Free Silver Bullet by S.M. Reine

little as possible, and definitely trying not to think which part of the spider it had come out of.
    After a few minutes of work, I’d revealed something among the rubble that was…well, I wasn’t sure what. It looked like white marble. I hauled out one chunk that was the size of my head. It was heavier than it looked, like it was made from lead.
    “Looks valuable,” I said, hefting it. The rocks shifted where I’d removed the stone, revealing other, larger pieces of white stone behind it.
    “Looks like bone,” Suzy said. She reached out to touch it. “What do you think—”
    Scuffling noises echoed up the tunnel. We spun simultaneously to face the darkness.
    I didn’t see anything yet, but there was no question what that sound meant.
    Suzy fumbled for her pistol, then stopped. She must have remembered that she’d emptied her magazine. I handed her the knife and she took it with trembling fingers.
    The shuffling noises grew louder.
    Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh holy fucking fuck.
    That sounded like a few more daimarachnids. Plural.
    I shouldn’t have been in this mine. I should have been wasting sticky note pads by animating stick figure ninjas. I should have been sneaking mild laxative potions into Suzy’s coffee. I should have been calling in sick so that I could stay home and read the newest Iron Druid release. I should have been—well, just about any-fucking-where but here.
    Drawing my Desert Eagle, I tried to count the bullets mentally. How many times had I shot the first spider?
    “We’ll bring nukes next time,” Suzy whispered.
    Next time? We’d be lucky if either of us had a next morning .
    I didn’t say that out loud.
    “Yeah,” I said. “Definitely nukes.”
    Two daimarachnids appeared at the end of our pool of light—barely even fifty feet away. It wasn’t enough warning.
    I fired without aiming. It was luck more than skill that blasted the top of the first demon’s carapace off. Red eyes splattered. Its legs buckled, sending it stumbling.
    The other one climbed right over it without care.
    And there was another behind it.
    The second daimarachnid hit Suzy and slammed her into the collapsed wall. She grunted, hand locked against its face, just above the flailing pincers. They scraped at her shirt even though she held it, barely, at arm’s length.
    She plunged the knife into its mouth.
    I fired on the third one. First shot missed; second one hit in the center mass.
    The other injured daimarachnid leaped up onto the wall, skittering at us from the ceiling. I lifted my gun. Fired again. Missed again.
    It jumped on me. We hit the ground.
    Venomous fangs filled my vision.
    “Holy fuck !”
    I jammed the Maglite into its jaw just as the pincers were about to strike, and they snapped shut on the flashlight instead of my face. It reared back a couple inches, squirmed on top of me. One of its legs banged hard into my shoulder. Felt like being hit by a car.
    This close, I could hear wheezing, hear the slurp-slurp inside its mouth. Sounded like it had organs a spider shouldn’t have had. It exhaled hot air on me that smelled like rot.
    I tried to bring the gun up—tried to shoot it through the head. Pulverize the brain.
    But another leg slammed into my arm. The Desert Eagle snapped out of my grip. Metal clattered against stone.
    The Maglite bent inside the spider’s jaw. It was biting down, making the metal groan. Five more seconds and the flashlight would be gone, leaving nothing between venomous death and me.
    I’m going to die down here . The realization washed over me, cold and jagged and aching.
    I wished I’d called Domingo to say goodbye.
    A gunshot exploded through the tunnel, loud enough to make the collapse tremble and dust spray over the daimarachnid and me.
    Sounded like Suzy had found my gun. Maybe she’d at least be able to save herself.
    Another booming gunshot.
    Wait—that’s not the Desert Eagle .
    I’d barely had time to realize that I was hearing shotgun fire when the demon on