At the creaking and crashing sound of a tumbling water tower, Eva turned.
The swarm stilled.
Not that she was worried or anything. There was no way that Arachne would die from such an insignificant thing as having a water tower collapse with her inside.
Still, she searched.
It didn’t take long. It started out as nothing more than a silhouette. A black shadow moving inside the dust cloud. The shadow thickened into the proper form of Arachne. Each step was slow and steady, filled with menacing power.
As Arachne exited the cloud, Eva found herself giving an involuntary shiver.
Thanks to her arms and legs, she knew the horror of getting dust inside the joints of her exoskeleton. And Arachne definitely had more than a little dust coating her.
The shiny black carapace that normally made up her body had been replaced by a thick layer of dirt and grime.
“Now what?” Genoa asked even as she cast a wary eye around the unmoving swarm.
“Honestly?” Eva said, glancing up at the woman. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. Figure out how to get out of here–”
Genoa vanished.
It didn’t take long to figure out why.
Arachne, in her full-sized mode, landed on the roof. The spot where Genoa had stood caved in beneath the spider’s weight.
Lifting herself off her bulbous abdomen, Arachne pulled herself to her full height. She shot a glare at Genoa–who had blinked backwards to the opposite end of the clock tower roof. That glare turned down on Eva.
Before she could react, Arachne bent down and swept Eva off of her feet.
Eva hung limp against the spider-demon’s chest as her powerful arms pressed in tight.
“Your pyrokinesis is so much better,” Arachne said. Her face was so close to Eva that she could feel sharp teeth moving against her ear. “Perhaps that school isn’t as worthless as I thought.”
With one last bone-crushing squeeze, Arachne gently set Eva down. “No need to discuss,” she said. “One of us dies and the others get to leave. I agree to these terms.”
“We’re not–”
Arachne placed a hand on Eva’s chest and
Eva flew through the air. She landed hard and rolled once. Only the lip of the roof kept her from plummeting off the edge.
Her back struck the lip causing Eva to cry out in pain.
She clamped down on the feeling, gritting her teeth.
Under control again, she opened her eyes and tried to get her barrings.
Only to find Arachne backhanding Genoa’s iron sword, snapping it off mid-way. The snapped-off segment spun through the air before embedding itself into the roof near Eva.
Far too close for comfort. A few hairs might have been cut short.
But Arachne was not finished. She continued her attack, striking forward with fervor.
Genoa blinked backwards again, leaving a few of her blond hairs behind in Arachne’s grip.
Her target lost, Arachne turned. Eight red eyes turned with her, each glowing with malice.
Eva felt something.
A tremble in her being. Something she had not felt from the spider-demon for a long time. Not since her first few weeks at Brakket, back when she was still adjusting to the idea of Arachne being constantly around, rather than her occasional appearances alongside Devon for a job or treatment.
Fear.
Eva pressed backwards against the lip of the roof.
Uncertainty mixed with her fear, locking her in inaction.
Arachne advanced. Her powerful legs slammed into the ground. The distance between them dropped to nothing in the blink of an eye.
There was a sickening squelch as chitin pierced flesh.
Hot red blood splattered over Eva’s body.
Willie
“Mom!”
Juliana jumped to her feet. Fear beat in her chest.
That was… a lot of blood.
Eva pulled out her black dagger and jammed it into her mother’s chest.
Juliana almost started spouting a stream of profanity before she remembered what that dagger was for.
A moment later, the constant stream of blood stopped flowing from the arm-sized hole in her mother’s chest.
While the blood stopped, the wound did not heal.
“Eva, she is old.” Arachne moved closer as she shrunk down to her human form. “I am sure she would be happy to give up the short remainder of her life if it meant letting us get her daughter out of this place.”
“She isn’t that old,” Eva shouted back.
An ember of rage burned inside Juliana at the callous disregard for her mother. Arachne
“She isn’t quite dead,” Willie said from her side. He too had stood up. He leaned over the top of the row of seats in front of them with wide eyes.
That ember of rage flared into a full-on bonfire.
He was at fault. This entire battle, setting them against one another. All of it was his doing.
If he wasn’t around…
