by Nicole Thorn
I hated spiders. With all those legs and eyes and teeth.
Then Zander stepped through, and I rushed him with his new teddy bear in my arms. He blinked when I thrust it into his face, so that it just got all up in his business. “This is yours,” I said. “I bought if before we were trapped by thousands of webs and werewolves that aren’t nearly as hot as they’d need to be to make hostage taking an okay thing.” When he stared at me, I thrust the bear into his chest again. “I know you love it, so you might as well take it.”
Zander took the bear, and looked into the black shiny orbs that acted as eyes, but really just reflected you back at them. I patted Zander on the shoulder. “I know. He’s gorgeous, and will have a place of honor in your bedroom. It’s okay that you didn’t do anything that could possibly out-woo me on this. You are forgiven.”
“I just came to your rescue with a freaking sword as my weapon of choice! How is that not more romantic that a freaking teddy bear?” He waved the sword around while asking, which only made me stare at his chest, so his words sailed right over my head, and made arguing with him more difficult that it should have been.
Jasper cleared his throat. “As much as I enjoy watching my sister flirt with her boyfriend while ogling him, we do have bigger problems. Such as werewolves that tried to kill us, and the lady that encased this entire building in webs, not to mention all the gorgons that we’ve dealt with so far.”
“Buzzkill,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow at me. He didn’t have to do anything else. I crossed my arms over my chest, and sighed. “He’s not wrong, though. Why did they switch from trying to kill the Oracle to trying to kill us?” I asked. “Are we just more in the way now than she had been in the beginning?”
Before he could answer, someone shoved Zander from behind. He got out of the way so that Kizzy could step inside. She immediately went to Jasper, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He smiled down at her, with the kind of look that needed no words to accompany it. Kizzy checked my brother over, and poked at the cuts on his hands. They looked pretty minor, but she fawned over them like they would need stitches.
Juniper poked her head into the building next. Her face scrunched up, and I could only imagine she hated the mess. My sister stepped delicately between the webs. Naturally, I had to throw my arms around her and wail, “They were freaking everywhere, Juni! I thought I was going to get eaten alive by spiders, and never see you again!”
My sister patted my back awkwardly. “Spiders don’t eat flesh. They’d leave you a dried-out husk, with nothing inside.”
“That’s not helping!” I shouted.
Zander had his face in his hand. “No, no it’s not. You were supposed to stay by the car, as well.” He gave her a look, and she glared back at him. My sister, not scared of anything. Or, if she was, then she had a funny way of showing it. Usually by screaming at the thing until it went away.
“What are we supposed to do now?” Kizzy asked. “We can’t keep waiting around until the next thing attacks us.”
“Agreed,” Jasper said. “In case no one else has noticed, we’re seriously outclassed by everything that Arachne has sent so far. Does anyone else wonder how she managed to get all these different things to help her out with a task that really shouldn’t be as difficult as we’re making it?”
“You mean killing us should be easy?” I asked, dryly.
Juniper shrugged. “We’re human and we’ve lived through gorgons, chimeras, werewolves, and apparently, thousands of spiders. I think Arachne is probably getting fed up with our survival rate.”
Zander didn’t look happy with this conversation, so I thought it a good thing when the clerk groaned from behind the register. Good distraction from things he didn’t like to think about, let alone talk about. A rustling sound came from behind the counter, which indicated she moved around.
“What do we do?” Juniper asked. “I mean, we could just walk away, but her store is completely covered in spider webs. Not exactly the thing one can explain to a mere human.”
“I can make her a tea that will put her back under,” Kizzy suggested. “Provided there’s hot water somewhere in the store.” She looked around, seeing all the flower arrangements. Her lip twitched, like she wanted to laugh at them. They looked generic, and Kizzy’s flowers were anything but.
“We don’t have that kind of time,” Juniper said. “Not if we want to get something done about all of the attacks today.”
“We?” Zander said. “What part of chimeras, gorgons and werewolves did you miss?” he asked. He managed not to snap at her, so I let him get away with the rudeness, even if I wanted to remind him that we had survived all those attacks. And not just because of him and Kizzy.
They needed to stop treating us like we had been made of glass.
“Yes,” Juniper said. “We.” She used her no-nonsense voice. It used to work well on me and Jasper, but I didn’t know if it moved Zander at all. “First, let’s deal with this lady, before she calls the cops on the weirdos standing in the middle of her shop discussing death, okay?”
When put like that . . .
The clerk stood up from behind the counter. We couldn’t have hidden from her. The store felt cramped with just me and Jasper in it. When you added two demigods and Juniper, it seemed like a store version of a clown car. The woman looked back and forth from all of us. I could practically see the memory from earlier playing behind her eyes. They widened a great deal, and her chest started pumping up and down.
She looked towards the window the werewolf had been peeking through. “He turned . . . That man, he turned . . . Who are you people, and what are you doing in my store?” Ah, her fear turned to anger. I loved that response. Not.
I nudged Zander with my shoulder to get him moving. He glanced at me with a wicked smile on his face that shouldn’t have been so attractive. He turned that smile onto the clerk, and it caught her off guard too. She blinked at my boyfriend, and I did my best not to scowl.
He would hear about this later.
“Who . . . are you?” she asked, trying to push the haughtiness back into her voice, but she couldn’t quite do it when staring up into a pair of gorgeous blue eyes. Not to mention that smile.
“Never mind that,” Zander said. He had that tone. The one he used when he Charmed people. He didn’t like to Charm too often, but if this situation didn’t call for it, then nothing would. “What were you saying, about a man who turned into something?” He cocked his head to the side, maintaining eye contact so he looked incredibly interested in the woman’s response.
She cleared her throat, red rising in her cheeks. “He turned into a wolf. There was this stuff surrounding my shop, and then the man turned into a wolf. A giant wolf. Then I fainted.”
Zander nodded sympathetically. “That sounds like a hard day. Have you had many hard days lately? I bet you have,” he continued without letting her respond. “If you have enough hard days, it’s incredibly easy to get exhausted, and see things that aren’t, isn’t it? Or, have vivid dreams when you pass out from exhaustion.”
The woman blinked at him, dazed. Her eyes started to get that glazed look that meant his words sank in deeper to her mind. She nodded. “A very hard day. I guess the stress got to me, and I just wanted to lie down. Odd thing to dream about, though, isn’t it? Werewolves in Seattle? Silly, right?”
Zander smiled. I could only see the side of his face, but even from that view, I could tell it looked strained. He hated doing this, and I would have to comfort him later. “Yes, very strange. The mind plays odd tricks on people when it wants to, doesn’t it? With the infestation, you must be stressed to the max.”
“Infestation?” the woman asked.
“Spiders,” Zander said. “They’ve practically wrapped your shop up, haven’t they? I bet the exterminator will be here soon to take care of it, but you just have to live with the problem them until then, don’t you?”
She nodded. “I do. It’s really irritating.”
; He nodded. “Who wouldn’t be irritated? Don’t worry, though, because I’m sure you have everything under control. You deserve a vacation. You should take two weeks to do whatever you want.”
“Whatever I want?” And this time her tone changed to something I didn’t like. Her eyes shifted down Zander, and then back up. Yeah . . . I would have a talk with him about all of this later, and about how Charming someone should work. You shouldn’t literally Charm the pants off a person.
“Almost anything,” Zander said, sounding apologetic. “When you get back, you’ll feel much better, I’m sure.”
She nodded. “You’re right. I do need a vacation. It’ll rejuvenate me.”
Zander smiled. “Good. You should always love what you do for a living. Otherwise, what’s the point of doing it?” When she nodded, he gave her a sympathetic look, and stepped back. “Sorry, but I really have to be going now. I hope the exterminator comes soon to take care of the infestation.”
“Me too,” the lady said. “I’m getting really tired of all these webs.” She shook her head. “It’s bad for business, you know?” She picked up a sheaf of papers, and moved it next to a printer. “I hope you all have a nice day, and thank you so much for coming in despite my little problem.”
“Of course,” Zander said. He took my hand, and led me out of the store. Everyone else followed. We stood at the bottom of the steps, and stared up at the façade. It looked worse from the outside than it had from the inside. Completely covered, like some macabre caterpillar wanted to turn into a homicidal butterfly.
I shivered just looking at it, then glanced aside at Zander. I leaned in and whispered, “You’re a good person. You know how I know? Because with that Charm stuff, you could get literally anything you wanted, and you choose not to.”
He blinked at me. I didn’t give him a chance to say anything before turning to the rest of our family. I clapped once. “All right, we need a new plan. Preferably one that gets me as far away from that fucking thing as possible.” I pointed to the store behind me. “If I see even a hint of a giant spider crawling around, none of you will ever see me again. I’ll be gone, leaving behind only a silhouette of myself like you see in cartoons. Got it?”
Juniper smirked. “I think if there was a giant spider, it would have come out when the werewolves were dying.”
I frowned at that. Werewolves weren’t humans, but they were people. Zander already thought himself a monster for what he did to Kizzy’s parents. I couldn’t imagine what he felt about killing a couple of people, even if they had been after me. I’d talk to him about that later. When we put the fight for our lives behind us.
“How many were there?” Jasper asked.
“Three,” Kizzy told him. “We killed two of them, and the third ran off when he realized it was a losing battle. We could have pursued him, but thought getting to all of you was smarter, and better.” She smiled at Jasper when she said that, and he smiled back.
Juniper frowned. “One’s still out there? Do you know which one? I saw all three of them at some point or another.”
“The alpha,” Zander said. “He was a brown wolf. Probably the one that Jasmine and Jasper saw from inside the store.” He glanced at me, and I bumped my hip into his. He shouldn’t look intimidating while carrying a giant teddy bear in one hand and a sword in another, but the look in his eyes when he thought about that werewolf near me . . . cringe worthy.
Juniper went still, her eyes not looking at anything around her. I realized what she did before Zander could. She spoke quietly, thoughtfully. “Trees. Still lots of trees. No doubling back. Thought about it, but doesn’t want to risk getting killed. Not too far away. Roads are concealed in the trees.”
Juniper followed the werewolf with her visions. My sister had perfect control of her visions, unlike Jasper and me. Mine came almost completely involuntarily, and if what wanted to be seen is strong enough, Jasper couldn’t fight his either.
Our sister acted as the rock, because she learned how to control hers where we would never be able to do that.
Juniper blinked, and came back to us. “I saw a couple of road signs. I can follow him this way, but it won’t be easy. If he wanders completely off road, then I’d have to rely on landmarks.” She grimaced at that unreliable method. She also looked down at her tan pants, and seemed to realize that she would have to troop through the forest.
Her face paled, but she didn’t back down. Juniper looked at Zander, and said, “You can drive your car, Jasper will drive the other one. No sense in leaving either behind. I’ll ride with him and Jasmine. You and Kizzy can take the other.” There was no room for argument in her voice, so we didn’t argue.
Jasper got behind the wheel, and Juniper in the passenger’s seat, while the demigods loaded into their car. “Why couldn’t I ride with Zander?” I asked from behind my sister.
“You could have,” she said. “I couldn’t have, though. If I was giving him directions, and everyone else was in this car, there’s a good chance he’d speed to lose this car to keep you guys safe. This way, Kizzy can talk him down, and I don’t have to worry about him dying horribly because he’s not very bright on certain things.”
I blinked. “That . . . is incredibly shrewd of you.”
She smirked. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Now, let me track this werewolf. Why werewolves, by the way? We’ll have no idea how many there are until they’re all dead. I’d rather deal with Cerberus. At least there’s only one of him.” She sighed, and her eyes went blank again, her mouth falling slightly open.
“Panting. Tired. Ran too far when hurt. He needs to rest,” she whispered. “Next to a road still. Hiding behind trees so people don’t panic and hit him. The road is . . . ” She continued like that while we drove, careful to follow all traffic laws, since I doubted we’d get so lucky to be pulled over by Medusa a second time.
Swords and bows and arrows wouldn’t have been easy to conceal . . . and if we obeyed the traffic laws, then Zander would be forced to.
“Stop,” Juniper said suddenly. Jasper coasted to the side of the road, instead of listening to the urgency of her voice and slamming on the brakes. The other car still almost hit us, since Zander had gotten behind the wheel.
Juniper hopped out of the car before we could stop her. We rushed to follow, Zander and Kizzy almost to us already.
We scrambled to catch up as Juniper started down the road, away from the direction we came in. “No,” she said almost to herself. “Not here. Nope. Not here. Not here, not here, not here.” She almost tripped over a rock that she didn’t pay close enough attention to see. Only Kizzy, who managed to catch up before even Zander, managed to save her with an arm through Juniper’s.
“Here!” Juniper crowed as she plunged into the woods, heedless of what could be in there, thanks to the vision. I had a brief moment to wonder if Zander felt like this when I did something “reckless”, and if so, then I couldn’t blame him for all the times he’d screamed at me.
“Juni!” I hissed, rushing into the woods behind my sister. The other three stayed right behind me.
Juniper had managed to get pretty far into the woods before I spotted her. I rushed forward, only to be stopped by an iron band around my stomach. Oh, no. That was Zander’s arm. Funny how those two things felt so similar. I glared at my boyfriend, and he glared back.
“Kizzy,” he said, and nodded towards Juniper. The demigod took off, and Jasper stayed right behind her. Zander released me. “Both of you taking off in a mad dash doesn’t really help things, Jasmine.”
I straightened out my shirt. “I wasn’t taking off. I was making sure my sister didn’t get lost. I would have flagged you down, Zander.” I fell into step behind my brother, so that we were as protected by the demigods as we could get. I would have probably been fine going after Juniper, but I could admit that this would’ve been safer for us mere humans. At least to myself. Zander would never know that I agreed with this, because then he would think he won, or something.
<
br /> Ridiculous.
“Where is she taking us?” Zander asked.
“Hell if I know,” I said. “Now would be a great time for me to have a vision. Luckily for all of us, mine are erratic and very rarely helpful.” Was my tone sour right there? It might have been. Zander felt the need to pat my back, at any rate.
Juniper stopped moving again. She shook her head, and said, “He’s arrived at wherever he was going.” She looked back at us with enough grimness in her face that I knew we wouldn’t like anything about this. “Where did he want to go?” I asked, slipping between Kizzy and Jasper before Zander could stop me.
We all huddled together in the trees, who knew how far from the road. The chances of someone sneaking up on us didn’t seem good, but we still spoke in hushed voices. Something about the trees demanded we be quiet. Like we needed to respect them for all they had to put up with.
Juniper’s grim expression didn’t change. She pointed to the left, and said, “I’ll show you. Be careful, though. I don’t know if there are traps.”
I took Zander’s free hand because I knew it would make both of us feel better. His fingers squeezed mine so tightly, as if acknowledging my thought.
Juniper led us to a roughly hewn path. I saw no uniformity in the destruction whoever made the path caused. The tree stumps seemed to be different heights, and the trail different widths.
We had only been walking for a few yards when the sounds of fighting reached my ears. My hand tensed around Zander’s, but then relaxed. I heard no screaming. No agony. Just the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and grunts of pain. It had to be practice, and not an actual fight. I wasn’t expert, admittedly, but I’d never gotten into a fight without screaming like a little girl.
Then the walls came into view. Kizzy nudged Juniper back, so that she stood behind the demigod. Zander let go of my hand, so that if something snuck up behind us, he’d be able to attack it. We found a break in the wall about two dozen yards later, so that we could peek inside it.
