“Ferro?” He looked me up and down, as though doing a quick field triage. “What happened?”
“I sent out a tracking spell.”
King scanned the two spells I had drawn and squinted, as though trying to read them. He must know about as much about witchcraft as I knew about alchemy, because he looked right back at me, eyes unclouded by suspicion.
“We need to leave now,” I said.
“You’re welcome to go,” King said. “I can’t leave my partner stuck like that.”
“There is something in this house with us that—” I hesitated. I couldn’t describe what the wood had shown me. The image was of something that walked on delicate feet, something massive and dangerous. All I knew for certain was that whatever the creature was, it had friends.
The floor did not like its friends. They crawled into cracks between boards, anywhere that they could fit. I hadn’t even met them, and I didn’t like the idea of something crawling into every crack and opening in my body.
“There’s something big and dangerous in this house with us. And neither of us are going to like the creepy crawlies that come with it,” I said.
“Listen, Ferro,” King said. “I can take care of myself; just get outside. We radioed that we were coming in after you, so there should already be backup on the way. You just need to call again and let them know they need to send more people.”
Frustrated, I exhaled a sharp breath. I took two steps away, half thinking that if I ran fast enough, I could beat whatever had attacked Smith. Clearly King didn’t know what he was fighting, but I did.
The smart move would be to look after my own interests. My interests were definitely not to get mummified and stuck to the ceiling so that Derek McCallum would have convenient targetpractice when he got back. My interests were my own health and safety, and leaving the stupid cop behind so that whatever got his partner would be distracted by him and ignore me.
Still, I hesitated. Although he was being a bit too brave for his own good, he was still someone I wasn’t sure I wanted to see mummified. He had given me a chance to clean up my mess before Paranormal Crimes caught me out last time, and he’d taken off the cuffs this time.
It wasn’t like I’d made any smart decisions since the moment that Derek McCallum had offered me a year’s salary to track down his artifact. At least this dumb decision came with a cop hot enough to raise the room’s temperature a few degrees.
Something touched my ankle. I shifted, jerking my leg and shaking it. Nothing came out from under the cuff of my jeans and I slapped at them, feeling something wet squish against my calf.
King was busy levitating another alchemist circle, and shot me an irritated look. I glared at him and pointed to my pants.
“There’s something in there,” I said.
The look he sent me was so irritated that I threw up my hands in annoyance.
“Not like that,” I said. “Are you kidding?”
King rolled his eyes, and the spell hit the ceiling. It weighed down the mummified body of his partner, tugging the other cop loose. Slowly the mummy descended.
Okay. As soon as we got the body, we were out. I felt something on my other leg and begin doing a dance that looked like I had to use the restroom.
“Ferro, can you?—”
Whatever King was about to say was cut off as something the size of a watermelon hit him from behind.
Four
King went down hard, like a quarterback hit unexpectedly during practice. If we were in a sports movie, the orchestra music would swell and the audience would wonder if the star QB could walk after hit like that.
Since this wasn’t a sports movie, but one of my nightmares come to life, the only soundtrack was me making a half squawking noise that absolutely was not a scream.
Because with King down, I could see what hit him and it had eight legs, too many eyes, and fangs that would give vampires envy. It was hanging from the ceiling by a long thread, its thorax positioned to shoot more webbing.
“Spider!” My voice squeaked out.
The creature was enormous, easily the size of my car, if not bigger. Its black eyes had no pupils when they swung to me. It made a clicking sound with its mouth and every nerve in my body screamed that it was time to run, but then I would be leaving King behind.
Gritting my teeth, I muffled a groan and darted forward, closer to thegiant spider. My key selling point to clients was that the weird and the strange were my business, but even I had to admit, this wasn’t something I dealt with regularly.Two werewolf neighbors who kept trying to ‘mark each other’s property’? Sure, I’d dealt with that. A witch who couldn’t find her favorite wand? That was a Parker Ferro special.
Giant spiders that a mob boss left in his house as guard dogs? That one was a little beyond my area of expertise.
