Sherlock stopped and sniffed the air. No, but that damn Raffin is. His droopy, red-rimmed eyes opened wider. He let out a soft growl and begged, Let me at ‘im.
“Not now, Sherlock,” Gramps hissed. He pulled a wand out of his long cloak. Maria looked at it, confused.
“What—where did you get that?” she asked him.
“Questions for another time,” he answered.
Claire and Tabby were huddled close to each other, leaning up against the ruined brick of the building on their left. Tabby gasped, the noise sharp enough to make Maria tense up and hold her sword tighter. Then her friend brought up a shaky finger and pointed out to the main road.
The Arachnids were coming straight for them.
Maria held up a hand, telling her comrades to stand their ground. No need for confrontation…yet.
“Man meat,” one of the Arachnids observed; he wore a robe. The creatures walked on their two legs, and as this one talked, he moved his remaining six arms, which extended from his torso in what resembled a windmill. “I smell man meat,” he said again. He tilted his head to the sky and inhaled deeply, much like Sherlock had done earlier.
Maria lunged forward, but Gramps caught her and held her back.
“You don’t smell nothing,” the other Arachnid argued. “No one would dare set foot in this place; they know it belongs to us.”
The second Arachnid was shorter and more stout. He reminded Maria of the bodybuilders she frequently saw at the gym when she went kickboxing.
“I know what I smell,” the robed one countered. “I smell man, and they are scared.”
Maria took a quick look at Tabby and Claire, confirming this. They were practically holding each other.
The end of Gramps’s wand lit up with a faint blue light, and Maria brought her sword up.
They won’t know about the music box, she reminded herself. They’re just grunts; they’ve probably never even met the Widow.
The Arachnids were now walking past the alley where Maria and her friends were hiding.
Gramps flattened himself against the brick, and the rest followed suit.
The two Arachnids passed, their footsteps fading.
“That was close,” Tabby breathed. “Thought I’d never have to see one of those freaks again. Geesh.”
“Least they didn’t look as bad as our old friend Malakai,” Claire shrugged. She brought a hand up to her chin, deep in thought. “You know what? I wonder if it’s too late to chase those bastards down and make them pay for my car.”
Tabby rolled her eyes.
Gramps brought a finger to his lips. The glowing light at the end of his wand dimmed.
They were in the clear.
“C’mon,” Gramps prodded. “We have a Gnome to find.”
Sherlock’s ears perked up at that; Maria couldn’t help but smile as she looked at them.
Her smile was short-lived, as Tabby let out a blood-curdling scream, and Sherlock began barking like he was rabid.
Maria was about to yell that their noise would blow their cover, but she saw it was too late.
The Arachnids had flanked them, and one of them had a clawed hand around Tabby.
Maria had to act fast if she wanted to help her friend. She whipped the sword up in a great arc.
“Let her go!” she boomed.
The Arachnid didn’t listen. His claws tightened around Tabby’s throat, and his fangs protruded from between his dark lips, dripping with venom and thick saliva.
He backed up, boasting to his companion, “I told you I sniffed man flesh. I told ya!”
The other Arachnid made a swipe for Claire, but Claire stumbled and landed on her bottom with a yelp. Sherlock was quick to jump in front of her and snap at the Arachnid’s reaching hand. His jaws clamped, making an audible click—one Maria never would have thought her lovable Bloodhound was capable of. He didn’t make contact with the giant spider, but he had scared him enough to make him withdraw his hand.
Gramps stood by, watching all of this with a patient eye. Maria wanted to shout at him to do something, but she was afraid to take her eyes off of Tabby and the Arachnid for too long.
“Help,” Tabby wheezed. The Arachnid had wrapped his whole arm around her neck. Maria could tell he was squeezing, because Tabby’s pale face began to turn a bright red.
He started to back out of the alleyway, still holding onto her friend.
“Come any closer, and I pop her head off,” the Arachnid warned.
Maria glanced at Gramps.
“Yeah!” the other Arachnid echoed. “Then we’ll eat her! Better yet, take a step forward, my dear. I’m hungry. Been too long since I’ve had man flesh.”
Tabby, struggling, choked out, “I’m…a… woman!”
Suddenly, she raised her right leg forward and kicked back with all the strength she had left in her body. Maria was not sure of the anatomy of an Arachnid, whether they possessed the same things between their legs as the men of Earth, but apparently Tabby was… Or Tabby just didn't give a fuck, and she was using whatever she could to secure her freedom, even if it meant a low blow.
The Arachnid screamed, throwing his head back, and his mouth opened into a large, black vortex of teeth. Saliva sprayed up into the dark air.
For good measure, Tabby kicked again; this time, the Arachnid dropped her and fell to his knees.
Claire pulled Tabby out of the alley, with Sherlock guarding them the whole way, teeth bared, growling low in the back of his throat.
Gramps and Maria stepped forward; Maria with her sword raised, and Gramps with his wand held as high as his heart, emitting a violent blue light.
“I suggest you run,” he said conversationally. “That is, if you want your lives spared.”
The other Arachnid scrambled toward his friend, who was still howling in pain, having been walloped in the family jewels.
Maria lunged forward, her sword high above her head.
The Arachnid still on his feet fell backward, sending up a cloud of dirt in his wake.
“Be gone!” Gramps yelled. “Crawl back to the hole you’ve come from.” His wand erupted in a flash of light, which he sent skyward. It painted the alley and Arachnids in blue fire, and Maria saw the fear written on their faces.
“This isn’t over,” the injured Arachnid screeched.
Gramps feigned an attack, thrusting his wand out in front of him. The Arachnid jumped backward, still holding the wounded area between his legs.
“That’s for me to decide,” Gramps bellowed. “Pray I don’t change my mind. For I am Ignatius Mangood, destroyer of worlds, slayer of daemons! I squash spiders with the heel of my boots!”
Once more, blue fire escaped Gramps’s wand, and the creatures knew their lives were in jeopardy. They wasted no more time in scrambling up and running into the darkness beyond.
Maria’s jaw hung open. Her grandfather never ceased to amaze her. She turned to him once they were in the clear.
“Where did that come from?” she asked, but she already knew the answer, having seen in Duke’s memory how powerful her grandfather could be. Not to mention how he held his own against the nightmare that was Malakai.
Gramps brushed his sleeves back and hid his wand up his right cuff. He grinned. “I still have a few tricks up here.”
Uh, good one, Sherlock interjected in her thoughts. Real funny and all, but we have a bit of a problem over here.
Maria snapped her head in Sherlock, Claire, and Tabby’s direction. Tabby was sitting in Claire’s lap on the ground. There was a deep red mark around her neck that was going a shade of purple, and she had tears in her eyes.
Maria rushed to her friend’s side. “I’m so sorry, Tab. Are you all right?”
“Do I look all right?” Tabby snapped.
The answer was ‘no,’ but Maria figured it was a question she wasn’t supposed to answer, so she didn’t.
“I want to go back home, Maria,” Tabby said quietly, so as not to offend Gramps. “I’m not cut out for m
agical worlds. I’m not a witch.”
Maria took Tabby’s hand. “No, but you’re brave. One of the bravest girls I know. I mean, you kicked a giant spider in the nuts. That’s saying something.”
Tabby let herself smile at that.
Claire even chuckled.
“Yeah, I guess I am—but I still want to go home, Maria. I’m sorry. I can scratch kicking a giant spider in the balls off my bucket list and live out the rest of my life knowing I’m a badass. What use will that be if I barely make it to my mid-twenties?”
Maria nodded and looked toward Gramps, who was slinking behind them, looking on with hurt in his eyes.
“Can we take Tabby home?” she asked.
Gramps nodded. “Of course.”
She looked back at Tabby. “Can’t persuade you to stay?”
Tabby shook her head.
She then looked at Claire. “What about you? Do you want to go back, too?”
Claire wouldn’t meet Maria’s eyes. “I…uh,” she hesitated as she looked at Tabby. “It’s nothing personal, but Tab is hurt, and I really didn’t think I was going to have to deal with another giant humanoid spider, you know?”
Maria nodded. Despite her obvious disappointment, she smiled at her two friends. It was her fault, after all, that Tabby was hurt, and that they were all in some foreign world where two moons hung above them, and spiders walked on two feet, craving human flesh.
“Come, come,” Gramps urged gently, walking over to Maria and putting his arm around her; Maria sheathed her sword to let him embrace her. “It won’t be long until the Arachnids come back with reinforcements,” he reminded her.
Claire shuddered. “Ugh, yeah, I’ll have one portal, please.”
“Your wish is my command, dear.” Gramps closed his eyes, and a peaceful calm came over his features. Then he began to sing in that sweet, high melodic tone that Maria first heard when she was a baby.
A portal opened in the middle of the street in which they stood. Maria could see the inside of Salem’s Ice Cream Shop; the checkered tile floors, the tables still pushed together where she had woken up from her run-in with Malakai. The window was fixed, and Salem was wiping down the front counter while opera music played loudly over the speakers.
“After you, Maria,” Gramps said, sweeping his arm toward the portal.
Maria helped Claire lift Tabby off the ground.
Wanna put her on my back? I can champion her like a medieval horse, Sherlock offered.
Maria snorted, causing Tabby to give her an odd, sideways look. “Did Sherlock just offer to give me a ride?”
“Did you hear him?” Maria asked.
Tabby shook her head. “No, I can just tell by the way he looked at me. Tell him I said thanks for the offer, but I’m okay. I’ll survive.”
Duh, I can hear you, Sherlock reminded Tabby.
Maria chose not to interpret that bit for her friend, instead saying, “He said you’re welcome.”
That’s not what I said at all!
Maria glared at him, and he quickly shut his mental mouth.
With one arm around Claire and the other around Maria, Tabby hobbled toward the portal. Gramps continued singing.
They all went through to the other side.
CHAPTER THREE
“Ow, ow, ow!” Tabby cried.
The landing was not the smoothest. Salem’s floor was slippery, and when they took their first step onto the tile, they went sliding headlong into the pushed-together tables. Somewhere a record scratched, and the opera music cut out.
“My floor!” Salem shouted. He came out from behind his desk and pointed at a fresh scuffmark from one of the girls’ sneakers. “I just mopped it all up!”
“Your floor?” Claire echoed incredulously. “What about us?”
Luckily for Tabby, Claire and Maria had broken her fall. Sherlock slid into one of the trashcans, his backside in the air, and garbage spilled out all over him; sticky napkins and empty ice cream containers. Sherlock’s tail wagged furiously—he was in heaven.
“And look at that mess!” Salem continued. “It looks worse than after the battle.”
Agnes came out of the backroom with a smile on her face. “Oh, be quiet, you old hermit. At least we don’t have to clean up any more blood.”
Maria looked around. She’d rocked her head pretty hard, but Agnes was right…there was no blood—only budding bruises.
Gramps stepped through the portal just as it closed. He didn’t slip or slide or fall; he came out as coolly and calmly as ever, looking like Clint Eastwood in a Western movie—the only difference being the use of wands instead of six-shooters.
“Yeah, we’ll have to work on our landings,” Gramps agreed. “One day, you may even become as cool as I am.”
Claire rubbed her head. “Yeah, I bet you walk away from explosions like James Bond or something.”
“I’ll have you know,” Gramps insisted, raising a hand, “I’ve not exploded something in a long while.”
“Can’t say I haven’t,” Maria mused. She looked at Tabby, who was getting up on her own. Her neck was now swollen and bruised. Small pokers from the Arachnid’s arms had stuck her in a jagged semicircle, leaving welled dots of blood. “Come on, Tab, let’s get you to a hospital.”
“Hospital?” Tabby replied, exasperated. “Seriously? What the hell am I going to tell my mom and dad? ‘Hey Mom, I didn’t make dinner tonight because I was too busy getting choked out by a giant spider that wanted to eat my flesh. Oh, and Dad, don’t worry, I’m not on drugs. I promise. Remember when I took that pledge to stay alcohol, drug, and tobacco free in middle school? Well, I’ve held true to my promise and I’m as clean as a whistle… all this crap you think I’m hallucinating isn’t a hallucination, I swear!’ Yeah, that’ll go over real smooth with the ‘rents.”
Claire snickered. “They definitely know you’re not alcohol-free. Remember what you did two weekends ago?”
“What did you do?” Maria asked. She saw Tabby’s face go red. “What, c’mon, I thought you told me everything, Tab!”
“Apparently not,” Claire said.
“How come Claire knows? Not fair.”
“Only reason Claire knows is because she was tasked with the unfortunate job of picking me up, since she was just leaving the mall,” Tabby answered.
“Spill it,” Maria said.
Even Agnes, Salem, and Gramps were waiting for the story. Sherlock, on the other hand, was too busy licking the floor near the trashcan, mumbling something about the taste of vanilla ice cream and lemon cleaning product.
“Fine, but you all have to promise not to laugh,” Tabby said.
Salem raised his right hand, a smile on his face. “I promise not to laugh too hard.”
Tabby glared at him. “Fair enough,” she said after a moment’s silence. “I was at a frat party—I know, I hate those things, but one of my sorority sisters dragged me along and I technically had to go. Anyway, they were passing around this two liter of Dr. Pepper, and stupid me didn’t realize it was probably spiked. Sure enough, I took a swig and everyone starts chanting, ‘Chug, chug, chug!’ and I love Dr. Pepper, you all know that. Honest to God, it tasted just like Dr. Pepper, too. No booze at all. I drained about half the bottle and suddenly all the people at the party were coming up to me and patting me on the back, telling me how good of a job I did. Then some were asking me if I was feeling funny, but—stupid me—I just nodded and said that I felt perfectly fine. Then…BOOM! It hit me. The room started spinning, I couldn’t understand any of the lyrics in the songs that were playing, and I was in the middle of the dance floor doing the chicken dance, despite that not even being close to what was playing over the speakers.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad,” Agnes said. She brushed her wild gray hair out of her face. “Sounds like you just had a good time with a little alcohol. Pretty normal for a young woman your age.”
“Oh, it’s gets worse.”
Claire had to cover her face to mask her
laughter.
“I started making out with a scarecrow, you know, like one of those Halloween decorations,” Tabby continues. The ice cream shop got very quiet.
“Like a real scarecrow?” Maria asked, trying to hold back laughter.
Tabby nodded slowly. "Is there such a thing as a fake one? Connie Boardman got it on video tape…"
“How did that happen?” Salem said. “You poor girl.”
“Simple answer: alcohol…and the fact that I apparently have a thing for scarecrows."
That did it. No one could hold back their laughter. They all erupted. Sherlock even joined in, tearing himself away from licking the garbage can and the floor long enough to chortle inside of Maria’s head.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I’m never touching booze again,” Tabby said.
“You should take that story to all the high school health classes around the country. It would be a major deterrent to drinking,” Maria said.
“That’s what I said!” Claire added. “But could you imagine a bunch of high schoolers listening to that? They’d laugh harder than we did.”
Maria nodded. “Yeah, maybe scratch that idea, Tab. But seriously, we need to get you to a hospital.”
“Can’t you just magic my pain away?” she asked.
Salem chuckled. “I might have some Percocet back in the office from when I got my hip surgery.”
“Drugs, Salem,” Agnes said. “Drugs.”
“Right.”
“I’ll be fine. It’s not too bad,” Tabby said, rubbing the wound. “I’ll just tell my mom I fell or something.”
Yeah, like she’ll believe that,” Claire said. “Your mom’s never believed anything. Come on, I’m driving you to the hospital,” Claire put her foot down and then placed her hands on her hips. There was no denying Claire when she was like that.
“Fine,” Tabby finally said, sighing. “But don’t mention anything about the huge spiders. I don’t want to end up in the psych ward like my cousin in New Mexico.”
“You have a cousin in the psych ward?” Maria asked.
“Long story,” Tabby replied.
Maria nodded. “I see. Right, let’s go to the hospital.”
The Midwest Wanderer Page 3
