The colossal young man cowered away.
Omar shook his head. Samson let out a tiny moan, but Omar swiftly reached across the crystal and pointed the tip of the dagger at Ginger.
“I need heart blood,” Omar said.
Ginger closed her eyes and nodded. He made a small slashing cut above her left breast, above her heart. The cut was superficial, but blood immediately started flowing.
Ginger leaned forward and red dripped on the round crystal ball, and slowly, like wine with good legs, inched down its sides.
Omar recited incantations and waved his long expressive hands. Both Ginger and Samson saw silver sparks extend from his fingertips and enter into the crystal. Ginger thought the effect might have been starlight drifting down from the skylight above. Samson was sure it was magic.
Omar peered into the depths of the crystal and was satisfied. The white light was winking out. The sacrifice had been potent.
His mind again sought the lovely feminine presence he had felt below him in this building. When he found it he smiled. His final aspiration would be fulfilled. The Crystal Prophesy said so.
CHAPTER 1
She was alone in her apartment, so she almost discounted the movement in her peripheral vision. An anomaly of tired eyes. A tiny blip, an eye mote. It had been a long day. But her gaze slid sideways, away from the book she was reading.
Michelle was suddenly afraid she was going through delirium tremens again when she actually focused on the hideous thing moving on the wall. But her eyes were open. The terrifying hallucinations that accompanied alcohol withdrawal had only happened when she closed her eyes to sleep.
This wasn’t an illusion, but she blinked a few times to make sure. It was a large beast, probably a lizard because it was long and thick. It had a tail. Lizards were ordinary in Hawaii.
On closer inspection she noted the thing was coal black. It had numerous ugly, hairy legs sticking out of its sides, which were moving it rapidly and in a disturbingly awkward manner sideways down the wall toward her bed. Toward her. The tail swished in opposition to myriad legs.
Michelle threw off the covers, and her book landed somewhere on the opposite side of the bed, as she made a panicked rush to the kitchen for insect spray.
She ran back to the bedroom doorway, holding the can in front of her for protection, skidded to a stop, and peeked around the corner into the bedroom. There it was. Creepy, ugly thing. Still climbing. The head was detached from the body on a stick-like neck and she shuddered.
Her heart was racing and she held her breath as she slowly tiptoed toward the wall where it was adhered on sticky toes. Finally, she raised the can and blasted it.
The black monster stopped with a jerk. The head swiveled toward her. It hissed, a definite zzzt sound. Then it seemed to hunch, and started a panicked scuttle across the wall, hopped around the corner and ran behind her bookcase. She followed it all the way, using the can like a machine gun. The bug fell on the floor and contorted a few times. She peered at it from between the book shelves, suddenly motionless.
She sat on the bed panting, glad it was out of sight for a minute. Never had she wanted a drink so badly.
The thing had actually made a sound. A threatening low buzzy sound. She would swear it looked directly at her with those creepy eyes. It was unbelievable.
When she finally got her heart and breathing calmed down she laughed shakily. Delirium tremens my ass. That thing was an arachnophobia’s nightmare. She couldn’t remember ever having seen such a large insect. Even in Hawaii, where giant bugs thrived in the tropical weather. Now she had to see the body again. Make sure it was really, permanently, dead.
She got a flashlight and beamed it on the floor behind the books. She searched tentatively at first and then obsessively, moving books and then rolling the whole bookcase away from the wall, but it was gone.
Picking up her cell from the bedside table, Michelle tapped the automatic dial.
It rang four times and Michelle almost hung up, then: “Shelly?”
“Did I wake you?”
“Ah, no, no.”
She definitely sounded sleepy, Michelle thought. Damn. “Something weird just happened. But if you’re asleep...”
“What?”
“Do bugs make noises?”
“What!”
“I think I just killed this enormous insect. But before that, it hissed at me. And I swear, he looked me right in the eyes. Like it had some kind of strange intelligence.”
“Have you been...”
“No, no. Not for more than a year.”
“Well, I know you haven’t. Sorry. It’s just that...I mean the bug’s dead? If not, I’ll get rid of it for you.”
“That’s the odd thing. I saw it dead on the floor. And now it’s disappeared. It was so big, I just can’t figure out how that happened.”
“How big.”
“About four inches, including the tail.”
Michelle heard Heather laughing.
“It had a tail?”
Through the phone there was whispering. Male, sleepy whispering. Damn. Heather had someone over. Maybe she had interrupted something.
“Listen,” Michelle said, “We’ll talk in the morning. Go back to sleep.”
“I can come over,” Heather insisted. She lived right down the hallway in the same condominium. “I just finished peeing on a stick. So I’m awake.”
“How’d it go?”
“Another month...another definite No.”
“Like clockwork, every month.”
“Well, it’s a definite relief, if you know what I mean.”
“Sometimes I wish I did. But you do this every month. And you use birth control.”
“I don’t trust birth control.”
“Obsessive compulsive.”
“Yeah, but I’m not scared of bugs.”
“This was one hell of a bug. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Michelle clicked off.
She retrieved her book and took a quilt and pillow into the living room to lie down on the couch. No way would she sleep in the bedroom with the black spider, or whatever it had been. She tried to recall types of exotic insects with tails and could only come
