’ll lead you to the vampire.”

Anise hesitated for another moment, opening her mouth.

A single glare from Eva had her moving after the basilisk.

“Randal,” Eva said, turning to face him. “Get to the big golden shrine and get your marble ready. You can’t put it in until the shrine is active.”

At least, that was what Eva was assuming. It seemed logical, but she hadn’t really been in a position to try while the shrine had been active.

“Sounds easy. You just taking a nap while we’re doing all the hard work?”

Eva looked up to the serpent as it drifted about overhead, looking for something to attack.

“I’ve got a snake to wrangle.”

“Fair enough. I suppose I’ll leave you to it.”

Eva turned, about to blink away as Randal ran off. Emily gripped her hand, stopping her cold.

“What about me?”

“Help Randal, I suppose,” Eva said after a moment of silence. Really, she wasn’t quite sure what Emily was going to do that Randal couldn’t, but at least it gave her something to do.

She nodded, offering a smile before running off.

Left alone, Eva gave herself a moment to concentrate. Blinking onto a moving target, especially one higher up, was near impossible. Not without losing a leg or worse. However, she could blink to a point in front of it and hope she could grab onto its horns.

Horns? Eva thought with a frown. Snakes didn’t have horns. Not even basilisks. Neither did they have wings. Maybe it was actually a Chinese dragon, though why it was in the middle of a pyramid was anyone’s guess.

Not that it mattered at the moment.

Eva blinked.

Staring at a creature with a mouth twice her size coming straight at her as she fell had Eva wondering if it was such a good idea after all.

She landed hard on its forehead, bouncing slightly and letting out a groan even as she tried to get a grip on its antler-like horns. Even with Arachne’s claws, there wasn’t much more than a light scrape on whatever they were made out of.

“Great job Eva,” she mumbled to herself, face down on the platinum scales with her arms wrapped around one horn. “Now what?”

Now she had to wrangle it.

Easier said than done.

Using the horn for support, Eva slowly made it to her feet.

White flashes of lightning and fire lit up a section of the forest. Anise must have been doing her job properly. She was slightly out of range of Eva’s blood sight—as was Basila—but Eva couldn’t see the vampire anywhere. Emily and Randal had both made it up to the shrine and were doing nothing more than standing around.

The perfect time.

Eva gripped the horn. With all of her body weight behind it, she yanked it to the side.

The dragon’s gaze crossed the shrine, but only long enough to cause a faint glow. Something that had probably happened numerous times and yet had been too subtle to notice.

Eva’s grip nearly came loose as the dragon shook its head. She grit her teeth and wrapped her legs around the horn for extra grip until it stopped bucking.

When it did, it faced away from the shrine.

Which wasn’t bad.

If it kept going straight, she could loop it around the elevator pillar. If she could even its flight out afterwards, that would give it a much straighter path and, more importantly, a longer path than the simple turn of its head. Its gaze would be on the shrine for longer.

Eva carefully leaned back and forth, never putting too much force in her attempts to steer the dragon for fear of it suddenly bucking again. She kept it going straight until it had passed the pillar.

Only then did she shove against its right horn.

Almost immediately, she let go of the right horn and barreled into the left, leveling it out.

The shrine lit up in a brilliant gold. In front of it, Randal started to reach his arm towards the pedestal.

“Randal!” Eva shouted.

A moment too late.

Vines snapped out of the dryad’s wrist and wrapped around Randal’s arm. She yanked his arm back even as she ran forwards with her own green marble in hand.

He spun, stumbling twice before gathering his wits about him and casting one of his orbs at the vines.

Eva tried to slam her body against the dragon’s horn again to break contact.

But it was too late.

A hand slammed a violet marble down into the slot, just before the dryad could reach the pedestal.