Free Silver Bullet by S.M. Reine Page A

top of me turned into mist. The flashlight shot from its mouth and smacked me in the face. Flesh and blood sprayed over me, getting in my hair and on my sparklebombed chin.
    It even got in my goddamn mouth .
    Not going to lie, I freaked out. I screamed and kicked away the now-limp bits of the spider.
    My skin was burning. My tongue felt like I’d just tried to deep-throat a cactus.
    I couldn’t feel relieved that the spider was dead. I could only think about making the pain stop. I stripped my shirt off, ripped it over my head, flung it to the floor. Slapped the patches of blood that were burning at my abs, wiping it off.
    Shit, it’s on my jeans!
    I started to unbuckle my belt.
    “Well, don’t get too naked now,” drawled a masculine voice I didn’t recognize. “I’d be excited to see me too, but let’s keep some mystery in our budding relationship, eh?”
    I fumbled for my bent flashlight. Aimed it down the tunnel.
    Two men were standing ankle-deep in spider guts, wearing extremelyamused expressions and all-black clothing. And when I say they were wearing all black, I meant head to toe black -black. Combat gear. Flak jackets. Armored kneepads. Even the shotguns were black, aside from the white circle and arrow stamped on the side of the barrel.
    That logo meant that they were from the Union.
    The man who had spoken had his arm wrapped around Suzy’s waist. She was bleeding from her hairline and looking dazed, but she was alive.
    “Who the hell are you?” I asked.
    “My name’s Malcolm Gallagher,” said the guy holding Suzy. He jerked his thumb at his companion. “This is Bellamy. We’re the cavalry.”

CHAPTER TEN

    THERE ARE A FEW things more embarrassing than wearing another man’s clothes—the clothes of a man about seventy percent of my size—but I couldn’t think of any of them when I left Silverton Mine and dressed myself.
    Malcolm Gallagher was a small guy. His waist and inseam were both thirty inches, which was the size I’d worn in junior high. Unfortunately, he was the only one of the Union guys that had a spare uniform with him. My borrowing options were limited.
    I couldn’t button the fly on his slacks. It looked like I was rocking a pair of high waters. Don’t even get me started on the way his shirt stretched across my shoulders.
    It was slightly better than being naked or wearing demon blood-drenched clothes.
    But only slightly.
    Suzy must have been concussed. She didn’t laugh at me when I climbed back into the helicopter after dressing, having abandoned my bloodied clothes among the sagebrush. In fact, she could barely focus on my face at all.
    “Anyone home?” I asked, snapping my fingers in front of her eyes.
    She shoved my hand away. “Fuck you, Hawke.”
    All right, she’s fine.
    Malcolm clambered into the helicopter with us, whistling a fast-paced reel with his shotgun propped against his shoulder. He slammed the door shut as soon as he was settled.
    “Go ahead,” he called up to the pilot, who gave him the thumbs-up.
    Bellamy sat in the front row as well, looking like a frowning Fritz-clone. He talked on a BlackBerry and held the hunk of white marble that we’d recovered in his lap.
    It turned out that our helicopter pilot had dropped us off and then popped down to the nearest Union outpost to pick up help, at Fritz’s request. Good thing he had, too, because we’d have been dead if he had waited a couple more hours to summon assistance. I was too young and too handsome to die at the jaws of a spider. I hadn’t even finished watching the last season of the Battlestar Galactica remake yet.
    Of course, my pride might have been in better shape if I’d died. I tugged down the hem of my borrowed shirt. “Thanks for the help,” I told Malcolm, who was seated across from Suzy and me.
    “Any time,” he said, setting the shotgun beside him. “Really, any time. I’m contractually obligated to provide support to the Office of Preternatural Affairs.”
    I caught myself