Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88235 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88235 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“Let a giant spider jump on me and crawl all the way up to my face?” Vicky asked, her voice sounding tight in her own ears. “I don’t think so. No freaking thanks.”
Though she spoke to Professor Lornah’s student, her eyes remained glued to the spider. No way did she want that thing anywhere near her! But it didn’t look likely to give up on its quest to deliver its prandial package.
The black and purple spider was poised there on the edge of the table, holding up the cake in its front legs. It was bouncing slowly up and down, reminding her of a cat with a lashing tail getting ready to pounce. Apparently it was planning to jump into Vicky’s lap and run right up her body to shove the cake in her mouth with its hairy pinchers. And Vicky—who had once talked down a student with a gun and had been teaching surly teenagers for years—was frozen in fear.
If there was one thing she really didn’t like, it was bugs—especially spiders.
If it jumps on me, she thought, feeling like her blood had turned to ice in her veins. Oh my God, if that thing starts crawling on me and gets anywhere near my mouth—
Suddenly a big hand came down, grabbed the hairy purple spider, and pulled it away. Vicky looked up to see that Chain had it in one hand and was holding the struggling thing away from her.
“Are you well, Victoria?” he asked, looking at her with apparent concern. “Are you frightened of arachnids?”
Vicky gave a shaky laugh.
“That’s kind of an understatement,” she said softly, aware that the lecture was still going on. “I don’t like any kind of bugs but spiders are the worst.”
“Never fear—it will be gone soon,” Chain reassured her.
As he spoke, the struggling spider and its uneaten cake melted away in his hand, leaving no trace at all of the awful thing.
“There—see?” Chain reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing it reassuringly.
Vicky squeezed back, grateful all over again for the big Kindred. She didn’t know what she would have done if the huge spider had jumped on her. Probably lost her shit and run screaming out of the lecture hall, which definitely wouldn’t have been a very good way to get the deal they were hoping for in regards to the T’lix-Kruthe.
As it was, she could see that Professor Lornah was glaring down at her with undisguised irritation. Clearly she had seen Vicky’s reaction to her spider-cake-delivery system and she was angry about the minor scene it had caused.
Looking around, Vicky saw that other people were watching her too—taking away the focus from Professor Lornah’s lecture. Had all of them just sat there and let the huge spiders run up their body and deposit a cake in their mouths, she wondered in disbelief? How could that not freak them out? But obviously, they thought she was out of line because she hadn’t sat still and let a spider force-feed her cake.
Priima Belle, for all its veneer of class and academic sophistication, was apparently one fucked-up world, Vicky thought grimly. She was going to have to watch her manners from now on—though how she could have avoided showing some reaction to a giant spider appearing on her plate, she didn’t know.
Scooting back up to the table, she fixed her attention on Professor Lornah, hoping the other people in the lecture hall/dinner theater would lose interest in her and do the same.
Nothing to see here, folks—freak-out is officially over. Let’s all go back to the lecture.
After a moment, Professor Lornah did.
“Well,” she said and cleared her throat. “Ahem. Now that we’re all ready, let’s continue.
“In the fookuup territory they bake a charming confection filled with the cream of the papa-zook which has been aged for a thousand days. The pastry shells it is inserted into are likewise aged a thousand days. And that is why these next cakes are called ‘thousand day buns.’ Please enjoy the richly fermented flavor of the cream and the lovely flooga glass platters each bun is plated upon.”
A limp pastry about the size and shape of a hamburger bun fizzed into existence on Vicky’s plate. It was thickly furred with gray and green mold and filled with a large portion of greasy, grayish-black ooze. Vicky thought the “cream” looked like Cool Whip which had been left to molder in its little plastic tub in the back of the refrigerator for months and months until it had taken on a life of its own.
Oh my God! Her gorge rose and she thought for the second time that night that she might throw up. What was wrong with Professor Lornah? Was she trying to make her audience sick?
And yet, all around her, the other Professors were picking up the grayish-greenish-moldy buns filled with slimy black ooze and biting into them with apparent enjoyment. Their students—the young guys who all looked to be in their early twenties—were eating the buns as well, most of them with stoic expressions on their faces. This might not be something they liked, but it was clearly something they had to put up with to keep the positions they were in with their professors.