by Nigel Henry
I cock my head, "The stone's not for you."
I release the slingshot, and the stone goes flying. It hits the fire extinguisher, spraying Foster with foam. He roars and backs up, but I'm already sending another salt-shot at his eyes. This one is a direct hit, and two of his legs start pawing at his eyes. That's my opening.
I charge the spider, diving at the last moment and sliding through his legs. I get up behind, shove him into the path of the open gas valve and turn on the burner.
The resulting explosion slams me against the teacher's desk and I collapse in a heap on the classroom floor.
I lift myself up and I see Foster laying on the ground and twitching. His face has been blown away, leaving a bloody mess. He's not long for this world.
I still need to find my folks. I step out of the lab and start calling. "Mom! Dad! One of you say something!"
I hear muffled shouts, and I follow it to the principal's office. Throwing the door open, I find my Mom, bound with spider webbing at the hands and feet. Her mouth is also gagged. Gross. I slide down next to her and cut her free. "Are you okay?"
She nods. "I'm fine. Where's the spider?"
"I got him. Where's Dad? Is he here with you?"
"No. He put us in separate locations."
Crap. I get up into the hallway and start calling. "Dad! Dad! I can't find you if you don't answer!"
Slow, weak laughter sounds from back in the bio lab. Mom and I follow it back to Foster, still laying on the ground, bleeding out. Somehow, despite not having a face, the Jorogumo can still gurgle out words.
"Where's my father?" I ask from the doorway.
Foster chuckles again. "It doesn't matter. You're all dead."
"I'm not the one missing half my head. It's over, Mr. Foster; you lost."
To my surprise, he chuckles some more, this time coughing up blood. "You think this ends with me? You have no idea what you've walked into."
"Then why don't you tell me," I snap. I'm sick of Foster's riddles.
"I don't need to. You'll know soon enough, and you'll never see her coming."
"Her?"
His words are a struggle, but he's defiant, even as he's dying. "When will you learn to see the big picture?"
I start to form another sentence, but the words catch in my throat as the realization dawns on me. Just like that, Foster gave me the last piece of the puzzle.
In my mind, I can already see the woman's shoes I stepped on in Foster's apartment. It all makes sense.
"Oh no," I say as I take a step forward. "Oh no, no, no, no."
"What is it?" Mom asks.
"Jorogumo seduce their victims, but Castro and Ford weren't gay. Ford's parents said he was seeing someone new but wouldn't tell them who. And I came across women's shoes at Foster's apartment."
Mom's eyes go wide. "There's a second spider?"
"Yes, and I know who it is!"
I'm up in a flash, running to get the duffel bag Dad dropped. I fish out gas and matches before returning to the lab.
"What are you doing?" Mom asks, eyeing the materials. "You can't burn the place down."
"I'm not," I say as I make a bee-line for the spider tank in the back. I douse the inside with gasoline and drop a match in. The whole thing catches fire, burning up the spiders inside.
It's Birch. She's the second spider. The most attractive male and female teachers at tech are both Jorogumo.
And my friends are with her right now on the science club trip!
I pull out my phone and dial Ariana's number. It rings twice before she picks up. "Ariana," I begin, "You and Will have to get away from—"
"Ria, help me!" Ariana cuts me off and my blood runs cold. "She's after us!"
"Where are you?" I shout.
"The museum!"
"I'm on my way! Stay hidden!"
I turn back to my Mom. "Go," she tells me before I can say a word. "Take the car and all the weapons. I'll find your father and we'll clean up here."
I run out, but not before Foster can get one last dig in.
"Goodbye, Mariah Miller. I pray I see you soon."
TWENTY-EIGHT
I PULL off every single illegal and dangerous driving move I've ever practiced in a video game during my ride down to the Museum of Natural History. Despite that, it still takes me a half-hour to get there. If my friends are dead because of New York City's shitty highway system, I swear to God I'll find Mayor Pratt and beat him to death.
I'm kicking myself the entire drive down. Foster and Birch played me. They knew who I was the moment I spilled holy water on Birch's lab coat. I should've considered the fact that I was dealing with a monster that didn't get burned by holy water. I should've thought of alternative suspects. Now Ariana and Will are in danger.
It's eight-thirty by the time I arrive, meaning the museum's been closed for almost three hours. That's too long for Ariana and Will to have been alone with Birch.
The doors to the museum are unlocked, so I sneak in, baton and knife at the ready, gasoline canister and matches in my bag. I don't have much of a plan in place to kill Ms. Birch, but I figure I'll try stabbing her a few times and setting her on fire. If it worked once, it should work twice, right?
I'm just past the dinosaur section when I spot a body on the ground. I approach slowly and roll it over. It's a security guard that's missing a large chunk of his neck. I guess Birch decided to have an early dinner. I can only hope that means she's too full to eat my friends.
I walk down the North American Mammals section before pulling out my phone. I can't risk calling Ariana while she's hiding, but maybe I can text her. WHERE ARE YOU HIDING? I type.
Planetarium, she replies. That sends me scouting for a map. The planetarium is the big globe thing on the third floor. I take a moment to orient myself—it's a big place; we should come back one day when it's not life or death—and I take off.
At this point I'm running as fast I can. Silent alarms and security guards, be damned. I won't let anyone else get hurt. Not if I can stop it.
The planetarium's a huge, white glass sphere in an even bigger glass box that's lit up with colored lights at night. On normal days you walk on really long ramps around it, looking at planets and stars and stuff. It's supposed to give you a sense of the size of the solar system. Tonight it's just getting on my nerves.
I hit the top of the ramp and start running down. There's no sign of anyone, so I keep pushing. My lungs are burning, but I can't stop. Not till they're safe and Birch is dead.
Near the bottom, I hear a crash and a "thiwck" sound. It's followed by a scream. I look down the center of the spiral and that's when I spot Birch, still in her human form, reeling in Ariana and Will with a web rope.
"I finally found you," she shouts. "Let's not make this any harder than it has to be."
Shit. I eye the remaining ramp. It'll take too long to run down. I need to act. Now.
Crap. This is so going to hurt.
I drop my bag, climb up on the railing and jump over. Just like the leap from the rooftop in Alphabet City, I feel the rush as my stomach jumps into my mouth, but this time there's no rope to break my fall.
Thankfully, there's Ms. Birch.
I crash into her, knocking her down with a loud "crack". It hurts like a mutha and my left shoulder and leg take the brunt of the impact, but I force myself up to my feet and draw my knife. I limp over to a stunned Will and Ariana and cut the web.
"Run," I tell them as I draw my baton and charge Birch. She's already rounding up, but her left arm is broken. All the better for me.
I don't waste any time, slamming the baton across her jaw before targeting her right elbow. I kick her backward, and she tumbles over.
"Sorry Ms. Birch," I say, "but your science club sucks."
Birch gets up again, but when she turns her face to me, the pincers are out of her mouth. "Carl let you live?"
"It wasn't his first choice, but he didn't really have much of a say in it since he's dead and all."
; I slam my baton into her head again. I bring it back around and catch her under the chin. Jorogumo blood splatters across the wall, but I don't stop. My only chance is to end this now before she can turn into the spider.
I bring the baton down again, but this time she grabs my arm with her broken one. She squeezes my wrist hard, so hard that I drop the baton.
"You killed Carl?" She asks quizzically.
"Don't act so surprised," I grunt. "You're the one with the broken arm right now."
Big mistake. Don't tick off spider-people, Ria.
Birch's eyes turn black, and she grabs me by the throat with her right arm. Slowly, she gets to her feet and lifts me above her head by my neck.
"You killed Carl," she repeats, confusion turning into anger.
"It's what I do," I gasp.
She opens her pincers and pulls me close to her face. "Let me show you what I do."
"Let go of her!" Will shouts as he tackles Birch to the ground. She drops me and I clutch my throat and gasp as she tosses him against a wall.
"Foolish child," she says. She starts to advance on him. I draw my knife. I'm going to end this now.
Bang! Bang!
I cover my head instinctively as the gunshots ring out. When I look up again, Birch is on the ground, wheezing as blood pours out of her chest. My eyes travel up the ramp, where I spot Inspector Perkins with his handgun aimed down.
"Your parents said you could use some help," he calls down.
"I had it," I cough, "but thanks for the assist."
"Anytime. Now get out of here. It's about to be swarming with police."
I look back to Birch's body. "What about her?"
"Leave that to me. Now get your friends and go!"
You don't have to tell me three times. I get to my feet and limp over to Will, who's being helped up by Ariana. Both of them cower as I approach.
"I'm not going to hurt you," I say.
"What the hell was she?" Ariana asks. "What the hell are you?"
"Those are very good questions. I promise I'll answer them all, but we really, really, need to get out of here right now."
They look unconvinced as I fold my baton back into my pocket. I guess I've got to sweeten the deal.
"Not only will I not hurt you, I promise I'll drive you wherever you want to go for a whole week."
TWENTY-NINE
"MONSTER HUNTERS! LIKE, SERIOUSLY, MONSTER HUNTERS?"
Will, Ariana and I are all squeezed in the backseat of my parent's car as we head home from the bug bash. Ariana's not saying much, but Will sounds like he just discovered the secret to infinite wealth. He keeps tapping my shoulders excitedly.
"Like really?" He asks again, tapping my bruised shoulder for the umpteenth time. "Like, monster hunters?!"
"Ow!" I say, rubbing my shoulder. "If you don't quit poking me, I'm going to be a Will Archer hunter."
Mom calls from the front passenger seat. "Ria, don't threaten to kill your friends after you worked so hard to save them from the monster."
Will sticks his tongue out at me as I plead my case. "He started it!"
"What's the rule about killing humans?" Dad asks.
I sigh. "Don't do it unless they're secretly a monster."
"Exactly," Dad says. "Will, are you a monster?"
"No, sir, Mr. Miller, sir."
"Then it's settled. No killing in the car."
We picked up my folks after the fight at the museum. Turns out Foster hid my Dad in the cafeteria. Once Mom found him they took care of burning Foster's body and cleaning the scene of fingerprints and scents.
True to my word, I offered to drive Ariana and Will anywhere they wanted to go, but what they really wanted were answers. That, and you could tell they were both terrified by the idea of us leaving them. So we agreed to fill them in on the details while we dropped them off.
"Enough about me," Will says, "how about we talk more about monster hunting?"
"What's there to say? There's a lot of things in this city that would like to eat you. My parents and I try to make sure that doesn't happen."
"And Ms. Birch was one of those things? And Mr. Foster?"
"Yes," Dad says. "They were Jorogumo: half-spider, half-human."
Will fans himself. "This world just got so much more complicated."
I laugh. "You have no idea."
"But now that you do know, it's important you keep this quiet," Mom says. "The fewer people that know what we do and who we are, the better."
"Why?" Will asks. "You guys are heroes. Mayor Pratt should be giving you medals."
"Because it's not that simple," Dad says. "We have to break a lot of laws to find monsters. And, as you can see, some of these monsters can think; they can plan. If they knew who they are, they would come after us."
"Yeah," I chime in. "Foster and Birch hired a vampire to try to kill me this week."
Will's eyes go wide, "Nooo way! Vampires are real?"
"Real, and real douchey."
"Language!" Dad says.
"Sorry!"
"Anyway," Mom continues, "keeping our secret keeps us and those we care about safe."
"That includes you guys," I add.
"Of course I'll stay quiet," Will says. He puts his hands in. "We're all in this together, now! Let's go, team!"
"No way," Dad says. "There's no team. What we do is dangerous and we've spent years training. We're not putting you in harm's way."
"Well, I know that," Will stammers, "but I meant team as in humans vs monsters."
"How about we just celebrate not getting eaten tonight?" Ariana suggests.
"I'll get in on that," Will exclaims. "Three cheers for spiders being dead!"
"Shit, yeah," I say.
Mom frowns. "Language!"
WE DROP Ariana and Will off at Ariana's place. Will's chatty as all get out the entire time, but Ariana's different. She didn't ask a single question the whole ride over, which, as I've come to know her, is out of character.
"You okay?" I ask when we're out of the car and out of earshot of the others.
"I'm fine," she says, marching past me without stopping.
"Look, I know this is a lot to take in and seems insane, but—"
"Why didn't you tell us?" She asks, interrupting me. "You knew for weeks that something was up. That's why you were asking about Mark Bell and Mr. Foster. Why the hell didn't you give us any warning that something was up?"
"I didn't know what was up." I counter. "I was trying to figure out who was evil and who I could trust."
"So you decided you couldn't trust us?"
"I didn't say that—"
"Bullshit, Ria," she spits. "That's bullshit. You begged me in the park to open up about Marcela. I didn't know you from Jack, but you still wanted me to be honest. And the whole time you got to keep secrets."
"You wouldn't have believed me if—"
"Maybe not," she screams, drawing eyes from my parents and Will.
"Hey, take it easy," Will says. He places a hand on her shoulder, but she slaps it off.
"Don't tell me to take it easy!" She snaps. " We almost died tonight because she decided not to tell us anything."
"In my defense, I didn't have a clue that Birch was evil until after burned Foster up."
"Whatever, Ria. Whatever. I hope you feel proud of yourself."
She turns and walks to her apartment. I start to say something in response, but the words get stuck in my mouth.
What exactly can I say in defense? As unfair as Ariana's being right now, she's not wrong. Foster and Birch knew I was after them, and that made anyone I was close to a target. Hell, Foster even told me he was going to kill Ariana and Will because of me. They got put in the middle of this because of me.
I jog after her. "Ariana, wait. You're right; I should have warned you that something could be up."
She shakes her head. "It's too late for that. Just... just give me some time."
She heads inside. I turn to Will. "Are you mad at me too?"
<
br /> "Heck no," Will says. "I thought it was badass how you Super Mario-ed Ms. Birch." He looks from Ariana's door to me. "I can talk to her tomorrow."
"No," I say with a sigh. "Just get home in one piece."
He nods before flashing me a peace sign and shuffling off, leaving me alone in the street. My Mom comes up to me and puts a hand on my shoulder.
"She's been through a lot," she says, kissing the top of my head. "Just let her think for a bit. You did what you thought was right in the middle of a tough situation. She'll see that."
"I'm not so sure of that," I reply as I slowly make my way back to the car.
WE ARRIVE at my house after dropping Will and Ariana off, and my folks head in. I hang back to grab the gear, but when they're gone I lean against the trunk. I feel drained. My friends almost died tonight because I got played by monsters. This was too close.
Werewolves, trolls, and revenants are easy to deal with. But now there are vampires and Jorogumo to worry about. Not to mention the fact that wolves and spiders held official city jobs. Everything changed this week, and we're going to have to be sharper to stay on top of things.
"Is this a bad time?" A voice sounds behind me, catching me by surprise.
I spin, knife out, and come face to face with the vampire I've been hunting. The vamp that tried to kill me. Tucker.
He raises his hands, palms out. "Hey! Not here to fight."
"Then you shouldn't have come here at all," I hiss.
"Listen, if I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already."
"Funny, considering how you ran away last time."
"That's because you were going to do me a favor, and I didn't want to get in the way."
"A favor?"
He shifts on his feet. "Consider this a peace offering: there's no big hit on you. Only the wolf Malone knew who you are. He hired me to kill you as repayment for a debt I owed him. He, the spiders, and I are the only ones who know your identity."
"Hooray. And why shouldn't I off you and close the circle completely?"
"Because it’s over. Among vampires, failure to repay a debt has dire consequences. I would have continued to come after you until you were dead. But when you killed the wolf you freed me of that debt. I don't have to kill you anymore."
