Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond(97)
Author: Kim Harrison

A sudden hunger pinched at Trent’s middle, and he reached for his own belt pack. "That’s okay. I’ve got something," he said as the crackle of shiny paper caught the sun and sent blinding flashes against the cliff side as he ripped open the packaging. Neither of them said anything as they ate, and the sticky sweet, almost musty tasting chewy bar of energy and free radicals disappeared in five easy bites.

An unexpected feeling of camaraderie stole through him as he sat in the sun and crumpled the packaging up. He didn’t think it stemmed from Jenks’s easy acceptance of the elves’ unusual crepuscular lifestyle of being most active at dusk and dawn. Pixies were the same, napping the four hours around noon and midnight. It wasn’t often he spent time with someone who was comfortable enough with him to not have to keep up a running conversation. Jenks talked a lot, but only when he had something to say.

A stray thought drifted through Trent, and he surreptitiously watched Jenks finishing his own meal, wondering if perhaps pixies had once been elven pets thousands of years ago. But as his eyes flicked to the sword at Jenks’s belt, he decided it was more likely they had served as guards in exchange for the land to safely raise a family, much as Rachel and he seemed to do. Smiling, he tucked his blowing hair behind his ears. They had lost so much history.

His arms had quit trembling, and still silent, he spun to his feet and turned his back on the heat of the day, peering into the low-ceilinged tunnel smelling of damp and wet rock. "Ready?"

"Just a sec." Jenks’s wings hummed as he lifted off. "I gotta pee."

Nodding, Trent took several hunched steps into the darkness, fumbling for the penlight in his belt pack as his sunstruck eyes struggled to adapt. He clicked it on and played it over the rough-hewn ceiling inches over his head. Something smelled off, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. Not like an animal had taken up residence, but . . . crickets. Dead crickets?

He took several more steps, the chill deepening about him. The walls had been chiseled to a bumpy smoothness, and the floor even more so. The way sloped upward as expected, going only a few feet until it turned and his light struck on bare rock. The dampness from the nearby waterfall made him wrinkle his nose. That there was no guard struck him as suspicious, and he breathed deeper for the scent of elves, finding nothing but that thick, cloying scent of crickets.

"Crap on toast, where’s the guards?" Jenks said as he hummed in, his silver dust a temporary sunbeam pooling on the floor. "I don’t smell any sign of anyone being here. Ever."

Trent took another step forward, his thoughts on their timetable. Finding the sharp turn, Trent played the light over the ceiling and floor, nose wrinkling. It smelled worse.

Jenks darted ahead past Trent’s penlight. Suddenly he pulled up short and drew his sword, sputtering as he waved it about. "Spiderwebs," he said in disgust, and Trent stiffened.

Spiderwebs? "Jenks. Get back here!"

A good fifteen feet down the passage, Jenks hovered in the middle of the tunnel, a bewildered expression on his face. "It’s a web," he said. "A real one, at that. Not sticky silk."

Beady eyes stared at him from beyond Jenks, never blinking. Trent fumbled for the radio he’d taken from the man in the bathroom.

"Hey!" Jenks shouted, darting up as Trent threw it past him. As the radio hit the wall and fell, a palm-sized spider, furry and arms wiggling, fell with it. "Holy shit!" the pixy exclaimed, darting back to him as three more spiders scuttled out from the shadows, descending upon their injured companion to rip him into unequal pieces. "What the Tink-blasted hell are those?"

Stifling a shudder, Trent panned his light over the ceiling. "Poisonous. Hold on a sec." Tucking the penlight under an arm, he unzipped another pocket in his belt pack. He tore open the small package, and steam began to rise as chemicals in the outer package mixed and generated heat. The scent of beef stew mixed with the smell of dead crickets to make his stomach turn, and he tossed the bag to slop against the floor.

It’s probably the motion they respond to, rather than the smell of the food, he thought as a dozen spiders of all sizes converged, fighting as they each claimed a portion and retreated to the shadows.

"That is uglier than a shit sandwich," Jenks said, not having moved from his shoulder.

"We haven’t seen the matriarch," Trent cautioned, not moving as a spider the size of a salad plate crept out of the darkness, moving slowly as it came to sit on the largest hunk of meat. Shaking his head in disgust, Trent started to edge around them, Jenks pressed close to his neck. He’d never thought he’d ever see them, especially not an entire self-sustaining colony.

"I hope you brought more din-din than that," Jenks said as they passed the last one, and Trent breathed easier, shuddering as he turned his back and paced forward, his light swinging in a predictable arch: floor, walls, ceiling.

"They have a very narrow temperature and light preference," Trent said softly, realizing why there were no guards at this end of the tunnel. "A few more feet in, and we’ll be fine. I hate to say it, but they’re a genetically modified spider that my father came up with before he moved out east. It was his doctoral thesis." And then a modified virus destroyed the world, and genetic research was outlawed. Trent’s thoughts shifted back to the spiders; he began to see a sliver of wisdom in it.

"Nice," Jenks said sarcastically, still on his shoulder. "Hey, you don’t have any of these in your garden, do you?"

"They must survive on whatever stumbles in," he said, ignoring Jenks’s question. "That’s why no animal scat or guards. It smells better now, don’t you think?"

Jenks’s wings hummed to make a draft on Trent’s neck, but he didn’t fly away. "You, ah, don’t have any of these, right?" he asked again, and Trent only smiled. Leave the pixy guessing.

A bright dust spilled down Trent’s front, and seeing no more webs, Jenks took to the air, his wings doing as much as Trent’s light to illuminate the tunnel. "Okay, killer spiders. Check. What do you have for the guards at the other end?"

Frowning, Trent checked his watch. Maybe he should chance running some of this. He could use a warm-up. "I’ve got a doppelganger glamour," he said, ducking a low spot. Which might be harder than anticipated if I can’t tap a line.

Jenks sighed so heavily that Trent could hear him. "Pixy pus, Trent. Why are you doing this?" he said, gesturing to include the narrowing tunnel. "You’re risking your life, everything you and your family worked for. Couldn’t you and Ellasbeth have come to some sort of joint custody thing instead of Elven Death Quest 2000?" The pixy shivered, a shade of green briefly joining the silver sparkles sifting down to show where they’d been. "Not that I’m not having a fun time here and all with the spiders."