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“Oh, thanks,” I said, putting my weight on the creature’s abdomen. I didn’t want to destroy them, not when they were so incredibly expensive and would be much more difficult to track to their maker once they were decimated.
“I was really worried about you, particularly after the Scholar came and?—”
“Um, Felix, I don’t mean to interrupt, but it’s kind of important.”
The spider rotated its joints and shoved up, knocking me off it, back into Bert’s bed, bumping him, but not knocking any of the tubes out, thank heavens.
“Oh, of course. His number is…” He gave me the number, that I mouthed over and over, while blocking the smaller spider’s leaps with my file and kicking back the other one. This was ridiculous. I really would have to destroy them. Such a waste.
I called the Lab’s vault, and it took ten rings for the goblin to answer. “Who did I give this number to?”
“Hi! I’m looking for the Scholar.”
“He’s not here.” He hung up on me in time for me to use my phone to smack the little bugger back with enough force that it hit the window, cracking it to the frame.
I groaned and redialed, dropping flat and rolling under the bed to get away from the big one. It had adapted remarkably well to only having half its legs, redistributing them so they were even. Smart design, adaptable.
“He’s still not here,” the goblin growled, picking up.
“Wait! It’s me, Libby the Librarian. I’m facing down assassin spiders in Bell, room seven-forty-two, and I would love if you could notify him that someone’s trying to kill Bert, the guard on duty when Horace was killed. Maybe he could organize a guard on the hospital room here, because I have to get back soon to walk my dog.”
He grunted and hung up on me again.
Well, that was that. I’d have to destroy the spiders for good. I rolled out of the bed, drew a death rune and threw it at the creature. It wasn’t a generic death rune, but one made specifically for magically altered creatures.
It popped and bubbled, smelling of tires and a variety of poisons, the strongest scented one arsenic. Meanwhile, the other monster had its pincer out and was this close to my hip when it ran over the death spell I’d written while under the bed chatting with the goblin.
It froze, then fell over, not completely destroyed, but without a trace of life or animation. Ha! I’d kept one intact.
I lay there, breathing hard, half under Bert’s bed, half under the window when the glass exploded and bats came pouring in. I blocked my face with my arm so the glass cut it instead of my eyes.
When the seething bats reformed into the Scholar, I just lay there staring up at him for a long time. He looked so good, but how could I reconcile that with him being a vampire?
“Miss Morell, are you injured?”
I brushed off the glass and sat up. “I think that I’m okay. I guess the goblin passed on my message after all.”
“Mr. Pepshaw notified me that I had a caller the first time, so when I arrived to question him further, he had an exact address for me from your second chat. Don’t move for a moment, if you would be so kind.” He crouched, spreading his arms wide, and then summoned blue glowing magic that crackled in the room until my hair was standing on end. With an explosion of sound and movement, the glass went back into the window, resealing and erasing the mess like it hadn’t ever happened.
He knelt and grasped my wrist, helping me up like I was some dainty creature. I grabbed the spider out from under the bed before I let him help me.
“What is—” he started, and then frowned and plucked number three out of his neck.
I swore and took the tiny insect, dissecting it with my file so I could analyze the poison I hadn’t noticed it injecting into the Scholar.
“Miss Morell, I don’t believe that you provided Mr. Pepshaw with enough specifics,” he said sounding slow and ponderous.
My heart raced as I studied his pale skin and complicated eyes. What could possibly be affecting him, a vampire, like that? He’d probably be fine. Vampires were notoriously difficult to poison to death, what with already being dead. My blood was toxic, and it hadn’t killed him.
He swayed while I ran the liquid through my poison identifier spells, but I didn’t recognize it.
“Miss Morell, it seems that we have things to discuss,” he said, words long and drawn out. Was he going to be drunk from the poison’s effects? Things were about to get weird. He staggered to the side, and I grabbed him around the waist, pulling his arm over my shoulder.
“Easy, Mr. Stead. Do you have anyone else coming who could help with poison identification?”
He frowned at me, and then his legs went out and we both went down in a tangle of limbs. Vampires were very solid, and I couldn’t hold both of us up without getting a much firmer grip on him. We were closer than we should be as it was, his cheek against my forehead, eyes blue, and then flashing red.
He said, “I think that we should discuss us, this unspoken thing between us that’s impossible to deny. I think that?—”
