Maria was about to yell that their noise would blow their cover, but she saw it was too late.
The Arachnids had flanked them, and one of them had a clawed hand around Tabby.
Maria had to act fast if she wanted to help her friend. She whipped the sword up in a great arc.
“Let her go!” she boomed.
The Arachnid didn’t listen. His claws tightened around Tabby’s throat, and his fangs protruded from between his dark lips, dripping with venom and thick saliva.
He backed up, boasting to his companion, “I told you I sniffed man flesh. I told ya!”
The other Arachnid made a swipe for Claire, but Claire stumbled and landed on her bottom with a yelp. Sherlock was quick to jump in front of her and snap at the Arachnid’s reaching hand. His jaws clamped, making an audible click—one Maria never would have thought her lovable Bloodhound was capable of. He didn’t make contact with the giant spider, but he had scared him enough to make him withdraw his hand.
Gramps stood by, watching all of this with a patient eye. Maria wanted to shout at him to do something, but she was afraid to take her eyes off of Tabby and the Arachnid for too long.
“Help,” Tabby wheezed. The Arachnid had wrapped his whole arm around her neck. Maria could tell he was squeezing, because Tabby’s pale face began to turn a bright red.
He started to back out of the alleyway, still holding onto her friend.
“Come any closer, and I pop her head off,” the Arachnid warned.
Maria glanced at Gramps.
“Yeah!” the other Arachnid echoed. “Then we’ll eat her! Better yet, take a step forward, my dear. I’m hungry. Been too long since I’ve had man flesh.”
Tabby, struggling, choked out, “I’m…a… woman!”
Suddenly, she raised her right leg forward and kicked back with all the strength she had left in her body. Maria was not sure of the anatomy of an Arachnid, whether they possessed the same things between their legs as the men of Earth, but apparently Tabby was… Or Tabby just didn't give a fuck, and she was using whatever she could to secure her freedom, even if it meant a low blow.
The Arachnid screamed, throwing his head back, and his mouth opened into a large, black vortex of teeth. Saliva sprayed up into the dark air.
For good measure, Tabby kicked again; this time, the Arachnid dropped her and fell to his knees.
Claire pulled Tabby out of the alley, with Sherlock guarding them the whole way, teeth bared, growling low in the back of his throat.
Gramps and Maria stepped forward; Maria with her sword raised, and Gramps with his wand held as high as his heart, emitting a violent blue light.
“I suggest you run,” he said conversationally. “That is, if you want your lives spared.”
The other Arachnid scrambled toward his friend, who was still howling in pain, having been walloped in the family jewels.
Maria lunged forward, her sword high above her head.
The Arachnid still on his feet fell backward, sending up a cloud of dirt in his wake.
“Be gone!” Gramps yelled. “Crawl back to the hole you’ve come from.” His wand erupted in a flash of light, which he sent skyward. It painted the alley and Arachnids in blue fire, and Maria saw the fear written on their faces.
“This isn’t over,” the injured Arachnid screeched.
Gramps feigned an attack, thrusting his wand out in front of him. The Arachnid jumped backward, still holding the wounded area between his legs.
“That’s for me to decide,” Gramps bellowed. “Pray I don’t change my mind. For I am Ignatius Mangood, destroyer of worlds, slayer of daemons! I squash spiders with the heel of my boots!”
Once more, blue fire escaped Gramps’s wand, and the creatures knew their lives were in jeopardy. They wasted no more time in scrambling up and running into the darkness beyond.
Maria’s jaw hung open. Her grandfather never ceased to amaze her. She turned to him once they were in the clear.
“Where did that come from?” she asked, but she already knew the answer, having seen in Duke’s memory how powerful her grandfather could be. Not to mention how he held his own against the nightmare that was Malakai.
Gramps brushed his sleeves back and hid his wand up his right cuff. He grinned. “I still have a few tricks up here.”
Uh, good one, Sherlock interjected in her thoughts. Real funny and all, but we have a bit of a problem over here.
Maria snapped her head in Sherlock, Claire, and Tabby’s direction. Tabby was sitting in Claire’s lap on the ground. There was a deep red mark around her neck that was going a shade of purple, and she had tears in her eyes.
Maria rushed to her friend’s side. “I’m so sorry, Tab. Are you all right?”
“Do I look all right?” Tabby snapped.
The answer was ‘no,’ but Maria figured it was a question she wasn’t supposed to answer, so she didn’t.
“I want to go back home, Maria,” Tabby said quietly, so as not to offend Gramps. “I’m not cut out for magical worlds. I’m not a witch.”
Maria took Tabby’s hand. “No, but you’re brave. One of the bravest girls I know. I mean, you kicked a giant spider in the nuts. That’s saying something.”
Tabby let herself smile at that.
Claire even chuckled.
“Yeah, I guess I am—but I still want to go home, Maria. I’m sorry. I can scratch kicking a giant spider in the balls off my bucket list and live out the rest of my life knowing I’m a badass. What use will that be if I barely make it to my mid-twenties?”
Maria nodded and looked toward Gramps, who was slinking behind them, looking on with hurt in his eyes.
“Can we take Tabby home?” she asked.
Gramps nodded. “Of course.”
She looked back at Tabby. “Can’t persuade you to stay?”
Tabby shook her head.
She then looked at Claire. “What about you? Do you want to go back, too?”
Claire wouldn’t meet Maria’s
