Priyankshi Thakkar

Others

4.7  

Priyankshi Thakkar

Others

Toothy!!

Toothy!!

10 mins
299


PROMT : - Two years ago, tired of all the bugs in your house, you made a deal with a spider. He would protect your house from pests, and you would not kill it or drive it off. When you made the deal, you could have held the spider in your hand, but, now, it’s much bigger, and is the definition of pests also!! 

Character; TOOTHY [spider]

The real issues began when I noticed that Toothy had begun stalking my cat, Artemis.


I'd first found the poor bedraggled thing on my porch a few weeks ago after a storm, yowling to be let in from the wet. She took very nicely to a towel-down and some pulled chicken, fell asleep on the rug and didn't seem to want to leave.


I couldn't see any tags, and she had a generally proud and feisty demeanour, so I took to calling her Artemis.


Now, Artemis wasn't much of a bother after dealing with a massive spider scuttling about for so many years, but Toothy had never had another creature in the house that she wasn't allowed to eat.


"Stop it," I told her firmly, after noticing Toothy hovering on the walls near my new furry friend, her many glittering eyes trained on the cat.


"She's for snuggling, not for eating. Unless you'd rather I try and cuddle you instead?"


Toothy seemed to narrow those eyes and creep a little further away, but days past and she never let Artemis wander far from her.


It came to a head one dawn, when I woke to a screech unlike anything I've ever heard. I scrambled into the living room to discover Toothy, fangs sunk into the calf of a dark clad woman, with hair the same shade as my cat.


"Oh f**k THIS," she spat, struggling to remove Toothy's grip. "This is the worst job I've ever been on."


"Toothy!" I cried out in shock, and as though I had please, she slowly retracted her fangs, and scuttled up the wall to hang on the ceiling above my head.


"What..." I stared at the woman sitting on my living room floor, who was now muttering and pressing her palm to the two new puncture wounds on her leg.


I rubbed sleep from my eyes and tried again. "Artemis...?"


She finally glanced up at me. "You can keep calling me that, if you like." Artemis pushed herself up onto her feet, wobbling a little on her bad leg.


She pointed threateningly to Toothy above me. "You better not have used any toxins in that bite you fuzzy bastard."


"Who are you?" I said, trying to insert some authority into my pyjama-clad personage. But all I sounded was terrified.


The woman looked at me like I was an idiot. "Artemis, as we just decided. To anticipate your next question - yes, I was here to kill you."


I stared at her. "That was absolutely not going to be my next question."


She shrugged. "Well, it should have been."


I backed up a few steps, until my ankles hit a cupboard "Why...were you here to kill me?"


"Why do you think?" She said, and limped towards the kitchen. I followed at a distance, and watched as she started rifling through my cupboards.


She found the medical box, and pulled out some bandages.


"Do you think it might," she began, and paused to tear the bandage packaging open with her teeth, "be something to do with the Old God living in your house?"


"Old God?" I glanced around the room, until my eyes landed on my roommate, who had crept along the walls beside me, staying close. "You don't mean Toothy?"


Artemis flashed me a deadpan look.


"She's just a spider!" I insisted. "My little buddy."


"Your little buddy," the woman said, wrapping the bandage around her ankle, "is the size of a small-to medium dog. Did you fail to notice?"


"She's just well fed," I protested, scowling. "There's a lots of bugs around here. She has reign of the house."


"Does she ever," Artemis muttered dryly, and with her ankle wrapped, began pulling out knives.


I backed up fast.


"They're not for you," she said irritably. "I have no need to kill you now."


"How come?" I said, peering suspiciously at her while half-hiding behind the kitchen door.


"Because I've been living here for 3 weeks, and can plainly see that you are not a high-powered Dark bright fugitive hiding from the Council with the assistance of your demonic companion." She nodded at Toothy.


"I could be," I muttered irritably. It did sound like a pretty cool role.


Artemis laughed, not entirely unkindly. "I'm afraid not," she said. "The reality is you," she gestured at me, "are just her little buddy." Her knife was pointed at Toothy. "And that's it."


Suddenly, a crash erupted from somewhere else in the house.


Artemis rolled her eyes and pulled a larger, more menacing knife from within her jacket. "Meaning I'm gonna have to do all the heavy lifting as the others turn up."


You stare at her blankly. "Others?"


Beside me, Toothy stirred from her absolute stillness, scuttling up to the ceiling and out through the kitchen door, towards the noise.


"Wait - Toothy!" I hissed, but she was already gone.


Artemis waved me away from the doorway and positioned herself just to the side of it, tilting her head to peer into a slice of the living room while twirling her big knife between her fingers.


I huddled on the other side of the doorway, watching her, and trying to quiet my breathing and pounding heart.


Slowly, a few low, male voices drifted into the kitchen. They were still unintelligible to me, but I watched a slow smirk of recognition cross Artemis' face.


"Why, Claudio," She said, so suddenly and loudly that I almost jumped out of my socks. "Is that you and your boys I hear?"


The voices went quiet.


You," a smooth male voice replied, with an edge that had the hair at the back of my neck standing on end. "Why is it that wherever I chase down a Contract, you've somehow already arrived?"


"It's a gift," Artemis said, cheerfully.


"Why don't you step out here and share it with me?" Claudio's voice replied.


"I'll share something else with you instead," Artemis said, staying right where she was. "The Contract is the fugitive isn't here."


"Is that so?" Claudio's voice said, drifting closer. "And how can you be sure? My men have found evidence of a single occupant."


Artemis scoffed loudly.


"Trust me, Claudio; this kid is no Dark bright. I've been living in her pocket for three weeks and even her social life is boring as hell."


I must have made a small sound of indignant protest, because without looking at me, Artemis plucked a grape from the fruit basket at her elbow and flicked it at my head.


"Regardless," said Claudio, sounding mournful. "The Contract's language is very specific - delivering the body of the owner of this house will result in a pay-out."


I could almost hear him shrug. "All other details as to... accuracy, are in the hands of the Council."


A darker smile edged into his voice, which suddenly


Sounded much too close to the kitchen doorway.


"Perhaps I'll deliver them two bodies today. One for


Payment, and the other a tragic accident. Do you still


Use those silly knives?"


"Careful, Claudio," Artemis said evenly, glancing into the living room. I had no idea how she was even able to speak, my own jaw had clamped shut in terror.


"You're getting awfully close to the homeowner, and as I can attest from personal experience," she smirked, "there is something else in this house that really won't like that.


As if on cue, the living room exploded with sounds of chaos - yells of shock and screams of pain flooded the house.


Amongst the racket came a peculiar low sound, a kind of clicking hiss - one that I would recognise anywhere.


"Toothy!" I yelled, and jumped towards the doorway - only to run straight into Artemis' hand, as she shoved me back towards the kitchen counter.


"Stay here you idiot," she snapped, and threw herself into the living room, slamming the kitchen door closed behind her.

The screams and shouts only intensified as Artemis threw herself through the doorway to the living room.


I clung to the kitchen counter, wincing at every thudding impact and gargled cry, trying desperately not to imagine the visuals that went with them.


Something exploded through the kitchen wall with a CRACK and I ducked low behind the counter. A bullet, I realised numbly, people are shooting in there.


Panicking, I scrambled at the draws beside my head and pulled out the most intimidating thing I owned - a $7 veggie knife from the grocer, but it was better than nothing. I clutched it against my chest with both hands, lungs dragging in air to keep up with my heart.


After a few more long moments, the noises began quieting down.


Then someone kicked in the kitchen door.


I jumped up, screaming, brandishing the knife in front of me and flinching my face away.


"Drop that before you hurt yourself," Artemis said, and I slowly opened my eyes.


She was tucking her own blades back into the slots at her waist and forearms. Her hair was a little ruffled and her jacket had a few tears here and there, but otherwise she looked untouched.


My hands shook, the knife still pointing towards her. I silently willed my grip to loosen, but nothing was happening.


Artemis sighed and walked over to pinch the blade between her fingers and gently pull the knife free.


She ran the metal edge against the pad of her thumb and snorted. "I take it back. This thing couldn't cut warm butter."


Like a release valve, I sank slowly to the floor, my back against the kitchen island, and tucked my knees to my chest.


"Okay," I said shakily. "Just some...just some violence."


"Just a little," Artemis agreed cheerfully, and hopped up to sit on the counter, her legs dangling beside my head. Artemis pulled something from her jacket pocket and began munching.


A soft scurrying echoed against the kitchen tiles, and Toothy appeared beside me.


Unlike Artemis, she was covered in blood.


"Toothy!" I cried, and grabbed the tea-towel hanging by my head to dab at her body and legs, trying to find the source of the bleeding.


"She's fine," Artemis said from above, her mouth full. "None of that's hers."


My hands froze.


In that moment of stillness, I could hear a quiet, slow clicking, the kind Toothy would make after a big meal, or whenever she found a particularly cosy corner of the house to settle into for the evening. I peered into her many eyes, which did seem to have a little extra gleam in them.


"You're really okay?"


She began gently drumming her two front legs against my foot, like she used to when she was still small enough to sit in the palm of my hand.


"I'm fine too," I said, and got back to dabbing the blood from her body. "Thanks, girl."


Toothy tolerated all the touching for half a minute longer before scurrying away and reappearing in her favourite spot - the ceiling above my head.


Artemis tilted her head back to look up at her.


"I guess that bite you gave me earlier was really more of a love nip, hey fuzzy? You should see the state of your living room." She laughed. "Seriously though, don't go in there."


I heard more crumpling, and looked up to discover a pile of discarded wrappers on the counter beside Artemis.


Despite everything, my eyes narrowed. "Have you been eating all my muesli bars?"


"Just the ones with chocolate chips," she said sweetly, and jumped from the counter, still favouring her uninjured ankle, and stretching her hands towards the ceiling.


"Well, that was a fun little interlude, but I think it's time to get going."


"You're leaving?" I said, alarmed.


"We're leaving," she said, leaning down and pulling me to my feet. "Now."


"But..." I looked around my kitchen. My house, my things, my little world.


"You're a nester, I get it." She said, rummaging around in my pantry. "But that guy, Claudio, is by no means the biggest fish in the sea you're now paddling in and Old God or not, I have no intention of sticking around until the real sharks turn up."


I stared at her numbly. She'd now grabbed a shopping bag from the pantry floor and was shoving little food bits into it.


Watching her forage, I had flashbacks to Artemis as the bedraggled cat I brought in from the rain weeks ago. How she would run zoomies around the house right when I was falling asleep, and scream constantly for snacks while ignoring all but the choicest bits.


The delight when she finally, reluctantly, deigned to let me scratch behind her ears.


"Why would you take me with you?" I said quietly.


She flicked me a look over her shoulder and snorted. "Don't get excited, I'm not in the habit of keeping souvenirs from work. But you're undeniably connected to the Dark bright I'm looking for, otherwise that thing-"


She pointed at Toothy.


"-wouldn't be following you around like a duckling. And until I figure this whole mess out, you're both coming with me."


She threw the bag over her shoulder.


"Which suits you," she continued cheerfully, "because otherwise you'd likely die."


She paused and tilted her head. "Although to be honest, you probably will anyway."


Shrugging, she quirked an eyebrow. "Ready?"



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