The day starts fine, with no mention of yesterday, carefully not mentioning it. It's like tiptoeing around an unopened box, and for a little while it became easier to pretend the box just wasn't there. For a little while they manage to convince themselves that, at least for the moment, at least for now, everything was okay between them.

It's okay. It's not great, but it's okay.

They take care of the Hostel's chores. One of these chores is keeping up with the residents, checking on them, or checking them in.

Whoever checks the guest in usually depends on the type of guest they're receiving.

Today, for example:

"Um, Mavis?"

Mavis looks up, looking over to where she heard Johnny calling, a wobbly galaxy of magicked tennis balls spinning around her. His voice sounded strained, subtly wavering between a calm question and a call for help. "Mavis?" he repeated, a little higher, his discomfort even more apparent. It was like you could hear 'help me' in subtitles.

"Yeah?" she called back as she gently let the tennis balls bounce to the ground from where they'd been hovering, rubbing some feeling back into her hands. Using more magic than usual like she has been was making her hands itch, it felt like phantom pins and needles under her palms. Mavis stretched her legs, hurriedly shaking the kinks out of them as she went to find him. "Johnny? You okay?"

"There's this, uh, this guy here," Jonathan continued to call.

"Or-or at least I think he's a guy, and I think either he's asking me where he can find a CD store, or he's saying he wants to eat my spleen, I can't tell."

"Coming!"

It turns out that this new guest had been one of the smaller variants of sasquatch, a 'smallness' which still put her - Johnny had apologized - at eight feet. She didn't quite have the hang of human speech, but fortunately Mavis understood the basics of Quatchian. The friendly monster was a practicing vegetarian, and would be one of the new cooks. She was the kind of cook who could make the worst things taste good, with the right seasonings. It would work out, as long as you didn't look too closely at what you were eating. She actually got Johnny to look forward to having beans that came out of a can.

She was a relief for them.

More of their guests had been leaving lately, but some, like this one, still come in because this place is quiet, on the down-low: no soldiers, no questions, no problems.

Anyway, the rest of the chores are simple, typical upkeep stuff, with everyone pitching in; there's cleaning, systems maintenance, supply or 'shopping' runs, always taking stock of food and med kits and things. But the food's been getting a little low lately, more food is being eaten than it's been coming in. Most of the monster guests have been fine for the most part, no shortage of rats or small, edible things, possibly even trash - sometimes Johnny did not want to know what those guys were eating - but as far as food for the human guests goes? They might have to extend their 'shopping' run further out soon, and see if any of their neighbors were up for bartering.

But in the meantime, Johnny wanted to go for something more fun than chores.

When he found Mavis, she was doing the same thing she had been doing all day: magic. Sometimes she'd try lifting multiple random little things, like soap or dishes when she was cleaning, or sometimes bigger stuff, like Johnny's backpack, or that one time where she'd even tried lifting their mattress - when they were still on it. That had been both hilarious and awkward. Right now it looked like she was trying to move the mattress again, she was making it orbit around her in a slow circle at eye level, walking carefully around the room with it.

Now, normally Johnny wouldn't have minded what she's been doing. Normally he would actually find the whole magic thing pretty sweet, it was fun to watch - who was he kidding, magic was awesome, it kept giving him Star Wars moments - and if it was something she liked doing, cool, all the better.

But he didn't like how she was doing it right now. Despite using it a little, he didn't really know how magic actually worked. Or to be more specific, how her magic worked, if you flexed some weird magic muscle or held your mouth right or used the Force or whatever. Dracula had made it seem like no big deal, but whatever Mavis was doing to do magic, it was seriously wearing her out, even Johnny could see that.

Her body was held stiffly with tension, sharp-shouldered-and-spined, and even from here he could see the way her hands were shaking a little, she is lined with little ripples and edges of stress and fatigue. Mavis was literally forcing herself, pushing herself, and she'd started doing this right after all that went down yesterday. She still hasn't told him what happened back there, and so that plus whatever this was, well, it obviously made Johnny uneasy.

He saw the expression on her face, that one she had when she thought he wouldn't be there to see it. He really didn't like that expression.

She hasn't eaten anything.

He didn't know what to do.

Don't get him wrong, Jonathan really did want to just flat out ask her what was going on, to see what was bothering her and how he could help, if he even could help. But he didn't want to break this 'chilling out' streak they had just yet, and he got the feeling that if he tried to find out what was going on with her, then that would probably lead to more arguing, and she'd just go on the sneaky vampire defense again, which wasn't a party for poor human Johnny. Case in point: a ragged, still stinging hole in the edge of his ear that he could wedge a dime into. Not that he's actually done that. Well, yet.

Anyway, yeah, he wanted to talk about stuff, but he didn't really want to start talking about stuff. He honestly didn't want to go through anything like last night again too soon if he could help it. Avoiding the subject was probably a pretty chicken move, yeah, but he felt like this was the time for playing things carefully. So he wasn't going to ask her about stuff, not now, not yet, not until later.

He was perfectly ready to talk about different stuff right now.

"Hey, Mavis!" he called out, startling her from her concentration. The mattress stuttered to a halt in its orbit, violently twisting in on itself before springing back into shape and bouncing back down onto the floor with a solid FHWUMP! that made Johnny jump.

"What?!" she demanded, whirling around to glare at him, making him take a step back. She blinked and shook her head, already regretting her outburst. "Sorry, that was - sorry, um..." She scrubbed at her face, and then at her cheek. "Sorry."

She put on an apologetic smile, clearly tense. "What is it?" She looked at him more closely, looking for anything that might be off, hoping it was something she could fix so as to cover up her mistaken snap. "A-are you okay? Is it another guest?"

"No, nah, no," Johnny's quick to reassure her. They both look down at the mattress. Mavis's hand glows with a suggestion of magic, before Johnny cuts her off, bodily taking an end himself and beginning to drag it back into place. She frowns at him, but gives in to helping him do it the normal way.

Johnny continued speaking as they worked. "I just thought, well, oh man, let me tell you - me and some of the guys? We found these instruments from this old music room. Working instruments! Just needed a little dusting off, sure, but we're really getting a Hostel Transylvania jam going," he told her. His eyes were wide and bright with the excitement that was making him bounce in place, his whole presence was radiating bounciness, jostling the mattress between them. "Wanna be the singer? I want you to be the singer, no, I really want you to be the singer. It'll just make this if you were the singer."

Mavis laughed as they set the makeshift bed down. "Oh, that sounds cool. I'd—" She stops. She really does want to.

"Um, not now. Maybe later, okay?"

She feels bad when he visibly slumps. The bounce drained out, burst by the letdown.

"Aw. Why later?"

"I'm busy." she protested, making a show of gathering some blankets to make up the bed. She doesn't like disappointing him, but this was important.

"Psh!" He's heard that before, enough that he didn't want to take it too seriously now. "What's there to be busy for? C'mon, c'mon," he went around her, taking her up gently by the shoulders and ushering her out of the room, armful of blankets and all. "Take a little break from 'busy', Mavey, this'll be fun, you'll see. The 'busy' will be there when you're ready for—"

A movement of mist and she was out of his reach, crossing her arms, and he's left standing in a pile of discarded bedcovers.

"You don't have to be so pushy."

He had the decency to look sheepish.

"Sorry. But please?"

"I said not now."

"Pleeease? Look, I'm on my knees, here, look -" Thud! "- literally on my knees now. Right here. On my knees. Totally can't get much more begging than this."

Mavis had to hide a laugh. He really was on his knees, kneeling in the blanket pile with clasped hands, pouty bat face and everything.

"Johnny, I can't sing." she reminded him gently. "Not anymore. Not like before."

She watches him frown, sees his confusion. Confusion, then realization and now he's remembering, and she feels bad for reminding him.

"M'sorry." Jonathan mumbled, still on his knees.

Her mouth quirked, a forgiving if regretful expression. "It's okay. But really, I - I can't, so—"

"You don't have to!" Johnny's quick to rebound, popping up to stand, doing a little hop dance to disentangle his feet, nearly tripping to free himself. He gently grabbed her hands, simultaneously stopping her from scratching at her palms, an action that she had been unaware of doing. "You don't," he continues, smiling in a pleading way, tugging at her hands a little more politely this time. He just wanted to take her away from 'busy' and whatever other thoughts were bothering her, and mentioning the voice thing felt stupid, stupid, but still, he leads her another step, and she's letting him. "That was my bad, but I-I just want you to see. See what I did. Have a little fun. Please?"

Mavis opened her mouth to say 'no' again - and stopped. She looked behind her, at the abandoned, somewhat crumpled mattress. She then huffed, managing a warmer show of teeth in a smile like a friendly white flag. Fun. Alright, fun was good. Johnny was right, she could do with some, and she was having a hard time saying 'no' to him anyway, after what she's put him through. Just for a little while, then.

"Alright. But only a little fun."

"YES!" He punched the air.

"You know, like, just a small break."

"Oh, yeah, sure!" Johnny agreed, his cheer revived as he escorted her from the room.

Her smile quirked. "I mean it, only a little."

"Yup, I hear ya."

"But I know you're not really listening." she teased.

That goofy smile was back on his face as he easily returned, "And I know you don't really mean it."

That got her to roll her eyes, but the smile stayed.

. . .

The whole thing had a garage band feel to it. It was taking place in what had been the old music room. Seriously, what kind of building had this once been? Overall the was the smell of must, like the dead air of abandonment combined with the new dust being thrown up by the enthusiasm of discovery. If this place had been quiet before, it certainly wasn't now.

After the general, chaotic noises of testing instruments and practicing tunes died down, they were ready to play. Johnny on guitar, another human girl playing drums - she was clearly into punk rock - their ghoul janitor, who they learned was named Ned, trying a worn-out grand piano, and a short skeleton who had managed to find a trombone that didn't sound too bad. How the monster managed to play that thing without lips or lungs was something Johnny didn't want to bother thinking about. Mavis and a few other residents sat in various scavenged chairs as their audience. Their new cook had even brought some monster-and-human-friendly snacks around to feed everybody, making this feel even more like an actual party.

"Alright, Hostel Transylvania! You ready to rock?!"

Johnny didn't even need to ask.

He grinned when the cheering and clapping died down, mostly looking at Mavis.

"Thought you were! Y'all are awesome. Alright, welcome to the show, we're known as the, um, the . . . huh." He turned around to look at his band.

"Guys, what were we again?"

"The Deadbeats?" the trombonist suggested.

"The Hostel's Hostiles!" the drummer protested, "Well, either that or the Trebellion."

"Isn't there something already named that?"

"I dunno. Heck, I wouldn't care anyway. We're in the apocalypse, man, who's gonna even be alive to bother with copyrights?"

"What, um, what about DiscorDance?"

A pause.

Everyone looks at the pianist.

The ghoul fidgets, needle teeth bared in uncertain nervousness, continuing in his small, reedy voice.

"You know, um, like discordance? But as a pun."

"Dude, you know what that word means, right?"

"I - I thought it'd be clever, you know, with 'chord' and 'dance'. Sort of musical? But more - word, what's the word - edgy? . . . No?"

"Um."

The ghoul slumped, looking yearningly at the piano before him as if he hoped to crawl inside it and shut the lid.

"N-never mind, it was, uh, a joke, yes, ha ha, a joke. Ha ha?"

Another pause.

". . . Oh, let's just get this over with." was the grumble. The ghoul's many-jointed fingers flexed and popped, before a chord was slammed out in a slide down the keyboard, and that triggered the rest of the band to finally start playing, the awesomeness drowning out the previous awkwardness in a sound wave.

The crowd went wild.

They tried all the songs they all knew, silly, playful ones, ones to make one laugh, before going for requests. Some were funny, some were sad, some were crude, some just got the blood pumping, and they danced.

After a time, there began to form an exchange of different music between monsters and humans, some having different versions of the same song that got everyone laughing or marveling, and some styles were even combined into the best or the silliest possible version of all.

Things eventually became even more informal, and the instruments were soon passed around for others to try their hand in playing.

Even the shadows bickered for a chance, circling in frantic clinging twists around Johnny.

'I want a turn!'

'Give me a turn!'

'I never get a turn!'

"Dudes, relax, you'll all get a turn! . . . Mavis, make 'em give it back, it's still my turn!"

She only laughed, watching him flail in the air by his own shadow, struggling to keep the guitar out of their grabby little shadowy hands.

She loves it.

The ongoing beat is a catchy, changing, addictive thing, the type that makes the feet tap and the hands clap, the body sway and the head nod in time without any direct consultation to the brain - the rhythm appealing to the most basic sense of enjoying life. She's dancing, and Johnny's watching, keeping this fantastic music going for her, and she loves it.

But just dancing doesn't feel like it's enough.

The shadow boys finally take a break from tormenting Johnny to dance with her a little, tugging at her hands and her jacket and playfully mussing up her hair, making her laugh until she sends them back into the crowd to play. She watches them go, still thinking even as she still moved to the beat.

Dancing was fun, but it wasn't enough.

It didn't feel . . . big enough, like knowing you could move, but feeling that you could do even more.

She wanted to do more.

She starts small, she starts sneaky, trying to go for complexity rather than mass, putting out the same amount of effort she had before, but dispersing her magic across various points instead of trying to focus it into one thing - like she had done with the tennis balls, that seemed to have worked better. Here, discarded cans at people's feet and light, empty chairs scrape gently across the floor. No one notices yet. It's not too hard. Still dancing, she moves her hands to the rhythm, and the objects start to shift in time. Before, she'd strained, pushed against some barrier. Now, the movement felt a little easier, almost natural. She turned, twisted into another move, and her magic moved with her, dragging from her fingers like a wake of thick water.

The barrier was still there, but if she had to describe it now, it was like sliding her palms over it instead of pushing against it, feeling for the weak points, gently prying those weak points open when she finds them. It's slow, frustrating, but it is progress.

She pushes herself a little harder, and finds a rhythm in her magic to match the music pulsing through her body, the beats make gaps in the barrier, the gaps make momentary footholds that she can use to gain those precious bits of control.

She hesitantly brings it up a notch.

. . .

Johnny managed to wrest himself free from the shadows' snatching clutches, playing with an eye on the crowd, looking for her.

He finds her, dancing from person to person, and the sight of her smile brings a similar one to his face.

Until he notices something that makes his smile freeze and fall away, while hers only grows.

. . .

It's a slow, ponderous whirlpool of living bodies that she raises up, and it really felt as if she were moving the planets themselves.

But using the magic is getting easier.

One by one the people rise, those willing to play along with her request, laughing at the novelty of her magic, dancing together as if in anti-gravity, eating snacks right out of the air, thinking it's something as silly as a party trick when it is so much more - but she doesn't mind that they don't really get it, she doesn't care, she's doing it.

It's difficult, she still feels the strain of her exertion.

More want to join in and she snags them at the fringes of her range, bringing them into her gathering net of magic, straining to pull them in and up into a spinning web of a dance floor, accompanied by the frenzying rock music that drives her, guides her, steadies her.

It's difficult, it's so difficult, she's already fighting to keep from scratching the skin off her palms, it had gone from pins and needles to the little legs of bugs scuttling under her skin, from her fingers to her palms to her wrists, her hands shake and sweat dampens her hair and her breath is thin and weakening in her lungs as she takes on more, come on, you can push it a little more.

She almost has it, she feels it, the barrier feels so close to breaking, she almost has it!

. . .

The room is barely controlled chaos, furniture and people circling through the air, moving faster as the beat goes on, almost dangerously fast. Johnny feels himself being taken up into it. "Whoa, hey, Mav, wait!" His own band is becoming another swirling solar system, more fuel for the fire as they are circling the edge of this vortex. He barely sees her at the epicenter when he can squint through the swirling mass of moving bodies, twisting in midair to try and keep her in sight.

"Mavis, wait - guys, stop encouraging her!" he tried to shout to the band, but they keep on playing, caught up in the riot, clearly having a blast. They don't hear him, the music is too loud, everyone is too freaking loud, nobody is seeing what's wrong here. His hands can't seem to stop playing, his own fingers are out of his control, seized by a mix of magic and music. Purplish sparks snap between his fingers and the strings like electricity, pumping through his veins and chest, stronger than adrenalin, and it's not fun anymore.

He tries to catch her eye, playing on helplessly. Doesn't she see him out here? Why won't she look at him?

"Mavis!" he calls to her, not liking what expression he could see on her face. "Mavis, that's enough!"

But she can't hear him, she probably can't see him, the whole crowd is between them, the crowd is in his way, and it reminds him of a nightmare.

However loud he tries to yell her name, his voice is drowned out in the cacophony she created, he may as well be shouting in a storm.

"Mavis?!"

Her magic is purplish-blue, leaching into the air like living smoke, wafting from her fingers in throbs, pulsating like a heartbeat. The room is practically saturated with the color. She's going paler than normal, it's almost like she's buckling under the strain of keeping this stuff up - if that magic is her heartbeat, she must be freaking bleeding out.

"Please?!"

He grits his teeth. She's freaking smiling when he's seeing nothing to freaking smile about.

This is out of his control, and he's not entirely sure it's in hers, either.

That thought is scaring him.

Forcing his hands, feeling like they were magnetized to the instrument, he hoists the guitar over his head, holding it by the neck like a battleaxe.

"Will you just—"

He throws it down with a ferocity that would make Jerry Lee Lewis flinch, smashing it against the floor.

"CUT IT OUT?!"

The squeal of the feedback shrieked through the room, louder than anything, bringing everything to a literal screeching halt.

Mavis's face contorted like a snarling cat's, mouth open in a silent holler of pain as she clapped her hands over her ears, same as everyone else was doing. Her magic snapped out like a light, vanishing from the air like a snuffed flame, the beat was gone and her concentration was harshly broken.

The ongoing high-pitched scream and buzz of the abused sound system was accompanied by the thuds and thumps of the crowd falling out of the air, slightly skidding in a direction from the force of momentum, some falling on the others, causing further groans of discomfort.

Jonathan landed on his feet with a muffled thud, picking his way through the disoriented throng to yank the cord, finally cutting off the hated noise.

When he turned back to face the room she was right in his face, her teeth slightly bared at him in frustration, her eyes wide in disbelief.

"What are you doing?"

"Me?" He scoffed, looking her over. She was still way paler than he thought she should be. She was still shaking. He glared right back at her. "What about you?"

"What about me?" she snapped, but now she looked uncomfortable, as the crowd were gingerly getting to their feet, their quiet mutters becoming more apparent, and she felt exposed. She hissed under her breath at him, "Why the heck did you do that, Johnny?"

He folded his arms. "I thought we said you'd stop."

"It was just some practice." She stared at him, pointedly looking around them in a way that asked him if they really should be discussing this right now.

He couldn't care less about the crowd right now. She sure hadn't.

"That looked a lot more intense than practice." He spoke quietly, quiet in the way that was warning he soon wouldn't be, "We said you'd take a break."

"A small break." she decided to point out, "I took a small break, like I said."

A muscle ticked in his jaw. "I think I must've blinked or something, because I sure missed it."

"But - but I almost had—"

"I don't care!" he shouted at her, making her flinch back.

"We said you'd take a freaking break!"

The room by this time had become very quiet, so that his shout was carrying and quickly absorbed by the walls, as jarring and sharp as a dog's bark.

Mavis's mouth worked silently for a moment, literally speechless, and Johnny felt regret like a slap in the face when she simply turned and ran out the door.

Johnny stood there, before he looked around at the stilled crowd, at his silenced band. The piano lid was just shutting after Ned with a jangle of off-key chords.

". . . Aw, crap." he muttered to himself. "Urgh, sorry about that everybody, just - just have some snacks, and, and yeah, sorry - Mavis!"

He ran out after her.

"Mavis?!"

He didn't have to go to far, finding her just a few halls over, her back to him. He slowed down a little when he saw the way her shoulders were shaking. He approached a bit more cautiously, a hand moving to comfort, "M-Mavis, I'm sorry, I—"

She shook her head quickly, still not looking at him, and he backed off a bit.

"I'm sorry," he heard her say, "I'm sorry, I just had to go ruin it, and—" she sniffed wetly, grimacing at the sound of it, "Dangit, I hate crying, such a baby."

"No, you're not." he told her, and waited until she felt ready to turn to face him, her eyes only a little red.

He hugged her, and she let him.

For a while they just stayed like that.

When he finally spoke, it was truly quiet.

"Mavis, is this normal?" he carefully asked, holding her at arms' length to look her in the face.

"No. It's not. It's not - it's not and it should be, it should be easier than this and—" She cuts herself off, wiping furiously at her eyes.

Instead of continuing, she hugs him again

She doesn't want to think about it, much less voice it aloud.

This strain - she'd never seriously tried her magic at this level of strength or complexity, and it had gotten her to thinking. She was starting to wonder how much of her dad's own magical talent was due to his inherent power, or if it was a matter of his age, his experience. Was it realistic to compare herself to him? Was this struggle something she'd have to deal with normally, a part of growing up, something she could overcome with time and practice? Was this just some natural stumbling block that she could eventually work herself through?

Or was there - she forced back a grimace at the thought - was there something actually wrong with her? Was there something inside her that had been broken, from that time when the bombs dropped? She didn't know, and she didn't want to think of either possibility. She kept having this - this sort of anxiety, that they were on some kind of time limit. Whether it was from Old Lady or from Marcus or something else, she wasn't sure.

But they were running out of time towards something, and when that something came, she did not want to be weak, or deficient. Damaged.

She did not want to talk about it, at least not yet.

That wasn't fair to him, she knew that. That wasn't fair and that probably wasn't rational.

But he was already doing so much, she didn't want to put any more on him until she could tell him that she could do something, too, that she could take care of herself. That she, too, could do something to take care of the both of them. That she could get them out of here.

And until she could bring him proof of that, he would just have to understand that he didn't have to bear all the burdens.

"I'm gonna go out again later." she tells him, muffled by his shoulder.

She feels him stiffen up a little, but he only said, "This's, um, kind of been a big day, Mavey, and even you can't tell me you're not worn out."

"I'll take a nap before I go," she decides, if only to make him feel better, "But I'm okay, really."

His arms tighten slightly around her, and his breath is half a laugh, half a groan. "Oh, man. Mavis, I love you when I say this, but you haven't given me a lot of reasons to think everything's A-OK with you. Can't you take a breather? You know, a not so small break?"

"I," she bit her lip, "I made a promise to someone." Before he could respond to that she quickly explained, "Old Lady, I made a promise to see Old Lady."

He backed off from the hug to look at her, clearly confused.

"An old lady?"

"No, no, her name is literally Old Lady."

That didn't help his confusion much. "Uh-huh?"

"She's a monster, but she prefers to be called an arachnid."

"Oh. A what now?"

"She's a spider." she explained patiently.

"Ohh, okay."

"A big spider."

"Oh. Okay. Um, how big we talking, like, tarantula big?"

"Like minivan big."

"Oh." She could see him pale a little. He nodded as if this made perfect sense, "So you're gonna go visit a humongous talking Old Lady spider."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"She's lonely, and," she fidgeted nervously, "And I think she can help us get out."

"Oh." He brightened up at that. "That's - that's cool, that's awesome - how?"

The vampire winced, "I, um, didn't think that far ahead yet. But she's really good at these huge webs, so we're gonna talk. Just talk for now."

"So, she's nice?"

"She's got . . . good intentions?"

Even Johnny could detect the uncertainty, and it concerned him.

"Mavis, do you have to go so soon?"

"Yes." In this at least, Mavis was determined. "We gotta get this done fast."

He seemed exasperated, "Why the rush?"

Because if she doesn't rush, hundreds of spider babies will hatch and devour the city, or at least whatever Old Lady or Marcus hadn't eaten by then.

"It's . . . it's important to me." she told him, "It's why I've been all intense, and I'm sorry about that, Johnny, this has just been - real important."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Johnny wondered, obviously hurt.

"I didn't want to worry you." she explained lamely, painfully aware of how ironic that sounded, and painfully aware of what she couldn't tell him.

He snorted at that, almost laughing.

"And you don't like big-big spiders." she added.

He nodded, but then shrugged, "It's cool. If she's gonna help us, then I can deal."

"Heh. We'll see."

"Yep. So we'll be meeting up with her later then."

Mavis paused briefly, then laughed a little, but this laugh was a little more forced, "Uh, yeah, I will."

"Are there any, like, special spider manners I need to know about before we go?" he asked, and she knows he can't be that obtuse.

She looked at him straight on, "I'm going by myself."

He openly scowled at that.

"Johnny, don't."

"Why can't I come along?"

"Humans . . . make her nervous," she explained carefully, "I want to wait a little bit before I introduce you two."

"At least let me come with you and I'll - I'll wait outside the door or whatever. If webs have doors or wherever this place is."

With all the traps the great spider laid, even that didn't make Mavis feel comfortable enough to bring him.

She didn't want there to be any chance of him seeing things he shouldn't.

"It's fine, Johnny, she won't hurt me."

"It's not her I'm worried about," he argued, his face growing dark. "Mavis, it's not safe out there."

"I made it through fine last time."

"Yeah, by sneaking out." he snapped, and winced when that clearly stung her, but he wasn't gonna say he was sorry.

"It's not safe." he repeated, stressing those words to her.

"You think I don't know that?" she retorted, "But I can handle it, Johnny. I have."

"Guess what, I can, too," he insisted, "And I have."

"By having your ear almost shot off?"

"That's my point, glad it was me and not you. But it could've been you, and you can't handle everything - that's what you need me for."

"B-but that's - I'm - why can't you trust me?"

"Do I need to repeat the 'sneaking out' thing? I think I'm being perfectly reasonable here. Mavis," he had her look at him, "Mavis, aside from Marcus, there are people who don't like monsters."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"No, really, I mean people who don't like monsters as in 'shoot them on sight' don't like them."

"You're one to talk." she glanced pointedly at his ragged ear, before rolling her eyes, "Fine. Then I'll hide my fangs and stick to walking on the ground."

"Shockingly, that doesn't make me feel better."

"Well it goes both ways, too, Johnny, there're people who don't like humans," she snapped, "People who don't like humans as in 'eat them on sight' don't like them."

She immediately knew she said the wrong thing. Her mouth snapped shut as his eyes went wide.

"'Eat'?" he repeated quietly.

"Y-you know what I mean," she smoothed over hastily, "Just, please, I know it's hard, but trust that I can do this. It'll all be okay. Okay? Please?"

Johnny looked at her and sighed, backing off, rubbing a hand over his tired face, appearing to think.

". . . Fine." he muttered.

She blinked.

"R-really?"

"Yeah."

"I - th-thank you. I'm . . . I am sorry," she added, "About the party, and-and everything. I'm sorry."

"I know." Somehow he managed to smile, "It's okay."

Mavis wants to feel relieved, but instead she still feels a little sick in her stomach. It didn't feel fine.

They find their guests and make their apologies, but it was clear that nobody was in the mood to party anymore.

When Mavis makes to leave later, she tries to find Johnny to say a proper 'goodbye', only to find him waiting at the top of the foyer stairs with his backpack.

"What're you doing?" she asked quietly.

He looked up at her as if surprised, "I got stuff to do out there, too, you know."

Her teeth gritted, "I thought you said it was fine for me to go."

"And it is. I'm totally cool with it. You say it'll be okay? Okay, it'll be okay." He got up from his lean against the wall, stretching, "But I think it's only fair that you gotta trust me, too. Can't I take a walk with my wife?"

Her teeth gritted, "Look, I'm sorry about sneaking out, okay? I'm not trying to sneak out now, I was coming to say goodbye."

"I'm actually totally not worried about that, I know you weren't," He smiled, clasping his hands behind his back, "And how about this - I'm not going with you, we'll just be coincidentally heading in the same direction."

"That's not funny, Johnny." she hissed, "Quit playing around."

He dropped the smile, "Then please quit pushing me away." He was insistent, "Mavis, it'll make me feel so, so, so much better if you'd just - you don't even have to talk about it, I just don't want to be stuck waiting here wondering if you'll really be back or if," his teeth gritted, "If something happens to you, what if I could've been there, you know?" He looked desperate. "Mavis, we've gone everywhere together, like, almost literally to hell and back, what's so different now?"

Me? she thinks, The difference that you're human and I'm not and that humans are food even though they're not but I don't want you to see that or see me like that because I'm not because it was an accident and it was not my fault but it was it was it was and I don't know what to do but I want to go home I want to go home so bad.

"You - you can come with me later after - l-later okay?" she said softly, "Just, please, not now."

"Were you even listening to me? What's different?"

"I-I'll tell you later," she repeats, moving forward, pressing a kiss briefly to his cheek before moving towards the stairs. "I need to go now."

She didn't even make it to the first step before she heard him pick up his backpack.

"Johnny, please."

"You can't keep me here," he stated flatly. "And we both know you won't leave me behind out there."

"Johnny, please, you're making this difficult."

"You're making me make this difficult. If it takes me having to be a jerk to keep you safe, then fine. Either I'm coming with you or we're not going at all."

Her eye is narrowed as she looked at him over her shoulder.

"You can't keep me here, either." she responded idly.

"Wanna bet?"

His tone was casual, but the clear confidence behind it disturbed her. She masked her surprise with a roll of her eyes, making to turn back to the stairs, but in a quick movement he's in front of her.

"Mavis, please." he asked her, everything about him is simple and pleading.

She stared at him, taken aback, before her face sets, and she firmly takes his arm and tries to shove him out of the way.

Johnny shoves her back.

She's startled at first, but she attempts to go around him again, glaring, where he still only has that pleading look that's slightly furrowed with frustration. She moves again with a shoulder forward, tensed, keeping his eyes in a way that dared him.

He shoved at her again, but this time she was ready.

Then she messed up.

She'd only meant to push, a hand flung out just to push him to the side, but tension and whatever else brought a burst of magic from her fingers, and that was enough to make him lose his footing, his surprised eyes widening at hers before he toppled back in a rough series of bangs down the stairs.

She froze.

"Johnny!"

She's next to him now, helping him sit up against the wall, and she's nearly crying.

"Oh, God, I'm sorry, oh, God, oh, oh, God, a-are you okay? No, stupid question, not okay, not okay, I'm so sorry."

He waves a hand at her feebly, holding his head. He'd hurt more than his head but his head hurt the worst. His ears were ringing with the pain of his skull smacking against stairs, and he was sore. There were definitely going to be interesting bruises in interesting places later.

He stated weakly, "Ow."

"I'm so sorry."

"Nnhn."

His backpack had broken most of his fall, which was good. Mostly.

He tries to say something, but can only come up with another "Ow."

For a moment they are silent, carefully testing limbs and checking ribs and it is assumed that he is battered, but nothing is broken.

"Y-you gonna be okay?"

"Yeah. If the spell's feeling cooperative it'll help me out in a bit. Maybe."

"I'm so sorry."

"Sorry enough to take me with you?"

Her lips thin into a dark line and she says nothing.

He sighs, gingerly leaning his head back against the wall.

"This isn't fair."

"No, it's not." she agrees, standing and taking a step away. "But it's . . . it's important."

"Mm."

"J-Johnny, I'm—"

"I know, it's fine, you want to go so just go already, won't you?" he snapped.

It stings, but his eyes are closed so he doesn't see her reaction.

"I'll be back." she insisted quietly. She took another uneasy step towards the door. "I will be back, okay?"

"Yeah."

". . . I love you."

A beat passes before he sighs again, tired and sore, "I love you, too."

She nods in slight relief, ignoring the hurt for now, and she goes out the door, leaving him alone with his battered body and backpack.

Johnny sat there for a while, before slowly standing, feeling like an old man as every bone in his body pulled and popped, rubbing absently against his face.

He looked at the door she'd left through, and then picked up his backpack once more, wincing as he settled it on his back.

He figured it was time to go see a certain doctor.

. . .

'You two shouldn't fight.' the shadow boys tell her as she moves, and she feels more guilt add itself to her already growing load.

'We don't like it when you fight.'

"I'll make it better." she assured them, assured herself.

"I'll fix it - I'll fix everything. Then everything will be okay. You'll see."

Everything will be okay.

"You'll see."

. . .

Old Lady was still busy come nightfall, carefully storing the cocoons higher up and out of the sight. Given the vampire's apparent, uh, fondness for humans - goodness that was still surprising but it explained a lot of things - she didn't want to upset the dear girl again. She decorated the place with soft, downy web curtains here and there to make it look a little more inviting. She checked that her water supply was sufficiently fresh for her coming company. She had also been preparing some smaller cocoons of rats and other tiny creatures, small snacks for the child to enjoy.

And in the back she began preparing a nice big hammock, yes, all the while thinking.

Spin it up, tie it up tight and snug, would they best be hung here?

Thinking, thinking, thinking, yes, she'd been thinking all day, nervous and excited for a guest. A guest, yes, a Dracula, a daughter of a Dracula, but surely not that Dracula, perhaps a relative? . . . No, no, never mind the Dracula, the girl herself was far too young, so young, and so, so sweet and a clever, kind girl, too, yes. The girl's promise of deep, dark forests was such a temptation, yes. For Old Lady, the thought of seeing her little babies learning to spin their little webs in the beautiful branches did tug at her heart. But . . . Old Lady knew such a thing couldn't come to be, oh, no, no, the odds were too great and the risk was too high for such a thing, it was too much, too much to hope for.

More string, more string, more string, weave and pull and weave and pull, anchor here, anchor there...

But the spider didn't want to dash the poor girl's hopes just yet, no, she was touched by the vampire's charming naiveté even as she pitied it. It'd be nice to play along for now, yes, play along, let the girl play with her magic and spend time with her and they could tell each other stories and become friends, yes, yes, and then later the vampire could bring along her sweet human husband and - really, a vampire and a human! The idea was so strange, and yet it sounded so intriguingly romantic, they probably made an adorable couple, and she would look forward to hearing their stories.

Make it as nice and pretty as she...

Vampires could change humans into other vampires couldn't they? Yes, that was how it went for them, right? A strange form of courting, in the event of a shortage of available mates? Oh, this nasty war was hard on everyone, it seemed. Then maybe she could, ah, help along the process, yes, the young were so easily encouraged, and it'd be such a sweet ending for their story. Then she could make them this.

Make it bigger, bigger, big enough for two...

This wonderful place to sleep here for her guests, yes, and let them sleep together, and since they'd both be vampires, that meant she could get to keep them for a long, long time, yes, here in the truly safest place, where they wouldn't have to worry about ever leaving since they'd have each other and oh, she wouldn't eat them no, no, never, she promised, she'd even be right there to take care of them while they slept, she'd make sure to be there for them even after her own children were gone, keep them together here forever, and wouldn't that be so romantic, wouldn't that be so nice...? Vampires preferred sleeping in small, closed spaces anyway, yes, yes, and with each other they'd be so happy, they'd all be so very happy and never lonely again in a happy ending for their story forever, yes. She hummed to herself happily as she made the hammock big enough for two, yes, for two, yes, this would be so very, very nice...

"Hello, Lady."

. . . . ?

She stopped her work, surprised. She'd seen no sign of movement with her many eyes. She quickly turned to look behind her into the empty room beyond the web.

"He- . . . hello?" she answered back hesitantly.

No answer. She carefully, quickly, quietly crawled up to the ceiling to view the room from above, trying to see any intruders, alarmed.

She'd seen no movement, she hadn't felt any tremors among her strings, nothing had touched her warning lines, and that'd be nearly impossible not to do if anything came in here. Perhaps she had just been hearing things? But she didn't want to become someone who just heard things all the time, when someone started hearing things, well, it was really sad. That would be somewhat upsetting, if she was just hearing things.

But now she did see someone standing down there, yes, simply standing in the middle of the floor, facing her web, perhaps they were admiring it - but, oh, it was a relief, to not be just hearing things, no. But whoever this unexpected guest was, well, it looked human enough from here, but quite strangely so, somehow the shape wasn't quite right, there was something about the shape. Still, she'd made a mistake before, with the vampire girl, and this 'guest' had come in here literally unannounced, so she must give the benefit of the doubt to this creature being something other than human. She cleared her throat, or did the spiderly equivalent of the action. She was nervous, yes, but guests were guests, yes, and it would be rude not to greet them.

"Wh-who is that?" she asked the guest, subtly preparing strands of netting web in case she had to catch it. "Who are you?"

It looked up to face her, such strange things this guest wore, dressed like a human soldier.

"Who do I look like?" the guest asked back, raising their face-shield as they did so, speaking in a voice not quite male or female, maybe female?

Quite confused at this point, but even more curious, Old Lady lowered herself down to become level with this guest so as to see it better, and here a strange thing happened. While from a distance it might've had the shape of a human soldier, the closer she got, the more the shape changed. Details seemed to fill themselves in as she neared, like wiping smudges from a mirror for clarity. But these were strange, wrong details, offering corruption rather than clarity, and by the time she'd reached the floor she was trembling, amazed, disturbed by what her many eyes did see. The details had kept changing as she looked, until they seemed to settle on something she could process. This thing now looked bizarrely like something out of one of her mother's less-nice stories...

"Web-Eater...?" she murmured faintly, and then the various strands of thought came together in a horrible, tightening knot of realization, the name of the vampire, and this thing with the wrong kind of shape, the wrong kind of presence, a thing that could be a thousand other things, each more terrible than the last.

"Oh . . . you." she uttered in shock. "It-it was a thread on her, wasn't it, a 'Dracula'? The Dracula, a Dracula...!" Her tone quickly changed, dropped into desperate, frantic, "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry, I didn't know, no - I hadn't hurt a hair on her dear head, I—!"

A whisper of a word, soft and sharp as the warning tautness of a fine, fine garrote.

"Hush."

The spider quickly did so and drew herself in tightly, legs close to her body, trying to be as small as possible for this thing that physically stood smaller than she, yet this thing was so much bigger in Its insides. It gently nodded at her while she trembled.

"Yes, the little Dracula is mine. But for now, I want to be focusing on you." It looked over the spider, appraising her as It began to move, pacing around her. She tried to suppress an instinctive flinch when It leaned in, reaching up to smooth a deceptively gentle hand against her dark carapace. She shivers but doesn't protest. "You're even more beautiful in person." It told her honestly, and looked around her home, taking in the web and the cocoons, "And your work here is just as admirable. I'm a fan."

"My - my 'work'? You - oh, d-do you mean my web?"

"No."

"Oh. Then I'm afraid I don't understand...?"

"That's alright," It soothes her, smiling, "I've just been hearing stories. You like stories, don't you?" It asked. "Ever since you were a little babe yourself."

"Y-yes." she mumbled quietly, reluctantly surprised, and Its smile widened.

"Why don't you tell me a story, then?" It coaxed from her, "Like, oh, what is a 'Web-Eater'? First I've heard of that one."

The Lady was confused, speechless for a moment, but It wasn't ready to be patient, tapping a finger against her in warning.

"Tell me. Please."

She shifted again uneasily before she spoke, searching her memory, the clicks in her voice more pronounced in her nervousness. "A new web is a good web, an old web is a bad one. A new web every day keeps the Web-Eater away. New webs are good ones, but-but sometimes, yes, sometimes you make such a nice web th-that you might not want to replace it. So one day, if that web is left for too long, a small face might start to appear in it, in your lovely but old web."

The spider stuttered quickly, stringing together the vague memories of what her mother had told her when she was just a little baby in her egg.

"It is called a Web-Eater, the not-quite face of a Web-Eater, that if you try to - to fix the web instead of replace it, then the face will come back a little bigger and bigger each time, until that day you look back and your web is the Web-Eater's face. If you're lucky the face will just eat your web and your food, and if you're unlucky it would eat you, too. That's why it is always good to remake your web every day, yes, so that a face wouldn't grow in it."

"Ah, yes. So it's a lesson, a warning against laziness and complacency, or perhaps pride," It noted, sounding amused.

"Because ignorance of any sort gets you eaten, doesn't it?"

She shivered.

"I remember some days with the tiny cousins th-that they'd just disappear sometimes, yes, but I always thought that it was just—"

"Just a story?"

It laughed, stroking her gently with the backs of Its fingers, taking a moment to admire her many eyes. "They're always 'just stories'. But all stories have to come from somewhere, don't they?" It actually liked that story. It might keep it. "So why do you think your Web-Eater looked like me, dear Lady? Or did I look like your Web-Eater? Do I still?"

"I-I don't know," she admitted, her voice quivered, her chittering increased with her unease as she tried to inch away from Its touch, if such a giant spider could be capable of inching. "I-it's just, you, no, your face, it's a - it's a 'not-quite' face, yes, not quite, c-could be anything's face, at first I thought you were a human, a-and then for a moment you somehow looked like a Web-Eater, and now, well, it's not quite e-either one..." she trailed off, not knowing what else to say.

It tilted Its head, Its smile grew a little more.

"Hm, there we go. The vampire's human is a bit like you in that respect, he's almost as perceptive that way. He's a perceptive little idiot, to be sure, but perceptive nonetheless. You know, I like spiders," It confesses, petting her again to her clear discomfort. "You spin such lovely webs and tales alike. So," It looks at her more intently, all of Its attention snapped onto her like a bird spying movement of prey below, and the feeling this attention gave her reminded her terribly of the days when she was very, very small. "Spin me another story, lovely spider. What do you know about the word 'Dracula'?"

"Are you going to eat me?" she asked, afraid for her children, praying that whatever this thing was that It please didn't know about her children, no.

"I won't eat you. But we don't have much time, a story, Old Lady." It tells her in warning, still smiling.

"Two lonely bats, alone in the night," she began, speaking quickly, anxious to appease It so that It would be on Its way, "They were special and strong among their fellow bats, but because of this, they were lonely, and the world was so big that this loneliness hurt. One wanted to be bigger than the world and so be stronger than it, the other wanted to be big enough so as to see it all. Then one night, these two lonely bats ran into each other, crashed together, and they . . . a-and, um..."

She trailed off a little, uneasily noticing how still It had gone, how intently It was listening to her, almost hungrily.

"And they . . . what?" It asked, Its voice was soft and deceptively encouraging, and she dearly wished she could be convinced of her safety.

"And . . . they . . . fell in love, and weren't alone anymore," she went on hopelessly, "And together they found-" She shuddered when she thought she heard It growl.

It was a soft, horrid, dangerous sound.

"O-oh, dear, I - d-do you want me stop?"

"Did I tell you to?"

"N-no, but—"

"Then tell me what happened next, Lady."

"Th-the first bat found that it was as big as the world to the second, and so felt strong enough," she chattered quickly, "And the s-second one found that it could - th-that it could see? Yes, see the world with the first, and so it could see enough, and-and from then on the bats were never lonely again for - for the rest of their lives. They were the world for each other."

"How sweet." It remarked. She didn't get the feeling that It really meant that.

"And what about the end of their lives, hm?" It went on. "And surely these bats had names, didn't they?"

"The first was Dracula," she admitted, "And the second bat, she took the first one's name, yes, and together they were just Dracula, just Dracula, that's all I know."

"Yes, but what did the world do to that Dracula, at the end? How did it end? What was the ending to that story?"

"They weren't lonely." Old Lady persisted faintly, speaking with a voice that sounded small and cornered.

"That's right, because they died together, didn't they? That's how that story ended, isn't it?" It spat in a horrible kind of glee. "Because they became too big together and the world was envious and afraid of what they were together and so the world hunted them down and killed them." It finished Its rant, a harsh, mean, ancient grin now scrawled across Its face under the soldier's helmet. Just as quickly the unnatural smile dropped away while the spider quivered silently, she was trembling. "And so they died together in each other's loving embrace." It went on to mutter, shifting Its weight in contemplation, fingers tapping thoughtfully against her. "And oh do I wish now that that was how it really ended, but that's still the wrong story."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, that's the only one I know, the Dracula, the poor Dracula, the story never mentioned a child, no, I'm sorry."

"Enough." It snapped, but quickly It gentled. "You were just fine." It then told her, patting her again before backing off, suddenly calm, standing 'at ease', the image of It changing to fit more into the soldier's appearance that It wore. She was only relieved that It had finally taken Its hand away. "But to change the topic now, what am I to you, here in this place. How do you know me?" Its head tilted in curiosity. "How did you recognize something like me, that something like me had a relation to 'Dracula'?"

". . . M-my mother told me," she chittered simply, thoroughly shaken. "Of a story outside the stories. A nexus of common threads."

"Hm. Then you know what I am?"

"Ye-well, n-no, but, but from the story outside all the stories, there is a . . . a thing, with a face that is never quite a face, or-or a face for every story? In the story outside of the Dracula story, the Dracula was - was prey? Yes. Was prey to this face, this Web-Eater, in the web It weaved from their story. S-so the Draculas are your prey..."

She did not know what It was. But she knew that It was bad, that It was dangerous, and if It was here, appearing here after her receiving a guest under the name of 'Dracula', the Old Lady assumed she must've somehow imposed on what It considered to be Its prey, and she desperately hoped to convince It of her good intent, of her honest mistake, of her kindness.

She became nervous when It didn't say anything, as It seemed to drink in her words and mull them over. The air about It seemed tinged with a feeling of expectance, as if It were waiting for her to continue, to somehow say something more.

When the spider remained silent, unable to speak, It sighed.

"That's not quite right. I guess you don't know enough stories, but it'll do for your understanding. Enough about me, then, let's get back to you. Right now this is your story, darling." It suddenly took on a new tact, sounding almost approving as It looked her over again. "You are in your prime, my Lady. You are beautiful. A gentle devourer, a kind killer."

She did not like the way It said 'kind'.

"You are the unseen danger to the stray animal, to the stupid wandering human, to the poor lost child. The humans start walking carefully at night, you know. They do notice things." It leaned in closer, whispering to her as if It were sharing a secret. "They notice how most corpses never seem to stick around long enough to stink, or how some certain Old Ladies they encounter in the night might smell like mothballs and rotting meat. They might feel a strand of your web at their feet or sense you moving above them on your merry way and they become afraid. Well they can keep on being afraid. You could live for far longer than this, you know, you can outlast this war. Perhaps one day you could even become quite a nice legend, something to be reckoned with in later years. And yet,"

It looked beyond her to the web, and she froze.

"You've prepared to surrender yourself so soon to your offspring. Now why would you do that?"

Before she could respond or make an excuse, It was already answering, a sort of smug disdain threading through Its tone like a poison on the edge of a blade.

"It's because you are a pitifully lonely thing, aren't you?"

The great spider flinched - the blade had struck home.

"It's why you actually like a story where even if the bats died you were alright with it, right? Because they didn't die alone. Loneliness is your fear."

"N-no, it's—"

Its hand came back, interrupting her, settling lightly near one of her primary eyes, making her look at It as It spoke.

"When you couldn't know your first family, then you had your husband, and when you couldn't keep your husband, then there were your children, and until your children are ready, you, well," It looked up at the cocoons with something like fondness, "You 'adopt' more friends, friends, 'foster children' that you can always love and eat and replace and love again in a continuous cycle, so you wouldn't feel lonely, keeping you company until you die by your own children, and thus you would not die alone. All the while, you are satisfying your loneliness and hunger under the pretense of what you call mercy."

That. That, no, that - what? That wasn't right, no, that, that wasn't right at all.

It was wrong.

It was . . . wrong.

Yes, It was wrong, that was it, It lied, lying, lying terrible lies, she knew It was wrong, yes.

She loved them, she loved all of them, dearly, kindly, how - how could It say those horrible things about her when she loved them all so much?

This was such a terrible, terrible guest.

"Yet, as sad as it is, I admire that devotion to your own fear, I truly do." It went on, ignoring the way the spider had begun to tense under Its touch, her fangs spreading in a silent hiss, beginning to drip with her venom as if she were preparing to pounce. "I personally think you could've waited a little longer before becoming a mother, but that was your choice, and I'll admit that motherhood . . . suits you. I would've been interested to see how this played out. Still, all stories have to come to an end sooner or later - and I'm afraid that, with all that's happened, your ending has to be premature..."

This gave the great spider pause, drawing her down from her fury. She backed away, and It let her.

"Ending?"

She was distressed and didn't understand, until one of the lines in her web twanged in warning, sudden and jarring, and with a quick, acid shock to her heart she understood, yes, as it continued, as another and then others of her many warning lines began to jump and dance, all in time, making the cocoons above them start to sway.

The message was simple. She has been found. Her nest was discovered, her home was in danger.

No.

"No." she mumbled faintly, turning. Where was it coming from? Which lines? Which lines?

All of them.

No.

"No, no, no, nononono, this - this isn't...!"

Now she keened in horrible realization, rounding and rushing upon It only to crouch before It, her dark eyes level with where Its own would have been, so desperately she is supplicating. "Please. Please. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I - y-you like us, don't you?" she insisted in her panic, as the lines around them danced. It was the rhythm of human soldiers marching in. "You like my stories - our stories? Think of all the stories and webs my children could make - they need me, I - I-I could tell them a story about you, yes, a story that you want, and-a-and—!"

"You tangle my web. You even dared to ask her about her mother," It reminded her, "And I really wish you hadn't done that, the poor girl doesn't need that."

"B-but I didn't mean - I didn't know—!"

"I know, I know, you didn't know any better. You? You meant well. You just wanted to make a new friend that you could actually keep." It almost seemed sympathetic, before telling her, "You simply picked poorly. Very poorly. I can't afford to let the Dracula stay here in your care. You'd give her any sort of false hope for escape, and then your blind 'kindness' would just coddle her, trap her, literally waste her, after I've put in so much work..."

It shook Its head, stepping back a little, before admitting gently to the trembling creature, as if hoping to soothe.

"If it helps, if things had been different I would've tried to keep you around. I might have even invested in you. You just could've been so much more than this, you lovely monster. But you were too kind, and there is no time now for such weakness." It shrugged. "I'm sorry. You might have been better off just trying to eat her."

Tremors ripple through the web, the whole web is trembling, and Old Lady turns around in quiet, horrified shock.

A face. Her web is now turned into an enormous face, Its face, decorated with cocoons, looming and stretched between the warehouse walls, and the silky strands she'd made with so much care, they twist and warp to smile down at her as the rhythm of the warning lines begin to match the sounds outside, from all around comes the sound of marching, marching, marching...

"I-I didn't..." she mumbled to the vision, distraught, "I-I wasn't a - I was kind. I was kind, I was kind, I was kind, I was kind..."

From behind her she hears It.

"You've let your web go for too long. Your story is ending soon now, Lady."

The humans are coming to kill the monster.

Do you hear them?

She does. Yes. She turns slowly, her voice now soft, shaking. Spiders weren't capable of tears.

There was one last hope for her.

"My children. You will spare my children...?"

To that It only gave her a small, pitying smile. With that, It finally disappeared as the first harsh beatings at the doors began to echo crashingly into the chamber, leaving her to the soldiers It had summoned, leaving her alone. Alone.

Old Lady shook, her many legs spread readily in the face of the shuddering, rattling doors, all the doors, turning to take them in, alone. Alone. Alone. She was alone. A monster, lonely, yes, but a monster? No, not a monster, never, she was kind, she was - no, no, this couldn't be, they'd wake the children, not her children, please, not her children, please, please - and she was still getting things ready, sh-she was still expecting a guest...!

The guest, the girl, ooh, the poor girl, the - the Dracula...

. . .

The Dracula...

A harsh hiss clicked sad and bitter from between her mandibles as she heard them finally break the latches, and the first door began to buckle in and come down.

"Y-you horrible . . . horrible girl . . ."

. . .

"So now she's going out to meet this giant spider lady and doesn't think, 'ooh, maybe there are soldiers or freaky psychopaths I should watch out for, or maybe I should be concerned about my poor husband Johnny's feelings, but oh, no, he is such a fragile, innocent human' and - geez!"

"Mmhm. This skin anomaly seems to progress unsteadily, if I'm reading these dates right." Jekyll mused, thumbing through the pictures of Mavis's back on Johnny's phone, while the young man lay on an uncomfortable couch in the waiting room. "Can you think of any activity that might accelerate the changes?"

"Magic use, maybe," was the mumbled reply, "Stress, or maybe sneaky secret-keeping does it."

"Trouble in paradise aside, I want you to keep a closer eye on these things," the ghost chided after jotting notes, "I can't diagnose on inconsistent and rather amateur photos alone."

"It doesn't seem to hurt her, anyway," Johnny admitted, then scowled, "Unless she's lying about that, too. But I just, about her," he grimaced, "I want to help in any way I can, even if it's just getting her to sleep a little more, you know?"

"No, I don't." Jekyll tossed the phone back to Johnny, before continuing in a blithe manner, "You're asking me to intentionally compromise my professional integrity for the supposed sake of the young lady's sleep?"

"J-just something to calm her down," Johnny elaborated, nervous, "To keep her . . . safe. And you wanna talk about professional integrity? Really?"

"Touché."

The doctor almost smiled.

"You do realize how much of a tab you're running with me, don't you?"

"I have some idea," Johnny muttered, "Do you think I can add to it?"

"That's not up to me," Jekyll responded airily, before producing a vial of clear liquid and an eye dropper, drawing Johnny's attention to it.

"You expected this?" the human wondered, somewhat nervously.

"Expect nothing, anticipate anything." He held up the vial. "It's taken me a few tries to perfect the recipe, but I believe this is the best to be had thus far. Odorless and tasteless, it should dissolve almost instantly into most liquids. Note that I say most. Use it sparingly, as it is potent. Perhaps only a few drops mixed thoroughly into her, ah, beverage. Don't consume with alcohol. Have her take it before she sleeps, and it should help her to sleep quite deeply."

"Thanks." Johnny muttered, getting up to leave, taking the vial and dropper. Fortunately the vial was a tough plastic, good for travel.

"Oh, I wouldn't thank me," Jekyll assured him, grinning when that gave the human pause. "I doubt she'll be thanking you."

Johnny's hand clenched a little, before he swallowed.

"I know."

. . .

With shaky knees and sweaty palms, eyes stinging under the assault of a filmy haze of smoke that makes her cough, Mavis takes in the burning silhouette of the warehouse, and for a while she can't think anything through the blinding crush of disbelief, except for some tiny part inside her still saying that this can't be happening.

This can't be happening -

even if the smoke is hitting like dry hot chalk powder in her lungs

- this can't be happening -

making her shut her stinging, watering eyes

- this can't be happening -

making her hack

- this can't be happening . . .

Hope really is an awful thing to lose.

"No. No, come on, no, no, no!"

She's barely able to scream the negative, as if that would somehow deny what she was seeing.

"I-I was going to fix it. It was going to be okay, I was going to fix it!"

"Ma'am, you shouldn't be here."

She turns and sees a soldier, turned into a silhouette by the light of the flames.

"This place is off limits to civilians," the soldier told her, not unkindly, "You should head home."

"Wh-what happened here?" she asked shakily, "Why would you do this?"

The soldier tilted their head, "Extermination is necessary on occasion."

For some reason, the way the soldier said the word 'extermination' made her blood chill in her veins, making goosebumps rise on her skin against the heat.

"I strongly advise that you head home, ma'am. It's very dangerous out here."

She hesitated only a moment, before turning and almost immediately breaking into a run, pretty much fleeing.

Its smile was so quick and wide that it cracked the soldier's face.

. . .

He's busy with the guitar, trying to tune the strings back into shape. He's surprised he hadn't actually destroyed the thing. It wasn't too bad, there were a few dents and scuffs in the body that he can try to straighten out later. Maybe he can borrow a small hammer from somebody, if he can't find one. They should really get on organizing the tool box.

When he looks up, she's there, looking bleak and lost and smelling of oily smoke.

"M-Mavis, you're—"

"I just wanted to go home..."

She burst into tears then, and he could only hold her and try to understand when she talked about fire and soldiers and the 'poor children'.

Eventually he got most of the story, and they simply sit there, she curled on his lap, thinking of their prospects.

"Are you hungry?" he asked gently, offering her something he fishes from his backpack.

She looks at it for a long while before she nods.

She takes the carton from him, full of the soldier's blood and spiked with Jekyll's sedative, and Johnny feels a sick sense of relief.

"We should probably start looking for jobs later," he mentioned gently, before she could open it.

"Real jobs."

She mulls it over quietly before she only nods again, and the next sound is the muted pop of the carton reopening.

. . .

The fire was largely contained to the block where the building stood. Some parts of its structure had been purposefully destroyed to contain the blaze, aiming for security rather than salvage. This city was in bad enough shape that they couldn't afford this to spread.

Among the embers and the rubble, through gaps and under the marching boots, little things began to scuttle and scurry, instinctively fleeing from the heat and the noise. They emerged by the dozens and hundreds, most going unseen thanks to the surrounding chaos. Like rats from a sinking ship, the baby spiders, each barely the size of a human fist, burst from the place that had held their nest, hatched early from the warmth of encroaching fire.

One had gotten farther than most, attempting to find safety in a promising place of shadow, before it finds that the place wasn't so safe. The shadows shift, and a hand that wasn't there before catches it up, so fast that the hatchling hadn't even had time to react until it was already caught.

"Ohh, poor thing."

It considered the newborn life by the firelight, holding it up by a leg to watch it struggle and wordlessly squeak for whom it didn't even yet know to call its mother.

"I could leave one of you for her to find," It commented to the baby spider absently, though It knew the precious thing was too little to understand what It was saying. "You'd be like a little consolation to her soul from your mother's death, something for her to care about. She'd try to do good by you, of course, try to raise you right."

It tilted Its head at the helpless, frantic curling of this little thing's little legs, admiring how fear could be shown at such an early age, even when there wasn't any true understanding or experience to back it up. There was nothing to this thing but instinct and relative innocence. It gave the spiderling a slight reprieve in the palm of Its hand, proceeding to cup and move Its hands in a way that the hatchling could keep scuttling through Its fingers but never get any closer to escape.

"Maybe she'd actually care about you, too." It added, "She'd lost a mother herself at a young age, too, you know, and in, well, almost the exact same way."

It looked over the smoldering shell of the warehouse that had sheltered this baby's nest.

It watched the sparks fly, inhaling the nostalgic taste of heat and ashes in the air, the coppery tones of cooking, drying, burning blood and skin, the pungency of charred hair, web, and chitin. It exhaled, feeling something that It might compare to a high.

"Ahh, now that takes me back..."

It took the time simply to savor this. It had been a long, long time since It could've done anything on a level such as this.

"She was cute then, too, the baby. So cute I could've just eaten her up."

It inhaled again, taking in air and fumes that would make a mortal choke and die, exhaling again with a sigh of satisfaction like a meta smoker. Moving Its hands again, It made one hand into a dead end for the little spider, before closing Its other so that the baby arachnid now struggled to move through the unyielding gaps of a cage of fingers.

"I didn't," It said, speaking with wafts of noxious smoke accompanying Its words, "And that's an important thing to remember now - that I didn't. Now she's a lovely young lady who just wants to see the world. Isn't that touching?"

It took another bit of time trying to make smoke rings. The ones It did make were warped, unnatural, violent ones that subtly spiraled in on themselves, decorated with dancing, still-burning flakes of ash. "Now look what a story this world is telling." It breathed out. "But you don't have to worry about it," It added to Its little prisoner. "After all, she needs to learn something from all this."

It looked around again, enjoying the view and the ant-like antics of the soldiers, and then looked down at said little prisoner.

"As you know, a really important something that she should learn is that, believe it or not," It now took the little spider by one leg, holding it up so that it dangled and struggled and squeaked in increasing panic, its curling little form backlit by the firelight. "In some of the stories the world isn't kind to the lost little children."

Its mouth opened wide, wide, impossibly wide as It lowered Its hand.

Its mouth closed, pausing in a moment of savoring.

Then It swallowed.

It didn't like sugar.

But this, this kind of thing had a twisted sort of sweetness that It liked just fine. It was a flavor that went down with the desperate scratching of dying little legs, finishing with an aftertaste of smoke and the ashes of a dead mother.

One down, five hundred and thirteen to go.

It wandered, searching the wreckage and the surrounding darkness for other little orphans to go with the first, hunting for and finding them without pause or mercy. Its voice snaked softly into the air, an idle song masked by roaring flames and accompanied by the intermittent, grisly sounds of crunching and chewing, like splintering matches broken between rows upon rows of teeth.

"Oh there, oh there is my Dracula gone,

Oh there, oh there she will be,"

Five hundred and twelve . . . five hundred and eleven...

"With her dreams cut short,

And her teeth grown long,"

Five hundred and ten-nine-eight!

"Mmf, excuse me -

Oh there, oh there she will be..."

Five hundred and seven . . . five hundred and six . . . five hundred and five...

. . .

Jonathan waits while she drinks, hearing the sips and slurps and gulps of swallowed liquid as she slowly, steadily drains the carton. He doesn't even flinch any more when he hears that last rasping sound of sucking air, as she shamelessly tips up the carton labeled 'Blood Beaters' to get at that very last drop.

Mavis breathes slowly when she's done, absently licking the redness from her lips, thanking him quietly.

She doesn't dispose of the carton, though, but instead hands it to him, and he takes it, looking it over. The glue had long faded from its opening. That plastic laminate of its surface was holding, though it was slightly wearing down and softening at the corners and edges.

Much later, when she's asleep, he gently bends the creases so it once more looks unopened.

The carton is labeled 'Blood Beaters', though they both know they ran out of the stuff weeks ago.

She won't ask, and he won't explain.

But from here on out the carton will always stay full.

. . .

Author's Note: Hello there again! So, with this we have come full circle, at last. Finally, right? But don't worry, the story's far from done, there's still so much more that's going to happen, and I look forward to showing you. Thank you again, most sincerely, for sticking with me this far and this patiently, and once again your thoughts are always welcome.