King waited for me to go first, which I supposed made sense, as I was playing the role of rodeo clown and while he actually rode the bull.
Metaphorically, I hoped. I was pretty sure that any attraction I felt for him would disappear the instant I saw him on the back of an enormous spider.
I could still feel the whisper of our skin pressed together, his firm body, long legs. Even hisbreathsmelled good.
I wanted that body. But, in order to have it, we needed to crush the spider with the chandelier.
“Hey!” I waved my arms over my head, and the spider turned to me, still with too many legs. It crept forward, more cautious. When it was about half the room away, I saw it raise its thorax again and try to shoot its webbing at me. Whatever burn resulted from King’s spell proved effective, as the webbing came out in the thick clump that weighed down the back of its body, rather than the thin strands that had caught us in the first place.
We were running out of time before the spider’s attack got serious. I didn’t have time to play at witchcraft anymore.
“Hey, ugly!” I grinned at the spider. “Looks like you’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.”
“Are you planning to go hand-to-hand with the thing?” King hissed. He wasn’t even looking at me, still focused on the chandelier above us.
I could see several green flashes in the space above our heads, but I couldn’t figure out what he was doing. How hard was it just to bring the thing down?
“You just tell me when you need it in place.” I gestured to the area directly under the chandelier, and King nodded tightly.
With him distracted, I found myself reaching for the familiar. There was a blanket in the room that I had woken in my panic, and I reached for it now. It was made of bamboo. Soft and just perfect for what I needed.
Any Californian can tell you bamboo is incredibly invasive. It’s strong, takes over waterways, and once it gets in a stream, it’s impossible to get out. All I had to do was get the bamboo water. I considered my options, and then found myself staring at the wet bar in the room beyond the spider. It was, as most things were in McCallum’s house, expensive and tasteful. I had to believe that someone else had designed it for him.
In the center I could see a faucet. Normally, I would have just summoned the water out of the pipes. Unfortunately, even a distracted King would notice if the water appeared out of nowhere.
So, in order to keep my disguise going, I needed to get around the spider, turn on the water, and then my bamboo could cage in the giant arachnid exactly where we needed it.
No problem. I could do this. According to my high school counselor, I could do anything I put my mind to.
Of course, at the time, she was talking about me not failing math. But, I wasn’t going to argue with the premise.
The spider crept closer to me. I wanted to say that its gait looked strange missing its leg, but it was like one of those dogs with the missing leg who ends up on a scooter. The spider hadalready adapted. I was the asshole for thinking it would look strange.
King juggled three spells in the air, and was drawing a large circle on the ground. He would be no help getting me across the room.
McCallum’s entryway opened on either side: one into the massive living room with the wet bar, the other to the hallway that led to the kitchen, pool deck, and onward to what I assumed was a gaming room. I had more than enough space, it was just that passing by the spider made something twist inside me.
Big boy panties, I reminded myself. Plus, like an adult offering a toddler a Snickers bar if they stopped screaming, I had a reward for myself when I was finally done.
As soon as we killed the spider, I could figure out where exactly McCallum had gone. Then, I could track him down, and serve him the exact justice that my blood demanded.
I reached into my bag, and pulled out some of the remaining honey. Then, I looked at the spider.
I had never been one of those kids who enjoyed hurting other creatures. In elementary school, there had been one kid, clearly on the road to starring in his ownMaking of a Murdererminiseries, who’d enjoyed trapping insects under the plastic water glasses they gave us for lunch. He had a whole collection of them on the edge of the playground on any given day: pill bugs, spiders, and assorted flies trapped under the baking-hot plastic.
Whenever he would get distracted, I would sprint by and kick over the cups, freeing the bugs like I was starring in my own made-for-tvFree Willysequel.Free Willy 5: The Bug Liberator.
However, this was an enormous spider, not some sad daddy longlegs trapped under a child’s cup. I didn’t have much choice.
I charged forward, so close to the spider that I could see the individual hairs on its massive body. Then I spread a thin line of honey across the floor so that if the spider moved to follow me,it would be stepping in the sticky substance. When I didn’t have any more to spread, I hefted the jar in my hand, and threw it as hard as I could at the spider’s legs.
The jar cracked open, and the spider lifted its legs, distracted by the glass shards. I darted across the room, in the gap between the spider and the wall.
You can do this, Ferro, I told myself.This is just a spider —
Then the rational part of my brain cut out, because, while theoretically an arachnid wasn’t as smart as I was, it was a giant cursed spider and I had just run within inches of it. My stomach told me that it was going to kill me. Some primal part of me that had been a caveman eons ago, knew that spiders were very bad business.
The spider turned, and, sure enough, two of its legs got stuck in the honey.
