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He dug a handcuff key out of a hidden pocket in his boot and freed his hands. “Zoe’s cuffs are stronger than normal. Even I can’t break them, but she always has me keep spare keys in case she loses hers.” Once completely free, he sat cross-legged and ran his hand through his thick red hair. His hand trembled slightly, as the last image she hoped she’d ever see of his close brush with a painful death flashed in his mind.
“My venom will help you heal, but it will take time.” Liliana cut the seam at the bottom of her skirt and tore off the black strip of cloth that made the ruffle. She pushed it gently against the swollen, puffy holes on the side of his throat. The punctures she made were small and neat with just a trickle of blood that would quickly stop. The widow spider’s punctures were wide and still sluggishly oozed thick blood and greenish neutralized venom.
“I heal fast.” He waved her concern away. “How long do we have to wait before we can go after Zoe?”
Liliana licked her lips and looked down at his boots. “You should leave now, so you can get home safely.” If she could get him out, then at least one life would be saved.
She remembered seeing a pack of wolfhounds tearing him apart a few months in the future. It horrified her to think of him dying that way, but of all possible deaths, the widow spider’s bite was the only one Pete genuinely feared. She did not want the brave wolf to face this enemy again when he had so nearly died in terror and agony. If he must die, she had seen enough of his soul to know he would choose to die fighting, saving the life of an innocent.
She winced as she realized that, thanks to her, he wouldn’t live that long even if he made it out of this building tonight. Meeting her had really not done the wolf-kin any favors.
Pete blinked, fighting his way through venom fog and the urge to obey without question. “We come back later for Zoe?”
“I will get Sergeant Giovanni,” Liliana said.
Pete shook his head, struggling against her venom’s influence. “I thought you said we could get her free together if we waited until the right time?”
Liliana sighed. She let Pete hold the wad of cloth against his neck and sat back on her heels. “I told you if you tried to save her too soon, we would certainly both die, and so would she.” She ran her fingers along the frayed hem of her skirt. It could probably be saved if she rehemmed it shorter, or added a different ruffle. “I did not say we would not die if we waited. You should go home now, so the widow spiders won’t kill you.”
“And you? And Zoe?”
“I might be able to save her and survive.” It was truth, barely. Without the red wolf to fight beside her, the visions of Liliana leaving the building with Sergeant Giovanni were flickery and faint, barely within the realm of the possible. The visions of them both dead in various ways were overwhelmingly more solid. She continued to study Pete’s boots. If he relaced it, he could still tie the one she had cut. The laces were long.
“You don’t sound very sure.” Pete put his finger under her chin and brought her face up. The pupils of his eyes were still wide and black from her venom and the other drugs in his system, but his brows were furrowed with concentration. It took a very strong will to fight the venom’s suggestibility. “If I help, do you have a better chance?”
Liliana had never wished harder that she was capable of lying. “If you help me to save Sergeant Giovanni, there is a better chance she and I will survive, but the most likely outcome still is we will all three die. One widow spider is a deadly adversary. A nest of them will be virtually impossible to defeat, and I have seen no path for us to save Sergeant Giovanni without fighting at least one of them, probably more. Go, and at least you will not die tonight.”
Pete smiled gently at her, and his soul colors shifted to an affectionate pink. “If you had stayed home, you wouldn’t be in any danger at all.”
“But you and Sergeant Giovanni would have certainly died,” Liliana objected. “I could not stay home safe and let that happen if I could help.”
Pete gave her a slow, lopsided grin and spread his hands in a shrug.
“Oh.”
He would not leave, not even with her venom and his own fear motivating him.
“Okay then,” Liliana said. “We will have to wait three hours. I think many of the women who work here are widow spiders. When the night club and the restaurant close, most of them will leave. Lady Daphne and two other widow spiders will stay to kill Sergeant Giovanni and dispose of her body. Then they will come down here to get Kristen, believing she will be done feeding on you.”
Pete shuddered and looked at the headless body lying in its pool of blood. The deep, confused furrow between his brows appeared again. “Uh, I know I’m high as a kite, but I’d swear that body moved a little, just now.”
Liliana nodded. “Her unborn babies still live. They will eat their way out of her body eventually.”
His already pale face went even more white. His freckles stood out like coal dust in snow. “What kind of babies eat their way out of their dead mother’s stomach?”
“Widow spiders. They begin as hundreds of tiny babies inside their mother. The strongest eat the weaker ones when food inside their mother is scarce. The better fed they were, the more of them would have survived until she gave birth. That is why she had to kill male Others and feed on them, even though she did not want to, so her babies would not eat each other. If she did not feed on male Others at all while they grew, they would eat her too.”
If anything, Pete looked worse, like he might throw up. “So a bunch of tiny, cute little babies are chewing their way out of their mother’s body right now?” Pete rubbed his arms as if they were cold.
Liliana shook her head. “They are in spider form. Widow spider babies must be taught human form when they are a few years old. They generally learn demi-spider form in adolescence. With their mother dead, only three or four of the strongest will survive. They will emerge from her body starving and hunt small animals for food and spend their lives as giant spiders. They will have no one to teach them how to be people.” She felt sad for the abandoned babies. There had been no other choice but to kill their mother to protect Pete and prevent a dozen other deaths, but she still felt sad for them.
Pete got up and walked unsteadily to the other side of the basement, as far away from the dead widow spider as possible.
Steadying his wobbly steps, Liliana followed the wolf-kin without question.
He sat down again with his back to the damp cinderblock wall, facing the body on the other side of the room warily. He looked toward the corner where the widow spiders tossed his knives and started an ungainly attempt to get back to his feet.
“I will get them for you,” Liliana told him, and he settled back.
