Part 2: The Lair of the Spider Queen
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When Tina had seen her little sister incapacitated, ice had filled her veins. Cold fire had covered her hands and bled from her eyes, and she had felt the urge to destroy. But her brother had urged her back. He had been right: she had just discovered magic, but didn't know if she could control it, let alone fight an untold number of zombies. So they had fled, not up thirty flights of stairs, but just one. When they reached the top, they looked down and saw that the atrium now led to the sitting room, just as it had the night before. If they wanted to reach Jane, they would have to find another way.
Now, Tina sat on the edge of her brother's bed, fuming in regret, anger, and fear. "But you stopped to grab a bottle of wine?" she hissed at him as he slipped his pants back on.
"I wasn't in my right mind," he said. "I think I became invisible. But I felt different, too—out of control, primal. Maybe I lost all corporeal form and became a spirit."
Dan's even tone, his emotional detachment from the situation made Tina furious, and it took all her effort to keep the dangerous magic part of her at bay. "Don't make excuses, coward! You're just jealous!"
Dan had never seen his sister like this. Sure, he'd seen her angry—mostly at Jane—but not like this. He could see something in her eyes that scared him. "What's gotten into you?" he said. "Ever since you started using magic, you've been ... well, you've not been yourself. And what is this about jealousy? What are you talking about?"
"I—" Tina started, and then noticed how Dan was looking at her. He was afraid of her, but that was only a small part. Something behind his eyes seemed to be watching her. Whatever it was created a huge magical ripple that made the hairs on her arms stand up. "Nothing. Forget it," she said, sincerely hoping he would. "You're right. This magic, whatever it is, it picks up on emotions, feeds off them—and amplifies them, I guess."
"Just be careful, ok?" Dan said. "You went to a really dark place, and I don't want to lose you to it." Tina nodded, but the now dissipating anger had held back the agony of defeat and the fear of losing her sister, which came rushing in. Tears came to her eyes, and Dan sat next to her, giving her a shoulder on which to rest her head.
"I'm sorry," she said, fighting the urge to cry. "This is all a little too much, y'know."
"I sure do," he said. "The world's completely changed around us. Or maybe it hasn't. It's scary, thinking it's been like this the whole time and we just didn't know." He picked the wine bottle off the bed. It had no label, and the cork stuck a half inch out, enough for Dan to grip. He popped it out and sniffed. "One thing hasn't changed, though: wine."
Tina couldn't help but smile. Dan always had a weird way of cheering her up. "So, what, we get drunk and go rescue Jane?"
"It's the last thing they'd expect," Dan said, winking. He took a swig of the wine and passed it to Tina, who drank and coughed. She'd had wine at dinner, but only a little. Never in her nineteen years had she been drunk, and the thought of being so scared her a little, particularly because the magic that made it hard to control her emotions would almost certainly flare out of control as her inhibitions loosened.
"So," she said, taking another gulp and passing the bottle back. "I meant to ask: how did you change into a spirit or whatever?"
"No idea," he said. "The servant was about to find me, and all I could of was getting small. Honestly, I didn't even think it worked until I realized I was naked."
"Can you try to change now?"
"Right this instant?"
"Sure," she said. "If we're going to try and rescue Jane, we might as well practice."
Dan chuckled a bit. "Ok," he said. "Sure." He stood and went to the middle of the room. Tina sat, wine bottle in hand, grinning at him. "Stand back," he said, and then took a deep breath. Suddenly, he was on the floor, curled in the fetal position. After a moment, he untucked his body and looked around.
"I don't think it took," Tina laughed. Dan smiled sheepishly and stood again.
"It would seem so," he said. He took another deep breath, let it out, and then threw all his concentration in to thinking small. Small. Small! SMALL! And then he heard Tina giggling. "What's so funny?"
Between gasps of laughter, she said, "Dan, you look like you're trying to fart."
"Oh, come on, Tina! That's not helping," he said, her laughter infecting him. "How do you guys do your things?" Tina suddenly became quiet. "What is it?"
"It's just that my power..." she sighed and hid her face. How could she tell him? Could she? She took another swig from the bottle. "So you remember that itch, right? Last night?" He nodded. "Like the, uh, sex things we saw?"
"Oh," he said. "Oh boy. Hey, is it suddenly really hot in here?"
"Yeah," she said. "So, that's kind of it for me. I mean, that's how I get it started, but I kind of have a hard time shutting it off. The feeling, I mean. It lasts after the magic is gone."
Dan raised an eyebrow. "So you're having those feelings?" he said, having a hard time looking at his sister. "Right now?" Tina blushed and nodded. Dan felt his stomach sink. "Look," he said. "Maybe this isn't the best idea."
"Your visions were of us," Tina said. "Me and Jane, I mean." His silence was confirmation enough. "It's ok," she said.
"What do you mean?" he said. "It's definitely not ok. I mean, you're my sister. Jane is my sister."
"Jane's my sister, too," Tina said, the wine having unlocked the doors behind which she had tried to hide that little secret.
Dan looked as if he were going to pass out. "You mean...?"
"Sex?" Tina said, hiding her face in her hands.
"I..." Dan started, then looked at his hands as if there was a different answer written on them. "But ... how ... there was that blast ... and then this morning ... she was so nice this morning!" Tina nodded, coaxing his train of thought forward. "Mom and dad will lose their minds. You know that, right?"
"No shit, Dan. This is weird..."
"But?"
"But," Tina said reluctantly, "I love her."
"So do I," he said.
"You know what I mean," she said.
"I do," he said irritably, and then reached out his hand for the bottle. "Gimme that." After a long drink, some pacing, another long drink, and more pacing, he looked at Tina. "How was it?"
She laughed in disbelief. "Wouldn't you like to know?" But he was silent. "She helped me feel sexy for the first time in, well, ever. How's that?"
"I see," he said, suddenly eyeing the skin on her belly, revealed by the missing button she'd used to detect the black fog. Tina saw his eyes fixate, and remembered how Jane had given her a similar look. She shifted herself so more skin and her bellybutton showed, and watched Dan try not to look. "I mean," he said, "it's not like you weren't before."
"Was I now," she said, unbuttoning the next button, beginning to take a perverse pleasure in teasing her brother.