The spiders screamed and dropped toward me with frightening rapidity. I didn’t know what gave me away until I looked downward and saw my boot prints in the slippery blood pouring from the spider’s body.
“Sometimes I wonder if J.B.’s right about me Three-Stooging my way through life,” I said out loud.
There was nothing to do now except stand and fight and try to limit collateral damage. The man I knocked over was crying himself hoarse because of his separation from the cameras.
I lifted off from the ground as the spiders landed on the floor near the body of the dead one. I swooped over the head of the nearest eight-legged monster and then arrowed downward with the sword pointed in front of me. I pushed the blade up to the hilt into the spider’s body. As I did I shot electricity through the blade and into the spider. I was getting really good at that spell.
There were the smells of flesh cooking and blackened blood, and the spider went still as its insides were fried.
I yanked out the sword and turned toward the other spider, but it was gone.
10
A WHISPER OF MOVEMENT, THE FAINTEST OF CLICKS. I looked up and saw the other spider mere inches from me. I leapt backward off the electrocuted spider. Well, okay, it was a lot more like an awkward motion in which I tumbled ass-over-elbows and landed hard on my side in a big icky pool of spider gore. Lara Croft I am not.
The last spider landed on the body of its compatriot with a triumphant chitter, and then it realized I wasn’t there.
I pushed to my feet, discovered the sword had gone flying somewhere and I couldn’t see it. I tried to raise my arms to shoot nightfire at the spider and noticed something else. My right arm hurt like hell, and it was hanging at an awkward angle.
“Dislocated shoulder. Awesome,” I said through my teeth. It hurt.
The spider leapt toward the place where I’d landed in blood. I shot upward on my wings, threw nightfire at it with my good arm. The nightfire bounced harmlessly off its hairy body. All I was really doing was giving away my position as the spider threw webs and swung closer and closer to the source of the blasts.
Throwing nightfire and flying all over the place like a demented pinball wasn’t doing any good. I hung as still as I could, moving my wings only just enough to keep me aloft. The spider paused, suspended on its string, twisting in the air and looking for me. I made barely an eddy in the thick cloud of miasma that blanketed the air.
We were in a far corner of the warehouse, well above the prisoners bound to their chairs below. Glancing down I realized we were above an open space. The closest prisoner was several feet away.
Nightfire didn’t work, and the sword was missing. That left something a little know-it-all gargoyle had once told me—Most things don’t like fire.
I reached down into the place where my magic flickered and pulled on that source of power until it ran in my blood. It passed through my heartstone and was lit by the flame of the sun.
The spider screeched, and I knew it could see me lit from within. It swung toward me, intent on its prey, its blood-stinking jaws wide for the kill.
The flames raced inside my veins, down to the tips of the three fingers of my left hand, and exploded out into a giant fireball that entered the spider’s mouth.
The effect was instantaneous. The spider burst into flame and crashed to the ground, screaming the whole way. It thrashed and kicked feebly, smoke pouring from its body. The smell was horrific.
I took a minute to appreciate the fact that I was no longer in immediate danger of being eaten alive by a giant spider. Then I realized the flaming spider had set a nearby table on fire and that the fire was spreading, thereby putting all the captives in danger.
“Because that’s what fires do, Maddy,” I said to myself. “They spread.”
I flew to the ground and looked around for a fire extinguisher. I didn’t find any, nor did any internal sprinkler system kick in. This building was definitely not up to code.
It was just possible that I was getting a little hysterical. The room was already growing hotter and the smoke was scorching my throat.
The priority was to get the prisoners out, but I knew from my experience with the wolf cubs that this would not be an easy task. As I crossed the room to the people nearest the source of flame, I heard banging. It seemed like someone was trying to break down the door into the warehouse. I turned toward the pounding, nightfire at the ready.
The door flew open with a crash and J.B. came through, along with dozens of special-forces Agents. The cavalry had arrived.
J.B. took in me, the dead spiders, the prisoners and the flame at a glance.
“Get those people out of here!” he shouted.
The Agents poured forward, cutting the prisoners’ bonds and pulling the people from their chairs. The air filled with the sounds of screams.
“Get the cameras, too!” I shouted, running forward to help. I saw something winking in the firelight and stopped to pick up the sword. I shoved it back in its scabbard and began gathering cameras with my working arm.
J.B. reached my side. “Why are you taking these? Get out of here.”
“The machines are important. I’m not sure why. But we can’t leave them here.”
“No, I know they’re important. And I’ll make sure we collect them all,” he shouted over the din of screaming people and crackling flame. “I’m saying you look like garbage and we’ll take it from here.”
“Oh, right,” I said. I was feeling a little light-headed.
J.B. signaled to another Agent, who came and took the cameras I’d collected. Then he gave me a little push. “Go on, get outside.”
“There are offices, I think. We might be able to find out who’s doing this. On the other side of the wall.”
“We’ll try to get what we can before the building burns down,” J.B. said grimly.
I turned toward the door. The Agents were very efficiently removing the prisoners and cameras. The room had already been mostly emptied.
My boots felt heavy, my arm hurt, and my throat, already sore from Metatrion’s ministrations, felt scratchy and irritated from the smoke. My eyes watered and my stomach had never completely settled down despite all the life-in- peril excitement.
Gabriel came through the door, looking worried. I smiled tiredly at him and walked a little faster.
He jogged toward me. I opened my arms to wrap them around his neck.
“Where’s Beezle?” I asked.
I was looking into his eyes, and it was only because I was so tired that I didn’t realize that his eyes were wrong. By then, the knife had already slid between my ribs.
“Cockroach,” I spat, blood bubbling to my lips.
Antares smiled, and the mask of Gabriel fell away, revealing my half brother in all his red-skinned, black- horned demon glory. I hadn’t seen him since I’d imprisoned him outside the Maze. Somehow the little insect had managed to escape the cage and all of Azazel’s efforts at finding him.
“Maddy!” J.B. cried, and the anguish in his voice broke my heart.
Antares had his hand on my bad shoulder, holding me close as he thrust again with the knife. Hot blood poured from the wounds and I saw stars before my eyes.
Then I heard Gabriel’s voice.
“ANTARES!” he shouted, and there was a fury there that I had never heard before.
Antares pulled the knife out and let go of my shoulder. I fell to my knees as he turned to face Gabriel.
Gabriel stood in the doorway, and his face was beautiful and terrible to behold. His black eyes glowed with starlight, his black wings spread wide. The power that pulsed from him seemed to fill up the room, made it hard to
