Anne Bishop - Tangled Webs

Surreal held her hands under the water running from the faucet, cleaning them as well as she could. Then she cupped her hands to fill them with water and took a cautious sip. No obvious foulness. Of course, if the water supply had poison or drugs dumped into it, she may have already done enough damage to kill herself.

That being the case, she drank another mouthful of water before turning off the taps.

She rubbed her wet hands over her face, trying to shake off the fatigue.

Shouldn’t be this tired , she thought as she dried her face and hands on her shirt. Shouldn’t be this tired.

She created a tight shield-with-access around her body and tried not to think about another exit closing because she had used Craft.

Then she heard it again. That funny little rattle coming from the bathtub drain.

With one hand resting on the sink, she turned toward the tub, wincing when the move tugged at her wound.

A little black beetle crawled out of the drain. It hustled toward the other end of the tub, making its little beetle noises.

It’s just one, she thought as she tried to get her breathing under control. It’s just one, and it can’t get out of the tub.

A movement caught her eye.

Another little black beetle climbed out of the drain.

And another. And another.

Hell’s fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful.

She could put her hands on a body covered in maggots. She could cut up a man using nothing but a dull ax. She could skin a man and not shiver. She could scoop up a head that had been ripped off by a pissed-off cat and dump the damn thing in a bucket while the warriors around her wouldn’t even touch it.

But she didn’t like beetles. Didn’t like the look of them, didn’t like the clacking sound of their bodies. And especially didn’t like the crunch they made when you stepped on them. That sound always made her stomach drop and filled her knees with jelly.

Her little secret. Everyone was entitled to one or two irrational fears.

Rattle. Rattle rattle rattle.

She watched them swell as they filled the tub, more and more of them coming out of the drain. Watched them swell, bigger and bigger, until they were the length of her palm and almost as wide. Bigger and bigger until…

POP! POP POP POP!

They burst. Their shells split down the middle and…

A sensation. On her hand. A light sensation, since it was against the shield and not her skin.

She looked at the hand resting on the sink. It was covered by a beetle.

Just one beetle.

She flung her hand up, sending the beetle flying through the air. And she screamed.

That piercing scream.

What in the name of Hell could make Surreal scream like that?

Rainier flung open the door at the other end of the storage room and rushed into an empty room similar to the one he’d just left.

“Surreal!”

He ran across the room, yanked open the door, and charged into the hallway just as Surreal rushed out of another room. He dropped the poker and grabbed for her, only realizing when he felt a shield hitting a shield that she wasn’t wearing anything above her waist except a brassiere and her Gray Jewel.

“Surreal!”

“Be—be—be—”

He shoved the candle and pillowcase into her shaking hands, grabbed the poker, and strode into the room, ready to do battle with whatever had scared the shit out of her.

And found himself staring at a bathtub full of huge, split beetles.

“Be-be-beetles.”

Relief made him giddy for a moment. Or maybe the giddiness was caused by his yanking himself back from the killing edge.

He glanced over his shoulder and fought not to grin. Damn things really must have startled her.

“Do you think they’re edible?” he asked. The beetles were the size of a small lobster tail, and the meat looked like cooked lobster that had been pulled out of a split shell.

“Wh-what? That’s not meat; that’s exploded bug guts.”

Rainier watched the beetles change back into little beetles that went scurrying down the drain. Nothing but an illusion spell. And most likely, even the little beetles were an illusion because they’d have to come out of the drain at the proper time. Since there wasn’t much about dealing with blood and guts that usually threw Surreal off stride, it was his duty as a friend to tease her about getting excited over a bug.

“If you ignore the fact that they’re insects instead of—”

“Say it, and I will rip your face off and shove it up your ass.”

The threat sounded sincere.

Her tone pricked his temper, especially when he was still just one short step away from the killing edge, but he tried to cajole instead of squaring off with her, since that would lead to at least one of them getting hurt.

He turned toward her. “Come on, Sur—”

He reached up and shifted the ball of witchlight in order to get a better look at her.

Her gold-green eyes were glassy. Not glazed with cold rage, but glassy with shock. And she was breathing in these funny little hitches.

This had struck more than a nerve with her.

“Hey,” he said softly, moving with a deliberateness that wouldn’t startle her. “Illusion spell. That’s all they were.”

She was shaking. He could see the effort she was making to regain control, but she was shaking.

“Go back in the hallway,” he said gently. “I’ll get your clothes.”

“Check them,” she whispered as she stepped back.

He retrieved her shirt and jacket, pushed the witchlight out ahead of him, and left the bathroom.

He set everything on the hallway table next to the unlit candle, including the globe candle and pillowcase he’d handed her. Then he looked at her left side.

“How bad is it?” he asked, his fingers hovering over the blood-spotted paper covering the wound.

“Not as bad as it could have been. The Black Widow who attacked me had lost the finger with the snake tooth, so I don’t have to worry about venom.”

The bitch could have coated her other nails with poison. He was about to remind her of that—and then realized there was no point in telling her. She had been an assassin. She knew more about using poisons than he did.

“If there’s any in me, I’ll feel it soon,” she said quietly, looking past him as the hallway got lighter.

“Whoever made this house trapped at least one cildru dyathe in here. Maybe more.”

“Along with two demon-dead Black Widows. Not good odds if they all decide they want someone for dinner.”

Rainier looked back at the children, then shifted closer to Surreal. «Any suggestions?»

She sighed. «I’m tired, Rainier. We’ve only been in this house a couple of hours, but it feels much longer.»

«I think it has been longer, but we’ll talk about that later.»

«My suggestion is to go back downstairs. We’ll check that sitting room again for surprises. Then we’ll put a shield around the room and a Gray lock on the door. That will keep out unwanted visitors.»

«That will close two more exits.»

«I know.»

He nodded. «Main staircase should be that way.»

«You’ll take point?» Surreal asked.

« We’ll take point.» He shook out her shirt and jacket, then helped her into both. «Don’t argue about it.»

She hesitated. «Wasn’t going to.»

That told him more than anything else that she needed time to regain her balance.

They gathered up their various kinds of illumination and their weapons.

Rainier looked at Kester, put a finger up to his lips, then pointed at the doorway that would lead them back to the main staircase.

He and Surreal led. The children followed.