In a tangle of dark limbs the spider demon had hefted Jessie into the trees before my body could even react to the horror of seeing the poor girl carried away into the late afternoon. The  Oaks loomed high around me as I stood stock still, trying to process, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened and what I was supposed to do about it.

Do I pursue? Do I leave her? Jessie had made a grave mistake and if she did that sort of thing again she'd put us both in danger, said perhaps the smarter part of me. But she was also just a kid. And she might not even be alive. I wasn't sure after seeing what the same creature had done to the Minotaur.

Was she even alive? Was it worth it? Was it a trap?

It'd happened so fast, but I'd never seen any of the demon's eyes turn toward mine. It had seemed focused entirely on Jessie, its intended target, but then, what kind of a peripheral vision did spiders have anyway? Maybe it did see me. Maybe it saw both of us and was using her as a lure...Or maybe spiders couldn't see distance for shit.

I slapped my cheek to shake out my racing thoughts. The bracer on my arm wiggled more than it had earlier. Shail's claws had cut clean through the leather, and while he hadn't ripped it off, I wasn't able to repair the damage. I just had to lace it tighter and hope that maybe  somehow I could make a patch for the spot, find a replacement, or some other solution that my brain was moving too quickly to work out right now.

Speaking of the crag cat, he had his paws braced on a log, contemplating that shiny lizard- but when it sailed into the waning sunlight my somewhat-helpful companion turned his eyes toward me. In the growing shadows, his eyes held that distinctive flash, a quiet reminder of how quickly night would set on once the sunlight disappeared from treetops.

I looked back upriver, toward the hideout I'd been starting to feel good and secure about, and knew right then that I wouldn't sleep a wink without finding out the truth about Jessie. She was job. She was what I set out here to save, and even though I told myself I had to stay out here as long as I could, I still felt guilty. What if I had just turned tail and run back to the castle with her? At least one person would be safe and alive.

Now the curtain of night would fall upon us and there was a reasonable chance that neither of us would make it out alive. Taking a deep breath, I fixed my bracer as best I could, kept my knife out and ready and headed off in the direction I thought they went.

Shail trailed after me some distance behind my rushed jog, maybe because he was bored or hungry or had decided to be useful again. Whatever the case, I felt more comfortable with him at my back as we wound our way through the forest. Every so often I'd glance over my shoulder, just to make sure that the cat hadn't detected something I couldn't. But I kept my eyes up toward that dying light, scanning the darkening boughs for a dangerous silhouette.

The sound of water had long-since been swallowed by trunk and bush when the trees themselves took on a fuzzy, soft light in the higher limbs. I wasn't sure at first if it was my eyes going fuzzy from all my straining, but even the path ahead seemed grey-green and light. I'd stepped a few more feet when the first, thin line broke over my face and stuck to my hair and neck.

Flinching, I pulled away the sticky substance and held my hand before me. Caught between my fingers was a tiny bit of webbing- and worse, the woods ahead were wrapped in it. The innocent, fibrous substance  painted a beautifully sinister sight as the sun sank lower and lower, outlining sickly luminescent shadows. The Oaks here were dead and rotting, their leaves consumed by cotton-candy levels of webbing. I'd seen pictures of this sort of thing before, of massive groups of spiders that had come together during a flood to shroud the trees in a soft cocoon, but this-  this was Shelob's lair level of nasty. Even the air had grown still.

Shail disliked the sensation of webs breaking across his snout even less than I did. The cat sneezed and pawed a few times, and then refused to go any further as the webbing thickened and I had to resort to parting the view with my knife.

Feeling rather small, I started hacking my way through the webbing, when a miniature, normal-looking spider caught my eye. It clung to a strand of hacked webbing, bouncing along when my knife sliced its perch. Scanning the area, I looked around at glistening, silvery threads and thought about how spiders listened with their feet.

And you know, came that small voice of reason, you don't even know if Jessie is in here.

Turning back and waiting for daylight seemed a better idea. I looked over my shoulder to see if I could still spot Shail's gloomy shadow when a branch snapped.

A soft whistle caught my attention. A feminine voice called out from the growing dark right behind me. "Hey, handsome!"

I turned.

The woman was an angry blur of white. Her fist hit my chin and her shoulder followed roughly into my chest. I grabbed her by the waist and yanked her down as I fell. An elbow to her own chin stunned her. She leaned back slightly, golden hair falling around her shoulders like a fresh-fallen angel-- but a familiar one. Surprised, I shoved her off me in a quick motion, not wanting to hurt my old classmate, but she was right back with a flurry of curses and fists. After a brief scuffle through the webbing, she ended up pinned beneath me, the knife pressed against her pulsing throat.

"Enough," I panted, bleeding from a cut lip.

"Get off me, freak!" Dakota hissed. Her cheeks were nearly as red as her lips. Tiny spiders scuttled from her hair. I hated to think about what was on me, but I didn't move, even tiny legs skittered down the back of my shirt.

"Nice to see you, too," I said, wiping my mouth on my shoulder.

"You freak. You witch, you monster!" The insults worsened with every breath that filled her tired lungs. "I always knew there was something weird about you, the way you were always making those freaky drawings. You're a demon, aren't you?"

"No," I said. Blood speckled the white dress she wore- a prettier gown with a corset and a tattered length that looked as if Dakota had torn off the bottom half for more movement. Looking down at her pale skin, with the knife pressed tight to her neck, I knew I was acting like one of them. I eased off and gave her space to sit up.

Dakota rubbed her neck. With a frown she pinged a spider into the leaf litter. "If I'd eaten anything in the past week I'd throw it all up. You're sick. So I fucked your boyfriend at a crumbly little cabin on a lake. Who gives a damn? You don't murder someone for that."

"I don't give a damn about that," I insisted, keeping the blade handy. I wanted to look around and make sure nothing was creeping up on us, but I didn't dear take my eyes off Dakota, either. I never liked her at school, and I wasn't exactly a fan of her right now. "Can you lower your voice?"

"No!" she said in a voice that strained toward a screech. Her blue eyes narrowed.

"They'll hear us."

"You murdered me!"

"If you don't shut up I'm going to make you."

She laughed, a high, mellifluous sound ill-befitting our disgusting environment. The only saving grace about the webbing was that I doubted anyone else could hear us well.

Except the spiders.

"Cut my tongue out, will you?" she taunted, flashing that pink little tongue at me. "Go ahead, freak. Prove you're one of the monsters."

"Shut up," I continued, gesturing at our dreary surroundings. "I'm not a monster. I'm here hunting them. I'm closing in on one right now."  The former prom queen crossed her arms. I relaxed my grip on the knife just slightly. Something was definitely down my shirt. Trying to appear professional and serious, I tried to keep my squirming to a minimum.

"So why're you dressed like them?" Dakota asked. "Why'd I hear your name on the lips of some of those...things while I sat in a dungeon with a bunch of wailing girls?"

I licked my swollen lip. Anything I said would only make it worse. According to the Walrus, I was half-demon. Dakota hated my guts before anyone had run her off a cliff. If she figured out that the demons were hunting me, and she might have been more an opportunistic kill- no, it wasn't worth telling her.

"I got one up on a leader of the hunting party. He owed me," I explained. "I asked to compete."

"Sicko," Dakota said at once.

"Not like that," I argued, subtly itching at my shirt. By touch I knew my wayward arachnid had moved past my ribcage and was navigating my boobs. "I know what they put you through and what the demons want from you. I joined to save some of you."

Dakota brushed her long hair back from her shoulders. Even surrounded by webs and spiders, she was quite lovely, sitting there in her ragged dress with her perfect cheekbones and slightly upturned nose. Her blue eyes, bright and intelligent, narrowed as her frown deepened. "You're gonna save us?" she snorted. "You breed cows."

"At least I don't sleep with everything that has a—" I stopped myself, wrenched the stupid little spider out of my shirt and walked straight past her. "Whatever. I wasn't expecting to save everyone anyway."

Dakota's dress swept against the ground as she rose. "Where're you going?"

"I already found a girl who wants my help. She got taken by a spider demon. I'm going to save her." If there's anything left to save.

"What about me?" she called.

I turned around. "What about you?"

"You know why I called out to you?" she asked. I tilted my head. She smoothed down the front of her dress. "I'm doing the smart thing and turning myself in. You'd think it'd be easy to find one of those goddamn beasts in this place, but all I've found is you."

"Why would you do that?"

"This other chick got dumped off near me way the hell in some dank swamp east of here. The mud ate her. The mud, Tay. Rose up like that sandy beast Aladdin and swallowed her whole." Dakota shivered. "Hell if I'm going to stand around in here alone. Look at this figure. Does it belong here?"

I rubbed my chin and sighed. "I'm saying 'no' because no one belongs here, but if we're being honest, I always thought you were headed for trophy wife life." 

"I'd be a fool not to use what advantages I do have," she said. Her barefeet scuffed the ground. "You know, this whole caged afterlife had me thinking about stuff I'd done in the past. I'm sorry I rained on your puppy love parade."

I nodded. "It's fine. Past is the past."

"If you ask me, I saved you. Evan'snot packing a big punch if you know what I mean."

"So are you coming with me or not?" I asked. "I've got to find the girl, Jessie, before it's too late." Which it might already have been. From the darkening sky, I already knew it was getting too late for us to be here.

"I'll join your coalition," she finally decided, plucking a spider from my back. "Worst that happens is you die and I get taken by someone who can protect me better."

"How optimistic."

"Tay, c'mon. You're an artist that lives with cows. Let's be realistic here."

"I've been doing alright lying to myself," I said, trudging on ahead.

Nose wrinkled, Dakota plucked at the webbing. "This what you'd call 'alright?'"

*

The only good thing about cutting though the webbing was that it left a very apparent trail in our wake. Of course, that wouldn't help much with night's approach. We'd never find our way out of here in a hurry, not without getting ourselves snared. And as the darkness approached from beyond the tangled veil, a sense of claustrophobia pervaded the stale, dimly sour air.

The webbing grew thick and dense- and as I hacked through the last bit we burst into a small thicket. The stench of death filled the air here, a nauseating scent of putrefaction and dark liquids spilling onto the ground. Above us hung wrapped corpses. More lay stacked on the ground. Maggots grew into flies and died and fell across the ground across the thicket.

"So what's the plan?" Dakota asked, grimacing as she walked on. She stepped a lot quieter than I, but by now her feet were slippered in silvery webbing. Tentatively she reached out to touch one enormous body suspended  above us. It swung in silence. I batted her hand away and focused on the covered lumps that hadn't been strung into the tree.

"We find her," I said, cutting into the first bundle with care. "Dead or alive."

Within this light casing was a curled up deer. I wished it was Akta, then moved on. Dakota reached into another and ripped it off with her hands, making disgusted noises the whole while.

"Then what?" she squeaked, her own false-mummy another dead doe.

"I kill it."

With a loud huff the doe beside Dakota shuffled to life. It kicked against its confines. Dakota screamed. The deer screamed in its own, horrid way, and then I dove on its flailing body. While I held it still she cut the legs free. The deer looked at us briefly, then sprang through our exit. The sound of hooves faded into twilight.

We'd ripped open two more before we found Jessie. The girl was stone cold and limp as I cut the webbing away from her body.

"Is she alive?" Dakota asked, glancing over my shoulder.

I felt for a pulse- but there was nothing. "Maybe she's like the doe. Maybe she just needs a minute. We heal fast in this place. Maybe-"

"Maybe she's dead," the woman continued. "She looks real stiff, Tay. I know you want to be a hero but this..."

"Take her," I said, taking the girl into my arms. I couldn't ring myself to look at her face, even as I strained to hear her breath, to feel some warmth in her pale body.

Hands up, Dakota backed away. "And do what?"

"I've got a cat out near where I came in, at least, I think I do. He'll protect you. And if he's not there, head for the river and follow it upstream. Stick to the reeds. There's nasty ticks that live in the trees around here."

"And do what?" she repeated.

"Wait for me. Whether Jess is alive or dead, I'm going to kill the one responsible."

"How'll you do that?"

I glanced down at the silky shells I'd cut Jess and the doe from. "Worst that happens is you find yourself someone better, right?"

Dakota took Jess from me. "If you try and kill that spider and you miss, no one's getting any sleep tonight."

"I'll kill it," I promised. "Now get going before you lose the trail."

Dakota gave me one long, doubtful look, then cradled the motionless girl in her arms and picked her way through the flies and webbing.

Somewhat reluctantly, I pulled the empty shells onto the other stacked bodies and clambered inside, leaving a thin seam for me to look out as the last rays of light vanished. I held the knife tight in my hand, said a prayer to whatever god was listening among the writhing maggots, and counted the ways this could all go wrong.

After all, the worst thing about spiders is when you know they're around but you can't see them.