Why the people who went spelunking in this cave thought it was a good idea to go to this cave I will never know. The whole damn place was covered in spiderwebs, and each individual strand of every web was at least a foot wide. I had to surpress both a shudder, and the urges to vomit, piss, and shit myself at the same damn time. I did say I hated spiders didn't I?

"Someone's been through here already," Lucas said, crouching down examining the floor of the cave. "And I don't mean the civi's that came through here that got dragged off, no another Hunter's been through here. Judging by the five-five-six shells all around, they're probably about ten minutes ahead of us." There was a burst of echoed gunfire, that came from deeper into the cave. "Better make that three minutes ahead."

"Well whoever they are, let's not keep them waiting." John said.

"More importantly, this guy is stealing our bounty." Matt scoffed.

"Right then. Connor, stay here and get that thirty cal setup." Lucas began. "Miss Leng, you take point."

Our formation as we moved towards the sound of gunfire was Kai, James, myself, John, Lucas, Matt, and Rocky brought up the rear. Despite the fact the things were dead, a huge shiver ran up my spine every time one of the dead arachnie legs brushed against one of mine.

I felt my blood chill when I chanced a glance down. The damn thing was the size of a Volkswaggon. An eight legged, eight eyed, incredibly hairy Volkswaggon. Only good thing about it that I found, was that the arachnie was riddled with bullet holes. Good. Only good spider is a dead spider. I thought to myself, as we passed by dozens more arachnie corpses. Whoever had done this was either a team, or a serious pro. My hopes were on team.

Here's a pro tip for you: If you're hoping for one thing to happen over another, the thing you were hoping to happen won't nine times out of ten. So when I was hoping for another team over a serious pro, guess what I got? If you guessed serious pro, you win the prize. Of course, sometimes not getting what you wished for can also be a good thing. I don't want to say this guy was slaughtering these damn spiders, but for lack of a better term, that was exactly what this person was doing.

Whoever this person was, they were armored like a Call of Duty juggernaut. There was a ski mask covering their face, only leaving the eyes exposed, so on top of that and the armor I couldn't tell if this person was male or female. But the thing that struck me as odd. Yeah, more odd than one person blasting away at a nest of arachnie's armed with just a FAMAS assault rifle. More odd than the large tac vest that was over stuffed with magazines for said rifle. Yeah, more odd than any of those things. The oddest thing I noticed on this person, was the SAS patch on the right sleeve of their heavy armor. Yeah the oddest thing about whoever this person was, was that they were British. Before you ask, no no I don't hate the British, I was just surprised that a British Hunter was here.

Didn't get more time to process that thought, because right after that Lucas yelled "OPEN FIRE!" Nobody needed telling twice. Seven Hunters all opened up on the Volkswaggon sized spiders. Several spiders burst into flames, to which I chalked up to James' AA12. I'd forgotten that he always loaded that assault shotgun with incendiary shells.

The arachnies let out this horrible unearthly screech as a wall of silver slammed into them. Weird thing is, they weren't trying to attack us. To me it looked like they were trying to get away. Almost like they were…

"They're trying to get to their queen!" Lucas roared over the incredibly loud sound of the overlapping gunfire. And the fact that we were in a cave where the sound was amplified a hundredfold didn't help. "Reload, and get after them now!"

I fished a magazine out of my tac vest, and slammed it home. The charging handle snapped forward, and I was once again ready to rock and roll. Odd thing is, while I was terrified of spiders, I felt braver now that it was time for some sort of action. I guess what John had said about Dimitri's way of facing your fears really was correct.

"You want point Jimmi?" Lucas asked the second the charging bolt on my Uzi snapped forward.

"Yeah, as a matter of fact hell yeah." I said transitioning to my Saiga. I'd made sure to load incendiary shells into it before we rapelled down the side of the cliff. I was surprised with myself, because if I haven't said it before, I was terrified of spiders. But then again, if you're afraid of something, you tend to forget your fear when you're holding an automatic Russian shotgun loaded with incendiary shells.

So if you're wondering what barbequed giant-ass spider smells like. If you've ever set your hair on fire for one reason or another, take that smell, then combine it with the stench of an open sewer pipe. Yeah, un-fucking-plesant. Matter of fact, vomit inducing un-fucking-plesent. Hell the only thing that kept me from losing what little I'd eaten that day, was that every time I immolated one of those arachnies, I saw dollar signs pop up. Yeah the thought of the large payout this job would yield, prevented me from vomiting.

Oh, there's another tip for you: If you ever think that you're about to vomit on a job like this, think of the payout. It worked on this job, and on multiple other jobs I'd have after this. But we'll get to that later.

"Oh fuck me they smell horrid," Matt groaned, right before tasting his breakfast for the second time.

"Bet that tasted worse than these things smell," Rocky scoffed, as I fished in my tac-vest for another incendiary mag. We'd pushed the arachnies back into their nest, which was covered wall to wall and floor to ceiling in foot-wide spiderwebs.

"This is weird," Lucas said inspecting the arachnie nest. "Where the hell're all the missing people?"

"More than that," The British Hunter began, and the second surprise of the day was that I had expecting a British accent. What I and everyone else heard was a French accent. What the hell was a French guy doing in the British SAS? And on top of that why was a Frenchie with a British Hunting company? My brain hurt from all the questions I was asking myself. "Where in the hell the queen?"

After lightly whacking my head with my palm, in order to clear it of all the confusing questions, I noticed that both Lucas and the French/Brittish Hunter had a point. There was no trace of either the arachnie queen, or the missing people. Something wasn't adding up here.

"So no victims," I said, ticking off things on my fingers. "No queen, and no leeds. What the hell is going on? And what the hell are we missing?"

"I think I have a lead," Kai said, her brow creased like she was doubting what she was about to say. "Although it's a long shot. A very long shot."

"Go on, tell us Kai." Lucas said.

"There's another type of supernatural spider," She began, tapping the fingers of her right hand along her M249 Para. "But they're very rare, almost extinct."

"What are they?" John asked.

"They're called Jouroguomo," Kai continued. "They're a Japanese legend. They can take the form of an attractive Japanese woman to lure their prey into their layer. When they devour their victims, they don't leave anything save a puddle of flesh."

"And these things can command arachnies?" Matt asked, before retching from the smell of the burning spiders.

"Yes, which is one of the reasons they've been hunted to near extinction." Kai replied.

"Okay," I began. "If they can control other spider monsters, pretty much leave no trace of their victims, and then there's the fact they can transform into an attractive woman…" And that's when everything hit me. The woman who had explained everything about the situation was an attractive Asian woman that nobody had given a second thought to. At least up until right now, plus she seemed slightly familiar to me. But I couldn't for the life of me put my finger on it. "Oh fuck me. The woman who told us everything. She was Asian, high probability she was Japanese. And if my little hair-brained theory is right, she's the Jouroguomo."

There was a collective look between the team including the French/British Hunter, in which we all registered one thing: Oh. Shit. The seven of us hauled ass past the burning spider corpses towards the cave's entrance. Lucas had barked over the com line for conner to pack up the Deuce lightning quick, James had stayed behind, because he was planting a large explosive charge in the Jouroguomo/arachnie nest. I had no idea how we got up the cliffside so fast, but when we got to the bottom of the hill where the police had blocked off the area, Matt, Rocky, and myself all ended up vomiting.

I hate being right sometimes. The Japanese woman who was with the cops, had indeed turned out to be this Jouroguomo that Kai had mentioned. The cops that were with her … Well they were nothing but fleshy puddles. You want an example? Watch the episode of Supernatural that involves a shapeshifter. You see, in that series whenever a shapeshifter takes on the form of another person, they leave behind a fleshy puddle of the person they had previously been. And that is exactly what was left of the officers. On top of that, one of the cruisers were missing.

"Oh goddamnit, this is gonna be a very long day." I groaned as I came up from depositing my breakfast on the asphalt.