The spider crept closer to me. I wanted to say that its gait looked strange missing its leg, but it was like one of those dogs with the missing leg who ends up on a scooter. The spider hadalready adapted. I was the asshole for thinking it would look strange.
King juggled three spells in the air, and was drawing a large circle on the ground. He would be no help getting me across the room.
McCallum’s entryway opened on either side: one into the massive living room with the wet bar, the other to the hallway that led to the kitchen, pool deck, and onward to what I assumed was a gaming room. I had more than enough space, it was just that passing by the spider made something twist inside me.
Big boy panties, I reminded myself. Plus, like an adult offering a toddler a Snickers bar if they stopped screaming, I had a reward for myself when I was finally done.
As soon as we killed the spider, I could figure out where exactly McCallum had gone. Then, I could track him down, and serve him the exact justice that my blood demanded.
I reached into my bag, and pulled out some of the remaining honey. Then, I looked at the spider.
I had never been one of those kids who enjoyed hurting other creatures. In elementary school, there had been one kid, clearly on the road to starring in his ownMaking of a Murdererminiseries, who’d enjoyed trapping insects under the plastic water glasses they gave us for lunch. He had a whole collection of them on the edge of the playground on any given day: pill bugs, spiders, and assorted flies trapped under the baking-hot plastic.
Whenever he would get distracted, I would sprint by and kick over the cups, freeing the bugs like I was starring in my own made-for-tvFree Willysequel.Free Willy 5: The Bug Liberator.
However, this was an enormous spider, not some sad daddy longlegs trapped under a child’s cup. I didn’t have much choice.
I charged forward, so close to the spider that I could see the individual hairs on its massive body. Then I spread a thin line of honey across the floor so that if the spider moved to follow me,it would be stepping in the sticky substance. When I didn’t have any more to spread, I hefted the jar in my hand, and threw it as hard as I could at the spider’s legs.
The jar cracked open, and the spider lifted its legs, distracted by the glass shards. I darted across the room, in the gap between the spider and the wall.
You can do this, Ferro, I told myself.This is just a spider —
Then the rational part of my brain cut out, because, while theoretically an arachnid wasn’t as smart as I was, it was a giant cursed spider and I had just run within inches of it. My stomach told me that it was going to kill me. Some primal part of me that had been a caveman eons ago, knew that spiders were very bad business.
The spider turned, and, sure enough, two of its legs got stuck in the honey.
It tugged on them, but it couldn’t free them.
The trap had worked, so I turned around and jumped over the wet bar. I had reached the water. Flicking the faucet on, I turned the head so that it was spilling all over the bar top, then onto the floor. Once I was sure that Derek McCallum’s expensive wooden floors would never be the same, I ran for the bamboo blanket. It was like a beacon in my mind, already awake, curious what I had planned for it.
The spider was making a horrible shrieking sound, and then I heard ripping as it pulled off the two of its legs that had gotten stuck in the witchcraft flytrap. With five legs, it somehow looked more frightening. Its eight beady black eyes didn’t have eyelids to narrow, but somehow it still looked menacing.
I had made the giant spider very angry. That primal part of my brain, the caveman that was still drawing in charcoal on the walls, took notice. He seemed to be saying,Hey, Parker Ferro. By the way, this is how everyone else I knew died. Giant spider, very few legs, very angry.
I tossed the blanket onto the floor, where it immediately soaked up the water. Crouching down, I put my hand on the fabric, pushing more of my magic into it. The bamboo wouldn’t care if my magic was red, in fact it might work out to my benefit.
“Hey,” I whispered. “You don’t look so good. You’re all bleached out, all white. You’re not supposed to be white. You’re supposed to be green and tall, so tall that you practically touch the ceiling. I’ve seen the movies. People can do martial arts in you, that’s how tall you are.”
The bamboo didn’t need to be told twice. It remembered forests so tall that they blocked out the sky. Individual threads loosened and slid through the water, like roots underground. Bamboo shoots sprouted up almost instantly.
“Don’t forget the other side of the spider,” I coaxed. “In fact, if you could just make a cage?—”
A tearing sound interrupted me, and I looked away from the fence the bamboo was growing around the spider. Glancing up, a black shadow spread across the ceiling.
No, not a shadow. Baby spiders. The giant egg sack had hatched.
At the sight of the moving darkness, the caveman in my brain banked his fire, put away his charcoal sticks and left the building. It was terrifying. It was the kind of thing that made my stomach take a very long elevator ride down to the basement.
Thousands upon thousands, maybe even millions of baby spiders were darting across the ceiling.
I had to stay focused. I would deal with the baby spiders when they became an issue, which couldn’t be now. Right now, theirmotherwas the issue.
My original plan had to work, if it didn’t, then King and I were both about to become food for the spider’s millions of babies.
I ran more water across the floor, watching it with a careful eye. It was definitely going to ruin McCallum’s hardwood, and I didn’t regret that at all. The water hadn’t soaked in yet; instead it puddled on top, the varnish keeping the floor safe for a few more moments.
With the influx of water, the bamboo began to spread throughout the room, first only a few inches high, then a few feet, and soon enough they would exactly as tall as I remembered from Wuxia movies on late night TV.
