The half woman, half spider screeched at the sight of us, showing horrifyingly sharp teeth.

“Intruders… Creeping in my webs. Pulling… Ripping! Invading!” The woman's voice came out as an appalling, shrilling squeal. It sends shivers down my spine as she stalked closer.

Leonide watched the creature but I was more concerned with the thousands of spiders that seem to react to the creature's voice. The moved along with her and hissed aggressively at us when she screamed. Almost like they were under her command. The spiders were rather also rather large in size, though they were closer to a normal size that the creature who towered above us. Though they were still larger than any spider I had ever seen or heard of not to mention the creepy face of a child on their backs. The face moved and showed the emotions of the spiders. That was not something you would find in nature.

“The spiders…” I tried to alert Leonide but I went silent when the woman’s eyes shifted to me. Leonide tried to cover me from her gaze but the woman merely climbed the walls and looked down upon us.

“Children… MY CHILDREN! They are helpless…. Like you, so small and tender… Were you abandon a child?” She shifter her words from screaming to whispers in mere seconds and left me wondering if she was sane. Her eyes were shifting as well. Almost like she couldn’t focus on the environment.

“Are they Daemons?” Leonide asked with as much neutrality as he could muster but I could hear the slight concerned underneath the façade.

“Yes… No…. I gave birth to them! My little children… So wrong… So helpless! I needed to help them. Make them into Daemons” the woman muttered and I frowned as I watched her. She almost seemed to grieve. What was going on?

“What’s your name, Signora?” I tried to ask the woman. She started to gnaw at her own fingers as she pondered my question. Her blood dripped from the ceiling and left a trail along the floor as she paced along the wall and down to the floor.

“My… Name… What was my name? I… Had… Have a name. Yes! I do… The little creatures, with their tender flesh and horrid weapons… They called me Arachne!”

“Arachne? In Greek mythology, she was a skilled weaver from Colophon, in Republic of Turkey, who challenged Athena and her hubris led her to be transformed into a spider,” I muttered to Leonide who snorted.

“Humans and their stories. She was born like that. Not transformed.”

“Does it matter?” I asked sarcastically as we tried to back away from the clearly deranged woman.

“Not really.”

We both halted as the spiders started to swarm us from the behind. The cut of our access to the exit.

“Leaving? YOU ARE NOT ALLOW TO LEAVE!!! No, you are not. My children are quite famished. They need to grow strong and clever so I fed them the little creatures but my children didn’t grow strong or clever. No…” Arachne muttered and looked tenderly at the spiders before slowly turning her gaze towards us. A smile crept onto her face.

“Maybe something stronger… More tender! Yes, that might work… No, IT WILL WORK!!!”

“I do not like what she is implying,” Leonide muttered and pulled out a strange looking, curved knife with the symbol of his order. He cut his hand and blood started to drip but instead of falling it started to float around him.

“What will that do against thousands of spiders?” I befuddling asked.

“Not much, but it will get their attention. You run and get help while I distract them,” Leonide muttered silently to make sure it was not overheard by Arachne who spouted nonsensical drivel while pacing. She didn’t even notice us and I had a feeling that the next time she does, we will die.

Leonide got on his knees and pulled his bloody hands through the dirt on the floor. I saw his eyes glow in a scarlet light and I let out a yell of a surprise when thousands of centipedes crawled out of the skulls and started to attack the spiders.

Arachne turned to us with a shriek and before I could react the floor swarmed with spiders who raced towards us. Leonide got on his feet and to my astonishment lit his floating blood on fire. He sends it towards the spiders in an attempt to lower their numbers. The spiders did seem to avoid the fire and were distracted by the giant centipedes who devoured them but it didn’t stop them for long and soon their attention was drawn back by Leonide.

“What are you waiting for? Run!”

But I didn’t run. I could feel my skin burn as I walked closer to Arachne who seemed to be furiously immersed in the battle though she didn’t make an attempt to save her children. She only wailed as they perished.

I pulled out two bottles from my bag. The green vial was my own blood while the red one was blood from Alessandro. He had left it for me if I ever needed strength. I drank the blood of my kin and the small burns healed while my strength returned to me. It would not last long in my current situation as the flames might give me some strength but they also burned me. Then I opened the green vial and formed a crimson blade from my own blood.

My eyes watched vigilant for any suspicious movement from Arachne but she seemed oblivious to the incoming threat. The same can not be said about her children who with foul shrieks turned to me.

It was now or never.

I grabbed hold of the blade and ran with all the speed the blood could give me. Arachne’s children bit my legs in an attempt to hinder me but I did not falter. Arachne slowly turned to me and I jumped. With a roar a drove the blade in between her eyes and for a mere moment, I saw something sane in them. Relief?

Then it was gone and with a last shriek, she threw me into a close by column. With a groan, I drifted to the stone floor and awaited Arachnes children to deliver my end but it never came. I heard a loud sonance and looked up in horror at the scene. Arachne laid dead on the floor while her children devoured each other.

Leonide ran towards me but didn’t remove his eyes from the spiders who dwindled in numbers until only two remained. Both of them was now far bigger than they were before and they turned to their mother.

I gasped in horror when the two children started to devour their mother. For each bite they ripped from her flesh, they transformed with horrid cracking noises as their bones reshaped themselves.

“Leonide!” I whispered and I heard him curse as the scene came to an end.

The two children stopped feasting and started to cry. They now looked just like their mother with spider bodies, human torsos, and heads. But they were smaller as they were children. One boy and one girl cried while calling out for their mother. Even though I just watched a scene from my nightmares it still made my heart ache.

I pulled myself to my feet and walked reluctantly towards the children who sniveled at my arrival. I put my jacket around them and hissed as the light from the flames charred my skin but I lifted the two children up in my arms. They both looked up at me with big innocent eyes and I almost groaned as I heard the little boy whisper.

“Mother?”

I quickly turned to Leonide and walked further away from the flames to relieve myself from their scorching light.

“Are you planning on adopting them? I don’t think that hiding them in your basement is much of a life for them, bambina?” Leonide muttered and I could see the disdain in his eyes as he looked upon the two daemon children. The girl had happily started to croon while she snuggled against my chest while the boy pulled my hear in order to get my attention.

“I don’t mind caring for them but I think it would be better to give them to Charon. He should know how to care for them,” I muttered and Leonide seemed to approve of the idea as he escorted me through the catacombs. We could not take the two daemons upside as the humans might see them but the catacombs were connected so we later arrived at the location where we last saw Charon.

Leonide reluctantly left me to get the car while I waited for Charon in the shadows. He soon arrived with a human by his side. I watched in bewilderment as the woman, no more than twenty summers old, smiled at me. She looked out of place as she had her hazel hair curled to perfection and wore light makeup, a beautiful clean dress, and high heels. Was she a daemon?

“My, I never thought I would see another clan in the catacombs!” She exclaimed with joy and I frowned as I felt really filthy with burns and dirt on my face.

“Are you a daemon?” I confusedly asked while putting the two children down. They refused to leave my sight and clung to my legs.

“Heaven no! I’m Angela Traversa from the Mage Clan or the Hekatesion if you want to be precise about the name of the coven in Torino,” the woman named Angela replied and I stared at her hazel colored hair. Vittoria had told me earlier that all members of the Mage Clan as white hair. It was their mark as the I Soli had golden eyes and the Monarchs had their wings.

“Beautiful isn’t it. At least I hope so as it cost me a fortune to have it colored. White hair is much too conspicuous among humans,” Angela hummed as she pulled a strand of hair as to make a point.

Charon came closer as his eyes were on the two children. “Two… Where is the mother?”

“Dead,” I said with a husky voice as I was quite thirsty. Angela pulled out a jug of water but I dismissed it. My thirst did not come from a lack of water. I craved for something else entirely.

Angela looked confused and stared at the water like she tried to determine what was wrong with it.

“I’m I Soli, “ I muttered but she merely stared at me in confusion.

“It’s… Kind of like a vampire,” I tried to explain with a sigh and Angela’s eyes went wide with excitement.

“I didn’t know we had vampires among the Ascendants,” She exclaimed and I perused her with interest.

“Are you a newborn?” I asked and she nodded.

“Precisely, that obvious is it?”

“Not really, my clan is a smaller one in Torino. You have just met one of four clan members that live here,” I confirmed as I groaned when my bodies aches became too much to bear.

“Sit down! Let me examine you!” Angela said and pulled me to a close by bench. The two children complained as they ran after me and crawled up by my side on the bench. Angela frowned at them but did not say anything as she examined my wounds.

“Remarkable, your burns are already healing but they are extensive!” She hummed and put some sort of salve on the worst of the burns.

“Are you a doctor?” I asked and she laughed.

“I would like to be but no woman can become a doctor, at least not here. I went through a nurse school but I assure you that I have quite extensive knowledge. That was one of the things that got the Mage Clan’s attention. I became a disciple as I wanted to rip free from the chains put on women. That was the reason I came to Torino instead of my little village outside the city. There is more freedom in the city for women,” Angela replied.

“You don’t happen to have a blood bag in that suitcase of yours, nurse Angela?” I asked with a voice filled with humor and hope. She looked up at me in confusion before she lit up.

“Right! Vampire. Wait here I think… Ah, there!” She pulled out a bag of blood and I sighed in relief as I gulped it down. My wounds healed under Angela’s astonishment. The two children cheered as the wounds vanished and the little girl clapped my now clean skin.”Bad wounds, begone!”

I smiled at her and patted her head. Charon finally broke his silence and came closer.

“What happens?”

I looked up at him before turning my gaze at Angela. I wasn’t sure if this was something she should hear. Angela seemed to notice my hesitation and walked off to a safe distance from the conversation. When I was sure of our privacy, I talked.

“We met a Daemon, Arachne. She had the humans kidnapped and then devoured by her children. She seemed far from sane but did mention yearning for her children to grow strong and clever.”

Charon listened silently as I told him of the incident that had occurred and the children devouring their mother. As I finished my tale, he let out a sigh.

“Arachne… She was a mother of many, a lovable mother but she never was able to do the last sacrifice a mother has to do.”

“What was she suppose to do?” I asked curiously. Charon's black pits met my eyes as he answered grimly.

“She needed to let her children devour her. That is how we Daemons breed. We give birth to children then they devour the mother and is cared for by the father. Well, if the father is a daemon at least.”

“That sounds… horrid,” I muttered and Charon nodded in agreement.

“Arachne thought so as well. She wanted to live and grow with her children so she tried to find another way but she had not succeeded in a thousand years,” Charon sighed.

“This has happened-“

“Before? Yes, many times. Around once each hundred years. She gives birth to a thousand children. Most of them die of starvation and she then tries to turn her spider children into humans by any means necessary which only leads to their demise,” Charon replied grimly as he patted the children on the head.

“She had thousands of children this time!” I proclaimed and Charon looked confused at my statement.

“Thousands? That is not possible. There isn’t enough food for them to…” Charon went silent and paced as his face slowly lit up in realization.

“The second World War… The bombardments! So many dead… She must have fed the corpses to her children which let them grow in numbers.”

“God,” I muttered as I had lost relatives in the bombardments. Some of their bodies were never found…

Did Arachne feed them to her children?

“I’m astounded that you were able to survive. The Moonchild I can understand, his eyes tell the tale of hardship, but a newborn like you… Arachne must have been focused on the Moonchild,” Charon suddenly said as he tilted his head.

I recalled the relieved eyes of Arachne. That was not the expression of someone started by the sudden face of death. It was someone who welcomed it.