Magic for Nothing

by Seanan McGuire

  The material blocking the windows wasn’t tin foil. It was some sort of thick, cottony material, like the novelty webbing that Halloween stores sell by the roll. It wasn’t the oddest decorating choice I’d ever seen, especially not in a bone yard, but it still struck me as strange. I didn’t know how many layers of webbing it would take to block a window so completely that even the light couldn’t get through. A lot. I was sure of that much. It would require a lot.

  My fingers were heating up again, the magic triggered by my anxiety and confusion. I shook my hands to cool them, taking a step back. If Umeko wanted to have a threesome with a townie boy—or wanted to cheat on her boyfriend—that was no business of mine. All I could do by interrupting them was make an enemy I couldn’t afford, not while I was still in my trial period with the show. Umeko and her fire dancers were a main attraction. I was a scruffy knife-thrower from a dead carnival. There was no contest.

  Someone inside the RV squeaked. It was a small, tight, pained sound that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Maybe there was no contest, but sometimes, interrupting is the right thing to do. Emery would understand, especially when Umeko yelled for backup and everyone saw how young the townie boy was. Umeko was a grown woman. She should have known better.

  Fingertips hot, I approached the RV and rapped my knuckles against the door. The sound was muffled somehow, like the room on the other side was swaddled in some sound-deadening substance. There was no answer. I counted to thirty before knocking again.

  “Umeko? Hi, it’s Annie,” I called, in my brightest, perkiest cheerleader voice. “Are you in there?”

  “What do you want, new girl?” There was something subtly wrong about Umeko’s response. She sounded like the room, like she was speaking through some thick, absorbent material. “Go away. I’m busy.”

  “Oh, see, that’s sort of what I want,” I said, still bright, still perky, still trying to ignore the growing heat in my hands. “I was watching you dance tonight, and you dropped a couple of your big feathers. The flame-retardant ones? I know those are expensive, like, twenty bucks each, so I grabbed them for you.” I was lying through my teeth, but that didn’t matter. Once she opened the door, I would grab the townie boy, and we’d be out of here.

  “Leave them with costuming.”

  “But these are yours. Didn’t you pay for them with your own money?” I knocked again, dialing up the obnoxiousness. “Come on, just let me give them to you. I’ll go as soon as I give them to you.” Let her think I was a fawning sycophant, trying to curry favor with someone above me at the show. Let her think I was too stupid to take a hint. Let her think whatever she wanted, as long as she opened the damn door.

  There was a pause. Then, sweet but still muffled, Umeko said, “I try so hard not to involve the carnival, but you’re so new. You’re so fresh. No one will miss you. No one will think it’s strange that you’ve chosen to move on. You’ve made poor choices, little girl. Very poor choices indeed.”

  Something about that voice told me to get the fuck out of there. That wasn’t an option, but I could at least back up a little. It was the right call. The door of the RV slammed open so fast that it must have been kicked, whistling through the space where I’d been standing before it hit the limits of its hinges and hit the side of the vehicle, hard enough to leave a dent. And Umeko emerged.

  She wasn’t the beautiful fire dancer anymore—or maybe she was, only more so. Her face was still lovely, if somewhat distorted by the cluster of additional eyes that had opened in a shallow arc across her forehead. The reason for her muffled voice was harder to ignore: huge, vicious-looking mandibles had pushed out from between her red-painted lips, pulling them into a perpetual grimace and baring her still-human teeth in what I could only see as a threat display. Her arms were gone. So was her clothing. Her torso was exposed, small-breasted and sinuous, forming a graceful line down to the pendulous bulb of her spider-self.

  Spiders can be beautiful. The spider that was Umeko was beautiful. It was vast, elegant, and sleekly white, more like a black widow or an orb weaver than a tarantula, with long, thickly-jointed legs that tapered to blood-red points. She moved like a dancer. She was a dancer. She was just something more than merely that.

  I am enough of a nerd that my first thought was “drider.” My second thought was “oh, shit.” And my third thought was “I am in range of those legs.” I leaped backward a bare second before her front two legs slammed down on the place where I’d been standing, hard enough that they buried themselves easily six inches into the ground, piercing and penetrating it.

  “You should have backed off,” she hissed, and reached for me again.

  I wasn’t there anymore. I might not be wearing skates or waving pom-poms, but one of the few things roller derby and cheerleading have in common is the way they teach their participants to dodge. I’ve saved myself some expensive dental work and serious injuries by dodging the oncoming bodies of my teammates, and while I wasn’t quite ready to suit up and cheer next to Umeko, that didn’t mean I was going to stand still while she hit me.

  “What are you doing with that kid?” I demanded, pulling one of the knives from inside my glittery candy girl’s uniform.

  Umeko sneered. “None of your concern,” she said, and lashed out with two of her legs, forcing me to duck. Too late, I remembered that most spiders can balance on four legs when they need to; two more of her limbs were waiting for me, latching around my ankle and yanking me to the ground.

  I’d been hoping to get through this without bloodshed, but that only worked when everyone was playing by the same rules. I flung the knife I’d been holding. It flew straight and clean, embedding itself in the central joint of one of the legs holding me in place. Umeko shrieked, a high-pitched, inhuman sound, and dropped me, even as she stabbed at my chest with two more of her legs. I rolled aside and scrambled to my feet, readying two more knives, mentally running down the lists of giant spider and spider-esque cryptids.

  In the end, there was only one thing that she could be—one thing that matched both her behavior and her description.

  “You’re a Jorōgumo, aren’t you?” I demanded, dancing back as I tried to get out of her range. “I didn’t know there were any of you outside of Japan. What are you doing here?”

  “Trying to eat,” she snarled, and struck at me again. She was fast. She was also in pain, and not expecting me to be nearly this much trouble. For the moment, I was keeping ahead of her. That wasn’t going to last. I needed to end this, or she was going to end me.

  My family is not the Covenant. Our unwillingness to kill cryptids who haven’t yet committed murder is part of the distinction. “Where’s the boy?”

  Umeko’s smile was rendered terrible by the mandibles still forcing her lips apart. “He was delicious,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll taste even better.”

  She lunged for me, for the first time putting her entire body into the motion, and she was fast, even faster than I’d thought she was. So fast there was no way I was going to be able to roll out of the way this time. I braced myself for impact—

  —only to have something slam into her from the side, knocking her body off course. She went down hard, legs akimbo, armless torso sliding across the uneven ground of the bone yard. She shrieked, another inhuman sound. It hurt my ears. I staggered to my feet, filling my hands with knives as I struggled for my balance.

  The something that had slammed into Umeko seemed to realize I was there. It turned toward me, eyes wide and surprised. It was a tall, sinewy figure, with a tail almost as long as its body, and a face that was faintly simian, somewhere between the average man on the street and an extra from Planet of the Apes. Its feet were bare, which only made sense: they were more than halfway to being an extra pair of hands. It blinked. I blinked.

  “Sam?” I asked, finding my voice.

  “Annie?” he said, the word sounding more than halfway to
“oh, shit.” Unlike his face, his voice hadn’t changed.

  That wasn’t the only reason to be concerned. I felt my own eyes widen, and shouted, “Get down!” a bare second before two of Umeko’s limbs scythed through the air where Sam was standing. She was fast, and somehow he was faster: what should have been a killing blow turned into a wide miss as he dashed away, winding up standing next to me.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “She took a townie boy back to her trailer. Didn’t seem right, so I followed,” I said, keeping a careful eye on Umeko, who was tensing for another strike. Her slide across the bone yard had opened a wide, bloody scrape in her side and limbless shoulder; there was a chance the pain would distract her from killing us, but, really, I just expected it to make her angry. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s my show!”

  Umeko struck at us. Sam leaped straight up. I dove to the side, only to find myself lifted into the air as he wrapped his tail around my waist and jerked me into the air. I squeaked surprise before I got my wits back, and flung a knife at the off-balance form of Umeko, skewering another of her joints. She roared. I landed, hard, on the roof of a nearby RV.

  “Warn a girl next time!” I snapped, readying another knife.

  “Me warn you?! You’re the one chucking knives at a giant spider!”

  “Jorōgumo,” I said primly. Umeko was back on her feet, beginning to clickety-clack her way around the RV where we were standing. “Japanese origin, also known as ‘the binding bride.’ They’re a type of therianthrope. They feed on humans.”

  “Uh,” said Sam. I glanced at him. He was watching me with open concern. It was surprisingly easy to read his expression, despite the bone and muscle changes that accompanied his transformation. “How do you know all this? Shouldn’t you be running and screaming right now?”

  “Running and screaming comes later, after we don’t die,” I said. “It would be a little self-indulgent right now.”

  Sam shook his head. “Holy shit, you’re weird. I didn’t think—”

  He stopped speaking as a loop of silk whipped up from beneath us and locked around his throat, cutting off his air supply. Alarmed, he clawed at the silk, only to topple off the edge of the roof as Umeko yanked and gravity kicked in.

  Well, shit. I ran to the edge of the roof, trying to calculate the angles and the height and all that other fun shit that normally isn’t my problem, because when I jump, I’m counting on the surface I land on to be yielding, if not actively rubbery.

  Yielding. Rubbery. Umeko was reeling Sam in like a fisherman reels in their line, her legs occupied with the complicated business of twisting more and more webbing around him. Her attention was focused on her captive, and not on me. And her abdomen sure did make a tempting target.

  Saying a quick prayer to whatever saints looked after the stupid and the suicidal, I leaped, my feet aimed straight for the widest point of the Jorōgumo’s body.

  Spiders are beautiful, dangerous, alien creatures. They can be tiny or enormous, venomous or harmless to humans. They have just as much diversity as anything else on the planet. But there’s one thing all spiders have in common. They’re surprisingly fragile. Drop a tarantula, and its exoskeleton will shatter like glass. The spider will die. They can survive without food, without air, without several of their limbs, but break that surface, and they’re gone.

  My feet slammed into Umeko’s abdomen just above the filigree markings that slashed across the ivory like arachnid tattoos. There was a moment’s resistance, like I was stepping on eggshells. Then it gave way with a terrible squelching, squishing sound, and my momentum carried me right through her, into the soup of her internal organs, which had never been meant to take this kind of damage. Umeko screamed again, high, shrill, and despairing. She twisted to look at me, and all of her eyes were wide, filled with terror, as she saw what I’d done to her.

  There was no way she could have survived that sort of damage. At this point, the only thing I could give her was a quicker death. Most things with a human torso and an animal body have differently ordered organs, but all of them have this much in common: they still need to breathe.

  My legs were bare, and beginning to tingle from their contact with the contents of Umeko’s body, which had almost certainly contained at least one venom sac, if not more. Hoping Sam would be able to get loose and free me before I succumbed, I flung another knife, catching Umeko in the throat. She closed all her eyes but the most human pair, looking briefly, terribly grateful. Then she collapsed, falling in a heap of tangled legs and broken body, atop the still-webbed Sam.

  I thought about going to him, about helping him. But the poison was already working at me, and it seemed like too much trouble. I fell in turn, and the world was dark, and nothing hurt. Nothing hurt at all.

  Fifteen

  “The world is weird. Never challenge it to get weirder. You’ll lose.”

  —Jane Harrington-Price

  The Spenser and Smith Family Carnival, inside a private room, some undefined amount of time later

  SOMEONE HAD PUT A WET washcloth on my forehead and pulled a warm blanket up to my shoulders, a seemingly contradictory blend of temperatures that said “safety” on a deep, almost elementary level. If there were wet washcloths and warm blankets, the world was functioning the way it was supposed to; things were going to be all right. Somehow, things were going to be all right.

  “Her breathing just changed.” The voice was Sam’s. The tone was new. He didn’t sound wary or annoyed: he sounded exhausted, and a little confused, like reality had rearranged itself while I was sleeping, and had not yet had the courtesy to tell him exactly what the hell was going on. “I think she’s awake.”

  “If she’s awake, she’ll let us know.” The second voice belonged to Emery. It was kind, although it took on an edge as she continued, “And hopefully she’ll let us know soon, since I’d like a few answers.”

  I know how to take a hint. I didn’t open my eyes or push away the blankets as I said, “I’m here. Is it okay if I don’t move? My hands feel all tingly.”

  “That would be the spider venom,” said Emery. “You’re lucky you didn’t die. You’re even luckier that you had no open wounds.”

  Open wounds: right. Lots of spiders have venom that does nastier things than just killing a person. Fortunately for me, most of those nastier things aren’t topical. The venom needs to get inside the body to really start doing damage. “I should play the lottery,” I said.

  “Maybe you should,” said Emery. “Or maybe you should just tell me who the hell you are, and why you’re here. I don’t suggest you lie to me a second time.”

  I recognized her tone. That was a dangerous tone. I didn’t want to open my eyes. I did it anyway, choosing situational awareness over comfort.

  The ceiling was draped in dark blue fabric. Crystals hung from it, suspended on fishing wire, alongside a plethora of stars and moons that looked like repurposed Christmas ornaments. I sat up, looking at the bed I was in at the same time. It was about as wide as mine, but half again as long, covered in quilts and heavy blankets. The sort of bed that would belong to someone who didn’t like to be cold.

  Sam and Emery were nearby, Sam sitting in an old easy chair, Emery leaning against the wall. There were shelves on every available surface, crammed full of books and small souvenirs. Some of them looked like they should belong to a child—building blocks, a toy train, a plush monkey with half its fuzz rubbed off. This was definitely Sam’s room, which meant I was in their shared RV, which meant I was in a lot of trouble. Emery was still wearing her announcer’s outfit, with pancake and rouge caked onto her face until she could have passed for a woman twenty years younger, under the right light. The stark fluorescents of the RV were not the right light. And Sam . . .

  Sam was still a monkey who also happened to be a man. The blend of the two was so seamless that
special effects companies would have swooned to see him. It was easier to take in the details here, when a giant spider-woman wasn’t trying to kill us. His hair had been black in his all-human form, but it was a dark brown, ticked with pale blond, now that he’d transformed. His eyes were exactly the same.

  “Well?” prompted Emery.

  I panicked. It was the only explanation for why, when faced with the opportunity to tell the truth and be believed, what came out of my mouth was, “My name is Timpani Brown, ma’am. I just left out a few things about what happened to my home show. Like how it was Apraxis wasps that came out of the trees and left everyone dead. I’m as human as they come, but not all the people I traveled with were.”

  “How is it you were able to identify a dangerous therianthrope when it was in the process of trying to kill you?”

  I allowed a little irritation to creep into my voice. “How is it you weren’t, ma’am? Umeko was one of yours, but Sam looked as surprised as I felt when he showed up and she was a spider. Why is it a surprise I’d know about more things than just mice? I live with talking rodents that worship me as a living link to the divine. You’ve got to figure that opens a girl’s mind.”

  “She’s got a point, Grandma,” said Sam. “We should have known.”

  I blinked. “You mean you really didn’t?” It had been a shot in the dark, intended to deflect. I hadn’t been expecting to hit anything.

  Emery sighed. “Umeko was with the show for years. Years. She never seemed to get any older. I assumed, I suppose, that she was some sort of yōkai, something that aged slowly if at all, but it wasn’t my place to ask. We respect the privacy of our performers, as long as they do no harm. There are worse things in the world than spider-women and talking wasps, Annie. You’re young yet, and you’ve been lucky enough not to run afoul of anything truly terrible. If you had, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “She means the Covenant of St. George,” said Sam. He shivered, the fur on his head puffing out a bit, like the early stages of a threat display. “They’re zealots and killers, and they’re part of why my mom couldn’t deal with the idea of getting too attached to me. They wouldn’t care that your mice are adorable. They’d just care that they’re too weird to exist, and they’d kill them dead. And you, too, for ‘consorting with demons.’”