The Spider Children (The Warren Brood Book 1)

by Bartholomew Lander

  Time stopped. Her spider legs unfurled, spreading to the sides to counter-balance her spin. She landed on her feet with the grace of a savage ballerina while Pat sank like a controlled demolition.

  Spinneretta’s heart thundered, echoing in her head. The reverberations seemed to deepen the strange, euphoric haze. Her legs were alive, and the taste of blood in the air brought them to the brink of shivering. Though her body was hotter than normal, cold tremors danced along the back of her neck and down her legs. Wrapped in that sensation, it took her a moment to realize that the buzzing sound she heard was, in fact, the crowd. They were in the midst of a blistering roar of approval. But it was of no consequence. There was a concern more pressing than the crowd or the thrill.

  She scooped her olive jacket up from the brush. “Come on,” she said, lifting Arthr up off the ground and supporting him with her legs. He groaned a pathetic sound, his muscles twitching erratically, and then leaned limply upon her shoulders. His whole body was shaking with minute tremors. It was clear he was hurt bad, and she didn’t want to even think of his leg. “Don’t blame me. This is your own damn fault. Can you move your feet?” He didn’t answer her, and so she began walking him toward the fence. He reeked of blood, but there was something even fouler beneath it: the odor of ruptured muscular tissue and synovial fluid. It brought the trace burn of vomit to the back of her throat, and it was all she could do to keep her eyes on the ground.

  When they reached the fence, she slung him off her shoulder and eased him down against a mat of flattened weeds. Excited shouts bombarded her from all sides.

  “That was incredible!” said one student, whose name she did not know.

  “Spinneretta, you’re awesome!” said another.

  “I can’t believe it!” cried a third, whose voice melted into the wall of noise that made up the remainder of the awe and praise.

  Remnants of anger rippled through her muscles. An involuntary shudder flowed through her shoulders as she looked upon the lank, excited faces of the students. “Get the hell out of here,” she spat. “All of you. Any one of you could’ve stopped this from happening. You’re all responsible, you damned hyenas.”

  The crowd fell quiet.

  She snarled and raised her voice, to be sure even the ones in the back would hear her. “Go! Get out of here! You’ve all done more than enough!”

  A reluctant mutter spread from the fence. To her surprise, the students did indeed begin to disperse. It was first an uncertain retreat taken by the closest, but soon everyone was trudging off, filtering toward the branching paths leading back down toward Grantwood. That the entirety of the crowd would so eagerly leave after that . . . could they have been afraid of her? How frightening had her demand been? She couldn’t say; only a dim memory of what she’d actually said remained. But as they retreated she realized something: due to how long she’d hidden her legs beneath her jacket for fear of unwanted attention, this could have been the first time many of her peers had seen them. The legend was true, and legends demanded respect.

  She crouched down next to Arthr, who was breathing just as heavily as before. His broken leg hung to his side, subsurface tissue still twitching with his heartbeat. His right eye was sealed shut by partially dried blood.

  “Are you alright?” she asked.

  Arthr looked at her in complete confusion. “What the hell,” he managed, his entire body shaking. He tried to sit up, but groaned as he again hit the barrier of his pain tolerance. She grabbed his shoulders and helped right him, trying to avoid stimulating the leg. A strangled scream gurgled out of his throat as she assisted him.

  Spinneretta could only imagine how much that leg was killing him. As she sat there, numb mind trying to figure out what to do, a new smell distracted her. It was slight, hard to discern beneath all the blood and sweat and humanity. It was a scent that until that very moment she hadn’t known she’d recognize.

  “Well met,” a voice called to her.

  She looked up. There was Mark, casually strolling toward her from an uneven copse of leafless trees at the edge of the clearing. What the hell? When did he . . . ? Spinneretta’s thought trailed away beneath that same cool and indescribable fog in her mind.

  Mark half-vaulted over the fence, and then assumed a sitting position atop it. “I’m quite impressed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone fight quite like that. But you really are a reckless girl, you know. You could have really gotten hurt.” His tone was soft, yet distantly reproachful.

  Spinneretta stood, momentarily forgetting Arthr. She wanted to ask him why he was there, how he had found them. But she was too dazed to form the words. Those thoughts were in a different world, and all logic had given way to another endorphin rush—to the Instinct.

  Lost in the mist, she stepped past Arthr and toward Mark. What thoughts she had were fleeting. Spinneretta reached out and wrapped both of her arms around his neck. She pulled herself close to him, laying her head against his shoulder.

  He shifted where he sat. “Whoa, what are you—”

  “Shut up,” she said, her whole body beginning to tingle. “Just let me enjoy this.” As she said it, she was unable to suppress a giggle that bubbled up from Christ-knows-where. The adrenal haze wrapped her in an ecstatic delirium. It was no different than the ecstasy of the fight, and though the pounding in her head was fading it still sent shivers running up her spine and legs. That shivering seemed to be amplified by her proximity to him. Her elevated senses turned inwards; the smell of his heartbeat and the warmth of his circulating blood immersed her. Floating in the darkness, she was content. That bubble of comfort, however, collapsed when she realized that he was yelling her name.

  “Spinneretta, can you hear me?”

  Her heart leapt. “Yeah,” she said. “S-sorry.”

  “What’s happened to you? Are you drunk?”

  “No, I’m fine,” she said, still quite giddy.

  “That wasn’t the question,” he said, clearly uncomfortable. “And either way, this is perhaps not the time for . . . ”

  Spinneretta only then recalled where she was and the state of Arthr’s disarray. She released Mark from her grip and took a step away from him. Pulling back the blood-haze, logic reasserted its position in her mind. What the hell’s wrong with me? she thought. She focused on trying to suppress whatever adrenal force had pushed her to this. Whatever it was, it had no business being there. This wasn’t like her at all. Taking deep breaths, she fought through that high. Once the majority of it had cleared, only the dregs of the haze and the heightened senses remained.

  Not wanting to make eye contact with Mark after what had just happened, she just knelt down beside Arthr. By the look on his face, he was still adjusting to his new life in the Land of Excruciating Pain. She tried to calm his shaking, but her attempts were fruitless. Each labored breath he took threw him into another convulsion. She wished she hadn’t forced him to sit up; it seemed even that level of exertion was unbearable in his current state.

  “Well, this is shit,” she said, standing with an exasperated sigh. She made a deliberate effort not to look at his ruined leg.

  “Arthr, are you going to be able to walk?” Mark asked. Spinneretta was relieved that he seemed willing to overlook her lapse in self-control, or was at least kind enough not to call any further attention to it.

  Arthr trembled where he sat, limbs convulsing. After a moment he managed a weak response. “No way.”

  Spinneretta shook her head. “I wouldn’t hold out much hope of that happening. If Arthr the ever-cocky says it’s impossible, then not even God could make it happen.”

  “Must have been pretty traumatic,” Mark said in a distant tone.

  She nodded with a shudder, unable to ignore the thought of the leg now. “Yeah. They may not look like it, but these are actually pretty sensitive.” She stretched and retracted two of her legs in Mark’s direction. “I broke my finger once when I was in elementary school, and that was beyond miserable, but I can’t even imagine
. . . I feel really bad for him.”

  “Stop talking like I’m invisible,” Arthr choked out. “Fucking do something.”

  Mark sighed. “Well, we should get him home before it gets any darker. I am certain your parents will be upset if—no, I believe they shall be upset in any case. Let’s get a move on.” He hopped down from the fence and made a move to help Arthr up.

  “Don’t touch him!” Spinneretta yelled. “It’s hard enough for him just sitting there.”

  Mark crossed his arms. “Unless you want to make him a splint out of dried grass and dirt, then there is naught we can do for him now. The sooner we get him home, the sooner we can make him comfortable.”

  “He can’t walk like this.”

  “We’ll carry him, then. Is that not better than letting him sit here in agony?”

  “We need to get him to the hospital,” she said, the thought only then occurring to her.

  “That’s not happening.”

  She looked at Mark, narrowing her eyes. “What do you mean not happening?”

  His gaze intensified. “We’re not taking him to the hospital.”

  “Excuse me?” she said indignantly. “That’s what hospitals are for, you know, treating people who’ve been injured. You know, people like Arthr.”

  “Listen, I understand that you wish to help him, but we cannot take him to the hospital.”

  “And just why the hell not?”

  “If I told you, you’d wish I hadn’t. Suffice it to say, it’s in everyone’s best interest if we stay as far from any medical facilities as we can.”

  “Well, I don’t hear you making any goddamn suggestions.”

  “As I said, I suggest getting him home and letting it heal on its own.”

  “Heal on its own? Is that what you think chitin does? His leg is going to be fucked up until the next time he molts!”

  “Then we can figure out what to do once we get him home. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s rain on the way. Unless you like the idea of giving him pneumonia on top of his other problems, perhaps we should get moving.”

  Spinneretta sighed in surrender. If the hospital was really out of the question, then there wasn’t any point arguing over it. Looking past the emotional response, she could see that Mark was certainly concerned about something. It would be unlike him to refuse Arthr medical care without good reason. “Doesn’t even matter.” She turned her gaze to the dark clouds hanging low on the horizon. “We won’t be able to get him home before the rain.”

  “What about your parents? I’m sure they’d be concerned enough to give him a ride back.”

  “Give him a ride on what, exactly? You sure as hell can’t get a car up here.”

  Mark grunted. “Yes. You’re right. Forgive me, I wasn’t thinking.”

  There didn’t seem to be much choice but walking Arthr home. Navigating the path back to civilization was going to be rough. If Arthr’s spasms worked against them, then they’d need nothing short of a miracle to get back before the rain soaked them to the bone. A goddamn miracle. “What about your magic?” she blurted out.

  He blinked at her. “My magic?”

  “Yeah. You said that your magic was good for a lot of things, so what about healing?”

  He exhaled and glanced skyward. “I don’t know what preconceptions you have about magic. It’s one thing to tune someone to a given frequency, but no magic that causes physical changes is simple.”

  “But, but that’s why you’re the Chosen, isn’t it?” She hesitated, seeing his worried expression and now doubting his claims more than ever. The only proof she had to go on was that weird something she felt from the moon, after all. “I’m sure you can do it.” It was now a half-lie. “You can, can’t you?”

  He considered the question and nodded slowly. “I could. But healing isn’t as easy as your Bible may make it seem.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  A scowl. “If I don’t do it right, I could just make things worse than they already are. Without knowing the internal structure of his leg, the best I can do is take an educated guess. The gap between expectation and reality is wide, and the difference may leave the limb completely unusable.”

  Spinneretta eyed Arthr. His labored breath rose hot from between clenched teeth. Though Mark’s explanation was clinical and distant, if anything could help Arthr now then it had to be worth it. “Can you give it a try?”

  Mark raised his eyebrows. “Are you truly that eager to leave your brother crippled? I am not a miracle worker. Like anything else, magic is limited by the user’s knowledge, and without perfect knowledge—”

  She cut him off by stretching out one of her own appendages. “Then look at mine.”

  He leaned back, startled by her aggression, and perhaps the spider leg in his face. He opened his mouth to protest, but after a moment craned his head to the side and reached out a hand. “Is it alright if I touch it?”

  “Y-yeah, that’s fine,” she said, averting her eyes.

  He ran his palm gently over the surface of that leg. His touch sent an unexpected tickle up and down the appendage. She tried to stop herself from thinking too hard about what was happening. Just think of it like a doctor visit.

  “Your chitin’s much harder than it appears,” he said, applying a little more pressure to his touch.

  “I’m surprised you know the word. Most people just kind of fumble about before arriving at something totally wrong.”

  “And . . . you said that you molted?”

  She started, embarrassed. “Uh-huh. I mean, chitin doesn’t grow, you know.”

  Mark hummed a note but didn’t pursue the topic. He pressed gently on a lower segment, examining the way the leg bent. “Tell me if I’m hurting you.”

  “You won’t hurt me. Tickles more than anything.” Just keep looking at that rock. Don’t look at him. It’ll be over soon.

  “I wouldn’t think you’d be able to feel anything at all. Are there nerves in the plating?”

  She shivered. “I don’t know. I guess.”

  Mark pulled the leg back to its previous position. “Tell me about this joint here. There’s no cap to it, is there?”

  “Cap?”

  “Like in your knee.”

  “I don’t think so, no. It can sort of roll left or right, but not too much.” She twisted the leg to demonstrate. Mark nodded and wrapped his fingers around the point where it bent. For a short time he continued to bend and unbend her leg, examining its mechanics. Butterflies came alive in Spinneretta’s stomach despite the methodical nature of the examination. Finally, Mark released her and crouched down beside Arthr.

  “Do you think you can do it?” she asked, her leg still tingling from his touch.

  He ignored her question and reached out to examine Arthr’s shattered joint.

  Arthr’s breathing tensed as Mark’s hand drew near. Though his eyes were closed his spacial awareness appeared to be working. “What are you doing?” he asked in a panic, voice wavering.

  “Relax. I’m just taking a look.” Carefully, Mark repeated the previous examination. This time he did not attempt to bend or unbend the leg, and instead simply looked at the injury itself.

  Spinneretta could not bring herself to look at the wound; whenever she saw it, she was overcome by nausea as she imagined what it must’ve felt like.

  “I think I understand,” Mark muttered after a short while. “Not perfectly, but enough to make an educated guess.”

  She swallowed. “So you’ll do it?”

  “If you’re sure about this. Like I said, I cannot make any promises. If I’m wrong, he might never use that leg again.”

  “How certain are you?” she asked, growing apprehensive again.

  “As certain as I can be given that it’s an organ I do not possess and have only a tentative understanding of. Sixty-five, seventy percent, if you demand a number. If you give the go-ahead I’ll attempt it. I just need you to understand the risks involved.”

  She glanced at
the tormented expression plastered on Arthr’s face and shuddered. Why did she have to hold his power of attorney? “Do it.”

  Catching her eye, Mark nodded. Something about his expression seemed sad, apprehensive. He took hold of the upper part of the broken leg, and Spinneretta found herself growing grimly curious. Arthr shuddered at his touch.

  “Relax,” Mark said. He opened his right hand and held it just above Arthr’s joint. Spinneretta saw his face twitch, and a pale, almost imperceptible glow illuminated his hand. At first, that light danced on the very edge of tangibility, but after a moment it blossomed into a brilliant blue radiance. Her mouth fell open in disbelief as the miracle she’d wished for began to unfold.

  Mark gritted his teeth. Arthr grimaced. Steadily, the glow expanded until it covered and obscured the shattered plates of chitin beneath it. Mark’s face twisted from the exertion, and Spinneretta thought he looked like he was in pain. He began to unbend Arthr’s leg from its hyper-extended position. There was a loud, hideous crack when it passed its normal maximum. Transfixed by that glow, Spinneretta did not notice when Arthr stopped writhing in pain. She only came to realize that fact when the glow in Mark’s hand slowly flickered out.

  With some effort, Mark got to his feet, teeth still clamped firmly together. “Well? How does it feel?”

  Arthr, his unbloodied eye wide in disbelief, looked up at him. He began to move the leg. At first, he only dared to move the entire structure starting from the lowest joint. But soon he allowed the broken joint to move, first with a soft roll and then a full bend. His face came alive with astonishment. “What did you . . . ?”

  “Answer my question. Does it hurt?”

  Arthr once again tried moving the joint through a few test bends. “Numb. And . . . stiff. But. No, no pain. It doesn’t . . . ”

  Mark smiled and glanced back at Spinneretta. “It appears I failed to mend the nerves correctly. Forgive me, but I have little concept of your legs and their internal anatomy. But other than that, you can breathe a sigh of relief. Nobody will be holding you accountable for rendering his leg useless.”

  Spinneretta barely heard what he was saying, for she was too amazed by the miracle. When his words got through to her, she could think of nothing to say. She should never have doubted that Mark would be able to heal him, especially after he’d allowed her to feel the strange presence from the moon. Now that she had beheld proof of his gift with her own eyes, beheld evidence of the unknown, beheld the majesty of that light that defied all scientific thought and reason, she could truly say she believed.