Darkness Unmasked

To hear music rather than the sound of lovemaking.



I inched forward, following the haunting, melodious sound, and found the shifter and the Jorõgumo in the living room. He was sitting on a chair, his jacket dumped on the floor and his shirt undone to the waist. His eyes were closed, and his expression was one of bliss. I couldn’t actually see why—the music, while different, wasn’t exactly a sound that would put me into raptures. But then, my tastes tended to run to pop and rock rather than more classical stuff.



Besides, his state didn’t really have a whole lot to do with the actual music, but rather the lute it came from. Zaira had said the instrument was magic, and the room was thick with it.



The Jorõgumo knelt at his feet, her head bent and her dark hair cascading over what looked to be a small, odd-shaped lute. She plucked the strings with nails that were long and glistened with silver—silver that fell onto the wood floor and spun up and around the shifter’s sneakered feet.



Her web.



The music spelled him, distracted him, while she spun her cocoon around him.



Remember, I said to Amaya, although I wasn’t entirely sure she could hear me when we were both little more than energy particles. No consuming. Just containment.



With that, I called forth the Aedh and re-formed—but only enough to give Amaya room to do her stuff. There was no way in hell I was about to risk baby spiders being thrown at me.



The minute Amaya formed, she flung fire at the Jorõgumo, but the spider woman reacted with lightning speed, throwing herself sideways and out from under the range of the flames. They chased her, eagerly crawling across the floor toward her, but already she was dissolving, her face and torso becoming little more than wisps that trailed behind the rest of her body as she continued to run from Amaya’s flames.



“Fuck,” I said, and regained full form. “Amaya, grab her legs!”



A rope of fire lashed out instantly, whipping around what remained of the Jorõgumo’s limbs. She screamed and stumbled, crashing to the floor and finding form again.



Only her form was spider rather than human this time, and she was big and black, with skin that writhed and pulsated. I did not want to know what was causing that movement. I really didn’t.



The Jorõgumo lunged at me, her fangs bared and as thick as my arm. I yelped and jumped backward, but my calves clipped the edge of the coffee table and I tipped ass over the top of it. I landed awkwardly, but had barely rolled onto my back when Amaya screamed a warning. I looked up to see a hairy black leg coming straight at me. I swore, swung my sword, and steel met flesh with a clang that sounded oddly like a death knell. Not mine, I hoped. Amaya’s screaming was fierce as her steel bit deep into one of the fleshier parts of the Jorõgumo’s leg, and blood flew. As did little black objects.



It was my worst fear come to life. There were baby spiders under her skin.



Somehow I kept a lid on the utter horror that crawled through me and rolled out from under her leg.



“Azriel!” I screamed, wrenching Amaya free as I jumped upright. “I need some damn help here!”



Already here.



His mind voice was sharp, distracted, and I risked a glance across the other side of the room as I continued to back away from the Jorõgumo. A second creature had appeared, only this one was made up of thousands of little tiny bodies that writhed and moved and hissed and yet acted as one deadly enemy. Azriel attacked the mass with Valdis’s steel and flame, moving so fast, he was little more than a blur. But for every part of the mass they destroyed, others just crawled in and resumed the attack.



Fuck, fuck, fuck!



Mom Jorõgumo lunged at me again, liquid dripping from her fangs. I ducked away from her attack and smashed Amaya across her fangs. One went flying but the other remained. Liquid splashed across my clothes, stinking to high heaven and stinging where it hit flesh. Hoping like crazy the stuff had to be injected to actually work, I batted away another attack, then leapt high, twisted in midair, and came down on the middle part of her body, right behind her eyes. Amaya screamed again, the sound echoing across the room as well as in my head.



Don’t kill, I ordered her fiercely. Just blind and bind.



Then I swung her with all the strength I had. Her steel bit into the bitch’s eyes just as the Jorõgumo flung herself at the wall. We hit hard, and breath whooshed from my body. Not satisfied with merely winding me, the Jorõgumo hissed and writhed, and I fell, ending up on the floor underneath her. One foot scraped my leg, cutting deep, and a scream rolled up my throat. I bit down on it and crawled out from underneath her, barely avoiding several strikes of fang and leg. A hand grabbed me and dragged me upright.



“Amaya!” Azriel said. “Flame and ensnare. Now!”



My sword responded instantly, and twin lances of flames rolled out from the swords, shooting across the writhing creature’s body, spreading out in vibrant fingers, weaving in and out of each other, joining the rope of flames that still encased two of the Jorõgumo’s legs, until it had formed a net that encased the spider-spirit’s entire body.



She didn’t stop writhing and screaming, but she was trapped and not going anywhere.



I collapsed back against the wall and closed my eyes in relief. My head was pounding, and my leg was bleeding, I was aching all over from my encounter with the wall, but hey, I was alive and the spider wasn’t dead. As outcomes went, it wasn’t all that bad.



“I guess the fact you have only one injury is something to be grateful for,” Azriel agreed, voice wry. “However, it would have been nice if you could have remained wound free for a change.”



“Tell that to the bad guys who keep attacking me.” I opened my eyes. Azriel stood several feet away, his body covered with tiny wounds that gave his skin a bloody glint. Concern rolled through me. “Are you all right?”



He nodded. “I am energy, remember.”



“But you’re wearing flesh.” I pushed away from the wall, took two steps, and gently ran my fingertips across the worst of the wounds on his arm. “If the babies were as venomous as their mom—”



“I will burn off their venom the minute I return to energy form.” He gave me a sweet, somewhat lopsided smile. “But I appreciate the concern.”



“Hey, I don’t want to lose you over something dumb like getting bitten by a damn spider.”



“That is not something I would be overly pleased with, either.”



Amaya’s steel began to vibrate in my hand, and I glanced down with a frown. Both swords were still blazing, but Amaya’s flames were beginning to pulse. It was almost as if her strength was faltering.



“It is,” Azriel commented. “Which means she’s now drawing on your strength to help hold her share of the net.”



“Why can’t she hold it herself?”



Strength not right, she muttered, the surliness in her mental tones suggesting she was very put out by the fact.



“She’s young in demon terms,” Azriel commented. “She will get stronger with both age and your continuing merger.”



Merger. Not something I really wanted to be doing with a demon spirit with a hankering for bloodshed, but I guess that option had gone out the window the minute I’d taken her steel and stabbed her into my flesh.



And, if I was being at all honest, for all my wariness about owning a demon sword, I really wouldn’t want to be without her now. Having her so readily at hand had saved my ass more than once.



“I hope Hunter gets here quickly, then.” I paused. “Or can you and Valdis hold the Jorõgumo yourselves?”



“We can kill her, but containing her as we are takes more strength and generally requires two swords.” He grimaced. “They were never designed for this.”



I guess they weren’t—and they were doing it now only because Hunter wanted bloody revenge.



“Speaking of Hunter, she approaches the front door.”



“Meaning we now have the problem of getting her into the house.” As a vampire, she had to abide by the old “invite only” rule.



“Can she not telepathically order such an invite?” Azriel said.



“No. It has to be freely given.”



The doorbell rang. I shot a look down the hall and saw her silhouette through the glass panes. “Now what do we do?”



“I would suggest you get the door open, Risa dearest,” Hunter replied, proving the keenness of her hearing yet again. “Otherwise I will not be pleased.”



“Kinda hard to do when the owner is unconscious.” But I walked over and booted the cobwebbed heel of his shoes. “Hey, wake up.”



He didn’t flinch. I tried again, harder this time. Still nothing. “Can you wake him?” I said, glancing at Azriel.



“I shouldn’t, but given the growing precariousness of the situation—” He paused, his expression one of concentration. After a moment, the shifter groaned and rubbed his eyes. Then he saw us.



“What the fuck?” He jerked upright abruptly. “Who the hell are you two? And what the fuck is that?”



“That,” I said grimly, “is the woman you brought home.”



“No fucking way.”



“Look, I don’t particularly care if you believe me or not,” I said, voice tart. “The fact is you have the mother of all spiders in your living room and you were almost her dinner. Now, be a good chap and go invite Director Hunter into your house so she can deal with the beast.”



He blinked. “The director? As in, the Directorate?”



“Yes,” I said, and mentally ordered the man to just go. It wouldn’t have done any good, of course, even if I had been telepathic, because of the whole “freely given” restriction.



But if he didn’t hurry, things were going to get bad pretty quickly. The throbbing in Amaya’s steel was stronger, as was my damn headache. And I didn’t even want to think about the amount of blood I was losing, but my socks were beginning to feel rather wet.



“If this spider escapes the power net,” I continued, “we’ll all be damn dinner. So please, just go open the door.”