They do seem like they'd make a good element in a spell. Now, what would it be a spell to do?

I've updated the entry with the answers to B and C. I wish I could express B better--it was something that came to me reading--and appreciating-- "Descent," (http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/descent/) which cafenowhere linked me to.

In addition to the novel mentioned up above in the answer to C, I have a short story I'm working on, where a teenage kid retells The Metamorphosis to his mom. I wonder if it's going to be absolutely awful. It might be.