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“Our chances are best if we do not have to fight a widow spider. And there is no more need to stop them to protect others. With Kristen dead, they won’t kill anyone else.”
Pete sighed and dropped his hand. “Okay, you know what we’re up against better than I do.”
“If we must fight, kill swiftly and without warning. That is our best chance. But please, wait until there is no other option. Will you promise me you will wait?”
“I’ll wait until you give the word,” he growled reluctantly.
Just as Pete stepped into the men’s room, the elevator dinged in the foyer.
Liliana stood in full view of the entry so Lady Daphne would see her clearly. The door to the men’s room was directly to her left. Pete should be able to hear and see a little of what was happening through the inch of space where the door wasn’t fully closed.
Lady Daphne Fairchilde walked in with long strides, head high like a queen, red skirt swirling around her knees. She did not seem particularly surprised to see Liliana. “Well, if it isn’t the baby seer. I haven’t talked to you since we came over on the boat decades ago. What are you doing in my building, little seer?”
“Rescuing my friends. Sergeant Zoe Giovanni and Doctor Peter Teague are under my protection.”
Lady Daphne snorted. “You’re a little late.”
“I am not. I freed them already.” Liliana softened her voice. “I am sorry, Lady Daphne. I had to kill Kristen.”
Dark eyes snapped with anger. “Kristen was barely twenty, you little bitch.”
Liliana bowed an apology, without taking her eyes off her enemy. “I am sorry for your loss. The red wolf was under my protection. I could not permit her to kill him. I had no choice.”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve. What do you think, I’m going to forgive and forget the murder of a young girl in my nest because you apologized?”
“I had hoped you would let us leave peacefully. I have no wish to fight you and yours. Kristen’s babies will need someone to raise them.” Liliana popped out her arm blades, exposed her fangs, and opened all her eyes for a moment. “There is no need for more blood to be shed between spider-kin.” She raised her hands in what would look like a placating gesture to the widow spider but was actually an excellent defensive stance.
With her third eyes open, she could see Lady Daphne’s mind flooded with orange anger and yellow-gray contempt. This negotiation was not going well. The widow spider did not fear Liliana at all, and unlike Stella and Kristen, Lady Daphne had no qualms about killing.
The widow spider smiled, and it was not friendly or nice. “Let us leave,” she mimicked Liliana. “So, your pets are still here.” She glanced at the slightly ajar door to the men’s room. “That’s very interesting news, isn’t it, Margaret, love?” Lady Daphne raised her voice for the last part.
Margaret and Stella came through the door from the foyer. They must have come up the stairs while Liliana spoke to Lady Daphne.
Liliana’s shoulders sagged. Three widow spiders at once. The worst possible outcome of all the possibilities she had foreseen. “I let you walk away,” she said to Stella, hurt by the betrayal.
Stella had the grace to look embarrassed. “I couldn’t go without my fiancée.” She reached with the hand without a meat cleaver in it to squeeze Margaret’s hand.
The huge woman gave a sweet smile back to Stella.
“And she refused to leave without her sister,” Stella said, resigned exasperation in her voice. It was obvious she lost an argument with the other two widow spiders. “Regardless of what happens, I respect what you did.” Stella’s mind was colored with deep purple-blue regret.
Liliana nodded back. Under other circumstances, she and Stella might have been friends. Now, she would have to kill Stella or die trying. She regretted it and so did Stella. They had their allegiances, and they would each remain loyal to them.
Lady Daphne sneered and rolled her eyes. “Don’t play with your food, Stella. It’s disgusting.” She turned back to Liliana, and her body began to change, growing bigger and harder. “You will pay for Kristen’s death, you cheeky little bint. You might as well tell your friend to come out and face me too. It would be so undignified to die while cowering in the gents.”
Peaceful resolution was clearly no longer an option. A fair fight with her and Pete on one side and three mature widow spiders on the other was a foregone conclusion. Therefore, fighting fair was also not an option. Pete had promised to hold his fire, to wait for her to give the word. “Pete, don’t wait anymore,” she murmured. She didn’t need to raise her voice for the wolf-kin’s tall ears to hear her.
She launched herself at Lady Daphne, arm blades aimed for the widow spider’s throat.
Two shots were fired in the same moment, a double-tap. The side of Margaret’s head exploded, splattering her fiancée with blood and brains. In human form, widow spiders were as easy to kill as humans.
“NO!” Stella shrieked as if the bullets had pierced her own heart. “No. Not her. Not her.” Tears choked her voice, even as her body changed.
Lady Daphne Fairchilde grew four more limbs and a thick black chitinous shell before Liliana finished her leap. Razor-sharp arm blades met steel-hard natural armor, and the armor won.
The widow spider shrieked an inhuman battle cry and tried to bite Liliana’s head off with fangs as long as the seer’s hand, while the arachnid’s massive body kept on growing bigger and bigger.
Lady Daphne’s full spider form swelled and towered over the petite seer. Her bulbous body as big as a Volkswagen Beetle stood on ten-foot legs ending in sharp points like pikes. Wickedly hooked claws sprouted along those legs like thorns on a particularly vicious rose stem. Her black velvet corset clung now to the narrow separation between her cephalothorax and abdomen. The skirt of the scarlet dress fluttered like an absurd ruffle around the bulbous black belly decorated with scattered blood red blobs .
