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“Yes. You will have to be firm with her.”
Easier said than done. “When the Jorõgumo appeared in the club, she seemed to merge from the shadows—can she actually do that?”
“Most spirits who can take on flesh can just as easily dissolve. You will have to be quick to capture her.”
“And hope like hell she doesn’t decide to attack rather than run.”
“If she attacks, I will be there.”
If she flung little black babies at me, him arriving quickly was not going to help. “So, wish me luck.”
“I wish you speed and strength,” he said. “As I have noted before, it is not wise to rely on luck in this sort of situation.”
I guess not. I drew Amaya and gripped her fiercely. Okay, we are going to cage her, not consume her; you got that, Amaya?
Fun not.
I don’t care.
She muttered for several seconds, the words indecipherable but their meaning clear. Happy not, as she would say. Then she said, Can nibble?
Not even a little taste. She is Hunter’s meal, not yours.
Eat Hunter, she muttered.
That, I replied grimly, might yet be an option in the future.
She perked up no end at this and began humming happily. I took a deep breath, released it slowly, and wished the nerves and the tension would just fuck off. They didn’t, however, so I just called to the Aedh once again and carefully made my way inside the house.
To hear music rather than the sound of lovemaking.
I inched forward, following the haunting, melodious sound, and found the shifter and the Jorõgumo in the living room. He was sitting on a chair, his jacket dumped on the floor and his shirt undone to the waist. His eyes were closed, and his expression was one of bliss. I couldn’t actually see why—the music, while different, wasn’t exactly a sound that would put me into raptures. But then, my tastes tended to run to pop and rock rather than more classical stuff.
Besides, his state didn’t really have a whole lot to do with the actual music, but rather the lute it came from. Zaira had said the instrument was magic, and the room was thick with it.
The Jorõgumo knelt at his feet, her head bent and her dark hair cascading over what looked to be a small, odd-shaped lute. She plucked the strings with nails that were long and glistened with silver—silver that fell onto the wood floor and spun up and around the shifter’s sneakered feet.
Her web.
The music spelled him, distracted him, while she spun her cocoon around him.
Remember, I said to Amaya, although I wasn’t entirely sure she could hear me when we were both little more than energy particles. No consuming. Just containment.
With that, I called forth the Aedh and re-formed—but only enough to give Amaya room to do her stuff. There was no way in hell I was about to risk baby spiders being thrown at me.
The minute Amaya formed, she flung fire at the Jorõgumo, but the spider woman reacted with lightning speed, throwing herself sideways and out from under the range of the flames. They chased her, eagerly crawling across the floor toward her, but already she was dissolving, her face and torso becoming little more than wisps that trailed behind the rest of her body as she continued to run from Amaya’s flames.
“Fuck,” I said, and regained full form. “Amaya, grab her legs!”
A rope of fire lashed out instantly, whipping around what remained of the Jorõgumo’s limbs. She screamed and stumbled, crashing to the floor and finding form again.
Only her form was spider rather than human this time, and she was big and black, with skin that writhed and pulsated. I did not want to know what was causing that movement. I really didn’t.
The Jorõgumo lunged at me, her fangs bared and as thick as my arm. I yelped and jumped backward, but my calves clipped the edge of the coffee table and I tipped ass over the top of it. I landed awkwardly, but had barely rolled onto my back when Amaya screamed a warning. I looked up to see a hairy black leg coming straight at me. I swore, swung my sword, and steel met flesh with a clang that sounded oddly like a death knell. Not mine, I hoped. Amaya’s screaming was fierce as her steel bit deep into one of the fleshier parts of the Jorõgumo’s leg, and blood flew. As did little black objects.
It was my worst fear come to life. There were baby spiders under her skin.
Somehow I kept a lid on the utter horror that crawled through me and rolled out from under her leg.
