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She wiped the slick blood off her left wrist onto her leotard to clear her spinneret and attached a loop to her silk line. By putting one foot in the loop and pushing with her leg, she went up a few inches.
A table flew across the railing over her head, passed her on the way down, and shattered in the alley beside Stella’s broken body.
By repeating the loop process, Liliana inched her way slowly to the restaurant balcony, wondering as each second ticked past if she would see Pete get hurled across the railing next. She was too afraid to open her fourth eyes and look to see how he fared in the battle above. She could do nothing to change Pete’s fate while dangling in the air.
Finally, she rolled over the railing and fell on the tile, panting through the agony in her shoulder that whited out her vision for a moment. When it cleared, she opened her human eyes and dared to look.
Pete was still on his feet, but he had several cuts and stab wounds. Blood soaked his clothing and his ruddy fur.
Liliana marveled through the fog of pain that the red wolf was still standing, still fighting. She had not known anyone so fierce since her father died.
The widow spider faced him, front four legs reared up in attack position, striking down at him as he dodged and growled and hit her with a table frame.
Lady Daphne’s exoskeleton showed not even a single scratch. Nothing Pete had done had damaged his opponent in the slightest. Wolf-kin claws and sharp steel knives and even the wrought iron furniture were apparently no more effective against widow spider armor than Liliana’s arm blades or Pete’s bullets.
Liliana pulled a string of silk from her spinneret and kept pulling, wadding it all into a ball. She stuffed the ball of webbing into the big hole in her shoulder, hoping to slow the bleeding.
As Liliana struggled to her feet, the widow spider stabbed Pete in the thigh. The sharp limb pierced clear through the muscle on the outside of the wolf-kin’s leg and stuck out the back.
Pete howled again in agony tinted with battle rage.
“No,” Liliana whispered, too exhausted to scream.
Daphne’s wickedly barbed leg pulled Pete toward her fangs like a fish on a hook.
Liliana staggered forward, not sure what she could do to save her friend this time.
Rather than fight to pull free, Pete took firm hold of the spider’s leg with both clawed hands right up next to where it joined the widow spider’s body. He deliberately let his feet go out from under him, falling back until all his weight was on that single spindly limb.
The giant spider staggered sideways, her many legs scrambling to keep from being dragged onto her side by the wolf-kin’s weight.
Pete planted his free foot against the underside of the spider’s exoskeleton and heaved. His powerful shoulders strained as he pulled and twisted.
Lady Daphne spun frantically in a full circle, trying to shake off the red wolf.
With an ear-splitting shriek of agony, the spider’s leg pulled free of the socket. Connective tissue dripping with ichor pulled loose from the widow spider’s body along with the severed limb.
Pete dropped on his back in front of Liliana. The seer helped her friend to his feet and pulled him away from their enemy. The severed leg dragged on the tile, leaving a slime trail as Pete staggered backward.
As she screeched in agony, the giant arachnid’s seven other legs scrambled madly, knocking tables in every direction. Glass and iron crashed and clattered in a pandemonium to rival the deafening music of the Mirror Club.
Liliana gripped Pete’s elbow to steady him as he took hold of the huge spider leg impaled through his thigh. With a hand on either side of an arachnid knee joint, he wrenched backward. It cracked like a giant crab leg. He hefted the thicker part as if considering using the widow spider’s armored thigh as a weapon against her. He left the sharp barbed end still sticking through the big muscle in his leg.
He flashed Liliana a fierce toothy grin coated in red from a long gash on the side of his face. Then, his one good leg collapsed.
Liliana tried to keep him from falling, but she could only slow the collapse of his big body to one knee. Him kneeling in his huge wolfman form, and her by some miracle still standing, put them at about the same height.
As they leaned on each other, not sure who held who up, the huge widow spider recovered. Daphne shook herself hard and stood steady on her remaining seven legs. Widow spiders could regrow a lost limb in a few months. For her, it was a minor wound.
The furious spider approached them slowly, wary and limping after her injury. Lady Daphne leaned onto her front three legs with a whine of pain and pulled some silk from the spinneret at the back of her abdomen with the other four. She cast multiple trapping loops in their direction in rapid succession.
Liliana raised her right arm blade, protecting Pete, even though she couldn’t lift the other arm. Her razor-sharp blade cut through the silk as it fell. One sticky line got past her and stuck fast to her hip.
Before their enemy could take advantage and pull on the line, one of Pete’s long arms snaked out and shredded the silk with his claws.
Pete growled beside her, baring his fangs defiantly at the enemy.
If Lady Daphne wanted to kill them, she would not have the luxury of doing it while they were bound and couldn’t resist.
