Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free (27 page)

A look of fury swept across Silene's features. “A shadowbright spy?”

Hiromi leaped at me.

I drank the alchemist's jorōgumo protection potion in quick, desperate gulps.

Reggie stood and leaped out from the stone ring behind me, his camouflaged uniform making the world seem to bend around him, and threw his arms around Silene.

My mouth went dry. A bone-like crust sprang up over my skin, a thousand shards of razor-sharp fossils overlapping like scales. My clothes shredded, and the belt holding the pack and revolver fell away. I tried to grasp it, but my thickened, crusty fingers were too clumsy.

The jorōgumo crashed into me, her arms wrapping around me. We tumbled across the wet grass.

She screamed in pain, and flung me aside.

I hit the ground hard and rolled to a stop, tearing up grass and mossy sod, the fossilized skin protecting me from abrasions but not from bruising. My shredded clothes formed a trail behind me.

I pushed myself to my knees.

Reggie had pulled Silene back within the protection of the stone ring, granting her passage through its wards.

Hiromi twitched to her feet, her skin lacerated, oozing dark fluid from countless small cuts—fluid she needed to operate her spider legs, if I remembered my biology lessons correctly.

She lifted up on those legs, not injured enough to be out of commission yet. But she did not leap at me again. She skittered sideways, away from the rune circle and Reggie, her black eyes fixed on me.

“Clever defense,” she said. “But that will not save you.”

“Hiromi,” I said, rising to my feet. “Why are you doing this? We don't need to be enemies.” I moved slowly to place Hiromi between myself and the tree line.

“Of course we do,” she replied. “We are different, and difference always leads to conflict. Or enslavement.”

I eyed the pack with the revolver, and then flexed my fossil-covered hands. I wasn't sure I could fit my finger through the trigger guard even if I could reach the gun before Hiromi struck me down.

“You sound like my grandfather,” I said.

“Then he is right,” she hissed back.

“He's dead. He tried to start a war, but arcana and brightbloods, we fought together to stop him.”

“Then you only delayed the inevitable!” Hiromi flicked one of her legs up, and a stone the size of oh-my-god-that's-going-to-hurt flew at me. I tried to dodge, but it slammed into my gut like a dodgeball from hell.

A great cloud of white dust and the sound of shattering fossils exploded up from the point of impact, and I flew off my feet. The impact with the ground knocked out whatever air I had left, and pain flooded my chest and abdomen. I curled up on the damp grass and moaned, clutching my stomach.

*Get up!* Alynon screamed in my head.

I groaned, and struggled up, expecting to see another stone flying at my head and not sure I could dodge it any better than the last.

Instead, I heard Reggie shout “
Dormio!
” and the jorōgumo disappeared with a
Thwump!
of imploding air as a glowing missile like a miniature photon torpedo flew through the space where she'd been standing.

I blinked, and looked over at Reggie. He stood inside the rune circle, a wand pointed where Hiromi had been. He cursed and tossed the wand aside, drawing a silver automatic pistol from beneath his jacket.

“Where'd she go?” I managed to say, and thought better of saying anything more as the pain of speaking burned in my chest. Had she gone invisible somehow?

*She transformed into a true spider,* Alynon replied.

Ah crap. I took a step back, looking down at my feet, though I knew she could not have covered the distance to me so quickly, not as a tiny spider.

There was another pop of displaced air, and Hiromi reappeared several feet to the side of where she'd been. She made a flinging motion, and from her belly shot streams of glistening, milky threads at Reggie.

I expected him to counter with a fireball, or lightning, or something equally devastating. Instead, he fired the pistol at her, and Hiromi jerked and screamed in pain, but her webbing struck Reggie and entangled him. Hiromi gave three hard pulls on the threads, and Reggie jerked forward to slam into the edge of the stone ring three times. His suit flashed with blue light at the impacts and protected him from the worst of the damage, but his eyes still fluttered closed.

Reggie slumped down into the pit, entangled in webbing, and didn't move. A jorōgumo's webbing sedated its victims.

Hiromi turned to me, and her smile did not promise anything pleasant.

 

18

Heart and Soul

Hiromi shifted on her spider legs to face me, her grin spreading wide.

Oh, crap.

A roar of challenge rang across the hillside, and Sal charged from the tree line at Hiromi's back, his long fur-covered arms swinging like opposing pendulums and his head thrust forward. Hiromi only just managed to turn when he plowed into her, his fist pummeling into her stomach so hard she lifted up off of the ground and fell back in a tangle of spider legs and human limbs.

Thank the gods.

I ran toward Reggie to help him, and saw that Silene had already begun to tear at the webbing with a sharp stone, though with little obvious effect.

“No!” another voice shouted from the tree line, and Ned, Hiromi's boyfriend, ran across the grass toward Sal, pulling his sleeveless T-shirt up over his ginger mohawk and tossing it aside as he ran.

“Sal!” I shouted, but he was already turning.

Ned leaped forward, and transformed into a gray-haired she-wolf the size of a small bear. Even in motion and from a distance, his—her—long yellowed fangs and heavily muscled chest, neck, and jaw looked like a vicious locomotive train of pain. She looked less like a common wolf and more like something He-Man would ride.

Sal roared a challenge and leaped forward into the attack.

The two giant creatures crashed into each other. Sal managed to get his arm up between his throat and Ned's snapping jaw. Ned's teeth clenched down on Sal's arm, and Sal turned, swinging the giant wolf around. I doubted Ned's teeth could penetrate Sal's armor-like fur, but a waerwolf that size had enough strength to bite through steel, and Sal's fur wouldn't long keep his bones and muscles from being ground to pulp beneath.

Hiromi rose unsteadily to her feet. Sal swung Ned around to put the waerwolf between him and the jorōgumo.

My skin tingled, and the fossilized bone began to flake off in small patches. I would be able to use the revolver soon—and be completely naked and vulnerable. And I was not a trained fighter like Reggie. I glanced from Reggie back to where the small hip pouch lay in the crushed grass. Silene had given up trying to free Reggie from the webbing and was instead trying to reach safely past the webbing to touch his head, I assumed to heal him with her touch and try to counter the sedating poison of the webbing.

I ran for my gun.

Hiromi tried to skitter around Ned to reach Sal, but Sal swung Ned around, the wolf's rear legs and bushy tail flying through the air and keeping the jorōgumo at a distance. Sal let out a sudden howl of pain and fell back a step. Ned's grinding bite must be doing serious damage. Sal brought his other fist around in an arching hammer-like blow for the waerwolf's back.

Ned released his bite and dropped to the ground, in perfect position for a good kick from Sal that would send her flying like a football.

Sal retreated in a low crouch instead, holding his injured arm close to his chest.

Blast. Sasquatches never kicked. Too much danger of having their foot caught, or their legs swept out from under them, exposing their most vulnerable point—the bottoms of their enormous feet. Even with his combat boots, Sal's conditioned instincts had cost him a chance to take Ned out.

I reached the waist pack, and fumbled at it as the coating of thick bone continued to crumble and flake off my fingers.

Hiromi sprayed Sal with webbing, entangling him.

Ned turned, her tongue lolling out to one side, and spotted me. Her mouth stretched into a wicked, snarling grin, and she began loping in my direction. Saliva ran in steamers from her gaping mouth.

If Ned wasn't Fettered, then one bite from that mouth could infect me with the waer curse—a bit of Fey spirit that would take root in me and grow into a full animal Fey spirit. I would become a waerwolf, like Ned. And like Pete.

More likely, though, she'd simply tear my throat out.

I raised the revolver in both shaking hands and fumbled back the hammer, causing the chamber to turn and click. Each chamber held a hollow point of iron with a silver-filled tip. They served well to stop most brightblood creatures.

The trick was getting the bullet in the creature.

Ned loped side to side, speeding at me in a zigzag pattern.

I squeezed the trigger. The gun jerked violently, pain shot up the back of my of my hand where the enforcer had smashed it yesterday, and the explosive bang rang in my ears.

I wasn't sure where the bullet went, except not in Ned, who continued loping at me uninjured and definitely unfriendly.

I cocked back the hammer again, and did my best to still my shaking hands and ignore the pain, to point the gun straight and steady. Ned had crossed more than half the space to me.

I fired.

Ned yelped, and stumbled, but quickly recovered and continued to run at me, now with a slight limp to her gait. I'd grazed her front right leg.

I carefully squeezed the trigger again, not bothering to cock back the hammer.

Ned leaped at me, her yellow teeth and massive paws filling my vision.

The gun fired.

Blood sprayed hot across my skin. Ned yelped, and inertia carried her into me, slamming me to the ground. I flinched, expecting the pain of teeth digging into flesh, but Ned tumbled off of me and across the thick grass.

I moaned, my cheek pressed to the damp ground.

Ned coughed.

*He's not dead. Get up!* Alynon said.

“I'm trying!” I snapped back.

I rolled away from Ned, and pushed myself to my feet. The gun had flown off into the tall grass, and I couldn't see where.

Ned transformed back into his human form and held a hand against his left shoulder. Blood oozed out between his fingers. He snarled at me, and tried to sit up, but collapsed back and closed his eyes, his snarl turning into a growl of frustration and pain.

The silver inside him would keep him from transforming, and hopefully knock him out. If not removed, it might even kill him in time, but I would have the DFM take him into custody well before that happened.

If I survived Hiromi.

Sal stood wrapped in webbing, his arms trapped and pushing against the cocoon of milky white ropes as he tried to break free through sheer strength. His fur must protect him against the web's sedating poison.

One strand of webbing broke with the loud
Twang!
of a snapping steel cable.

Hiromi advanced on Sal, black pincers growing from the corners of her mouth.

“Hiromi!” I shouted. “Stop, or I kill your boyfriend!”

I held my hand behind me, raised and pointing at Ned as if holding a weapon or wand, my body hiding the lie from Hiromi.

Hiromi turned and hissed at me. I prepared to dodge webbing. Hiromi wouldn't come attack me directly. She knew by now that my most powerful weapon, my necromancy, would only work if I could touch her. If I were powerful enough to summon her spirit from a distance then I would have done so already.

I just needed to buy Sal and Reggie a little time to get back into the fight.

Hiromi raised her hands in preparation to cast webbing at me.

“Don't do it!” I said, waving my hand behind me.

“It is not in your nature to kill,” Hiromi said, taking a step toward me, though she lowered her hands. “Not a defenseless being.”

*She has your number,* Alynon said.

“You have no idea what I'm capable of,” I replied to them both.

*Says the man pointing a pretend gun rather than using his real power.*

Hiromi's eyes narrowed, then she laughed. “Your time has come, meddler,” she said.

I glanced behind me. Ned grinned back at me, one trembling hand held up in some kind of sign. He had signaled my bluff to Hiromi.

Smeg.

Hiromi raised her hands again.

Vines snaked up around her legs.

She twitched back, but the vines held fast.

“What—?” she said, and pulled harder at them, but the leafy green vines continued to snake up and over her legs in a thick, writhing mass.

We both looked at Silene.

The dryad stood at the edge of the stone ring, leaning forward with her hands both planted in the grass, her chopped bangs only partially hiding eyes closed in concentration.

“Silver Court bitch!” Hiromi screamed. “I'm going to burn your tree down!”

“You can try!” Silene shouted back, and lifted her head. “If you can get free of
my
web.” Silene raised one hand, and clenched it into a fist.

The vines contracted, pulled downward, and Hiromi's scream echoed across the bluff, filled with more pain than any single scream should hold. I heard several loud snaps and pops, and Hiromi collapsed down to the ground, three of her spider legs broken free and spurting dark fluid, the remaining legs bent at extreme angles.

“Holy—” I said.

*Shite,* Alynon agreed.

“Hiromi!” Ned screamed, and struggled to his knees. “Hiromi!” he said again, and tried to rise, but fell back down. He looked at me. “Damn you, Gramaraye! Stop that dryad bitch before she kills my Romi!”

I shook my head. “I—I think it's too late.” But I walked toward Silene anyway. “Silene, that's enough. She's not going to hurt anyone else.”

Silene looked at me, her face wild, feral. I became keenly aware of the fact that I was stark naked. I held my hands self-consciously in front of my private area, but Silene's eyes never left mine.