by K. D. Peters
So that was what I'd felt when my pendant got warm after I started talking to Norma. Saffron had been trying to stop her from putting her spell on me. But he wasn't strong enough then. I whimpered a little bit as she drew closer, actually singing softly. “Will you walk into my parlor? Said the spider to the fly. Tis the prettiest little parlor that you ever did spy…”
I turned my head away, shaking hard now. "Help me daddy..." I heard myself cry.
But as I thought she was going to strike me, a bright light suddenly come from my chest. Norma jumped back, hissing a little. The webbing around me shredded with the light, and I quickly moved to get up and onto my feet. Around my neck, the pendant continued to glow brightly. "I won't allow you to make of meal of my precious daughter. You've underestimated me for my confinement. But I'm seeing to it now that you pay for that indiscretion. You should feel lucky you ugly bitch. If I was free, I'd tear every limb from your filthy body.” I heard Saffron say.
At that, Norma backed up. She actually looked frightened. The pendant continued to glow brightly, and all at once, I saw her look over at the top of one of the buildings. Then, she leapt back. To my surprise, something hit the ground where she’d been standing. Within seconds, someone landed between us. I could barely believe my eyes. “Chris?” I said. Where in the world did he come from?
“It’s about time you showed yourself. I’ve been keeping myself up for the past five nights hunting for you. You cost me my date too, and that's really pissed me off.” Chris said, holding up his sword at her.
Norma hissed at him, jumping back up onto one of the ledges and crawling away quickly.
Chris just watched her for a moment, then turned back to me. “You sure know how to attract trouble, don’t you?” he said.
“It’s not funny.” I pouted, pulling the remaining webs off of me. It was taking a lot of effort though. They were really sticky.
“You’re lucky you know. If he hadn’t stepped in and pulled some strings, I probably wouldn’t have gotten here in time. You really need to watch yourself more.” Chris said, helping me remove the remaining web strands.
“Okay, already. Seriously, I’m not in the mood for a lecture right now.” I told him.
Chris just patted my shoulder. “All right. I get it. But you need to come on. We’ve got to find that spider before she gets another hiding place. I’m sick of looking for her every night.” He said.
I just stared at him. “What do you mean we?” I asked.
“Just what I said. I’ve been hunting this thing for five days now, and I’m not going to lose track of her now. And beings that you’re here, you’re going to help me catch her.” Chris replied.
Oh what luck I was having. I couldn’t help but think that. “Seriously? Why me? I can’t even fight that good yet, and you want to me help you catch that thing?” I asked him.
“Do as he says Ariana.” Saffron ordered from the pendant. “It’ll do you some good to face something now. You’re not hiding forever. And I trust that you’ll make sure she doesn’t get hurt too badly, isn’t that right Christoff?”
Great, so now my father was on his side. My day had just gone to hell, figuratively speaking.
Chris reached over and took my hand. “Come on. You heard him. Besides, I don’t need you to fight it. I can handle that much. What I need from you is to help defend against it.” He told me.
I really hadn’t thought about that until then. It probably would’ve been the more logical thing to think of when I’d first ran from her. I was a strong defender, and probably could’ve repelled her webs. But I’d been so scared that I’d panicked. I guessed that showed my age again. I was still just a baby compared to Chris.
The two of us quickly took to the sky to go after Norma. It wasn’t that hard to follow her at that point either. She was bouncing from roof to roof, heading toward the abandoned warehouses towards the edge of town. “How in the world is no one noticing her?” I had to ask. I should’ve been wondering about us too, but I was too focused on our current monster.
“It’s a talent when you’re like this. You can make the mortals tune you out. Norma’s put that all around us now because she wants to escape. That’s also why she’s staying so high up. So that none will get in the way.” Chris explained. He frowned slightly as we watched her. “I want to catch her before she gets into those woods. If she makes it there, we’ll lose her for good. And that will only make it worse with as hungry as she is.”
“Just how are we supposed to get her? She’s huge!” I said.
“Trust me, the bigger they are, the easier they are to take down. Just watch my back for me.” Chris said, forming a bow and arrow out of black electricity from his body. As I watched, he stopped and took aim, sending one of the arrows flying down towards the giant spider woman.
The arrow hit one of Norma’s legs, and she quickly jumped down, slamming into the side of one of the warehouses. A large dent was left there as she pulled herself back up. Thankfully, the place was deserted, so no one was hurt. We came down and landed a few feet away from her. I landed myself on a stairwell to another warehouse, and Chris on the ground. He aimed another arrow at her. “Stop running. I know you’re not this much of a coward Norma.” He told her.
“Brave words from a damned child.” Norma responded. “You think I didn’t know you’d try to come after me? Even when it’s none of your concern, you try to hunt me down.”
“You broke some pretty important rules here Norma. I know you’re well aware of that. Spiders are not supposed to hunt the mortals. And you’ve been keeping a pretty good diet of them here in the last three weeks. Shadow Wing or not, I can’t stand by and let you continue doing that.” Chris said.
“I do what I have to. If it wasn’t for you bringing that pretty little girl here, I would have had ample food. But you brought her here, and now they come and scare the food away!” Norma said, snarling at me.
Scare the food away? I thought. I didn’t have the first clue as to exactly what she meant by food there. Obviously, she was a spider according to Chris. Maybe she hunted smaller things other than humans, possibly from the other side. But why would I have scared those things away? Or, better yet, what did I bring there that scared them away?
Chris didn’t look too impressed though. “Is that why you made her a target? You know that if you tried to feed on a Shadow Wing that it would kill you. Our blood would be poisonous to you. Not to mention that if her father was free, he would've torn you apart for what you've already done with her.” He threatened.
“I had no intention of feeding on her. I simply wanted her out of the picture so that I can eat. You brought her here, and them. They scare away the food. I’ve made too good of a home here to have to move on because of a bunch of heretic angels!” Norma declared.
“You should’ve just moved on with your food.” Chris muttered, changing his weapon back to his sword. I watched as a surge of electric wind blew out from when he swung it. Norma herself quickly jumped away onto the side of one of the nearby walls, her legs digging in with each step she took. It left huge holes in the mortar.
As for me, I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing or hearing. Her words played again and again in my head. She was angry at us for scaring away her prey. And even more precisely, she was angry at me for being there. When I came there, the food was driven away. Could that have been from what was trying to come after me now?
I didn’t get much time to think about it though before I had to move again. A large piece of webbing came flying at me, and I barely got away from it. The web piece itself actually left a large crack in the wall. I leapt up, landing back on the ground, and quickly forcing my shields back up. Thankfully, the black flames repelled the next piece of webbing that was hurled at me.
Chris quickly moved in front of me again, striking them back at her. “I said that’s enough! Retreat for good or I’ll have to get rid of you!” he warned her as he took a few steps towards her.
But Norma wasn’t about to back
down. She stood her ground, although she was now hardly standing. She was definitely badly wounded from what Chris had done. One of her legs was now missing, and her side was bleeding. Her blood actually looked dark brown as it pooled down around her. She wasn’t ready to give in though. “You will not drive me out. This is my home. I live here, and I will die here. If you take my life, then I will take something far more precious to you, you heretic half breed.” She hissed.
I felt instant fear as she looked back at me. My shield was still up, but somehow, I had the distinct feeling that it was about to do me no good. All at once, Norma let out an ear piercing roar and something dark shot out of her mouth.
And all I felt was instant searing pain as it hit my right arm.
I fell to my knees, not even able to really hold my arm up then for the sheer pain of it all. It felt worse than any burn I'd ever had. Looking down at it, I could actually see some smoke coming off of my skin through my melted cardigan sleeve there. Whatever this was, it had burned right through my sleeve and deep into the flesh of my arm. I was almost sure that it went down to my bone. But as I sat there screaming and crying, I slowly became aware of another loud screeching sound near me. Making myself look up, I saw through my tears that Chris was now standing over Norma’s body. In that swift movement, he’d apparently killed her, ramming his sword straight through her skull. I couldn’t even focus on it though. Instead, I looked down at my arm and I doubled over again, feeling almost sick. The pain was starting to make my stomach turn, and I hoped that I didn't pass out right then and there.
I was so lost in this that I didn’t even hear him run over to me. “Hey, come on. Stay with me.” He said, wrapping up my arm quickly with the white jacket he'd been wearing over his tank top. Then he picked me up in one swift motion. I felt myself lean against him, closing my eyes as the pain overtook me. And the last thing I remembered as I held onto him tightly with my good arm was looking at the dead spider woman that was disappearing into the night air into a bright burst of flames.
Eight
“Well, you have to admit that she’s a lucky girl Chris. Spider’s venom is very painful, and extremely toxic. If you’d taken any longer, her arm may have been permanently damaged.” Zane commented as he fixed another gauze and began cleaning out the wound on my arm again.
It was an hour later, and I’d been in that bed for a good portion of it. By then, I was finally beginning to come back to my senses. Zane himself had apparently been waiting for us outside when we’d finally gotten back to the house. I wasn’t sure of how, but it seemed like he'd known that something bad had happened to me. I reasoned that it may have been from Saffron, although I certainly wasn't in any kind of shape yet to confirm that. After all, Saffron himself had apparently found a way to alert Chris that I was in trouble with Norma, and help him find me. But when Chris brought me back home and Zane had seen my arm, they’d immediately put me to bed and worked on helping it however they could. The first half hour was a blur from the pain to me. All I really remembered from it was screaming here and there. But thankfully, Zane had finally finished making me some medicine that had finally taken that horrible pain away. As soon as he'd rubbed it into the open wound, it was like it began numbing it. I couldn't help but breathe a real sigh of relief. I finally felt like I was able to get my sanity back.
My wound itself was pretty bad from what I was finally beginning to see. Once Chris’s jacket and my cardigan sleeve had been peeled away, considering they'd both apparently melted from the venom, we had been able to get a good look at it. The venom itself had put a nasty, gaping hole in my arm. Some of it even looked like it was still sizzling a little as Zane worked on wiping it out. But it seemed like the medicine he'd put on it had stopped it from going any deeper, as well was numbing it completely. I was so thankful for that, considering what I was looking at. After all, it had gone almost all the way to the bone.
Beside me, Chris helped hand him more gauze to cover the wound before my arm was bandaged. “You know she doesn’t have as high of a pain tolerance as we do, so you need to take it easy doing this.” He reminded him.
“I’m being as gentle as I can. But I have to get this out before it reaches the bone. Besides, the medicine has numbed it completely, so she can't feel a thing. You were both very lucky about this as it is. This was probably the best place it could've hit her without causing any lasting damage.” Zane replied.
I didn’t say anything. Instead, I looked towards the window at the bright moon shining outside. Everything was so normal out there again. But I couldn’t help but think about our encounter with Norma, and all of the things she'd said. She may have been a monster inside, but at the same time, it felt like she’d been desperate. She was blaming us for driving out her food. If that hadn’t been happening, then I didn’t think she would’ve attacked me like she had. The ones after us very well may have been in Baton Rouge by now, and maybe they had scared some other things here into leaving. Maybe the ones like her were indeed starving from that, and had turned to drastic measures instead of abandoning the homes they’d made…
Chris let out a long breath, but didn't say anything more to Zane. Glancing back over at him, I saw him now looking away.
“Well, at least it didn’t end up going to the bone. But this is going to take a few extra days to really start healing.” Zane continued as he finished wrapping my arm up. He smiled down at me as he stood back up and gathered the medical supplies he'd sat on the table by the bed. “You make sure you take it easy on this arm until then. I'm going to make some more medicine for the pain and leave it in the bathroom for you, okay? You'll probably need more through tomorrow, considering how deep it is.”
“Okay. Thanks Zane.” I replied, nodding slightly. I still felt a little bit out of it.
Near me, Chris shook his head. “This still shouldn’t have happened.” He said, sounding mad at himself.
“Come now Christoff, it’s not that bad. You need to relax now as well. She came out of it okay, and there won’t be any lasting damage. For now though, why don't you go ahead and stay with her for the night? She may need more help during it.” Zane told him.
"Yeah. I was planning on doing that anyways. But this still shouldn't have happened." Chris replied.
“Very well. Try to get some rest now. I need to get some rest myself too, considering it’s gotten quite late and I have to leave early for an event in the morning. Try to make yourselves at least relax. And feel free to give me a call as well if you need anything Ariana.” Zane continued, looking back at me.
“Okay.” I agreed as I yawned. I watched him walk back out and close the door. I couldn’t help but feel a little more down though. Chris was right about me attracting trouble anymore. I’d brought Norma right to me, and couldn’t even defend myself against her. I should’ve just stayed home or asked Zane to go with me after all…
Chris finally looked back over at me. “You know Ariana, you don’t need to keep worrying over what happened with Norma. Things are what they are, and nothing’s going to change them now. And it’s not like I told you about her either.” He said.
“I know. But I should’ve been more careful. You said before that things can come after us. But I let her take me away and try to hurt me.” I said weakly.
“Trust me, it’s not that hard for a spider to hypnotize just about anyone. Even one of us. And with as young as you are, you wouldn’t have the first clue on how to guard against it. Besides, if things had been different then what they are now, I doubt that Norma would’ve ever even considered attacking you. She’s lived here for at least thirty years now, and she’d never caused any trouble before. I felt a little bit bad about having to go after her just because she was starving. But there wasn’t a choice either. Especially now.” Chris said, looking back at the window. It was funny, but it seemed like he didn’t want me to see his face then. Was he really that upset over what had happened to me and what he’d had to do with Norma?
Still, I didn’t feel
like I could bring myself to ask him. Instead, I kept the subject on Norma herself. “So you knew her before?” I asked him.
“Kind of. It was really a matter of mutual respect. Creatures like her aren’t that unusual in the mortal world, although some are worse than others. Norma herself was a spider, and they tend to be a lot smarter than some of the others, like a Mantis or even a Centipede. Spiders typically just integrate themselves into society, and they leave humans alone as a matter of respect and principal. Their usual prey tends to be smaller creatures that cross over from the other side and lurk in the shadows. I’d say names for those, but they probably wouldn’t make much sense to you, considering how new you are to all of this. The best I could offer as an example is that they’re like imps, small fairies and things of that nature.” Chris explained.
Now I was beginning to get the picture. Obviously, Chris had at least met Norma before around there. But she wasn’t a threat then. “So why did she start attacking humans? Is it because I came here, like she'd said?” I asked him.
“Don’t really know.” Chris admitted. “It’s possible, although it isn’t really anyone’s fault when it comes right down to it. Bringing you here probably brought out the spies for the ones that are hunting us, and they probably did scare off the smaller and weaker things that the spiders typically hunt. But that would've eventually happened anyways, considering that Zane was already here, and Will was coming around here more often. Norma herself was just being stubborn and refused to leave. She was more than likely insane with hunger by then.”
I again put my head down, feeling a bit guilty. Norma shouldn’t have had to die like that. The whole thing hadn’t been her fault in the end. She was just trying to keep herself alive…
To my surprise though, Chris suddenly leaned down and laid his head against mine. “I’m sorry. This was my fault. I should've just made myself get up and keep my promise.” He apologized.