by Tara West
The bull tripped again, swearing as he hit the wall, clutching it for support. I seized on the opportunity, flipped the switch and aimed for his ankles. He howled and slipped down the wall as I burned holes right through his Achilles heels. I slid off his shoulder, falling to the ground with a thud. The poker stick still in my bound hands, I spun around on my back, kicked off from the side of the wall, and sliced the tendons of the bull carrying Santiago. He fell with a groan, clutching the bars of the cage beside him.
Melanie’s hands jutted out through the bars, wrapping around the bull’s horns. She looped her belt through the bars, tying it around his neck and holding him in place. Santiago jumped from his captor’s shoulders, clawing at the ropes binding his mouth. He’d freed himself in no time, and quickly chewed through the bindings on my wrists.
I untied my ankles and jerked the muzzle off my face just as twisted horn bull came charging me on his knees. I sliced off his big, ugly head, and it rolled down the dark corridor before bouncing down a flight of stairs. His body scrambled after his head, falling down the stairs as well. Melanie kept her hold on the other guard as I sliced his head off his shoulders.
“Thanks,” I said, reluctantly. She was still on my shit list.
The heavy door behind us swung open, and the bull guard charged me, steam pouring out of his snout, as if I was taunting him with a big red flag.
I channeled my best Jackie Chan, letting out a “Hi-ya” and spinning round house style, which wasn’t hard with such strong hind legs. I sliced open his big furry gut, watching with morbid fascination as his innards spilled out onto the floor along with chunks of undigested, moving maggot meat. The bull fell to his knees, trying to scoop his intestines back inside. It made gross suction noises as it slipped around and mingled with the demon spam. While he was preoccupied, I sliced off his head, too. It mooed as it bounced down the hall. His headless torso crawled after it, dragging his guts behind him. The maggoty things followed, too, slipping across the floor like zombie snot.
Santiago chased after the guard and snatched the keys from his belt, his tail wagging wildly as he ran back to me.
“Good boy!” I holstered my poker, patted Santiago on the head, and grabbed the keys, fumbling with the lock on Aedan’s cell door until I found the right fit.
I swung open the door, bumping Melanie’s shoulder maybe a little too hard as I rushed to Aedan.
“Aedan!” I ran my hand over his brow. “Can you hear me?”
He moaned as his head rolled to the side, blood trickling down his nose.
“Aedan!” I shook his shoulders. “You need to wake up. Please,” I cried.
His eyes fluttered open and then bulged. He stared at me as if he was seeing a ghost, or in my case, a really big, ugly dog/human freak of nature.
“Ash?” he asked. “W-what?”
“Satan turned me into a dog, remember?” I said on a rush of air. “Then he threw your brother and the priestesses outside. He was about to throw me outside.”
He shot up, rubbing the back of his skull. “Good God. We need to find a way out of here now.”
“But how?” Melanie asked, twisting her fingers in front of her while batting thick lashes. Damn, I didn’t like her.
“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” a familiar, ominous hiss rolled through the dungeon.
Santiago yapped like crazy, bouncing around the cell like a jumping bean before pulling back his lips with a snarl, the hair along his spine standing on end.
I gasped as I looked out to the occupant in the cell across from us, a black widow spider the size of a small car with a huge, red abdomen, eight long legs, and a human head. She hung from a contraption that somewhat reminded me of the sex swing my grandfather tried to lend Aedan and me, her legs bound by chains that draped from the ceiling, her abdomen hovering over what looked like a vat. What kind of torture device was this and why was the spider not in human form like the rest of us? I’d assumed the damned only took on demon form when outside.
Melanie walked to the edge of our cell as if on a cloud, clutching the bars while gaping at the giant spider. “Mother?”
“Yes, child, it is me.”
The beast flashed an odd smile, and it took me a moment to realize those big ugly pinchers that used to protrude from her mouth had been severed, leaving behind two ugly stumps. Ouch.
She waved a leg at Melanie. “If you would come to me, I could help you.”
I clutched the keys tightly by my side, jutting a foot forward. “Don’t trust her, Melanie.”
Santiago let out three little barks, followed by a low whimper. “My instincts tell me it’s a trick.”
Aedan stood, hobbling over to the bars. “How is it that you are still in demon form when the rest of us are not?”
She brought her front legs together in a prayer pose as she smiled serenely. Too serenely. “I’m not human and never have been.”
“What are you?” Aedan asked.
“My true name is Arachne,” she answered.
Aedan squinted then shook his head. “From the Greek fable?”
“I am no fable.” Her long neck extended before she arched back. “I am a true demon, not a human hybrid. I was driven into the underworld years ago by humans. I’ve lived peacefully in hell for thousands of years until you and your friends came along.”
When she waved at us with a sneer, I knew this bitch harbored serious resentment. There was no way I was trusting her.
Santiago growled, and then let out a frightened whine. I knew he didn’t trust her, either.
“Peacefully?” Aedan cocked a brow. “Is that what you call feeding hapless victims to a soul sucking dragon?”
“A small sacrifice to keep my priestesses safe. Now look at what you and your friends have done.” Her chains rattled as she jutted her legs toward the vat below her. “He forces me to make babies, and then he takes them from me. I do not see them once they leave my nest. I have no idea what he’s done to them, but I fear he’s using them as spies. He knows they can easily traverse up and down the levels of hell.”
“I’ve seen them,” Melanie piped up. “They’ve overrun sub-level one.”
The spider went eerily still, her sharp gaze tunneling on Melanie. “He has sent them that far? Have they been harmed?”
Melanie looked down at Sarge, whose ears flattened against his skull as he whimpered.
“Yes,” Melanie said with a nod, “many have been destroyed.”
The spider’s luminous eyes filled with tears, as she let out a spooky wail that made her sound like a dying horse. “And I bet the Devil didn’t even shed a tear.” She flashed Melanie a pitiful look as tears streamed down her face. “Help me,” she begged.
Melanie fell against the bars with a wail. “Oh, mother!”
Aedan grabbed Melanie’s shoulder, pushing her behind him before puffing up his chest. “There’s nothing we can do for you, spider.”
For some reason, that little protective act made my fur stand on end. Jeez, why was I still jealous?
“There’s something I need to show you,” the spider said before grabbing her chains and pulling herself up.
I gasped when her squishy abdomen lit up like a Japanese tea lantern. What had happened to all the protective armor that covered her body? I cringed when I saw patches of metal stuck to her abdomen. Had someone ripped it off? Ouch! My eyes widened when a distinct shadowy shape floated within her womb before settling against her abdomen wall.
“My scythe!” Aedan ran out of the cell, slipping across the mossy floor before grabbing onto the spider’s bars. “Where did you find it?”
Sarge and I followed Aedan out, growling as we flanked his sides. Melanie kept a safe distance behind us.
The chains rattled again as the spider lowered herself until she was hovering horizontally above the vat. “I found it in a cavern shortly after I was cast down to level five.”
“How did you end up here?” Aedan asked.
“I kept getting knocked down.
The lower the level, the bigger the demons.” She flashed a slanted smile. “They didn’t particularly care to have a spider in their midst, and I could never get the scythe to work for me.”
Aedan pointed to the shadow in her belly. “The buttons operate using heat sensors.”
A look of understanding flashed in the spider’s human eyes. “Arachnids are cold-blooded creatures.”
That made sense. I remembered his other scythe had blinky lights at the bottom, and the one floating in her stomach was simply a cold piece of black metal not much bigger than a cellphone.
Aedan’s brows knitted together, and I could tell he was thinking up a plan to get the scythe.
If we had the scythe, our troubles would be over, well almost. We just had to get our friends from outside, but Aedan could use the scythe to summon an elevator and get us all out of this miserable inferno.
The spiders’s pinchers shook as she let out a baleful sigh. “If you want it, you’re going to have to cut it out.”
Melanie gasped. “What will happen to you?”
“I will suffer in unimaginable pain, but the Devil will patch me up and force me to breed again.” One of her long legs extended out toward Aedan. “Unless you use that scythe to obliterate me.”
Whaaat? She was asking Aedan to erase her from existence? I smelled a snake in that spider’s den. “Uhhhh. I don’t trust her, Aedan.”
Aedan clutched the bars with whitened knuckles before turning to me with an ashen face. “We don’t have a choice.”
He was right, damn him. I just hoped we didn’t end up as spider chow.
With a shaky hand, I tried several keys on the keyring before I found the one that unlocked the spider’s cell.
Aedan braced his hands across the opening. “You all stay back.” Then he turned to me with grim determination in his eyes. “Ash, please tell me you have the poker.”
I slipped the poker from my belt and handed it to Aedan. He extended it, wielding it like a sword as he circled the spider.
She grabbed the chains, pulling herself up and giving him an easy shot at her round gut.
“Brace yourself,” he told her.
Melanie sobbed behind me. “Oh, poor mother!”
I turned to her with a shut-up-or-die look. She bit down on her knuckles, stifling her sobs.
Aedan sliced open the spider with one quick stroke. I covered my ears, whimpering when the beast let out an ear-piercing screech, sounding like a cross between a dying cat in heat and two automobiles colliding.
The scythe, as well as a lot of green goopy stuff, fell into the vat as the spider writhed in pain.
Aedan dove for the scythe, and then jerked back empty handed. “There’s a nest of spiders in there!”
The spider continued to twist and turn and hemorrhage goop. “Cut me down,” she said on a rasp. “I will get it for you.”
“Don’t do it, Aedan.” I crossed into the cell and grasped his shoulder, pushing him aside. “I’ll do it.” Where I’d gotten my moment of bravery, I had no idea, but I was part Lab, after all. I leaned over the vat and then quickly jumped back. It was crawling with black widows, and they’d all but obscured the scythe. “There’s too many.” I remembered what one spider bite had done to Aedan’s ex-fiancé, Mar. It had made her delirious and sick. I couldn’t afford to lose my marbles down here.
Hopelessness settled in my chest like a lead weight. We had no choice but to free the spider and let her retrieve it, even though I knew it was a bad, bad idea.
Aedan narrowed his eyes at the spider. “Do I have your word, you won’t harm us?”
Her chains clanked as she bounced and then stilled, her face turning to a mask of stone. “On my honor, you have my word.”
Call it doggie instincts, but I didn’t believe her.
I held my breath as Aedan burned through her chains. After the last bond had been severed, the spider let out a squeal. Her eight legs made an eerie, wet slapping sound as she ran across the top of the cavern and then down the wall. She climbed over the vat, hovering there and dripping more slime before lowering her two front legs and pulling out the scythe. She climbed off the vat and stood before Aedan, stretching to full height, her head nearly scraping the ceiling.
Aedan held up his hand expectantly. The spider flashed a serene smile, even as goop continued to pour out of her wound. She leaned over to hand him the scythe. No sooner had Aedan grabbed the end of the metal, than she’d clutched him by the throat, spinning him into her embrace and holding him flush against her. “You should have known spiders don’t have honor,” she said with a hiss.
Aedan struggled out of her grasp, his face reddening as he made gagging sounds. His arms went limp and he dropped the poker at his feet.
With a growl, I dove for it, and then jumped up, aiming it at her head.
The spider’s severed mouth tongs rattled as she hissed. “What do you think you can do with that, dog?”
I spun around, channeling my inner Karate dog, knocking the scythe out of her grasp with my poker. She screamed as it flew to the other end of the cell, landing at the bars beside Melanie’s feet. That’s when I noticed that a long black piece of spider forearm was still attached to the scythe. Oh, well. Served her right for being a crazy demon bitch.
I turned to Melanie, holding out my hand. “Give it to me.”
She took a hesitant step back, narrowing her eyes. “You’ve hurt her enough.”
“Me?” I snarled, advancing toward her. I knew there was a reason I didn’t like that bitch. “Have you forgotten whose side you’re on?” I waved at the spider. “That bitch has my fiancé in a headlock.”
“Melanie,” the spider cooed, waving her severed arm at her, “come to me, daughter.”
I held out a staying hand. “Stay where you are.”
The spider tightened her grip on Aedan’s neck. He struggled against her, kicking the air.
“Come to me,” the beast said to Melanie, “or your friend loses his head. Summon the elevator, and together the two of us will rebuild our coven on level four.”
I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye, not even realizing what was happening until a brown blob flew past my vision. Santiago latched onto the spider’s arm, grinding into her exoskeleton with his teeth. She screeched, letting go of Aedan while trying to shake off Santiago as if he was on fire.
I rushed to Aedan, dragging him back out of the cell. I gasped when she finally shook off Santiago, and he fell to the floor with a sickening crack.
“Santiago!” I cried, as blood dripped from his ear onto the cold stone floor.
Aedan gasped for breath. “Melanie,” he said on a wheeze. “Hit the bottom two buttons. It will obliterate her.”
The spider flashed a wide smile while slowly advancing toward Melanie. “Don’t listen to him, child.” She waved Melanie to her again. “Listen to Mother. I have always protected you, haven’t I?”
Melanie raised the scythe, pointing it at the spider’s oozing abdomen. “Don’t take another step.”
The beast clacked her tongue, the corners of her mouth turning down as she scowled at Santiago. “He will never love you, not after what you’ve done to your child.”
Santiago’s chest rose and fell, his tongue lolling to the side as he whimpered with rapid breaths.
The spider took another step forward. “Summon the elevator. Come on. Be a good girl.”
Before I could scream at Melanie to obliterate the bitch, she jutted her arm out with a roar. The scythe extended to the length of a baton, and a stream of blue shot out, zapping the giant spider. The creature let out a blood-curdling scream before bursting into millions of silver dust fragments.
Aedan slid up the bars, limping toward the wall. He slipped a torch from its sconce and dropped it into the vat. A plume of green smoke erupted from the tank as horrifying screams from thousands of baby spiders rent the air. I covered my ears, howling, as Aedan took the scythe from Melanie and led me out of the cell. Melanie picked up Santiago, fol
lowing behind us.
When he turned to me, he looked like death warmed over. His eyes bulged like fish eyes and his throat was black and blue. The spider must have really choked him good. I didn’t have one ounce of sympathy for the evil bitch.
“Ash,” he said on a rasp, as if his throat was made of sandpaper, “you, Melanie, and Sarge need to get on the elevator. I will free the others.”
I cocked my hands on my furry hips, channeling my best dogzilla. “Are you freaking crazy? I’m not leaving hell without you, Aedan. We’re in this together, for better or for worse.” Besides, if Aedan summoned an elevator, the Devil would hear it and try to stop Aedan and the others from escaping. We had one shot out of here, and I wasn’t leaving anyone behind, especially not the man I intended on loving for an eternity.
Melanie clutched Santiago to her chest like she was cradling a baby. “I’m not leaving, either.”
Aedan threw up his hands, heaving a sigh. I could tell he had no strength left to argue. “So where do we go from here?”
“The front door is broken.” I thumbed toward the stairs where the guards had fallen. “We need to take the back door.”
“Alright. Let’s go find that exit.” Aedan coughed into his fist before rubbing his chest with a groan.
I knew he had to be in pain. I couldn’t wait to get him out of here and back up to purgatory where he could drink a real glass of water without needing to hump any pillows. Not that he’d been a pillow humper. At least I didn’t think he had. And after I fixed him up, I couldn’t wait to put on that ring and exchange our vows. I was more than ready to say “I do” to that man and put this horrific ordeal behind us.
After we hit the bottom of the stairs, Aedan zapped the headless guards. We found the doorway down a narrow hall. The back door was smaller than the front, the size of a single door, though the frame also appeared to have been made of steel. It had a small circular window, the kind I’ve seen on a cruise ship. I knew it had to be the exit to the flaming pit because the view outside had more hopping bunnies. What was it with the Devil and bunnies? He had a serious fluffy fetish. I hit the button by the window, jerking back when flames rose up and licked the glass. How the hell were we supposed to walk through that?
