Page 54 of Magic for Nothing

Sam shook his head. “Holy shit, you’re weird. I didn’t think—”

He stopped speaking as a loop of silk whipped up from beneath us and locked around his throat, cutting off his air supply. Alarmed, he clawed at the silk, only to topple off the edge of the roof as Umeko yanked and gravity kicked in.

Well, shit. I ran to the edge of the roof, trying to calculate the angles and the height and all that other fun shit that normally isn’t my problem, because when I jump, I’m counting on the surface I land on to be yielding, if not actively rubbery.

Yielding. Rubbery. Umeko was reeling Sam in like a fisherman reels in their line, her legs occupied with the complicated business of twisting more and more webbing around him. Her attention was focused on her captive, and not on me. And her abdomen sure did make a tempting target.

Saying a quick prayer to whatever saints looked after the stupid and the suicidal, I leaped, my feet aimed straight for the widest point of the Jorōgumo’s body.

Spiders are beautiful, dangerous, alien creatures. They can be tiny or enormous, venomous or harmless to humans. They have just as much diversity as anything else on the planet. But there’s one thing all spiders have in common. They’re surprisingly fragile. Drop a tarantula, and its exoskeleton will shatter like glass. The spider will die. They can survive without food, without air, without several of their limbs, but break that surface, and they’re gone.

My feet slammed into Umeko’s abdomen just above the filigree markings that slashed across the ivory like arachnid tattoos. There was a moment’s resistance, like I was stepping on eggshells. Then it gave way with a terrible squelching, squishing sound, and my momentum carried me right through her, into the soup of her internal organs, which had never been meant to take this kind of damage. Umeko screamed again, high, shrill, and despairing. She twisted to look at me, and all of her eyes were wide, filled with terror, as she saw what I’d done to her.

There was no way she could have survived that sort of damage. At this point, the only thing I could give her was a quicker death. Most things with a human torso and an animal body have differently ordered organs, but all of them have this much in common: they still need to breathe.

My legs were bare, and beginning to tingle from their contact with the contents of Umeko’s body, which had almost certainly contained at least one venom sac, if not more. Hoping Sam would be able to get loose and free me before I succumbed, I flung another knife, catching Umeko in the throat. She closed all her eyes but the most human pair, looking briefly, terribly grateful. Then she collapsed, falling in a heap of tangled legs and broken body, atop the still-webbed Sam.

I thought about going to him, about helping him. But the poison was already working at me, and it seemed like too much trouble. I fell in turn, and the world was dark, and nothing hurt. Nothing hurt at all.

Fifteen

“The world is weird. Never challenge it to get weirder. You’ll lose.”

—Jane Harrington-Price

The Spenser and Smith Family Carnival, inside a private room, some undefined amount of time later

SOMEONE HAD PUT A WET washcloth on my forehead and pulled a warm blanket up to my shoulders, a seemingly contradictory blend of temperatures that said “safety” on a deep, almost elementary level. If there were wet washcloths and warm blankets, the world was functioning the way it was supposed to; things were going to be all right. Somehow, things were going to be all right.

“Her breathing just changed.” The voice was Sam’s. The tone was new. He didn’t sound wary or annoyed: he sounded exhausted, and a little confused, like reality had rearranged itself while I was sleeping, and had not yet had the courtesy to tell him exactly what the hell was going on. “I think she’s awake.”

“If she’s awake, she’ll let us know.” The second voice belonged to Emery. It was kind, although it took on an edge as she continued, “And hopefully she’ll let us know soon, since I’d like a few answers.”

I know how to take a hint. I didn’t open my eyes or push away the blankets as I said, “I’m here. Is it okay if I don’t move? My hands feel all tingly.”

“That would be the spider venom,” said Emery. “You’re lucky you didn’t die. You’re even luckier that you had no open wounds.”

Open wounds: right. Lots of spiders have venom that does nastier things than just killing a person. Fortunately for me, most of those nastier things aren’t topical. The venom needs to get inside the body to really start doing damage. “I should play the lottery,” I said.

“Maybe you should,” said Emery. “Or maybe you should just tell me who the hell you are, and why you’re here. I don’t suggest you lie to me a second time.”

I recognized her tone. That was a dangerous tone. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I did it anyway, choosing situational awareness over comfort.

The ceiling was draped in dark blue fabric. Crystals hung from it, suspended on fishing wire, alongside a plethora of stars and moons that looked like repurposed Christmas ornaments. I sat up, looking at the bed I was in at the same time. It was about as wide as mine, but half again as long, covered in quilts and heavy blankets. The sort of bed that would belong to someone who didn’t like to be cold.

Sam and Emery were nearby, Sam sitting in an old easy chair, Emery leaning against the wall. There were shelves on every available surface, crammed full of books and small souvenirs. Some of them looked like they should belong to a child—building blocks, a toy train, a plush monkey with half its fuzz rubbed off. This was definitely Sam’s room, which meant I was in their shared RV, which meant I was in a lot of trouble. Emery was still wearing her announcer’s outfit, with pancake and rouge caked onto her face until she could have passed for a woman twenty years younger, under the right light. The stark fluorescents of the RV were not the right light. And Sam . . .

Sam was still a monkey who also happened to be a man. The blend of the two was so seamless that special effects companies would have swooned to see him. It was easier to take in the details here, when a giant spider-woman wasn’t trying to kill us. His hair had been black in his all-human form, but it was a dark brown, ticked with pale blond, now that he’d transformed. His eyes were exactly the same.

“Well?” prompted Emery.

I panicked. It was the only explanation for why, when faced with the opportunity to tell the truth and be believed, what came out of my mouth was, “My name is Timpani Brown, ma’am. I just left out a few things about what happened to my home show. Like how it was Apraxis wasps that came out of the trees and left everyone dead. I’m as human as they come, but not all the people I traveled with were.”

“How is it you were able to identify a dangerous therianthrope when it was in the process of trying to kill you?”

I allowed a little irritation to creep into my voice. “How is it you weren’t, ma’am? Umeko was one of yours, but Sam looked as surprised as I felt when he showed up and she was a spider. Why is it a surprise I’d know about more things than just mice? I live with talking rodents that worship me as a living link to the divine. You’ve got to figure that opens a girl’s mind.”

“She’s got a point, Grandma,” said Sam. “We should have known.”