Curse of Arachnaman (23 page)

"Just think about his targets,” Peter added, mercifully clueless about my embarrassing situation. I stole a glance at him, and he popped those mushrooms into his mouth without an accident or two. In fact, everyone seemed to be having a way better time of it than I was. “It'll be easy for us to figure out what the common denominator is."

"An arcade, an adult store, a New Age shop, and a foreign car dealer,” Althea piped up. “A gay bookstore, a mechanic's shop, a Mexican grocery, and an herbal shop. Sounds like he doesn't know how to have any fun."

"I think at this point the whole city knows that,” Peter said with an emphatic nod.

My gaze drifted to the silverware flanking my plate in clean, precise lines. Were dinner settings in froufrou restaurants always made for people with more than two arms? Why were there more than one fork and more than one spoon lying next to my plate? Was there a difference between them? I couldn't tell beyond the sizes. The middle fork was larger than the others flanking it. So what?

"So—we might be looking at someone who's got problems with...” Wade's words faltered. She grinned at everyone. “Oh. Sorry. I lost my train of thought. These mushrooms are totally to die for."

I turned my attention to the two spoons that were on the right side of my plate, but those were way easier to figure out. I recognized the teaspoon. What the hell was up with the forks? Did I really need three of them for one meal? What a waste! Even the wine glasses were totally mental. There were three of them standing where glasses normally stand, but I didn't get it. Not only were there three glasses, they were also different sizes. Should I empty out each one and move on to the next when I was done? Couldn't I just reuse the glass like, you know, normal people did? It was also good for the environment, or didn't the restaurant know that?

Did rich people fuck around with each others’ minds when they ate? I just sat there, frowning and counting silverware and glasses. It sure as hell would've helped if dinner at Flambeau came with a set of instructions for us non-hoity-toity types. I could imagine Dad spluttering something indistinguishable before pushing all the excess stuff aside and diving into his meal with a fork and a knife.

"There's a list of other businesses that Trent and I drew up,” Peter said, his voice dropping a little. “I'll fire them off to you guys tonight."

"What's up?” Althea prodded.

I sighed, resolved to pretend as though I knew how to eat something French. I picked up a stuffed mushroom and bit into it, taking care to lean farther forward and make sure that any drippings or loose stuffing would fall on the plate, not on my shirt.

"I have a hunch, and I want to test it out,” Peter replied, now talking in almost a whisper. Everyone but me had to lean forward a little to catch his words. “We all need to keep an eye on those places. In fact, we need to search each of them. I have to talk to the powers that be into giving us permission before the next round of attacks."

Freddie blinked. “Do you think they're gonna be targets?"

I chewed my appetizer slowly, deliberately, while staring down in horror at my shirt. I didn't know how it happened, considering all the precautions I'd taken, but there they were—a couple of large marks on my shirt, with bits of stuffing still clinging to the greasy fabric. No, those didn't include the first stain I'd made.

"Yeah. I hope I'm wrong, but you can never tell.” Peter fell silent for a moment as he drank some water. “Actually, I know I'm right. That's the kicker. We've got to act fast."

Wade piped up. “We'll all have to be assigned an area to watch. I don't know how many you have on the list, Peter, but hopefully we won't have to spread ourselves out too much."

I took my glass, pretending to drink water. While no one was looking, I pulled up my napkin from my lap, tilted the glass to soak it a little with my drink, and then gently dabbed the wet napkin against my shirt. I grimaced when I saw that while the grease was picked up, the spot grew because of the moisture in the napkin. Within seconds I was stuck with three gigantic spots on my shirt, which I couldn't hide behind my tie.

"We'll cover what we can, but we have to move fast since we're such a dinky group,” Peter said, and everyone murmured their agreement. He sat back with a satisfied little sigh. So did the others. When they started talking about other things, Peter turned to look at me. The smile on his face froze, and I could only sink in my seat, my face burning.

"Um, you don't happen to have a blow dryer on you, do you?” I asked, my voice tiny. “I kind of had a little accident with the mushrooms. Sorry. I've never eaten French food before."

By the way, Althea got her froufrou cake and dessert. She almost refused to share.

When Peter dropped me off at home, he gave me a watch. “Don't lose it,” he said as I buckled it around my left wrist. It looked pretty standard, all black and very swanky, but knowing Peter, it was some kind of tricked-out gadget that he'd made just for me.

I looked at him and pointed at the watch. “Is this sort of like the friendship bracelet you gave me a while ago?"

"Yup. I'm getting better with the special gadgetry skills,” he replied, grinning proudly. “Can't you tell?” Then he blushed. “Actually, I had a lot of help from the Sentries. They're seriously good at this sort of thing, even though they're not all that cooperative half the time."

"So what's it supposed to do?"

"It's a communication device. It goes both ways, so if you need to get a hold of me during an emergency, just press the upper-right button. Yeah, that one.” He paused, hesitating a little. “I hope you don't think that I'm trying to control you with this, Eric. I'm only trying to keep you safe. If it's any comfort, I gave Mom and Dad their watches, too. Well, Mom's is way fancier than that, of course, and...” He looked a little puzzled now. “What? What's so funny?"

I shook my head. I'd been snickering the whole time he talked, and I couldn't stop. “Nothing,” I said, pulling him close for a kiss. “Thank you.” I didn't stumble out of his car for another ten minutes, my slacks tenting.

As much as I hated to admit it, that French restaurant thing stayed with me for a while, and I went to bed that night sulking a little and mulling over how things would be if, say, Peter and I were to hook up forever, and I'd have to face his family, like,
forever
. I never asked Peter how Mrs. Barlow liked me. I figured that she did, even with my obvious lack of social graces and stuff, but a part of me kept saying that what she showed me could very well be different from how she really felt.

I mean, seriously, I was a guest. I was her youngest son's boyfriend. She was rich, well-educated, successful, and very classy. It made sense that she'd behave in a very classy sort of way even if she couldn't deal with my existence. I also expected Peter to be just classy enough to keep all bad vibes from me because, well, he was just too damned cool that way.

At any rate, I couldn't help but apologize over and over to Peter that night even though he looked like he didn't care but was still concerned about the crappy state of my clothes.

"I'm sorry I embarrassed you,” I kept whispering to him.

"Eric, there's nothing to be sorry about,” he whispered back, over and over. “Really. Accidents happen. And you were with friends."

Accidents happen, but not like that, I was going to say. I decided to just shut the hell up and figure out how to avoid putting him in a similar situation in the future.

"Oh, God,” I muttered, staring at my bedroom ceiling in the dark as I lay in bed. “Does that mean that I have to enroll in some kind of stupid charm school?"

I desperately wanted to make an effort to be on par with Peter and his family. He was pretty down-to-earth, yeah, but as they say, relationships go both ways. In our case, Peter was already meeting me on my turf day after day; it was only right for me to work hard to raise myself up from slightly-lower-middle-class crudeness to upper-class refinement.

"Great. How would I do that?"

Yeah, that was the question of the century as far as I was concerned. Who'd teach me without laughing in my face? I didn't want to Google references. I could only stay glued to the computer for a limited amount of time before my head and my eyes melted.

I told myself that I should go to the library and dig around there for books that I could use. That should be private enough. I only hoped that the librarian wouldn't give me a hard time.

Of course, I could always have just asked my family, but I figured being laughed at by them would be way too harsh to deal with. It was bad enough that I had to go through with this, but I wanted to do it for Peter.

Incidentally, I went online first before hitting the sack, and checked out Calais’ fan site. I couldn't find the courage to read fanfiction or look at fanart about my spandex-clad boyfriend, but I did look through the guestbook. Nope, nothing unusual had been posted since I last visited the site, but I figured that anything bad would've been deleted by the site owner by then.

I went to bed easy in my mind and certainly not as inclined to worry about freaky fans. They were a dime a dozen, and as long as Peter remained safe, that was all I cared about. Besides, like he'd said before, he could take care of himself, and to that I'd add, “He's also got a gaggle of superhero friends to protect him and not to mention a boyfriend who's more than willing to break the law if it means keeping psychos from touching him."

I grinned in the darkness, my earlier doubts gone. Yeah, I kind of liked that thought. I might not be anyone special, but I'd go to jail for Peter. Now
that
was what I'd call teen romance. Have I ever mentioned how schmoopy I could get?

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Being a man of action, I went to the library the next day. Being a clueless man of action, I pretty much clung to the librarian's apron strings the whole time, shadowing her while she marched to the aisle where I could find the books I needed. If I could, I'd have shrunk myself to about two feet high. It was embarrassing, asking for books on proper manners and stuff. What was more embarrassing was having to put up with the librarian going all gooey on me, saying stuff like, “Awww...you're going to make your girl
so
proud!"

I figured it was bad manners to counter that with “I'm gay! Quit shoving the status quo down my friggin’ throat, lady!” So I just bit my tongue. Literally.

Then again, I was too busy dying of shame the whole time, so I wasn't exactly in the right frame of mind to get all snarky on her. I gave her my library card. She scanned all three books and handed them back to me with another goofy little grin and a “This is too cute for words."

"You're not helping, you know,” I grumbled, practically crawling on the floor by now and making sure that the books were buried at the bottom of my messenger bag.

Once I stepped outside to breathe in a few lungfuls of classic Vintage City urban oxygen, my watch beeped a couple of times. I raised my hand and saw
Stay close to home today. Love you.
It was black text sharply contrasted against a light grayish-silver background.

Peter had shown me how to use my watch to communicate with him, which wasn't any different from the tricked-out watch that the Trill had given me. I just held my wrist close to my face and, pressing the upper-right button, talked into it.

"Got your message. I was just at the library and on my way home."

I looked at the watch face, waiting for whatever was going to happen next after I spoke. Apparently it picked up my voice and turned it into text, or at least that was how I guessed it worked. At any rate, it took a few seconds before I received a response from Peter.

Very studious. Stay safe.

I made a face as I adjusted my bag and pulled up my hood after inspecting the overcast sky. If only Peter knew why I was there. Ha. I still hadn't replaced my old bike, so I was stuck walking home at a pretty fast pace to avoid the coming rain. I could've taken the bus, but I wanted to save money because that was the only way I could afford to partially pay for my dates with Peter. Begging for date money from Mom or negotiating terms with her was turning into a major psychic vampire ordeal as far as I was concerned.

It started to shower a little when I was around halfway home. Then I heard distant gunshots, more like a machine gun going off, and some crashing noises. I paused and looked around, but the street I was on remained quiet. The pedestrians, though, did the same thing I was doing, and before long, the whole area was at a standstill, save for the cars that continued to drive through.

"Did you hear that?” a lady asked her friend. They stood around ten feet away from me, their arms loaded with grocery bags.

"Yeah, I did. Where did it come from?"

Another round of gunfire silenced her. Then came another crash.

Standing there, being nothing more than an ordinary guy with nothing to protect myself with, listening to those sounds made my skin crawl. I was just glad that the crashes, whatever they were really all about, didn't come closer to where we stood.

"We'd better hurry,” the first lady said, her voice shaking now. The two of them walked away at a pretty fast pace.

Looking around, I saw that the rest of the pedestrians were doing the same, with a few actually breaking out in a run. It was pretty nerve-wracking, having to weave my way through a half-panicked crowd, especially with the showers pelting us.

I turned a few more corners and soon spotted my house. That whole time, I kind of wished that I still had my energy power if only to help out the superheroes with. Hell, it didn't even have to be as strong as it had been when the Trill first manipulated me. Just enough to throw some kind of protective cloak over the people of Vintage City would be nice. Sort of like a force field.

I blinked, pausing in front of the door. Force field. The one in the recent attack downtown. I just realized that no one in the group had said anything about it over dinner. How weird. Did it mean that they didn't know? I'd completely forgotten about it, and I guess with no sign of who might've done that, it seemed to just fade from everyone's memory. Then again, Trent would've said something about it, since he'd plucked that car off the top of the force field and flown away with it.