“Ladies and gentlemen, I have a very special treat for you! Today, our gladiator is something truly unique. The blood of the ancients runs through her. I have seen her in action—or rather, inaction—for here is a woman who can, quite literally, stop men in their tracks.”
The crowd hooted and cheered. One shout of “You go, girl!” was even in a feminine voice. I tried not to let it go to my head. An easy thing when it was spinning with so many thoughts at once. Ariadne had just outed me. Oh sure, most of her crowd probably thought it was showmanship rather than anything serious. And likely there was some kind of code of silence when it came to fights to the death, as in talk and you’re next. But still, a whole host of bloodthirsty and potentially dangerous people now knew my secret. If I ever went up against any of them, it would be without the element of surprise. I couldn’t even prove Ariadne wrong by keeping my power to myself. It was truly all I had.
“Now, my pets today are terribly hungry.” She raised a hand dramatically in the air and let it fall. A door slid back across the arena from me, and my knees almost gave out. There was skittering, and so many legs and bodies that I couldn’t tell one from another. All segmented, all arachnid. But they weren’t getting any closer . . . for the moment. A clear glass barrier was the only thing that held them back. Of all the ways to die, spider swarm had never even been on my radar, but now that it was, I realized there had to be at least half a million ways I’d prefer to go. And only one solution: I had to win.
“I had a meal prepared for them, but our gladiator has valiantly decided to stand in for him. If she wins, he goes free.” She gestured dramatically and yet another door slid open, revealing a man wrapped in a web like a cocoon. I wondered if he could even breathe with all the spider silk over his face. I had to look hard to see his chest still rising and falling. I couldn’t tell if it was Gareth, but whoever the poor bastard was, I was getting him out. Somehow. “If she loses”—the crowd cheered in anticipation—“not only are their lives forfeited, but I collect this sweet specimen of manhood to sweeten the deal.”
Red brought a hooded figure forward, but I could tell from the breadth of the shoulders and the narrowness of the waist who it was even before the hood was ripped away. Apollo, looking stunned. His gaze didn’t immediately drop down to me. He looked odd. Loopy. As if he’d been drugged. Or mesmerized. I couldn’t look for any help from that direction. Dammit, spider-woman would pay.
“Let the games . . . BEGIN!” she shouted, throwing her arm up and snapping above her head like a matador.
Just like that, the seething mass of spiders was released as the glass fell rather than slid away and they swarmed over it. A spike of panic drove into my heart like a needle jam-packed with adrenaline, like the heart-attack scene from Pulp Fiction. I saw movement over on the dais and risked taking my focus off the arachnid army just long enough to see Apollo’s whole body jolt, as if his heart had been goosed by my very own shot of adrenaline. He looked to me, fear and disbelief in his eyes, and I couldn’t risk seeing more.
The army was almost on me.
“Freeze!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, raking my gaze over them, desperate to get my point across. Some obeyed, but they were only shaken off or overrun by the others, who kept on coming. Furry, sticklike, black, white, and gray, some bigger than my hand, they raced for me.
Frantic, I hopped on one foot as I pulled off a boot and swung it like a bat, heel out, at the oncoming tide. I swept a few aside, but others immediately took their places. One clung to the heel and started a slow crawl my way. I yelped and dropped the boot, my one weapon. Probably not my brightest moment.
“FREEZE!” I yelled again. It was all I had, but a tone sounded at almost the same time, and I could barely hear more than the first letter of the word myself, as if someone had grabbed a tuning fork and hit whatever frequency canceled me out.
Legs reached out for my bare shin, and I kicked in a panic. Not gracefully, like I’d been taught in kickboxing. Not effectively. This had to stop. Already one spider climbed. Another leaped for me. I planted my bare foot and lashed out with the booted one, skewering the jumper, impaling it on my stiletto heel. Others were immediately airborne. I kicked, slashed, and whirled. In the groove now, but for as many as I knocked aside or impaled, others reached me, were climbing and crawling and biting. My bare foot was going numb. I didn’t know how long it would be before it was no good to me at all, before I lost my balance and fell to the floor, only to be overrun by spiders.
Not going to happen. I still had my reflective gear. If only I could . . .
I batted away the spiders that had crawled the highest and looked toward the stands, trying to catch Apollo’s eye.
“Apollo!” I yelled. “The sun?”
He looked desperately around, and I thought I saw him nod at me before something skittered across my face, and I squeezed my eyes closed in reflex, swatting desperately at the multi-legged menace. I heard something explode and forced my eyes open again. Another explosion, and glass rained down from the ceiling, from the inset lights there, and the light itself flared. I swatted and bashed and whirled, noting that my left arm wasn’t doing any more than flopping at that moment, but I had to expose enough of my shiny foil farce of an outfit to catch the light. I felt like a Dutch oven as I started to heat up. There were inhuman shrieks from the arachnids all around, and I whirled like a possessed disco ball, throwing off light and spiders in equal measure. I was smoking . . . literally. So hot I had no idea whether it was the lights on my shiny spots or a fever from all my spider bites. My leg gave out, and I went down hard, falling at an awkward angle, limbs not working well enough to catch me, but nothing jumped on my face, and in a moment I realized that the tone had ended and that the spectators were on their feet, roaring with elation or anger . . . I didn’t know. Didn’t care.
But I looked up at the dais and saw through swollen eyes Apollo, still standing, looking down at me with sadness and approval.
Arachne rounded on him, as if to take out her anger, but he clocked her right between the eyes, snapping the bridge of her glasses so that they fell to the ground along with her. Spider lady was down for the count, which I thought meant that I could finally pass out.
No, I couldn’t. There was still Gareth to save. I had to make sure . . .
My brain wasn’t working so well. I felt hot and slow and numb and hurt all at the same time, but I forced myself to sit and then to pull off my one remaining boot . . . clumsily. It took me three tries before Apollo was there to help me.
“You okay?” he asked.
It was a stupid question and I didn’t dignify it with an answer. Instead I pointed at the man cocooned in the web. He rushed to Gareth, and I saw him tear the webbing away, saw Gareth’s face start to appear and could confirm that it was the missing scientist. Then I passed out.
I woke some time later in Apollo’s arms . . . in Apollo’s bed, even, when he shook me awake with, “Here, eat this.”
I blinked my eyes open and realized only one was willing to stay that way. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need sight to know that what he offered was ambrosia and that it would heal me faster than any hospital. Also, that it was highly addictive, and that like any addict, I was always ready to quit, but not right now. Not when I needed it so badly. I didn’t fight it.