by Jen Ponce
He leaned back against the seat, his face relaxing into a smile that wasn't friendly. It looked like the smile on a maniac's face as he dismembered you while you screamed. "It would drive you mad. Turn you into a monster. A flesh-ravening beast. You would transform into one of them if you stayed. If you found your way over to Earth, the magic would bleed away and you would succumb less and less to the blood lust. Your lifespan would be unnaturally increased, regardless." He gestured toward the mirror and the frozen image. "He's been around several thousand centuries." As if reading my mind, he said, "And no, you won't be one of the neutered vampires you see on your TV. You'll kill anyone who gets in your way. Kids. Husband. Friends."
I swallowed. "Why do you want him dead?"
"He stole something from me."
I waited. He said nothing. "What?"
"Nothing that can't be replaced."
"So why kill him?"
His voice was flat as he answered, "He crossed me. No one. Crosses me."
For a long moment, we sat and stared at one another. The hairs on my neck bristled at the implications of his words, at the threat implied within them. When I couldn't take the tension anymore, I broke my gaze free, not proud of myself. He scared the shit out of me.
"So. What do you choose? Do you wish to try on your own? Or will you shift?"
What a choice. Try to drag a large and dangerous leech from a swamp with my bare hands or become the first-ever werebug in existence. "Has this happened before? What happened to me? I mean, are there others who can shift forms?"
He shook his head. "You're unique. Yes, a few can change from human form to other mammals. Wolves mostly. But I do believe you are the first ... werebug."
I looked up at him sharply. "Did you make that up?"
He smiled.
"Shit. Stay out of my head." My scalp itched as if he were crawling around in there.
"Your thoughts are transparent here because this is my domain. I cannot read what you think on Earth. Or in Midia, for that matter."
It wasn't reassuring. I was here now, not on Earth where presumably I was safe. I didn't want him rooting around in my head, plucking out my thoughts when he wished to read them. I looked at him, but his mild amusement didn't change. "Fine. How do I do this?"
"I haven't a clue. You'll have to talk with Neutria." He picked up the mirror and the image splashed away without a drop hitting the floor. He hung the scrying glass on the wall. "It should be easy here. As you saw, the Slip is fluid, ever changing. If it's possible for you to shift anywhere, it will be here." He stopped at the doorway. "I'll give you privacy. Call if you have need of me, or if you are successful."
Successful turning myself into a bug. Right.
Not bug. Arachnid. Bugs are food. I am a warrior.
Proud bug. Grimacing I sat and waited. And waited. Sighed. "Fine. I'm sorry. A proud warrior." Waited some more. Fought back the urge to stamp my feet and scream. "Please? I'm a measly human. I need help. Your help."
A dry skittering danced through my head, and then Neutria stretched.
For a moment, I wasn't sure what happened; then a ripple of pain lanced through my skin into my bones. Gasping, I fell, missing the corner of the coffee table by an inch. My gut churned again. She'd done the same thing in the park, albeit unsuccessfully. And with less agony. I barely had time to shudder when a bolt of bright red pain ravaged me. The red flared to white and a cracking filled my head.
Bones. Those were my bones cracking. My lungs refused to work; every bodily system I had—until now—relied upon, had failed. I was dead. Dead. Then a great turning, slithering inside my own skin, my own head, and the spider pushed me roughly back in my own mind.
Free. Out. Alive.
I could only watch and observe from the back of a mind so alien I couldn't comprehend it. The view before me was faceted, varied. Sensory input flooded her/my/our mind but I had no frame of reference for much of it. What did heat/flesh smell mean as opposed to cold/flesh smell?
Neutria exalted. Her body moved with a grace I'd never known. Her dainty, hairy legs picked their way easily around, over the furniture. The door stopped her, but only for a moment. She pulled at my mind to help her navigate the obstacle and with a chitter of excitement, slipped out of the room.
Tytan didn't even start when Neutria appeared before him. I'd had a mini-breakdown when I'd seen the four-foot tall spider, but then again I'd been a mere human.
"I see you managed to transform." He stared, circling me or rather, the spider. "You look different. I can't put a finger on it." His lips didn't move but I heard his speech clearly.
Neutria raised one leg in the air and then put it back on the floor. I wasn't sure what it meant, but Tytan nodded. "I'll take you to the Hook to Midia. Remember not to eat the fleshcrawler. It will make you sick."
That made me sick, but no one cared about my thoughts or feelings. Neutria followed Tytan out the door and I braced myself for the nauseating vertigo but nothing happened. Being in the body of a giant spider had its advantages, I guess.
None of the demons—Skriven—found Neutria odd. Most ignored her, some nodding to Tytan and others going on their merry way. As we walked, I struggled to understand how Neutria processed the sensory input. She labeled everything either threat or food.
Tytan stopped at an undulating building. The outside looked a little like marble, only no marble on earth could have moved like this stone. A large archway yawned before us. Writing scrawled along the arch but I had no idea what it said and Neutria wasn't curious.
"Bring me the fleshcrawler's head."
Neutria's excitement made me cringe. Before I could think about what we were going to do, before I could question Tytan further or consider backing out, Neutria crawled through the archway into Midia.
EIGHT
The wet heat settled on our body. Neutria skittered across the squelchy ground, her multitudinous legs making easy work of it. An overload of sensory input poured in until my head spun.
Quiet.
"I can't be quiet. I'm going insane."
She made a noise that I assumed was the spider equivalent of a sigh. For a moment she was still and then my awareness shifted. Somehow she'd connected me to her knowledge; I knew now, for instance, that the plethora of sensations I'd been drowning in came through the bristles on her legs and her vision. The world was awash with vibrations and Neutria could pick them out as easily as I could differentiate my children's voices.
It left me with a headache—probably an imaginary one, seeing as I didn't actually have a head now.
Giant white tree-like plants stretched up higher than Neutria could see, pale white leaves casting a pall so deep even Neutria's sensitive eyes couldn't penetrate. It looked pallid, anemic, as if the vegetation grew under a large, black bowl.
I couldn't hear but some of the vibrations from her legs registered with me as noise. I'm not certain how to explain it but I guessed my imagination was filling in the gaps. There wasn't smell, either, at least not in the way I understood it. There were scents in the air Neutria processed with the detachment of a crime scene investigator. Death, decay, corpse-flesh.
At one point, poised on the edge of a fetid, pale green pool, Neutria quivered. Had she detected our prey? No. Not our prey.
Mate scent.
"Excuse me?"
Mate scent. Strong. Make strong offspring. And after mating, make good meal.
I didn't want to know. And I certainly didn't want to be present during that sort of thing. In fact, I doubted I would ever want to—mate?—again unless I could figure out how to block the two guests in my head.
"Tytan expects us to find the fleshcrawler. No time." I couldn't believe I'd actually put myself on the demon's side and could only think the old saying about politics making strange bedfellows was true. Not that I wanted Tytan anywhere near my bed, thank you very much.
For a long moment, Neutria ignored me. The explosion had given her a modicum of freewill she hadn't had since Tytan
chose her to be his Archaeon. This knowing came in a sudden all-at-once sort of memory rather than in a series of images. Good for her. She's free. As long as I didn't have to participate in her coming-out party, I'd be happy for her.
Neutria continued on, her focus once more on the fleshcrawler whose head Tytan wanted. As relieved as I was that Neutria had given up the whole mating idea, I still didn't want to continue with the demon's plan, either. I didn't want to be an assassin, even if the thing I killed was a monster. It wasn't right.
I had to hope there was some humanity in the fleshcrawler that I could connect with. I wasn't sure what I would do about the whole head-claiming thing, but surely I could figure out a compromise. A stern talking-to? Perhaps not. Imprisonment, maybe. Except I wouldn't trust Tytan not to kill the fleshcrawler himself once I left.
Damn it. I had no idea how I would keep my integrity and the demon off my back.
Quiet. Can't concentrate on prey. Close now. Smell dead flesh.
As opposed to the other dead flesh? I hunkered down as far back in Neutria's mind as I could. Whispered, "Arsinua?"
No answer. Perhaps she was still scared. Perhaps she couldn't hear me when I was inside Neutria instead of the other way around. I watched as we came upon a glistening mass of churning white liquid. It bubbled and popped, spraying globs of sticky white goo onto nearby leaves. My lip curled and once more I was grateful for Neutria's fearlessness and her deadly body.
She jumped into a tree—I was amazed, I had no idea she could do that—and from above we watched the goo. It took time but she was infinitely patient. I would have left long ago but had no choice but to crouch, waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
I yawned. I imagined I could stretch my arms if I concentrated. I concentrated and Neutria hissed at me until I froze.
Stupid child woman. Get yourself killed. Not hunter. You are prey.
Yup. That would be me. Although I had taken a self-defense course. Nuts and noses. The two 'n' words our instructor told us to aim for.
Sh.
I did, squelching the hysterical babble in my head before the crazy put down roots. Electricity crackled in the air. A hideous-looking beast had waddled out of the gloom of the forest beyond. Its bulbous body was as pale as its surroundings. Its fat, elongated nose sniffed the air and I shuddered when I saw that the tip of it was ringed with teeth. The toes on its feet pointed backward, as if each foot had been twisted around. Huge gills on the side of its neck chuffed air at pale, fat bellied flies that buzzed listlessly airwards, only to settle once more on the animal's flesh.
"What is that," I whispered in disgust.
I could feel Neutria's satisfaction. Fleshwalker prey.
Oh god.
Together we watched the thing inch forward, testing the air with its snout, its gills blowing air, its backwards feet shuffling forward. After an eon, it finally stretched its snout to the water—
—which erupted in an explosion of sleek white flesh and biting, slashing teeth.
I shrieked, but still Neutria lurked, waiting.
A giant, muscular eel-like thing pounced on the animal, whose squeals strummed the hairs on Neutria's legs. It tore into the animal, using teeth and claws to subdue the thrashing body.
It took seconds. The fleshcrawler's mouth yawned wide, its jaw opening like a snake as it latched onto the side of the beast, its black eyes slitted with lust.
Neutria pounced. She sunk her fangs into the fleshcrawler's back the moment we hit. The fleshcrawler detonated into motion again, tossing the spider's body hard into the trunk of a spongy tree.
Neutria's primordial satisfaction pounded through me as she righted herself. She tipped her body upward, waving her forelegs in the air, her venom-slick fangs proudly displayed.
The fleshcrawler's face contorted in rage. It flopped and writhed on the bank like a landed fish until I fretted it would slip back into the goo and we would lose him forever.
Won't go in water. Would drown and he knows it. He's my prey. Mine.
"Yes," I said, "except I don't want you to kill him."
Neutria didn't hiss at me as I'd expected her to. She also didn't acknowledge what I'd said. When the fleshcrawler stopped thrashing, Neutria shot him with silk, then wrapped the webbing around him.
"What are you doing?"
She ignored me then, too. Once he'd been wrapped, she pulled him away from the white goo that still plopped and burbled.
"Neutria, we can't kill it. I won't do it. Do you hear me?"
No answer still. She'd decided to ignore me. For a moment, I envied her the concentration it must have taken to block me out. How did she do that?
Then I remembered how she'd stretched in Tytan's office. Anger shoved the action into perfect clarity in my mind's eye. I stood, stretched. Became. And as painfully as it had happened in the Slip, it happened here. Bones cracked, flesh scraped, made worse by Neutria's shock and anger at me coming forward as I had.
"I'm sorry," I gasped out as my face warped and twisted before settling—uneasily—into its own features.
I lay panting on the nasty, spongy carpet of ... ohmygod I didn't want to know what, my nose wrinkling at the god-awful stench of decay and death.
I threw up again.
When my stomach couldn't heave up more, I faced the fleshcrawler. Although paralyzed by Neutria's venom, his eyes were still open and mobile. His mouth too, apparently, for he rasped out at me, "I smell your blood. It smells sweet. Come, let me taste."
My muscles slackened in my upper arms even as my mind told me I shouldn't fear this thing lying in front of me. An overwhelming compulsion took over and I stumbled to my feet, my eyes still on his, yearning to do his bidding.
Neutria hissed. Arsinua, roused from her stupor screamed at me.
No! No!
I stopped, blinking, confused at the sudden duality in my head. A part of me still wanted the fleshcrawler, wanted to go to him and gift him with my flesh and my blood.
Another part—the sane part—screamed in horror.
"Stop that." The quaver in my voice gave away my fear.
The thing laughed a low wet laugh that sounded like he had a mouthful of blood.
Run. You're in terrible danger. His mate is coming. She will kill you. RUN!
I didn't run. I should have but I didn't. I'd risked my life to save the stupid little fucker and I wasn't going to leave him now. I jabbed a finger at him. "Listen here, you leech, I want to save your life."
His shock would've been comical but for the blood smeared on his face and the dead black eyes staring at me.
"Don't do me any favors witch, human, spider."
His voice grated on my nerves one second, caressed me the next. I shook myself. I had to keep control over my mind. I didn't want to let him in. He would take over.
"Tytan Serce sent me to stake you and claim your head. And I could have." I picked up the spider silk, surprised at how strong it felt and that it wasn't sticky (I'd have to ask Neutria why, if she would still talk to me.) I yanked on the line and began dragging him in the same direction Neutria had been running.
"Stop. That sun. Will kill me."
The pain in his voice hit me as hard as any in Bethany or Liam's voice. I told myself it was another trick and dragged on as I spoke. "Now," I said, grunting as I pulled, "you can help me come up with a way that doesn't make me dead or you dead. Or," another grunt as I heaved him over a fallen, decaying branch, "I can drag you out and stake you myself."
Something chuckled behind me. Arsinua moaned. Neutria's reaction? She flooded me with vicious images I knew would give me nightmares. Shuddering, I looked my death in the eye.
Another leach creature, this one curved like a female and terrible in her beauty. Menace pulsed from her and I took an involuntary step back. She hissed. "I will use your blood to strengthen my children."
Run. Please run, Arsinua sobbed.
"That's not helping. Think of something to keep me alive." I spoke a
loud to my inner witch but the leaches didn't know that and the female cocked her head.
"Nothing can keep you alive." She lunged but her husband spoke a harsh word that arrested her. In moments, a screeching, harsh language issued forth from them both at the same time until the sound of it made me want to cover my ears and sob.
Stupid weak human. They will eat you.
"I'm sorry, Neutria. It's in your nature to kill. It's not in mine." I looked up to see both fleshcrawlers looking at me.
The female drew herself up. "My husband says you would save his life. Why come here? What did you do to him?"
I still held Neutria's web in my hands. "Tytan Serce sent me to kill him, but I don't want to kill anyone. I hoped we could work something out."
More screeching made my head throb.
Silence settled on the jungle. The queen turned her liquid black gaze on me. "I do not understand your weakness.” The male on the ground screeched again. She grimaced, then said, “You can take his head. But you cannot stake him."
I stared, cut my eyes to the side and back again. "Excuse me?"
"Head only."
"I don't want any only. I mean, I want to save his life, not kill him. No decapitation. Get me?"
No, no. This is good. Arsinua's excitement threatened to sweep me up with it. I muttered a low, "What?"
"Who do you talk with?" The female again, her head tipped to the side as she stared, her stance similar to a Kung Fu master ready to kick the shit out of his opponent. That would be me.
Should I tell them? Would it hurt anything? Would they believe me?
"She was spider then woman," the male said and the female leaned in toward him and sniffed.
Raising her head, she said, "The poison, then. From an Archaeon?"
I nodded.
"How do you change into human form? Don't Archaeons use skins?"
"I'm a new breed." I could tell they didn't believe what I'd said, but they weren't sure how to explain who I was so they left it.
