Summoning the Night (Arcadia Bell #2)(39)

Scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch.

What was that? Claws? Something small was clicking on the concrete, moving closer.

Bob shrieked and the Zippo flew through the air, the flame extinguished before the lighter clinked on the floor. Sounds of a struggle broke through the darkness, then Bob shouted, “Get it off me!”

My fingers gripped the handle of the flashlight. I swung it madly, bouncing the cone of light around the room. Lon, Hajo, Bob, surrounded by shiny things. Moving things. Birds?

I shone the light on the skeleton. The tripped spell that knocked us off our feet had furrowed the concrete floor and part of the wall and left a gaping inch-wide crevice. It had also cracked the skull—cleaved it right in two, from crown to jaw. And in the center of the split skull, like a sprout emerging from soil, the moving things slithered out and made a thumping noise as they hit the floor.

Not birds.

Bugs.

Enormous goddamn cockroaches.

Ribbed, shiny, flat bodies. Spiny legs that clicked on the cement like claws. Twitching antennae as long as my fingers. Beady eyes that glowed turquoise under the flashlight’s beam. Eyes? I’d never seen a roach’s eyes. I’d never seen roaches this big. They looked like terrifying prehistoric bugs from another planet.

Bugs from the Æthyr.

One extended a pair of shiny wings the color of burnt sugar. Then it made a hissing noise, buzzed its wings, and took off several feet into the air . . . and landed on Hajo’s leg. He kicked it away. It made a queasy crackling sound when it landed, then a scraping noise as it skidded on its side across the floor.

Okay, make that flying bugs from the Æthyr.

Screams cut through the room. Mine. Hajo’s. Maybe Lon’s. I’d never heard him scream, but who could tell. I nearly wet my pants in a moment of hyperventilating revulsion.

“Help!” Bob fell to the floor, reaching for his leg. Nearby, a trail of light brown goo dripped from the conveyor machine. A squirming bug carcass lay upside-down at its base, its spiny legs twitching violently. “It bit me!”

I scurried on hands and knees to help him while Hajo defended himself against the oncoming horde, kicking away the bugs as they emerged from the skull.

“It bit me,” Bob repeated in near hysteria. “It burns—” He hiked up his pant leg. Blood streamed from a jagged mark on his ankle. But that wasn’t the problem. The “bite” was swelling, and way too fast. A series of black rings already ridged the flesh around Bob’s ankle and advanced one by one up his leg.

“What the hell?” Hajo bellowed. “What are these things?”

Another bug skittered up behind Lon, its spiny black legs clicking on the cement. I called out a warning. Lon swiveled in time to raise his foot and stomp. The awful sound of cracking exoskeleton filled my ears, followed by a splatter of brown bug guts across my jeans.

A gurgled cry of fear bubbled up from Bob. The black lines ringing his leg had disappeared past his pushed-up pant leg. He gripped his stomach. I pried his hands away and wrenched up his Hawaiian shirt. The rings had already made it up there, too.

The bugs were venomous.

“Can’t . . . breathe,” Bob choked. “My heart—”

“A little help over here!” Hajo shouted frantically. He’d found another piece of pipe and was swatting at the bugs with savage swings. Squishy, crackling roach deaths echoed off the walls, but the bugs didn’t stop coming. They were still pouring from the cracked skull like brown lava.

I blocked out the scuttling and the hissing and the horrifying flitting of wings to concentrate on a solution. Hajo had definitely tripped a spell when he entered the oval around the skeleton—some kind of magical ward, something big and nasty that I’d never seen before. But if it was just a ward, then these bugs weren’t real. They were thought-forms; illusions designed to instill fear. That seemed more reasonable than a spell that opened up a hole in the cosmos into a nest of Æthyric cockroaches.

“It’s just magick,” I said. “Not real. The pain is psychosomatic. Listen to me, Bob. It’s not real.”

Lon bent over Bob and ripped his shirt open. The black rings were inching up Bob’s throat. His face was dark red. He couldn’t breathe.

“Real or not,” Lon said, “he’s going to have a goddamn heart attack.”

“The bug juice is burning my skin,” Hajo yelled from somewhere nearby.

I glanced at my jeans. He was right. Like acid, the roaches’ pudding-like innards were eating away holes in the fabric.

“Aagghh! Shit!” Lon kicked out, then fired a booming shot, so loud I recoiled in shock.

He dropped to his knees and let the Lupara clank against the floor.

“Lon!” I jerked up the hem of his jeans as he groaned in pain. A craggy puncture wound on his leg, a little higher up than Bob’s. The damn bug had bitten right through his jeans. A moment later, the first black ring circled his skin.

“Counterspell,” Lon shouted at me, gripping his leg in pain.

Meanwhile, Bob was going into convulsions, the heels of his shoes rapidly banging against the floor. I tried to steady him, but it was useless. Nearby, Hajo continued to scream for help as he played baseball with the bugs. I forced myself to focus, reaching inside my jacket for the red ochre chalk. If this was a tripped ward, then I knew exactly two spells that could possibly negate the magick. One of them I’d used several times successfully in the past. The other spell, Silentium, was more powerful, but I’d never used it. I only knew that it required a huge blast of Heka to power it. Kindled Heka—my natural magical mojo reinforced with outside energy. Bodily fluids weren’t going to be enough. I needed electrical current for the kindling, and the cannery had probably been dead for years. . . .