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The massive creature overturned tables to make room for all that bulk with the deafening crash of shattering glass and iron clanging on tile.
The monstrous spider Lady Daphne had become reared up on her back four legs, showing the well-armored underside of her cephalothorax, and stabbed down at Liliana with all four spearlike front legs at once.
The petite spider seer dodged as many strikes as she could, tumbling like an acrobat. Liliana desperately deflected with her arm blades the blows she couldn’t dodge. When even that wasn’t enough, she ducked under a table with a heavy glass top and wrought iron frame. Her heart hammered, and she had no trouble at all identifying her own terror.
Spears of steel-hard chiton stabbed down at her. The thick glass cracked in a spiderweb pattern.
Liliana rolled under another table while the nightmare monster shoved the cracked table out of her way.
A creaky hissing squeal of frustration escaped the gigantic black spider.
Two more shots rang out.
Liliana’s massive opponent whirled on her many feet to see what happened, ignoring the little seer for the moment.
Pete!
Stella in demi-spider form towered a foot taller than the wolfman. Four jointed, spearlike limbs sticking up from her back curled over her shoulders. The shredded remains of her T-shirt hung like tattered flesh from a heavily armored torso. The cleaver gleamed in a hand armored like a black knight’s gauntlet. The blood of her beloved Margaret spattered Stella’s shiny black armor in an ugly pattern of scarlet and gray.
Stella didn’t flinch as Pete fired three more times. The bullets bounced harmlessly off her chest exoskeleton. She stalked toward Pete, her inhuman face with long, thick fangs made even more terrible by the expression of stark grief on the chitonous face.
Pete abandoned his gun. His bullets ricocheting were more likely to endanger Liliana or Pete himself than their enemies. He launched himself at Stella with a guttural growl, a long knife in one clawed hand.
Like a matador dodging a bull, the widow spider side-stepped his charge and countered his blade with the cleaver. Two of her extra limbs stabbed at him as they circled.
Pete twisted to avoid one of the attacks, dropped his blade to grab her hard, shiny black wrist and one extra limb. He swung her off her feet and around like he was playing airplane with a big kid on a playground.
When the wolf-kin let go, Stella crashed into the stack of chairs along one wall. With a terrible cacophony, the ornate wrought iron chairs fell on her, tangling her long limbs. Liliana hoped the soundproofing on top of the hotel was as good as it was on the lower floors. If it wasn’t, they would have curious innocents wandering into the middle of the battle.
Lady Daphne in full arachnid form went up on her front four legs, using her back four to pull a thick line of silk from her spinneret. She added a loop to the end like a lasso and cast the line toward Pete.
Frantically, Liliana grabbed one of the scrolled ironwork chairs. She yelled, “Pete, duck!” and threw the chair, counting on Pete’s trust.
The red wolf dropped to the floor immediately. The chair flew over his head just as the line would have wrapped around his throat like a noose. The lasso hit the chair instead, sticking fast as it flew over Pete.
“Watch for the silk,” she shouted.
While the wolf-kin was on his hands and knees, Daphne the giant spider ran toward him. Her sharp feet clacked on the tiles like eight stiletto heels, her fangs dripped thick, green venom.
Liliana jumped up onto a table and launched herself at a shallow angle, careful not to hit the ceiling. She hooked her arm blade under the widow spider’s carapace as she flew over it, caught it, and yanked.
The blade, with the full force of Liliana’s weight behind it, pulled the giant spider hard enough she staggered to one side just as her fangs struck at Pete, missing his throat by inches and dripping acid venom to smoke on the tile beside him.
Pete scrambled out of the way and up to his feet.
Balancing on the slick black carapace, Liliana lifted her arm blades. Perhaps if she stabbed one of the eyes.
Before she could strike, Lady Daphne let out a piercing, inhuman shriek of rage like the squeal of heavy rusted metal hinges. Her front four legs dropped abruptly, while her back four shoved her body up hard, bucking her unwanted passenger off.
The little spider seer was thrown head over heels right into the glass of the French doors. She curled into a ball and covered her head with her arms and blades as the glass shattered around her.
As she hit the terra-cotta tile of the outside deck, her own weight drove the shattered rain of sharp-edged safety glass gravel into her skin. She rolled to minimize the damage, but when she came to her feet, blood all but coated her. She had a dozen or more cubic chunks of glass embedded in her skin.
She staggered. No bones felt broken, but she made an involuntary sound like a lonely kitten when she took a deep breath. She yanked a piece of broken wooden doorframe as long as a steak knife out of her side. It had skidded on her ribs or she would be dead already. She put her hand over the wound and pushed to slow the bleeding.
She saw Stella fight her way free of the tangle of chairs. The widow spider assessed the situation. Instead of going after Pete, who was still engaged with Lady Daphne’s massive arachnid form, she went for Liliana.
Smart tactics.
