She had me there, no doubt about it.
"I could tell this to no one before, but I feel certain that you will understand. My husband, despite his public face, was not a kind man to me. He did not know how to treat a woman. But you, I am sure, do."
I felt unaccountably hot, not only because of the blazing fire whose red-yellow glow illuminated the room, making Gabrielle's hair shimmer like red mist, or, I fancied, a swirling cloud of blood.
"I prefer to be frank, Ivan Dragonov. I will say it once and once only, and if you do not wish to hear it you may leave and I will never speak of it to you again. But I have never felt about a man the way that I feel about you. I see in you the lover and husband I wish I might have had. And I sense that you feel the same emotion toward me."
I could scarcely breathe. I felt passions and longings I had never known I was capable of.
"There is no one else here," she said. "The servants are dismissed for the night. I beg you, Ivan, come to me. Take me in your arms. And love me as I have never been loved before."
I had no choice. I stood up, completely weaponless. I had not even my will to stop me from going to her embrace. Her moist lips were slightly parted so that I could see the pure whiteness of her teeth in the bright firelight. Her bosom rose and fell with the quickness of her breath, and I knew that she longed for my touch as greatly as I did for hers. She held her arms out toward me, and I ran into them as though blown there by a strong wind.
I had not held a woman in my arms for many years, and the heat of her body pressing close to mine excited me beyond reason, seared my very soul. I sank into her embrace as though drowning once more in the Sea of Sorrows. But this time I welcomed the sensation, preparing myself to dive into the blissful oblivion this sea of love would bring me. We kissed, and the heat from her mouth was like a furnace, a heat that annealed, molded. .
Transformed.
I felt myself begin to change.
True horror is not knowing that something is going to destroy you. No, true horror is just the opposite, knowing that you are the evil, the monster, and that in another few seconds you will be destroying the only person you have ever loved — and are unable to stop yourself. True horror is when the monster looks out of your own eyes. That, my friend, reduces all other horrors to bedtime tales. And that is the horror in which I found myself immersed.
I first felt the transformation in my face, the teeth pressing outward against my gums, lengthening into points that cut into my lips until they, too, expanded and grew, pressing outward along with my snout as the very shape of my skull changed, becoming long and beastlike. Then my muscles expanded, my back broadened, and I closed my eyes and struggled desperately to keep from crushing the air from Gabrielle's lungs. I became taller too, and thought I could feel her flaming red hair gliding down my chest as my head grew nearer to the dark ceiling. I knew that in only seconds my claws would thrust out of my fingertips, piercing the flesh of my gentle love.
There was still enough of the human left in me to realize that if I pushed her away, I might still be able to turn and run out of the house before the beast took over completely and rended her dear body to pieces. But when I tried to push her back, I discovered that she was still clutching me tightly, even tighter than before, holding in her arms a lover who was turning into a murderous fiend.
That startling fact alone actually stopped the transformation for a moment. The overwhelming trust I thought the woman must have in me nearly returned me to my human self, goodness overcoming evil. Or so I thought.
Then I realized that it was not soft arms wrapped around my widening back, but the hairy, long, and wiry legs of a gigantic spider. My dear Gabrielle was a creature like myself, a shapeshifter, a deadly red widow, queen of spiders who seduces men and then drains the life from their bodies.
But this knowledge did not come to me then, for the sudden danger dropped my lycanthropy over me like a spider's web, and in an instant I was transformed into a raging, furious beast, knowing only that it was being attacked, that it must kill to live — and that it lived only to kill.
I remember, though, as if my human mind was looking out through those blood-rimmed eyes. I saw what was trying to hold me. A round body larger than an ale barrel, coated with crimson hair. From its bulk eight great legs grew like small trees, wrapping themselves around me, drawing me closer and closer to the hideous head. Two rows of shiny eyes glared at me, and gleaming fangs protruded from two hairy sheaths.
Suddenly the head thrust itself toward me, and before I could pull away, the fangs buried themselves in the thick fur of my neck. Poison that would have killed a man instantly pumped into my veins, and it was as though my blood caught on fire. All my beast-mind could think of at that moment was escape, and ease from the pain that burned every inch of my flesh, muscles, and bowels.
With a tremendous burst of strength, I hurled the hideous thing from me and screamed until my pain was bearable. It took but a few seconds, and I can only guess that my lycanthropic blood, already tainted by unimaginable evil, could not fall prey to the red widow's otherwise fatal poison. But all I knew then was that I must destroy whatever had hurt me, and I leapt toward the giant spider-thing.
It was quicker than I and scuttled on its eight great legs into a corner, displaying the telltale black hourglass on its bloated back. It didn't pause, but went right up the wall until it reached the thirty-foot ceiling, where it hung looking down, as if wondering what to do next.
I didn't wonder a thing. I simply acted without thought, following it into the corner and using my steely claws to climb up the tapestry, shredding the sturdy cloth as I went. When the hangings stopped, ten feet beneath the clinging spider, I leapt at it. My preternaturally strong legs carried me up into the corner, where, at the apex of my jump, I sank my claws into the red, rotund ball and dragged it from its perch, so that we both fell heavily to the stone floor. I did not let the monster escape again, but grasped it with both of my feral hands, and kicked the claws of my feet against it, spraying yellow ichor over the gray stones.
It gave a screech pitched so high that my human ears could not have heard it. But my animal ones did, and the sound drove nails into my brain, distracting me just long enough for the thing to break my grip. It scuttled away from me toward the fireplace, dripping whatever it used for blood.
Again I launched myself at what Gabrielle had become, and caught it just as it reached the stones in front of the vast fireplace. I was on its huge, bulbous back now, but within seconds its wiry legs threw us both over. Those legs cut through the air like steel whips, and the fat, obscene body twisted, pressing me cruelly against the floor. But still I would not release my savage hold. At last the red widow rolled to the right so that we were both on our sides, and turned so that her multieyed face and leering mouth were nearly against me. The fangs came toward me, but I dodged them even more quickly, opened my own great muzzle, and closed my fangs upon the giant spider's head.
My reward was a mouthful of foul ichor and a scream that made the others sound melodious. I kept my jaws fastened upon that section of the head that comprised several of the eyes and a corner of the mouth, and bore down even harder, until more of the vile fluid gushed over my mouth. The momentary limpness of the widow's body told me that I had struck a mortal spot, perhaps even what served the monster as a brain. And as its body slumped, I relaxed for a split second, just long enough for the creature to yank its head away from me and scuttle back blindly, directly into the flaming logs of the fireplace.