Free THE BAZAAR (The Devany Miller Series) by Jen Ponce Page A

sharp teeth. Its eyes were black.
    Tytan tapped the mirror again and the image froze, the thing half in half out of the water. "Fleshcrawler. The name they call themselves is unpronounceable. They live in the witch's universe. These things are the genesis of your world's vampire myths. I believe there's a hook near their homelands and that's how the first one slithered to Earth."
    My temples throbbed. "A hook? You mean these things go through anytime they want?" I stared hard at it but couldn't see the romanticized vampire in its slimy, repulsive form. 
    "Of course not. Certain conditions must be met. Atmospheric, planetary. It's rare when conditions are right without help from magic makers. Rarer still when one of these things is on the ball enough to take advantage of the opening. The hook here is nothing like the hook at the fair." He gave me one of those professor-to-the-unenlightened-student looks. "The place where you stumbled into the witch's universe."
    I pressed my fingers into my head, attempting to massage away the pain and, truth be told, Tytan and this whole absurd situation. "How am I supposed to kill it?"
    "You don't have to."
    I frowned at him. "Oh. Okay. Bring him in?"
    He shook his head, a slight smile playing on his lips. "I want Neutria to do it."
    The spider inside me shivered in excitement. "Um, hello. She's not around. And I was told she wouldn't be cracking me open like she did that guy."
    "She's not inside you, no. She is you. And you are her."
    I shook my head. "Uh huh. No, sir. I am not a spider and she's not me. She might be able to talk to me but she's not me." It sounded crazy and I was grateful I didn't have to try to explain any of this to a regular person. At least Tytan knew this was real. Even if it seemed so unreal.
    "Werewolves."
    I stared at him. "Oh no. No way."
    "You can change your form to hers. Give her rein. Let her take care of her business and then change back. Simple. Beautiful. There are ways to detect Archaeon, even when wearing a human victim. But you are not a skin." He sat back, looking as pleased as if he'd been the one to invent me. 
    "I can't. I'm human. Flesh and blood. There are no such things as werewolves and I'm not turning into a spider." Even as I said the words, I didn't believe them. If there could be creepy things like fleshcrawlers and demons and assassin spiders hiding in human skins, then there could be werewolves.
    And there was always the possibility—within the context of this bizarre world—I could shift into a spider.
    "I can't deal with this," I said, covering my face with my hands.
    "You would have to go into the muck and drag the fleshcrawler out. Stake him to dry ground and let him bake in the sun. You'd have to stay and watch, keeping his kin from freeing him. Do you want to do that on your own? I thought you wanted to return alive to your children." He leaned in—I heard him move—and I reluctantly opened my eyes to see his boring into mine. "Or would you rather let Neutria do the work? She knows the swamp, was born there herself. Her venom could paralyze the fleshcrawler to keep him from biting. And trust me; you do not want to get bitten."
    "Why not?"
    "Excuse me?" He looked surprised.
    I was surprised myself, but hell, if he wanted to tell me the gory details, then he'd better tell me the gory details. "Why wouldn't I want to get bitten? Maybe being a vampire would be fun." I tried not to think about the monster in the muck and concentrated on the vampires in modern fiction. Good looking, tormented, and eager to settle down with regular people like me.
    He leaned back against the seat, his face relaxing into a smile that wasn't friendly. It looked like the smile on a maniac's face as he dismembered you while you screamed. "It would drive you mad. Turn you into a monster. A flesh-ravening beast. You would transform into one of them if you stayed. If you found your way over to Earth, the magic would bleed away and you would succumb less and