But it didn’t mean he wasn’t curious about them.
The only members of the enemy he had ever seen were two corpses recovered after different raids on Spider People lands, and now here he sat across the street from a pair of real live Dog People…and his father had told him one of them was their chief!
Billy had been thoroughly instructed on everything they knew of Antonio Devante Montez. That had to be the big guy with the straw hat and gray pony tail. He had been the deadliest of raiders in his younger days, and his ascension to Chief of the Dog People meant his wily nature must extend beyond the field of battle. The boy knew the man’s presence here, almost unguarded, heralded something portentous.
The woman, on the other hand, was a complete mystery. Other than the fact she obviously belonged to the Dog People, his elders knew next to nothing about her. This was not unusual, as the enemy tribe tended to keep their women in Houston and away from any contact with Billy’s people. With rare exception, his own people preferred to keep their woman out of harm’s way. Even Grandma Lilah, as powerful as she was, usually preferred to serve as wise woman and stay in the background. She only involved herself on the most critical of missions. So Billy’s first inclination was to suspect the woman with Montez probably acted as an advisor or secretary of some sort.
He disapproved of the enemy Chief’s decision to so blatantly put one of his women at risk and wondered if she possessed some hidden quality that made her more formidable than she appeared. His people would never do that. Well, probably not. Of course, now there was Maggie—and she changed everything—but at the moment Billy concerned himself with the woman assigned for him to watch. At least the dark haired woman was easy on the eyes, even if she was older than him.
The final member of the group under his surveillance was the outsider. Billy had been told this man was Tucker’s uncle, and the cause of the all the current uproar, but he figured the decision to keep the kid was where the trouble really started. He understood why his elders wished to hang on to the boy, but they should have known his family would come looking. And now look at how things turned out…
Uncle Arthur was dead, Maggie was half-deranged with grief, and the outsider was now running around with the Dog People. And speaking of the outsider and the Dog People…
Billy leaned forward in his seat, still sipping on the straw, as the door to the Waffle House opened and the trio came out. The Chief stepped out first, and did a quick scan of the area. Then he did a subtle tip of his hat in Billy’s direction before ushering the woman and the outsider to their station wagon.
The outsider was drenched in sweat and obviously protesting about being shooed into the vehicle by the woman. Billy recognized Grandma Lilah’s handiwork and wondered if she had warned them of this side effect. Judging from their reaction…probably not. Grandma Lilah seldom believed in making anything easy for anybody, so it came as no surprise to the boy that she might have neglected to leave instructions to a patient she didn’t want to have in the first place.
Not my problem. He dropped his own car into gear with a shrug as the other car pulled away. My job is to just sit back and watch.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
REVELATIONS AND PHANTOMS
“Now relax your foot, Mr. Sellars.”
The trio sat at one of the concrete picnic tables near the front of Hallisboro park.
Antonio managed to appear to be enjoying the sunshine and fresh air, while taking careful note of all the people and other features of their surroundings. It was a bright winter day in south central Texas, and the temperature hovered comfortably in the seventies. Across the table, Adam looked pained as he sat on one end of the bench with his shoes and braces on the ground beside him. He had one leg elevated where Olivia held his foot in her lap at the other end of the bench.
“Urg!” He forced himself not to pull his foot away as she dragged something firmly along the sole, in the underside of his arch. It felt like the back end of a fountain pen or some similar object. He’d had this done by several doctors over the past year and never liked it. This time it seemed even worse.
“You have a weak Plantar’s reflex in both feet,” Olivia reported. She released his foot and motioned he could put his braces and shoes back on.
“Well, they’re not what they used to be.” He tried to inject a little levity into the statement, although he experienced a twinge of self consciousness about the withered appearance of his lower legs. Truthfully, he felt eager to start looking over the park and its trails but Olivia had insisted on stopping and performing this impromptu examination first.
“Mr. Sellars,” she handed what Adam saw was a cigar tube back over the table to Antonio, “your medical records indicate you should have no Plantar’s reflex at all. It appears you have reacquired one.”
“But that’s a good thing,” Antonio interjected. “Isn’t it, Olivia?”
“Yes, sir.” She cast a thinly veiled look of irritation his way. “Despite the fact it should be impossible, it seems Mr. Sellars is undergoing some form of accelerated neurological recovery. I see we are going to have to start a whole new file on Grandma Lilah’s capabilities. But again, I reiterate my position…”
“Duly noted,” the Chieftain waved her off. “Adam, how are you feeling?”
“I still feel great.” He almost winced at the dark look from the woman at the other end of the bench. “I know I’m sweating like crazy, but I promise to be good and drink lots of this stuff.” He held up the bottle of sports drink they had picked up at a convenience store on their way to the park. “And I also promise, if I start to feel anything less than great to let you know right away.”
She gave him a long, level look with folded arms then turned back to her uncle.
“Very well, sir. On to other current matters…I assume we are being followed or watched, correct?”
“That’s right,” Antonio smiled. “Do you see him?”
Adam scanned the area, noting how the warm afternoon had brought out quite a few people to enjoy the park. Several had spread blankets on the ground and were enjoying picnics, while others had started an impromptu game of basketball on a small asphalt court nearby. Some wandered off down the trails into the backwoods of the park, while a couple of others were actually flying a kite in the grassy area near the parking lot.
“Nope,” Adam conceded with a shrug. “I’m sorta new at this.”
“Since you say ‘him’, I have two strong candidates.” Olivia busied herself doing something with the contents of her shoulder bag. “The old man reading a magazine down there on the bench near the basketball court is my first. He’s too far away to read us… there’s too many people here for that anyway…but would have a commanding view of everyone in the park as long as they didn’t go in the woods. The other is the dumpy gentleman in the jogging suit standing over by the little water fountain. He has spent a while warming up but hasn’t gone anywhere yet. But if we go down the trail he would look perfectly natural jogging down them himself.”
“Not bad!” Antonio beamed at his niece. “Under normal circumstances those would be excellent choices. But in this case the circumstances aren’t normal, so I direct your attention to the kid leaning against the bathroom over there.”
Adam saw her glance toward the public restroom and tried to do so as well without being too obvious.
A slightly-built teenager in a tee shirt and trucker’s hat leaned against the corner of the building and sipped on a large fountain drink. He wore mirror shades and appeared to be relaxing and surreptitiously enjoying the spectacle of a couple of young ladies getting in some early spring sunbathing on a nearby blanket.
“I considered him,” Olivia frowned and pulled her computer tablet from her handbag, “but I thought he was too obvious.”
“Normally, you would be right,” Antonio pulled a cigar from the tube she had handed him earlier and put it in his teeth, “but the Spider People are going to assume we know they’re watching. And considering we are und
er a truce, it makes sense they would take the opportunity to get a little experience for some of their younger members since it’s relatively safe. The interesting thing here is this is the same kid who was watching last night when we dropped Adam off and saw their totem. He was still there this morning when we came back, and he was watching us at the Waffle House as well.”
“So?” Adam tried not to stare at the kid but would occasionally steal glances his way. Beside him, Olivia now tapped rapidly on her tablet and Adam could see she had used it to take a picture of the kid that now sat in the upper corner of the tablet’s screen.
“It means,” Antonio lectured, “the kid has been staking us out for over sixteen straight hours with no relief. And he’s been doing a good job of allowing himself to be seen by somebody who is good at this while not standing out to the average passerby. That shows he’s patient, smart, and follows orders. I know he’s young, but I sure hope we have a file on him.”
“I believe we do, sir. A minute, please.”
Adam and Antonio turned to look at the young woman as she made a few last taps on her tablet before laying it down on the table for both of them to see. It featured a driver’s license photo, and a long string of information.
“His name is William Harris Clayton. He is sixteen years old, and the son of Amos Clayton. We don’t have any field reports on him, so he has either never been spotted in one of our firefights with the Spider People, or anybody who has didn’t survive to report the encounter. Since he has real paperwork and officially exists, I’m going to lean toward the former. They try hard to keep their ‘official’ people out of harm’s way. At the same time he is almost certainly second generation, so the latter is still possible.”
“Second generation?” Adam queried. “What does that mean?”
Olivia and Antonio exchanged glances, and for a second Adam wondered if they were going to answer him. Then Antonio nodded with a shrug and Olivia exhaled and turned back to Adam.
“Unlike us,” she gestured to her and Antonio, “the Spider People live in constant contact with veneno. Their people with the ability to use the substance, their ‘talents’ as we call them, have it in their bloodstream at all times. As a matter of fact, it is common for them to keep a spider on them at all times when weather permits, ready to bite at a simple mental command.”
“Ugh! Seriously?” Adam made a mental promise never to clap a member of the Spider People on the shoulder, no matter if they stopped trying to kill him or not.
“Yes, Mr. Sellars. And such constant exposure to veneno, generation after generation, has affected their genetics down through the centuries. On the average this effect has not been positive. It’s generally not a problem unless two of their ‘talents’ breed, but when they do it usually doesn’t turn out well. They run a very high risk of miscarriage, deformation, and death. Most of the rest of the time, they simply get another ‘talent’.”
“I sense a ‘but’ coming here…”
“But,” she continued, “on rare occasions they draw a full house, so to speak, and get what we call a ‘second generation.’ These people are different. They have limited psi abilities of their own, even without veneno, though it boosts their powers considerably. Many times they are physically gifted as well.”
“Physically gifted? How?”
“It varies from individual to individual,” Olivia continued, “but you might find it instructive to know that the man who attacked you at your swimming pool—Arthur Weston—was second generation. And he was sixty-three years old.
“Riiiight.” Adam recalled the old man with the kind eyes and who seemed to dodge bullets. “Gotcha…don’t underestimate the kid just because he’s a kid.”
“Don’t underestimate any of them, Mr. Sellars. Ever.”
“Understood,” he gulped. “Anything else?”
Olivia looked over at Antonio, who nodded again.
“There is one other thing,” she held up a finger as if for emphasis, “you need to know about second generation Spider People. The odds are you won’t run into this, but I think you should be aware of it. Unlike ‘talents’ who merely keep a spider nearby for its venom, a member of the second generation generally has a companion instead.”
“A companion?”
“A spider they seem to pair bond with.”
“Pair bond?” He suppressed a shudder of revulsion. “With a spider?”
“Yes,” Olivia nodded. “For obvious reasons, we don’t know much about it. We know their companions can grow much larger than normal…usually to a leg span of somewhere between one-and-a-half to two feet. At this size, they are dangerous and their bite can be quite serious, or even fatal, to a grown man. But there is more. The most important thing we have learned about them is this…when they are in proximity to their ‘bond-partner,’ it enhance his or her powers considerably.”
“You mean it makes them stronger?”
“Psychically, yes. We think proximity to their companions increases their psi power’s range and strength. Also, the companion seems to be able to follow much more complex orders than a regular spider could from a normal ‘talent.’ This is important to know because if you are ever in their territory and dealing with a second generation Spider Person, you can rest assured there is a very large spider somewhere within sixty to seventy feet of you…probably much closer.”
“Got it,” Adam replied, then glanced nervously over at the boy against the bathroom. “So do you think it’s in his car, hiding in the bathroom, or in the nearby trees?”
“It wouldn’t be here at all, Adam,” Antonio interjected. “While they may bring a normal sized spider with them if they are available, and the weather is warm, they almost never leave their territory with an actual companion. We believe they have laws against it except in the direst of need. The risk of discovery is simply unacceptable.”
“That makes sense…but I seem to recall running into a couple of exceptions to that rule recently. And those exceptions had larger companions than you just described.”
“Very true,” Antonio stood and walked a few paces away, where he stopped and lit his cigar. “And ‘exception’ is the perfect word for them. We can go into them later, but now it’s time to get some work done. Olivia?”
“Yes, sir?”
She now snapped into an even more businesslike manner.
“I’m going to need you to take into account everything that has transpired and give me an up to date risk assessment for staying here in Hallisboro until Wednesday. You can stay with Adam and I while we scout the back part of the park, but that is your focus.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Adam? Are you ready for some exercise to burn off some of your excess energy?”
“Sure.” Adam came to his feet and tested his balance. He was still surprised at his newfound steadiness, and briefly considered leaving the cane behind even though the terrain was not as level as he usually liked. “What are we looking for, anyway?”
Antonio grinned at him around the cigar.
“We are doing two things.” He held up two fingers. “We’re looking for any sign or mark suggesting that is where the Spider People want us to meet them Wednesday night. And we are committing the trails and park features to memory.” He took a deep puff of his cigar before pulling it from his mouth and smiling even more broadly at Adam. “If things go wrong, knowing your terrain can be the thin razor’s edge between living…and getting shot, stabbed, or bitten to death by large spiders.”
With that, Antonio stuck the cigar back in his mouth and nodded his head toward the nearest point where a path entered the woods.
“Sounds wise to me,” Adam quipped as he grabbed his cane and set off in the indicated direction. “Getting bitten to death by big spiders is bad enough without getting shot and stabbed by them, too. I shall keep my eyes peeled for all things dangerous and unusual.”
“Lead on, then,” Antonio laughed then motioned for Olivia to go after him. “Olivia, you go after Hawkeye there
, and every once in a while look up from what you’re doing to make sure he hasn’t wandered off into a hole or a creek.”
“Hey!” Adam called over his shoulder in a mock wounded voice. “I’m still right here, you know. Sheesh!”
Olivia rose to her feet and shouldered her bag. She still had her tablet in hand, and obviously intended to continue to work on it as she walked.
“I am quite confident, Uncle,” she addressed him with a level regard, “that Mr. Sellars will do a fine job of walking down the path. You, on the other hand, are welcome to stay well to the rear with your cigar.”
He knew it was all in jest, but Adam still found Olivia’s support gratifying. With a barely suppressed smile, he restarted down the path into the woods. It was a nice day, and he really did feel good. On top of that, it felt even better to be doing something useful. Now it was time to get down to business.
The forest trail beckoned.
Okay, Adam, he instructed himself, you’re just walking down a path, seeing the sights and looking for any sign that might have been left by our friends with the big spiders. You can do that. And while you’re at it, let’s try and not let the lady down by leading her into “a hole or a creek” while she’s trying to do her work. Especially not after she stuck up for you with the big guy.
He set off again at a measured pace, one he calculated shouldn’t be too hard for somebody preoccupied with other things to keep up with.
As he walked down the trail he looked back to see Olivia following, still tapping on her tablet but seeming to keep up with no effort. It appeared multitasking counted as another of her strong suits. He imagined she had developed the skill following Antonio around while taking notes and researching requests.
Antonio was still apparently enjoying his cigar at the table. The man had rested his elbows on the table and unfolded a magazine from his pocket. He didn’t appear to be in a hurry to get up any time soon. A glance over at the restrooms revealed the young member of the Spider People still lounging against the wall and watching the sunbathers. He didn’t look in a hurry to go anywhere either.
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