As soon as he mentioned my real magic to anyone who had more experience with witchcraft, the game would be up.
So, I had to stick with using witchcraft.
The spider reared back, now on only four legs as it tried to clear its eyes from the temporary blinding I’d given it. I reached in my bag again and pulled out the salt. There wasn’t a lot, but I had some left. Would it even work against something this large?
In the kitchen, the spiders had been small. The drying spell had worked as advertised, cracking open their skin and exposing their insides to air. I didn’t have nearly enough salt to desiccate this spider’s massive body.
But what if I just did one leg? Would losing a single appendage throw the spider off its game?
I wanted to get close, for accuracy, but my feet froze on the floor, my heart going rabbit-fast as I thought about gaining any proximity to the spider.
It was about the height of an oversized truck. One of those monster trucks that says more about a man’s supposed prowess than simply being a vehicle he enjoys driving.
The alchemy he was working on clearly distracted King, so I took a chance and used a gust of wind to blow half of the remaining salt onto the spider’s back legs.
The reaction was immediate.
One of the legs got the brunt of the salt and began to crack. I could see jagged openings forming in the spider’s exoskeleton, and whatever soft flesh was underneath was clearly not designed for being out in the open, because I could see it darkening and drying as soon as it was exposed to air.
Shifting focus, the spider gave up on its facial wounds, landing heavily on the pine wood floor, and shrieked again. I wasn’t sure if the sound was real, or if it was all in my head: a mix of the spider’s exhalations and the terror that was still twisting my stomach.
The spider circled itself, almost like a dog chasing its tail. It was so distracted that I took a moment to sidle closer to King.
“You good?” I asked.
“Almost done,” he said. “I had to reinforce the shields around Smith. I couldn’t risk the spider getting through.”
“Wait, this whole time I’ve been playing spider bait, you haven’t even been working?”
“I’m working now,” King said tersely. He frowned at the spider, still circling its dead leg. “What did you do?”
“If we survive, I’ll explain it. You just get?—”
My words were cut off by the shock of something sticky and whisper-light hitting my skin. Spider silk.
Six
Unlike the glob of webbing that had hit King earlier, this wasn’t a warning shot. It pinned my arm to my body, and I struggled to get free before the spider could pounce, or attack, or whatever it was spiders did with the bugs that got caught in their webs.
The spider had given up on its dead leg and realized that the problem was the two of us. Reaching out with its two front legs, before King or I could even realize the terrible situation we were in, the spider pressed us together and quickly spun its silk.
We were being wrapped up, like a child tying two companions together in a game of pirates.
Normally, I wouldn’t have minded being this close to King, but I could feel the panic rising in my throat. King might not be able to see it, but with each shaky breath I could feel my magic exploding out of me, waking the whole room around me.
If I didn’t get control of this soon, we would end up in the same situation we had when I had taken down the poltergeist. And that would be a little bit harder to explain to a Paranormal Crimes captain than it was to a beat cop.
“Ferro,” King said. “You good?”
“This wasn’t how I pictured getting close to you.” I managed a smirk.
Before my emotions could get the best of me, King wiggled a hand free and slapped one of his spells to the silk the spider was spinning us in.
I felt a wash of warmth surrounded me, as though I had stepped into a hot tub after a long day. It actuallyrelaxedme.
Blinking open my eyes, the silk had disappeared, burned up by whatever carefully constructed spell King had just activated. Alchemists really were too neurotic about their work, if they had spells for burning upspiderwebs. A remaining ember of fire was tracing up the silk that the spider was still throwing at us, actually burning the tip of her body where she spun webs. The spider reared back, its dead leg weighing it down.
It turned, grabbing hold of the leg and ripping it off of its body.
