Darkness Unmasked (Dark Angels 5)

“Azriel!” I screamed, wrenching Amaya free as I jumped upright. “I need some damn help here!”

Already here.

His mind voice was sharp, distracted, and I risked a glance across the other side of the room as I continued to back away from the Jorõgumo. A second creature had appeared, only this one was made up of thousands of little tiny bodies that writhed and moved and hissed and yet acted as one deadly enemy. Azriel attacked the mass with Valdis’s steel and flame, moving so fast, he was little more than a blur. But for every part of the mass they destroyed, others just crawled in and resumed the attack.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Mom Jorõgumo lunged at me again, liquid dripping from her fangs. I ducked away from her attack and smashed Amaya across her fangs. One went flying but the other remained. Liquid splashed across my clothes, stinking to high heaven and stinging where it hit flesh. Hoping like crazy the stuff had to be injected to actually work, I batted away another attack, then leapt high, twisted in midair, and came down on the middle part of her body, right behind her eyes. Amaya screamed again, the sound echoing across the room as well as in my head.

Don’t kill, I ordered her fiercely. Just blind and bind.

Then I swung her with all the strength I had. Her steel bit into the bitch’s eyes just as the Jorõgumo flung herself at the wall. We hit hard, and breath whooshed from my body. Not satisfied with merely winding me, the Jorõgumo hissed and writhed, and I fell, ending up on the floor underneath her. One foot scraped my leg, cutting deep, and a scream rolled up my throat. I bit down on it and crawled out from underneath her, barely avoiding several strikes of fang and leg. A hand grabbed me and dragged me upright.

“Amaya!” Azriel said. “Flame and ensnare. Now!”

My sword responded instantly, and twin lances of flames rolled out from the swords, shooting across the writhing creature’s body, spreading out in vibrant fingers, weaving in and out of each other, joining the rope of flames that still encased two of the Jorõgumo’s legs, until it had formed a net that encased the spider-spirit’s entire body.

She didn’t stop writhing and screaming, but she was trapped and not going anywhere.

I collapsed back against the wall and closed my eyes in relief. My head was pounding, and my leg was bleeding, I was aching all over from my encounter with the wall, but hey, I was alive and the spider wasn’t dead. As outcomes went, it wasn’t all that bad.

“I guess the fact you have only one injury is something to be grateful for,” Azriel agreed, voice wry. “However, it would have been nice if you could have remained wound free for a change.”

“Tell that to the bad guys who keep attacking me.” I opened my eyes. Azriel stood several feet away, his body covered with tiny wounds that gave his skin a bloody glint. Concern rolled through me. “Are you all right?”

He nodded. “I am energy, remember.”

“But you’re wearing flesh.” I pushed away from the wall, took two steps, and gently ran my fingertips across the worst of the wounds on his arm. “If the babies were as venomous as their mom—”

“I will burn off their venom the minute I return to energy form.” He gave me a sweet, somewhat lopsided smile. “But I appreciate the concern.”

“Hey, I don’t want to lose you over something dumb like getting bitten by a damn spider.”

“That is not something I would be overly pleased with, either.”

Amaya’s steel began to vibrate in my hand, and I glanced down with a frown. Both swords were still blazing, but Amaya’s flames were beginning to pulse. It was almost as if her strength was faltering.

“It is,” Azriel commented. “Which means she’s now drawing on your strength to help hold her share of the net.”

“Why can’t she hold it herself?”

Strength not right, she muttered, the surliness in her mental tones suggesting she was very put out by the fact.

“She’s young in demon terms,” Azriel commented. “She will get stronger with both age and your continuing merger.”

Merger. Not something I really wanted to be doing with a demon spirit with a hankering for bloodshed, but I guess that option had gone out the window the minute I’d taken her steel and stabbed her into my flesh.

And, if I was being at all honest, for all my wariness about owning a demon sword, I really wouldn’t want to be without her now. Having her so readily at hand had saved my ass more than once.

“I hope Hunter gets here quickly, then.” I paused. “Or can you and Valdis hold the Jorõgumo yourselves?”

“We can kill her, but containing her as we are takes more strength and generally requires two swords.” He grimaced. “They were never designed for this.”

I guess they weren’t—and they were doing it now only because Hunter wanted bloody revenge.

“Speaking of Hunter, she approaches the front door.”

“Meaning we now have the problem of getting her into the house.” As a vampire, she had to abide by the old “invite only” rule.