Viscera leaked out onto the floor as it threw the leg at us. We ducked, getting behind a low couch as the spider began moving in uneven circles, still leaking the green goo that it was made of.
“Thanks for the save,” I said.
“Youreallydon’t like spiders,” King quipped.
My heart was still racing, but my senses were coming to me again. In my panic, my magic had woken so many different spirits in the room, and I could feel them all curious, all waiting for interaction. I could use that.
“Does anyone?” I echoed his earlier sentiment. “But, honestly, I think I’m more afraid of spiders than I am of vampires.”
“Really?” King asked.
“I’ve seen my sister take out a vamp. No problem.” I mimed a head falling off of the body. “But spiders… wait. Spiders lay eggs.”
Both of us frowned at that, and I realized that if fate was an actual entity, I had just invited it in for tea.
“You don’t think —” King started.
We both glanced up and, there, on the ceiling, was a heavy egg sack.
“The babies wouldn’t be as big, right?” I asked.
“No.” But King’s voice was hesitant.
I shook my head. “Okay. One thing at a time. Let’s take the spider out, and then deal with the eggs.”
The spider had retreated to a corner of the room, still nursing its missing leg. If it had been so accurate shooting us both with webbing, its eyes must had cleared from the flour.
King waited for me to go first, which I supposed made sense, as I was playing the role of rodeo clown and while he actually rode the bull.
Metaphorically, I hoped. I was pretty sure that any attraction I felt for him would disappear the instant I saw him on the back of an enormous spider.
I could still feel the whisper of our skin pressed together, his firm body, long legs. Even hisbreathsmelled good.
I wanted that body. But, in order to have it, we needed to crush the spider with the chandelier.
“Hey!” I waved my arms over my head, and the spider turned to me, still with too many legs. It crept forward, more cautious. When it was about half the room away, I saw it raise its thorax again and try to shoot its webbing at me. Whatever burn resulted from King’s spell proved effective, as the webbing came out in the thick clump that weighed down the back of its body, rather than the thin strands that had caught us in the first place.
We were running out of time before the spider’s attack got serious. I didn’t have time to play at witchcraft anymore.
“Hey, ugly!” I grinned at the spider. “Looks like you’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.”
“Are you planning to go hand-to-hand with the thing?” King hissed. He wasn’t even looking at me, still focused on the chandelier above us.
I could see several green flashes in the space above our heads, but I couldn’t figure out what he was doing. How hard was it just to bring the thing down?
“You just tell me when you need it in place.” I gestured to the area directly under the chandelier, and King nodded tightly.
With him distracted, I found myself reaching for the familiar. There was a blanket in the room that I had woken in my panic, and I reached for it now. It was made of bamboo. Soft and just perfect for what I needed.
Any Californian can tell you bamboo is incredibly invasive. It’s strong, takes over waterways, and once it gets in a stream, it’s impossible to get out. All I had to do was get the bamboo water. I considered my options, and then found myself staring at the wet bar in the room beyond the spider. It was, as most things were in McCallum’s house, expensive and tasteful. I had to believe that someone else had designed it for him.
In the center I could see a faucet. Normally, I would have just summoned the water out of the pipes. Unfortunately, even a distracted King would notice if the water appeared out of nowhere.
So, in order to keep my disguise going, I needed to get around the spider, turn on the water, and then my bamboo could cage in the giant arachnid exactly where we needed it.
No problem. I could do this. According to my high school counselor, I could do anything I put my mind to.
Of course, at the time, she was talking about me not failing math. But, I wasn’t going to argue with the premise.
