"Arachne's what?!"

Lexie was out of her mind with worry. If there was something she hated most in the world that was spiders. It's not that she was scared of them. It was just that they were so hard to punch or smash… especially now that they were in such numbers.

"Her servants… all kinds of spiders," Rubens explained. "We need to get out of here before they bury us alive."

"Before they what?!" Johnny and Barry yelled in unison. In the distance Lexiw could swear she heard screeching. Spider screeching, how about that. She felt something on her leg and jerked away.

"Caleb we really need to get out of here!" she hissed and he pulled her back to the rest of the group.

The spiders were visible now; waves of black legs that moved fast, so fast, up and down and forward. They were going to end the pack, they were going to suffocate them and crawl all over their insides… Lexie didn't even want to imagine. She just wanted to escape from this hell. She saw how Caleb spread out his hands. Then some sort of violet light appeared on top of his fingertips and illuminated the whole warehouse – even the smallest light shines bright in the darkness. It was the worst possible idea. The second that Johnny and Barry's eyes saw what was coming for them the two of them screamed out from the top of their lungs.

Everything was happening so fast that Lexie had absolutely no time to wonder what the hell that light coming from Caleb's hands was. The spiders were way too many to be normal – they looked like an actual moving rug that was coming towards them and it never ceased. It was like there was a portal opened from Spider Kingdom!

Wait… Lexie knew it. That was probably it. A portal… or something. No, she hit herself on the head, such things don't exist. This is all a huge nightmare. I'll wake up any second.

But her heart was beating fast, her hands were trembling in excitement and she had bit her lower lip so hard that she could taste a little blood in her mouth. This was going to prove an interesting challenge. She'd never fought an army of spiders before.

Then, just as she was about to swing with the baseball bat at the first wave of eight-legged creatures she saw that they stopped and started piling onto each other in a perfect circle around Lexie and her friends. Something was going on here, Lexie knew now that she wasn't dreaming, and it was way out of her reach.

When the spiders piled half a meter there was a violet light that ran through the length of the protective circle. It was the same as the one that had come from Caleb's hands. Lexie looked at him and saw his worried expression and… those eyes of his, now surely flashing in purple, violet and aquamarine.

Something in Lexie's head snapped. She could literally feel it and then instincts and feelings and impressions long forgotten filled her head. She turned around and looked at Rubens and Buch.

"Hey! Think of a way out while Caleb and I think of a way to get rid of the spiders," she said and turned to Johnny and Barry. "You two… stay put, don't do any sudden moves, got it?" The two boys nodded, fear written all over their faces. Then Lexie turned to Caleb. She grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer. "What have you done to me?"

"What are you…"

"I know that you tampered with my memory. What the fuck did you think would happen?! You thought I'd never find out again?"

"Lexie, I…"

"Caleb, shut up! Know that I'm not through with you and when we get out of here alive, you and I will have a big nice talk, got it?" she was on the verge of madness. Caleb looked at her with an expression filled with sorrow and nodded. She let him go and tried to manage her anger. She looked around again. The spiders were already piled a meter tall. She could see how her home was being torn apart under their feet and little hungry mouths. She wanted to lash out at them so badly that it literally hurt her to stay where she was. But she had to wait – this battle wasn't going to be won like this. She looked at Buch and Rubens at the same time that Caleb talked to them.

"What do you think?"

"The shield will hold, although I don't think the spiders are trying to destroy it," Buch said. He was looking around, his bright green eyes flashing to the left and right in the almost nonexistent light. Rubens was just behind him, inspecting the spiders.

"Yes," he said. "Although they are different kinds of spiders, they aren't trying to attack us. They are simply… here."

"What does that mean?" Lexie asked, her heart beating so hard that she could feel it in her head. "What are they here for?"

The spiders were already piled so high that they were reaching the top of the protective sphere that Caleb had created. They were being sealed in! Lexie felt the urge to bat her way through the disgusting little creatures to the outside. What was going on with her? She'd never remembered feeling so uncontrollable… did this have to do with what Caleb had done to her? Probably. Very likely, actually.

"I think," Rubens began, "that their purpose for now was to scare us and see how we'd react. Now that we've found a way to protect ourselves, they might be given new orders."

"Who can order fucking spiders around?!" Johnny cried out.

"Arachne," Buch said and Johnny looked at him through fear-stricken eyes, not understanding who he's talking about. "Mama-spider." That seemed to ring a bell because he grimaced and crawled to a ball on the floor with Barry crouching above him, looking frantically around at the moving spider wall.

Buch looked at Caleb. "What do you think we should do now?"

"I don't—"

He was interrupted by a voice. A woman's voice. It came from somewhere beyond the spiders and it made them all freeze. Every other noise in the warehouse died out and now the six teenagers could only hear the caressing whispers of a woman.

"Well, well, well. I'd say we have ourselves a little feast here…"

Everyone had frozen. Lexie looked around and clutched the bat liwe, higher, then lower again. She was so nervous right now. What was this woman? Could it be her? The master of the spiders?

"I can see a little sphere here, can't I?" the voice was growing closer. Lexie could hear her breathing so loud that it was almost deafening. She could hear Caleb's steady deep and quiet breathing, Buch's fast and shallow yet controlled, Rubens' slow measured breaths, Johnny's scared whimpering and Barry's speedy uneven breathing. It was all so intense to her that she felt like she was going to explode. Every inch of her body ached to move, to run, to fight. She wanted to come out of this sphere and take the monster one on one. Maybe the bigger the spider the easier it is to smash with a bat…

"Oh, yes. A big feast inside, right little ones?" the voice was sickeningly sweet, growing to a level of nausea. "How about we break through that little shield of theirs?"

"Caleb!" Buch hissed. "Put more wards on!"

"Guys! While the spiders are covering us we can escape!" Rubens' eyes were flashing with an idea that Lexie wasn't certain she was going to like. "Caleb, make a tunnel here that will lead us to the outside of the warehouse. We can escape from there."

"It's not safe. If she was smart she'd place guards outside," Lexie said, unsure as to how she knew that. Rubens nodded.

"I'd still face several guards than her and her billions of minions."

"Alright," Caleb said and lifted his hands, making a strange shape with his fingers. His hands lit up in violet and the shield that had been protecting them until now started elongating on one side, making a small corridor. It was bound to be seen by the woman so he made it quickly and walked inside as he continued elongating it towards the exit of the warehouse.

Lexie pushed Johnny and Barry in the tunnel and then tried to make Buch and Rubens but Buch insisted that he go in last. Lexie managed to push him in the tunnel after a burning glance and then Rubens was the only one left. Before they had time to say anything to one another, they heard the woman's piercing laugh.

"Oh, but please! My little pets are trying to escape… how rude!" something happened and then a wave, a whip of spiders lifted up in the air and came crashing down over the tunnel.

BAM!

It was broken. The spiders were everywhere in mere seconds. But before Lexi had time to scream and start smashing them she felt a cold hand over her lips and saw Rubens' grey eyes, telling her to stay quiet and not move. She nodded and the two of them stayed frozen while the spiders crawled up her legs, up her arms, up her body and then all the way to her neck and her head.

Lexie could hear Buch, Johnny and Barry's screams as something moved them from the entrance back to the center and then above – seemed like they were now hanging and yelling. Lexie couldn't listen. She had squeezed her eyes shut and now as she and Rubens were sitting down, clinging to each other, she felt for the first time the terror of the possibility to lose her friends.

Because Caleb was right, just as he always was – this wasn't just some random group of people. These were her friends, her real family. She would do anything to protect them, just as they would do anything to protect her, no matter how much they pretended to not like one another.

Just like that Lexie knew now, that Rubens had done all that with a plan. He had an idea but he couldn't tell her yet, the spiders were still way too many and they moved way too fast for them to be able to speak and not get one in their mouths. So she waited – she endured the excruciating pain of waiting for everything to cool down so that she and Rubens could make their move.

Lexie was shaking. She couldn't help it. The spiders all over her body, tingling with terrifying freedom up and down her body – she couldn't bear that. she clenched her fists, hoping she'd crush a couple of spiders with that and then she gritted her teeth.

"Well, well. That's a shame. There's just three of you! Where might be the rest?" the woman's voice was awful.

"What others?" Buch yelled. "It's just us!"

"Do not lie to me, little satyr!" the woman hissed and the sound was deafening. "Find them!" she ordered and Lexie felt some spiders move around her and above her, heading out.

Three? Wait, the woman had said just three. That meant that Caleb had gotten away! Lexiw was so glad that she could… oh, no wait. She was buried in live spiders she couldn't do a thing without getting herself in danger.

"Now, tell me, satyr. That boy over there, the one who lost consciousness." The woman giggled and one of her legs stretched over and turned Johnny around. The three of them, Johnny, Buch and Barry, were hanging head down on thin cords of spider web. They were tied up with the same cord and it was a pretty scary sight. Much like something from the X-files. "Tell me about him."

Buch was quiet. His lips were pursed tight and he didn't seem like he was going to open them soon. The woman didn't like that. She looked at him and then crawled over to him, her grotesque body moved clumsily, as if she weren't used to it yet. Which was funny – one would think, after more than two thousand years… Arachne lifted her slime-covered hand and gripped Buch's ginger hair. She turned him to one side, then another.

"Talk!" she screamed so hard that every single spider froze. They stayed frozen for a long while.

"No!" Buch wasn't giving up, no matter how scared he was. He had a duty to fulfill and now this monster was not going to break him. He would rather die.

"Well," her voice was pleasant again. It surprised Buch – it was scarier than when she was screaming at him. "Let me see, five demigods and a satyr. Isn't that a sight. What are you doing so far away from home, little ones? Hmm?" She was looking at Barry now but he was too afraid to speak.

"Oh, come on now," she said, caressing his cheek with her disgusting hand. "What is your name, young hero?"

"B-Bartholomew, ma'am," he said with a trembling voice. The woman smiled.

"Well, how about that—"

BAM!

The noise from the hammer hitting Arachne's head reverberated throughout the whole warehouse and to the core of Rubens' very being. The woman-spider twisted and wriggled and then fell completely still and silent. Runebs was breathing hard. All the spiders fell silent again. This time they weren't moving until their mistress woke up and that was going to be a long time from now. Lexie showed up with a knife and carefully tried to climb up to where the three boys' cords were connected to the ceiling but she couldn't reach them. She came back down and Barry looked at her.

"Can't you get me down?" Panic was beginning to stir in his voice. Just before Lexie had to disappoint him, they heard a voice from the entrance of the warehouse.

"How about I try?"

It was Caleb. Lexie had never been gladder to see someone in her life. But then her eyes spotted the blood on his forehead and the cuts on his hands as he lifted them. He conjured a small fireball and sent it up in the air to cut the strings. He came closer and helped cut the ones tying their bodies. Lexie helped with the knife but it wasn't easy at all – the string was pretty resilient.

In the end they had their friends intact – Buch was angry at Arachne but he couldn't do anything about it, Barry looked like he was going to be sick (which he was… twice), and when Johnny woke up his head hurt and when he saw all the spiders and the curled up Arachne, he joined Barry for a puke.

When everyone finally cleared out of the warehouse, leaving all the spiders behind, Lexie let out all the emotions that she'd been keeping until now.

"Okay, what the hell just happened?!" she asked. "Was that really what I think it was? God, of course it was. I can't believe it…" she saw a spider on Rubens and hurried to push it off. "Hey, do I have any spiders left on me?" Rubens had to take out several that had been frozen in her clothes and hair. She shivered when she saw every one of them hit the ground. When she looked up her eyes fell on Caleb's wound again. "Are you okay?"

"It's fine, I'll manage."

"Caleb…"

"Trust me, Rager, I'm fine!" Caleb smiled and turned over to Buch. At that moment, Johnny pushed his way to Caleb and Buch and stared at their faces, not a hint of joke in his eyes. It was probably the first time any of them had seen him this serious, or this scared, or shocked.

"Now, explain to me… what… the hell… was that?!"

Buch and Caleb exchanged glances and then Caleb glanced over to Rubens, who nodded.

"Okay," Caleb said calmly. "Let's go to the park and find a bench. I think you'll want to sit down for this."