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Just then Camille yelled, "Attack and subdue!" and a blaze of energy shot past my shoulder to strike the man in the legs. Holy shit, she was throwing lightning bolts in the house!
"What the fuck are you doing? You'll blow the place up!" I yelled, but then stopped as I noticed, more to my dismay than relief, that the bolt of energy hadn't done a thing to him. He shook it off like leaves in the wind.
"What the—" Camille said, confused.
The man let out a short bark of laughter and raised his hand to his mouth. Within a fraction of a second I saw rather than heard something go winging past me aimed squarely at Camille. In that same moment, Iris broke her concentration to throw herself against Camille's legs, knocking her to the floor. A solid thud echoed as a dart lodged itself into the wall instead of my sister. A miniature blowgun! Shit.
"Nobody messes with the D'Artigo girls and gets away with it!" I shouted and lunged, sidestepping so I wasn't in his direct line of fire. He turned to meet me, silent in his suede boots, and I could see a gleam of delight in his eyes.
"Come on, blondie, come and get me," he whispered, motioning me in as he lifted the blowgun again.
With no time to think, I body-slammed him. He managed to anticipate my move and was ready, dropping the blowgun and grappling me as I landed square on him. Then he rolled, taking me with him, so that he was on top of me, holding my wrists. The dude was freakishly strong for being as bony as he was.
"Well, this is fun," he said, grinning at me, and I could see that he had fangs that overlapped his front two teeth. They weren't as large as either mine or Menolly's, but they looked capable of inducing way too much pain and damage. He yanked one of my wrists up to his mouth. Damn! The creepy bastard was going to bite me and, from where I was lying, I could see a few drops of liquid glistening on the end of both fangs. Poison. Of course; he was a hobo werespider, and even in his human shape, his bite was venomous.
"I don't think so!" I yelled, yanking my knees up to my chest. He wasn't expecting it, and I caught him right in the balls. As he screamed, I threw him off, and we flipped again. This time I landed on top. I sank my knee into his groin as hard as I could, and that put an end to the fight right there. As he writhed, shrieking, Iris calmly hit him over the head with a stainless steel frying pan. Hard. Very hard. I looked at her, taken aback. I knew she could fight but never realized how resilient she was.
"That had to hurt," I said, clearing my throat. "You swing a mean skillet."
Iris beamed. "Hey, you learn to use what's handy. I had more than one skirmish in my day. Back in Finland, I protected the young ones of the family. Every now and then you'd get a bogey creeping in, or a kobold, or some other critter determined to raise havoc." She let out a wistful sigh. "Sometimes I miss those days," she said. "They were good, if a little hard, and I'd give anything to have seen the family live on, but they're all gone now."
While she ruminated on her past, Camille found some rope, and we tied him—hands and feet—to a chair. Remembering our fight with Wisteria a few months back, we also made sure we gagged him.
She picked through his pockets and found a wallet. "Not much here. Ten dollars… hold on, here's his identification. Horace von Spynne. Von Spynne … isn't that the name of the guy Zach got in a fight with a couple years ago?"
"Last name, yes," I said. "Geph von Spynne. They're probably related. They look a lot alike. What should we do with him?"
"For the moment, let's put him in the closet." We carried him to the closet, chair and all, and stuffed him in, locking it firmly. That little storeroom was quickly becoming a makeshift prison. Wisteria had spent some time in there, too.
Camille frowned, staring out into the yard. "I wonder why my blast of energy didn't affect him. It bounced off of him like he had a shield. And how the hell did he slip past my wards without alarming me? I'll be right back. I want to make certain they're still in place."
Iris picked up the skillet with a grunt. It was heavy stainless steel. There was no way in hell we could keep cast iron in the house, so we minimized its presence everywhere we could. The skillet was big enough for Iris to sit in. She had to have some muscles under that demure exterior.
I grinned at her. "I'm so glad you came to live with us. You sure you want to stick around here, though? It gets pretty dicey sometimes."
"Where else would I go?" she said. "With the OIA out of commission and my family in Finland long dead, I'm a free agent. And I like you girls—you're fun, and you make me feel needed."
Her words reminded me of how much house sprites depended on feeling like integral members of the household. Even in this day and age, if you treated them kindly and as one of the family, they would be loyal until the day you died.
"Trust me," I said. "We need you, all right. And Maggie needs you."
"That's good enough for me." Iris giggled. "What do we do with Mr. Eight Legs?" Her gaze darkened. "Delilah, you know we can't let him go. He'd run right back to the Hunters Moon Clan and tell them everything. We can't take a chance on letting them discover what our strengths and weaknesses are. I don't think we have much choice in the long run. He has to be eliminated."
Yep, she was delightful but deadly.
"I know. I don't like the thought of killing him, but I agree with everything you say. Say, why do you think Camille's energy blast didn't work on him? She's gotten pretty good with it, and that particular spell almost never backfires on her anymore. What happened?"
With a frown, Iris peeked in the closet. "Still out cold," she said as she reached out to touch his arm. After a moment, she closed the door again. "He has some sort of natural protection against moon magic, I think."
I held up his weapon and the dart that he had sunk into the wall. "The fact that he had a blowgun and hadn't used it before we saw him pretty much tells us that he must have just sneaked in. Otherwise, we'd all be dead if that poison is as dangerous as I think it is." As I finished talking, the kitchen door opened, and Camille entered, followed by Morio. "What did you find out? Were the wards still armed?"
She shook her head. "No, they weren't. And for some reason, I didn't notice them."
"I can tell you why," Morio said. "I dug around a little in town, talked to a few people, put the pressure on where I needed to. Apparently the Hunters Moon Clan is resistant to moon magic, thanks to their infamous creator. Kyoka worked with the moon when he originally created the werespiders, and it gave them some sort of natural immunity that must have been passed down throughout the years. It also gives them the ability to navigate your wards, since you call on the Moon Mother to set them."
"Fuck," Camille said. "That bites. What the hell am I supposed to do, then? I'm not exactly Wonder Woman in a battle. I guess I'd better haul out my short sword and get in some practice."
"Did anybody else notice that Zach slept through all the commotion?" I asked, suddenly remembering that he was in the living room.
