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Chapter 8
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Sabrina's back slams into the trunk of a rubbery jungle tree. "Gah!" she gasps, the wind firmly knocked out of her. She painfully pulls herself to her feet as Jake launches a spell at the monster, lassoing two of its legs together and forcing them to knock into the others, toppling the great brute.
Sabrina huffs, taking a moment to catch her breath. She'd never seen anything like this thing. Huge, nearly the size of a house with its sprawling eight legs. It's covered in a coarse, dark gray sort of hair, the abdomen striped with white. The head is by far the most terrifying feature, adorned with three black horns and dozens of eyes–just too many eyes. Below that is the undersized mouth, filled with gnashing fangs dripping with a purplish venom.
In short, it's an arachnophobes worst nightmare.
Sabrina readies the crossbow and shoots at the wildly thrashing spider. The bolt misses and Jake jumps back as the projectile whizzes past his face. The magical lasso fades, leaving the monster to its own devices.
"Hey! That almost hit me!" he yells, diving behind a collection of rocks on the beach.
"Sorry," she calls back, cheeks flaming with embarrassment. "I promise I wasn't aiming for you."
The spider wriggles until it flips, spitting in rage. It advances on her, uttering that horrible roaring shout again.
Sabrina abandons her crossbow in the sand and draws her sword. It feels much more comfortable in her hands and, recklessly, she charges at the monster. As it swipes one of its legs at her she ducks, sliding along the sand underneath the creature. She raises her sword and slices it through two of the legs and jumps to her feet, running out of its reach Unbalanced by the loss of limbs, the beast staggers, falling to one side.
Jake shoots her a double thumbs up, although he looks green at the sight of severed spider parts.
Before they can celebrate or take advantage of the injury, however, the cut off legs shake and crumble into dust. From the place she cut, new legs sprout from the stumps and the Djieien rises, back on all eight appendages.
Sabrina gives Jake an unbelieving look and side steps an attack.
"Matilda did say something about regeneration abilities," Jake says sheepishly, stepping out of his hiding spot.
"Then what are we supposed to do?"
Jake shakes his head, searching through his coat as Sabrina distracts the beast. "You already know what we have to do. We need to distract it until Daphne and Puck kill its heart."
The obvious holes in their plan reveal themselves to Sabrina at that moment. What if they never found it? What if it really was encased in stone and impossible to access? What if she and Jake couldn't handle the spider for long enough? She'd been blinded by their need. It didn't really matter whose head she was in if she was dead.
"Any ideas?" she cries out, desperate, swinging wide at the back of the spider's abdomen and cutting a nasty gash in it while Jake dashes back in forth in front of it.
"We have to get over that thing somehow," Jake instructs. "I don't think it can see above itself very well."
"I could fly over it," she answers, pausing for a moment, focusing on the wings. C'mon, c'mon, she thinks to herself. Sure, she hadn't practiced flying yet but how hard could it be? She'd deal with the repercussions later. However, it soon becomes apparent to her that the wings will not respond. She looks over her shoulder to make sure, seeing nothing. A bubble of frustration builds in Sabrina's throat. Why now? She can't relax or focus or do much of anything while things are so tense. How does Puck always do it so easily under pressure?
From where he is standing, Jake is lifted off his feet by two of the spider legs, sent flailing through the air. Sabrina watches as he disappears into the foliage. Terror rips through her. She needs to do something or they'd never live long enough to know whether their companions succeeded or not.
Sabrina slams her eyes shut, knowing how vulnerable she is. "I just need to fly, I just need to fly," she mutters to herself, clenching her fists. But she can't seem to think of the pink insect wings. Her mind draws to wings. Big white ones, covered in feathers. Almost in a trance, she spins, feeling a strange sensation come over her.
Sabrina opens her eyes and looks down at herself. She'd managed to shift! She spreads her wings and honks. A goose. Of course, it would be a goose.
The spider doesn't seem to care what form she takes and slams a leg down, inches from her feathery body. Honking in alarm, she flaps hard until she takes to the air, soaring out of range. From this vantage, the Djieien looks smaller. Still far too large to be allowed, but less terrifying. Tucking her wings in close, she dives, streaking towards its head. Feet from it, she lashes out with her feet and beak, clawing its eyes.
Screaming in pain, it backs up, spitting and hissing. Bright, violet ooze springs from the empty eye sockets. The viscous stuff spills onto the ground, smoking. Momentarily blind, the monster teters and charges forward, slamming itself into the trees, knocking a few over.
Jake sprints out of the forest 50 feet away, hair tangled with grasses, and produces his magical lasso again, whipping it at the exposed backside of the Djieien. It extricates itself, newly regenerated eyes vengeful.
Sabrina and Jake trade blows, the former making great use of her wings to swing out of the way as the spider tries to lift its legs awkwardly to hit her. Over and over she targets the eyes, adding to its continued anguish. But no matter how many times she slashes them open, the flesh regenerates.
Her puny attacks have enraged the monster, and as she flies high, so high out of its reach, it bunches low, and with alarming speed, jumps above Sabrina.
Her eyes snap open wide, and although she tries to weave out of its grasping limbs, it scoops her up, plummeting to the ground.
When Sabrina hits the sand, dazed and aching, her body shifts back to normal.
Jake yells angrily at the monster, but before he can throw a magical attack at it, it sweeps two legs at him, one high and one low, knocking him off his feet. It picks him up, swinging him in the air from one of his feet, causing little magic do dads to fall to the sand.
Its beady eyes move to fix on her, full of contempt and carnivorous hunger. She struggles, but to no avail. It's going to eat her, and then it was going to devour Jake. It opens its mouth wide, hooked fangs dripping with purple venom. She closes her eyes, preparing herself for the ultimate pain.
But nothing happens.
Not daring to believe her luck, she cracks one eye open. The Djieien looks peculiar, no longer staring at her or anything for that matter. It shudders, the giant abdomen drooping. After another second, it twitches then collapses in a heap in the sand, dead.
Daphne and Puck had done it! Sabrina whoops out loud, shoving at the leg curled around her waist. Jake has an easier time escaping and comes to her aid, kicking at the leg until the corpse releases her.
Breathing hard, they take a moment to survey their dead adversary.
"That," Jake says at length, "may very well be the worst experience of my life."
Sabrina stutters an odd little laugh of relief. "Yeah, me too. Although it's hard to top being bombed by pegasi."
Jake helps her locate her fallen sword and crossbow and together they gather up some of Jake's fallen trinkets.
"We should go wait by the tunnel entrance," Sabrina suggests when they're done. "They'll probably be up soon."
"Yeah," Jake agrees, dragging a hand down his face, trying to regain some form of composure.
The two of them pick past the ruined sand and settle at the lip of the rocks that mark the tunnel. They wait and wait...and wait.
As the time ticks on, Sabrina shoots Jake a worried look. "Shouldn't they be back by now?"
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Puck braces himself for impact as Daphne swooshes the fire wand through the air. A crackle goes through the air and a blazing wall of flame surrounds them. The heat of it is so intense, he has to take a step back, astonished by the power the girl had managed to summon. The spiders fall back from the light and heat.
"We need to make our way to the heart," Daphne says, brow knit tight from concentration.
"Throw a fireball in its direction, I'll follow and you cover me while I kill it."
Daphne does as he says, and seconds later he charges behind an orange and white sphere of flames, covering his eyes and half his face with an arm. He all but runs into the central pillar and gropes for something that isn't stone as his vision clears from the brightness. He feels something clammy and squishy and tries to take hold of it. His fingers slip off and he squints at the heart. It's roughly humanoid, but markedly more simplistic, about the size of a basketball and glowing a sickly violet. Blood vessels have grown into the stone, making it impossible to move. Fine, no problem. He raises the sword at an awkward angle and plunges it into the pulsating organ. Against natural law, it spasms and continues to beat, even as purple liquid oozes around the wound.
"You done yet?" Daphne calls, shooting blast after blast of fire at the larger specimens trying to swarm him.
He tugs hard at the sword but a strange kind of growth has sprouted from the heart, slowly trying to engulf the blade. "Having a bit of trouble," he grunts, putting a foot against the pillar for more leverage. He pauses to suck in a deep breath, thinking of how important this is if any of them want to survive. He gives the weapon one last mighty heave and it splits out of the heart with a disgusting squelch. Taking no chances, he slashes at the bottom and top of it, severing the vessels. He rummages around in his pocket and pulls out the vials. One slips from his sweaty grasp but the other he holds onto so tightly it almost cracks. After uncorking it, he holds it under the heart and waits for the vial to fill.
"Finished!" he calls triumphantly. He'd just turned, vial raised in his hand when three spiders tackle him, knocking him to the ground. An involuntary yelp of surprise and pain escapes him and as Daphne torches one of them, he rears his legs towards his chest and kicks the other two off.
"C'mon," Daphne urges, running to his side through a small gap in her fire wall. She grabs the bloody vial from where it fell out his grasp and gives him a hand up. They reenter the ring, pressing close so Daphne can make their safety net smaller. "I don't know how long I'll be able to hold up the wall while we're running," she admits, pushing a chunk of sweaty hair behind her ear.
"Guess we'll just have to be fast," Puck decides, tossing the sword aside. It would only slow him down. "Let's go."
Daphne waves the wand threateningly and the two of them sprint towards the exit, barely avoiding the firewall before them. The tunnel, which had seemed so smooth and flat earlier, now feels like the steepest climb of their lives, riddled with the burning bodies of spiders that didn't get out of the way in time. Puck slips at one point, landing hard on his wrists and knees.
Daphne skitters to a stop just in time to keep from frying him.
"You alright?" she gasps, heaving air rather than breathing. She's exerting herself more than just physically, needing to control the wand at the same time.
"I'm fine," he says, screwing his face up in pain and disgust. He'd landed in a mass of dead and dying spiders. He gets to his feet, shaking off the crumbling remains and begins to run again.
It's instantly apparent that Daphne can't keep this up for much longer, moving significantly slower than before. If she stops, they're dead for sure.
Puck lunges underneath her arm, drawing it across his shoulders and he continues, half running, half carrying her. For her part, she manages to keep the fire going, although it's half the height it was when they started.
They enter the main cavern where the many different offshoots are and for a moment, he frantically searches for the one that leads to above ground.
"That one," Daphne croaks, pointing with the wand, accidently sending a spout of flames ahead.
"Hold on tight," he exclaims, rushing them to the proper tunnel. The spiders had noticed the lag in speed and the lowered flames and had taken to leaping over them, just barely missing their circle of safety.
Puck barrels forward, pulling Daphne behind him. A shaft of light appears in the distance and he pushes harder. A second later, they explode out of the cave, surprising Sabrina and Jake.
"What's happen–" Sabrina starts, but is cut off as Puck shoves Daphne at them to boost her out.
"Can't talk," he gasps, scrambling up behind her, "time to get back to the boat!" In the precious moments he took to speak, the spiders caught up with them, causing Jake to let out a girlish, high pitched scream.
The four companions crash out of the bushes, flinging sand in their wake. A quarter mile away, their boat sits idly on the shore, enticingly close.
A mass of spiders explode from the tunnel, screeching in the fresh sunlight. Daphne turns for a moment and points her wand at them and launches a jet of fire at them. One the size of a pony sails over it, and even though it's singed and smoking, it lands on the girl, flattening her.
"Daphne," Sabrina cries, wrenching the crossbow off her back, "stay down!" Praying that she can aim properly this time, she fires at the beast. Her shot sails true and the spider is flung off of her. Puck doubles back to help the smaller girl to her feet.
As the three of them continue on, Jake stops to launch a barrier spell at the arachnids, mustering his courage so he can slow the tide. Within the next minute, they reach their little craft and as Puck and Daphne jump in, Sabrina shoves it off the sand, swatting at the spiders clinging to her arms. Once the vessel starts to bob on its own she jumps in and, in a panic, realizes that Jake is still sprinting at them, a practical wave of creatures tailing him.
"Go!" he roars, cutting the beach short and splashing straight into the lake. Sabrina and Puck quickly take to the oars and furiously row towards where Jake is struggling to stroke through the icy water. When they reach him, six hands tug him aboard, narrowly avoiding capsizing.
Daphne cranes her neck to look back to the beach. "They won't go into the water," she announces triumphantly, her pale exhausted face brightening.
True to her word, the many children and friends of the Djieien skitter along the water's edge, pacing like angry guard dogs. As they drift away, the magical fog swallows up the sight. The group of adventurers whoop and holler in delight.
Sabrina grins widely at Puck. That was one of three items down! They'd be back in their own heads before they knew it. "Let's see it," she says, too excited to bear it.
Puck points at Daphne, smiling too. "She has the blood."
Proudly, the girl reaches into her pocket, searching for the vial. After a heartbeat, her expression falls. Near frantic, she pulls out the inside of each of her pockets, only producing a few empty vials.
Daphne's eyes tear up. "I must have dropped it when I fell. We have to go back!"
Sabrina blanches at the thought of returning to that spider infested island. Would they even survive?
Puck gives her a stunned look. What if there was no way to get any blood? It's not like they knew where another Djieien was.
Jake begins to laugh, shivering as streams of water flow off of his jacket. "Oh, chin up. It'll be okay."
Puck glares at the man. "What's so funny? You want to go back to spider island?"
"No, no, never ever again. Which is why I made sure to pick this up off the beach." He holds up his hand and between his fingers is a sand crusted, blood filled vial.
The other three share a disgruntled look and, as one, fling freezing cold lake water at his face.
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