The Poison Princess (19 page)

The spider woman then bit into the flesh of
the demon’s wrist, injecting a heaping dose of her venom. Scarlett
could feel the poison flow deep into her, as her stomach hardened
and twisted, and the venom swirled around inside her. She tried to
fight the toxin, as it froze her in place, restricting control over
her own body, but it was simply too powerful. She couldn’t fight
that much venom.

If it had been the princess’ poisons injected
in her, Scarlett would have built in tolerance. Alternatively, if
it had been Ruby to suffer this spider woman’s bite, she would have
been fine, but the demon’s bond was still not as strong as it could
be. Therefore, even though she had a resistance to poisons, she did
not have her princess’ immunity. The development wasn’t entirely
bad news though. The spider woman had injected a great deal of
poison into Scarlett’s system, and though she wasn’t certain it
would work, she was hopeful that some of that poison would transfer
to Ruby and revive her. It seemed like a long shot, but the demon
recognized her situation. She wasn’t going anywhere. Her magic was
growing but still too weak to pull anything else through the folds
of space, and even if she had, she didn’t have the control over her
body that she would need to use it. She was stuck and would have to
hope that some of the poison made its way to her princess.

The spider woman sliced through her own webs
so that she could pick Scarlett up off the cave floor. The scythe
was cut free, and it fell with a clang to the rocks below. From
there, the monstrous woman spun and wrapped her demon prey in more
of the silks, covering her entire body but leaving her head free.
The spider creature then placed Scarlett up against a wall and spun
more webbing, pinning her in place.

“Now then,” the spider lady said. “How about
that conversation?”

“Who am I to deny you?” Scarlett said dryly.
Anything to delay her. Ruby needed to wake and recuperate. Stalling
was her only tactic. If the spider woman wanted to talk, she would
talk.

“How right you are. Now, it just seems polite
that I ask your name.”

“Scarlett. And you are?”

“I suppose I’ve had many names in my time.
Currently, those who venture too close have come to calling me the
grey widow.”

“That’s not really a name. More of a title.
You don’t have a proper name?”

The spider lady thought for a moment. “Once,
I suppose I did.”

“And? Tell me what it was.”

“Awfully demanding for someone in your
situation, aren’t you?”

“You wanted a conversation,” Scarlett
reminded her. “That’s all.”

The creature thought for a moment. “Lorelai.
That was my name once.”

“Lorelai? That’s a lovely name.”

“Thank you.” She kind of spit the words out,
not really meaning them, but only speaking them out of polite form.
She was a strange creature and not only for her appearance.

“Much better than grey widow anyway.”

“Mmm, perhaps, but I don’t believe it would
have the same impact on the locals.”

“You’re probably right about that. Do you
live alone here, Lorelai?” Scarlett asked, looking around her dark
surroundings.

“I can’t really say that I do, no. I have so
many guests staying in my home these days.”

“I saw. You realize there’s nothing left in
the forest, right? You’ve scared everything off.”

“I had to accumulate a healthy store of food,
didn’t I?”

“Why? What for? If you live alone, what could
you possibly need with all this food?”

“I never said I live alone. Soon, I will have
a large family to feed. I have to think of them now.”

“Family?” Scarlett dreaded to even ask, but
she had to give Ruby more time.

Lorelai smiled and disappeared out of the
demon’s sight for a few minutes. When the spider finally returned,
she held in her human arms a wrapped web. It was bundled tightly
together, and she held it like a mother might hold their child. She
looked up from it, to Scarlett’s eyes. “But one batch of my
children, you see. Soon they will hatch. How hungry they will
be.”

“How many… children will you have?”

“Hundreds if we are lucky,” Lorelai said with
a smile.

“And when are you… expecting?”

The spider lady smiled and tongued one of her
venomous fangs. “Very, very soon.” She took the egg sacs back where
she had retrieved them from and soon returned to the demon. “You
know what, Scarlett? I know I said I would store you for a special
occasion, but on second thought, I think I should very much like to
try your meats now, while they’re still fresh. If you taste at all
like you look, I bet you are delicious.”

Ruby’s eyes fluttered open to find herself in
a wooded area. Her energy was largely restored, a sensation of
warmth spreading from her wrist. Even her weakened fingers now felt
fully healed, but she had a general malaise after being without
fresh poison for so long on the Black Wave. She was uncertain how
she had arrived there, and she caught no one else in her sight.
Using the tree trunk to brace herself, the princess stood and
surveyed her surroundings.

Turning around, she saw that there was a
sandy beach that met with the sea. Far in the distance, the dark
storm clouds that they had escaped were still raging on, but
directly over her, the skies were clear and calm. The storm had
ravaged the woods that she found herself in as well, as many of the
trees were split and wrenched from the forest floor, and those that
survived had lost many of their branches to the ground. There was
no sign of life in that forest which seemed odd to her. No animal
sounds whatsoever emanating from deeper inside.

Where was Scarlett, she wondered. Her demon
servant had stayed faithfully by her side for everything so far.
The princess now completely trusted her to do what was in her best
interest, so there was no question of abandonment. She could see a
pair of footprints leading through the sand of the beach to where
she now found herself. Those had to have belonged to her demon. She
turned back to the forest. Though she didn’t know how, Ruby knew
that Scarlett had gone that way.

There were surely traces of the demon’s path
through the forest, but she had no training of such skills. No,
that wasn’t how she was tracking her servant. She just knew. She
felt like she was the one who had walked through that forest, but
the memory was disjointed. Fragmented. Each piece only told a small
sliver of the whole story, but she put the pieces together in an
attempt to end in the same place that Scarlett had.

The next clue she had was spider webs. She
knew that her horned demon had gone towards spiders. She had sought
to bring back poison for the princess. A little further into the
forest, and Ruby realized the remainder of the story. Looking upon
the cave entrance, she knew that Scarlett had gone inside and found
a half woman-half spider hybrid named Lorelai. She was in
danger.

Ruby immediately broke into a sprint toward
the cave, hurrying past the spider webs stretched across trees and
shrubs. She entered the cavern, immediately meeting the darkness
that had once been so familiar. After all those years spent in the
tunnels beneath the Abyss, the princess felt at home there. Running
through the cave, her bare feet slapping against the wet rocks,
Ruby rushed toward her servant. She began to pass the large animals
trapped in the webs, and she saw the webbing that Scarlett had cut
open containing the young girl. Turning the corner, the princess
slowed to find Scarlett trapped where she knew she would be. The
demon smiled at her.

“Where is she?” Ruby asked.

“She heard you coming,” Scarlett replied.
“She’s hiding somewhere. Be careful.”

Ruby was confident, however, that the spider
woman posed her no real danger. “No need.”

The princess casually walked toward her
demon, knowing she would be safe from whatever toxin Lorelai tried
to inject her with. Before she had made it more than a couple
steps, a spray of webbing covered her bare feet. Overhead, the
spider crept down from the ceiling, to a wall, and then finally to
the floor.

“Your feet are so loud, little one,” Lorelai
said with that same sweet voice that nearly entranced its listener.
“Have you come to save the other?”

“I have, Lorelai” Ruby replied flatly. “Or do
you prefer grey widow?”

The spider woman looked baffled. “How do you
know my name?”

“I think it’s best if you just hurry and bite
me. Your children will need all the food they can get, isn’t that
right? Better store my meat for them.”

“You know too much, little one.”

“All the more reason to silence me,” Ruby
egged her on.

“You want my venom as well? So be it.”

The spider woman approached the princess, who
willingly held out her arm for Lorelai to bite. The grey widow
pierced her venomous fangs into Ruby’s wrist just as she had done
to the princess’ demon. Poison flowed from the spider lady’s fangs
and into Ruby’s arm. Her eyes fluttered with pleasure. The venom
felt so good. She felt whole with its embrace. Lorelai began to let
up on her, but the princess stopped her. She placed her free hand
on the back of the spider woman’s head, forcing her to stay there
and continue pumping toxins into Ruby’s body.

“More,” the princess demanded of the spider
woman.

Not yet understanding what she was dealing
with, Lorelai obliged, continuing to inject more of her venom into
Ruby’s body. With every surge of toxin, the princess felt her
strength grow. She felt powerful, but she wasn’t even close to
satisfied yet. Again, the spider woman thought she was done and
attempted to release her bite on Ruby's wrist.

“More!” the princess shouted, echoing through
the chamber. Her hand held steady at the back of Lorelai’s head,
holding her in place.

Still, the spider lady failed to understand
what was happening. She bit down in a third place on Ruby’s arm,
further flooding her system with poison.

“So good,” she moaned softly. The toxin made
her feel wicked, but she enjoyed the sensation.

Lorelai, however, seemed to finally notice
that something was wrong and managed to wrench her head free. She
backed up, wiping the dripping green venom from her lips, while
Ruby smiled a satisfied grin.

“Is that all?” she asked in a vaguely
disappointed tone.

“How are you still standing?” the spider lady
asked.

Ruby spit down some of her own toxin to the
ground, burning off the webbing from her feet. She then casually
walked over to where the webbed scythe had fallen and picked it up,
wiping a bit of the silk from its handle. “I’m the poison
princess,” she finally answered.

Though taken aback by the princess’
resistance to her poison, Lorelai did not give up. She raised
herself once more, spewing forth her webbing at Ruby, but it was
met with more of the same poison, melting through it as though it
meant nothing. The spider lady slowly backed up toward her webbing
and began to climb upward. The princess continued forward and spit
her poison up to the ceiling where the web began. The whole thing
tumbled to the cave floor, Lorelai falling with it.

The spider lady landed with a thud at Ruby’s
feet and stood to face the princess. She was clearly experiencing
fear for the first time in such a long life. Everyone who she had
ever come in contact with had surely succumbed to her webbing and
venom. This woman standing before her was an anomaly, and she made
it patently obvious that she knew not what to do with her.

Ruby, meanwhile, smiled at Lorelai before
twirling the scythe in her hand and bringing it across the spider
lady’s neck. Her head fell with a thunk some feet away. The body
did not fall as quickly, having some life left in it, as it moved
about, trying to find something to do with itself but ultimately
failing. It too, soon fell toppled to the floor, occasionally
twitching but amounting to nothing more.

“You did it,” Scarlett called from behind
her.

“Yes…” she replied, pausing there for a
moment.

“Are you going to let me out?”

“Not yet,” the princess simply said.

“Oh.” She shifted awkwardly inside the silky
restraints. “Okay then.”

Approaching the body, Ruby wasn’t quite
finished with her prey. Using the scythe, the princess cut into the
spider lady in an attempt to find the poison glands that produced
such wonderful venom. She sliced with foreknowledge for where such
a thing would be despite having never learned anything about the
anatomy of a creature such as Lorelai. She ultimately found a large
organ in the spider part of the body that housed a great deal more
of the dim green fluid. Her hands covered in gore, she cut it free
from the rest of the body, and Ruby sliced a slit in the thin
membrane before lifting it to her lips. The venom tasted even
better fresh. The toxic fluid was sweet and bitter at the same
time. The sticky substance was warm, and as she drank, it coated
her throat like a glass of thick milk and flowed down into her body
until nothing remained in the poison gland. She burned with power
now. Her skin tingled, and she felt as though she had no barriers.
She could do anything she wanted.

The princess felt utterly ravenous after the
kill and not just for the venom that she’d taken from Lorelai.
Looking back toward Scarlett, she saw her beautiful demon trapped
against the wall, and the thought of utter domination over her
aroused Ruby even further. After wiping her mouth of the poisons,
she walked back to join her, and using the scythe, she sliced
enough of the webs to free her servant’s body, but left her hands
and legs trapped under the silky restraints. She then dropped the
scythe to the ground and looked into her demon’s eyes.

“What are you doing?” Scarlett asked
warily.