Darkness Unmasked (DA 5) (28 page)

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.”

He looked from me to the spider, then to Azriel, and rose—and just about fell flat on his face again. I’d forgotten about the web wrapping his feet and lower legs.

“Fucking hell, it
was
trying to eat me!” His voice held edges of both anger and hysteria.

“But it didn’t!” I cut in harshly. “Just hop down the damn hall and open the door. We can’t hold this bitch much longer.” I paused. “We’ll explain everything later.”

He gave me a “you’d better” look, then hopped in a rather ungainly fashion down the hall and opened the front door. Two seconds later, Hunter was striding toward us. There was little emotion on her face, but her pupils had expanded to the point where there was little green left and the sheer depth of hunger that radiated off her stole my breath and had my gut churning. This was Hunter as I’d hoped I’d never see her—eager for her revenge, ravenous for the blood of her enemy.

Thank god I had Azriel with me.

I glanced back down the hall. The shifter was still standing by the open door, but his expression was slack.

“His expression is as empty as his mind,” she said, her low voice vibrating with anticipation. “Do you think I desire a witness to what I am about to do?”

I swallowed heavily. “We’re witnesses.”

She turned her black gaze on me, and I took an involuntary step back.

“Yes,” she murmured, voice silky. “But I have nothing to fear from you; do I, Risa dear?”

I felt like a rabbit caught in the spotlight, only this particular one shone with a dark, dark light and promised a bloody, brutal death.

“Your threats grow tedious, Hunter.” Azriel’s voice held little inflection and no doubt for good reason. It wouldn’t take much to set her off. “And you are here for the Jorõgumo, remember.”

“Yes.”

Hunter’s gaze returned to the caged spider, and the energy radiating off her suddenly spiked. Only it wasn’t aimed at any of us, but rather the Jorõgumo herself. Her form began to flicker, change, shrink, until what stood before us was once again a woman.

A woman who looked suddenly scared.

Just for a fraction of a second, I almost felt sorry for her. Then I remembered what she was and what she’d done. The death Hunter was about to give her was surely quicker than the one she’d given any of her victims.

“Lower the force of your flames and allow me access,” Hunter said.

Chills raced across my skin. There was nothing human behind those words.

Lower Amaya’s flames so they leash just her legs,
Azriel said.

I echoed his words to my sword, and she obeyed.
Hurry must,
she said.
Weak growing for both
.

Yes, it was. I bit my lip and tried to ignore the fact that my head felt like it was about to explode.

Amaya’s flames followed Valdis’s down the Jorõgumo’s body until they encased just the lower half of her legs. The spider-spirit didn’t move. I suspected the energy radiating off Hunter had a whole lot to do with that.

“For the crime of killing four, you are sentenced to death,” Hunter said, stepping so close to the Jorõgumo that she was practically in her face. “But for the crime of killing one of those four, you are sentenced to death by
me
.”

And with that, she attacked.

But she didn’t just sink her teeth into the Jorõgumo’s neck and drink her blood. She rendered her apart and consumed everything.

Absolutely everything.

Even her soul.

Chapter 11

It was sheer survival mode that kept me rooted to the spot and watching, even though every instinct in my body was screaming to get the hell out of there—to get away from the monster that was consuming one of its own kind.

Hunter might not be a Jorõgumo, but given what I was witnessing, it was impossible to think of her as just another vampire—however powerful and old she was.

Normal vampires didn’t consume flesh and bone and brain matter. Normal vampires didn’t drink souls.

How I didn’t lose the entire contents of my stomach, I’ll never know.

Unbidden, Harry Stanford’s words came back into my mind.
Oh, trust me, she long ago mastered the art of hiding what she truly is.

I guess the question that needed answering now was, what sort of monster had she become?

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a question I could exactly ask anyone in the know. I had a more than vague suspicion questioning Hunter herself would not be a good idea, and the only other people I could approach who might have some clue were Uncle Quinn and Harry Stanford himself. Both were out of the question, for very different reasons.

So I swallowed the bile backing up in my throat, kept my knees locked, and ignored the ever-increasing shuddering in both Amaya’s steel and my body. And found myself looking anywhere but at the scene in front of me.

But it seemed to take far too long for the Jorõgumo to meet her end.

My knees and Amaya’s flames gave out at the exact same time. I hit the floor with a grunt and drew in shuddery breaths, my head swimming and my body on fire.

A heartbeat later, Azriel knelt in front of me, his concern radiating through me like the wash of a warm summer breeze. He pressed his hand against the wound, my blood oozing up through his fingers as energy radiated from the epicenter of his touch. It flushed strength through my shaking muscles as it began to heal my leg, and, after a few seconds, I felt decidedly better.

My gaze met his. In the depths of his differently colored eyes, barely leashed fury burned.

If she but gives me the tiniest of excuses,
he said, mind voice flat and in many ways scarier than even Hunter herself,
she will be dead.

She won’t
. I lightly brushed some spider goo from his cheek. His skin was far cooler than usual, and concern sharpened anew.
Will you please shift into energy form and burn away the venom?

Your wound is not fully healed, and I am in no danger as yet—

I don’t care about my wound—

A continuing problem with you,
he cut in. There was both amusement and frustration in his mental tones.

I smiled.
I’m okay, so just humor me and heal yourself, will you?

If you insist.

He disappeared, leaving me once again staring at the scene in front of me. There actually wasn’t that much to see anymore. All that remained of the spider woman were the bits I’d sliced off—some leg pieces, her fang, and one of the spinnerets. Everything else—all the gore and other body parts—had been consumed.

Hunter turned and our gazes met. I froze again, pinned by the awful darkness of her eyes, and for a moment feared that I was about to become her second victim. Then she blinked, and the darkness retreated.