“Don’t move,” the wide-shouldered man on the right said between shallow breaths. “Or the next bullet goes through your head.”
She set her eyes on the pair, and her stance deepened. If she tried to go back now, she was certain to get surrounded by the rest of the yellow-coats. This was still the path of least resistance. “Get out of my way,” she snarled. “Or I’ll rip you both to shreds.”
The guard on the left spat a mouthful of saliva to the grating below. “Don’t be stupid, kid. We’ll kill you if you so much as make a move.” Though his bravado was false, the trembling in his trigger finger was very real.
Spinneretta scanned her surroundings. The walls were distant and bare; whatever had been stored here was gone now. Not much cover, she thought. Every muscle in her body tensed with anticipation. But a lack of cover wasn’t going to stop her. She’d just taken out three of them. What was two more? These gunmen were little more than prey to nature’s perfect hunter.
Rational thought slipped, and the world turned black and white. Perhaps it was an absence of sound logic, or perhaps it was the purest form of logic. The path was stark and clear before her: straight ahead, into and through these lesser creatures. A burst of speed would take them by surprise; before their brains could even send the signal to their fingers, she’d rip them apart with her deadly appendages. Her teeth were on edge, and her senses breathed a living aura of perception about her. The men regarded her with vacant spheres in their skulls; they were scared and confused at her silence. Time was distorted. Now or never. Do or die.
Her entire body tensed for a fraction of a second, and then she exploded toward the obstacles before her. The reins slipped, her muscles burned. Her spider legs were alive with hunger and shivering pain—the pain of anticipation. In slow motion, she watched the faces of the men shift as her charge began. Absolute terror came to the eyes of one—what a delicious expression—but as she closed the gap the other man raised his weapon from his hip with a howl. The first man began to shout a warning at her, or perhaps at the man now acting in defiance of their orders, but it was too late. Their eyes bulged in disbelief, a green glint dancing across them. The other rifle rose, drawing a bead upon her; they were racing her to death. Instinctual frenzy pushing her to the limit, she bared her teeth and sprang toward her prey.
Then, everything changed.
All at once, a familiar scent came from just behind her. It was warm, comfortable; it was the scent she had followed to this terrible place. Something seized her by the back of her neck and pulled her off balance.
Mark’s voice screamed from behind her. “You reckless girl!”
Before she could figure out what was happening, she was thrown off of her feet. A storm of gunfire rang off the walls. She twisted herself in the air, but Mark’s magical reappearance had so stunned her that she landed hard on her side. She clamped her eyes shut as a cold pain spread through her bones, but she forced them open again.
There stood Mark, facing down the very guards she herself had been hell-bent on mauling. The gunfire pounding in her ears coincided with the scattering of luminous sparks from a brilliant curtain of ethereal green flames flowing behind Mark’s right arm. A wave of relief washed through Spinneretta’s stomach. He’s alright. Despite her own state of mind and her grim surroundings, she felt a joy bubbling to the surface.
Mark scowled, his teeth bared. His face was a portrait of fury across which danced flares of emerald light. A moment of silence from the riflemen, and the curtain of flames flickered out. Mark threw his arms forward, clenching his hands into tight fists. The two guards both seized up, their rifles falling from their grasps, as they clasped their hands to their throats. A sick gurgling noise bubbled from their twisted mouths. One guard stumbled backward in a panic, blood beginning to ooze from the corners of his lips. The other slumped over the railing of the platform, coughing and hacking. Veins bulged on the back of Mark’s hands as his spell ground the life from the mercenaries. At last, he snapped his fists apart. The smaller of the two guards made a final violent twitch that threw him over the rail and onto the concrete floor. The larger man made a similar spastic twist and collapsed in a heap against the wall behind him. They were both dead.
Spinneretta watched Mark drop his arms to his sides. Heart spreading a new, Instinctual warmth to every corner of her body, she righted herself with her appendages and found her feet. Almost in a trance, she began walking toward him. “What are you doing here?”
He snapped his head around to face her. His eyes were narrowed, teeth showing in a scowl. “I asked you if you trusted me, did I not? Why didn’t you just go back to the park and meet Annika like I told you to?”
Spinneretta started at the chastisement. “Annika?” she said, loathing the taste of the name yet not seeing how it connected to anything.
“You really messed things up, you know. Why could you not have just listened to me instead of doing whatever it is you thought to accomplish by following me here?”
She blinked, and a wave of indignation struck her. “Whatever it is? I came to save you, stupid!”
“Save me? I did not need your goddamn help!” he said, shocking Spinneretta with the uncharacteristic lapse into vulgar speech. “Everything was going perfectly until you showed up. That Dwyre rat is getting away, and these yellow-coats mean to take both of our lives. It all would have been over by now had you listened to me in the first place. Dwyre would be dead, and this whole house of cards would be falling to the ground. The only thing you’ve accomplished is putting both of us in mortal danger. So good job. I hope this was worth it.”
Spinneretta shook her head. “You’re seriously mad at me? Do you even know what I went through to get here!?”
“You should not have come here in the first place! I had everything under control!”
“And how the hell was I supposed to know that? I’m a spider, not a fucking psychic!”
The sound of metal banging on metal interrupted their discourse. The hollow sound came from the twisting corridor behind them. As that sound reverberated through the building and against the high warehouse walls, Spinneretta heard boots clattering against the concrete floors. Shit, they’re getting close!
Mark looked over his shoulder, and then back to Spinneretta. “Bickering avails us little. We must make haste.”
“Hey, wake up! I said wake up! Open your eyes, you drone!”
Arthr’s eyes fluttered open to find a pair of big brown irises staring back at him.
“Good, that’s step one. Now on your feet!” the woman said.
There was a momentary pause as Arthr searched his numb memory, trying to identify the face.
“Christ, are you waiting for a Facebook invitation? Get the fuck up, that asshole is getting away!”
Then, it all clicked with a painful, rattling echo. Kara. He jolted upright. “Shit!” The sudden motion was accompanied by an onset of vertigo. His balance betrayed him, and gravity tried to throw him back down. His legs reached out in reflex and seized hold of the only thing within grasping range, which happened to be Annika’s shoulder.
“What do we do?” he asked, helplessness choking him. “What the hell do we do?”
“We go after him and get your sister back, that’s what we do,” she said. Her eyes were stone cold, and she had an air of icy determination that Arthr had not previously felt.
He shook his head. “How? What can we do?” The feeling strangling him was darker than the selfish cowardice that had paralyzed him before. This was the weight of abject despair. He’d seen it himself, hadn’t he? Four bullets smashed into that monster’s chest with no effect. It had hit him like a truck—twice—and with one arm had tossed Annika across the room like a rag doll. What could he do to save Kara now? What could anyone do? Just as the monster had said, the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. It was David versus Mecha-Goliath as far as Arthr’s Bible history was concerned.
A sharp burn streaked across his cheek. His left hand flew to whe
re Annika had slapped him, a tear threatening to spill over the bottom of his eyelid.
“I said open your eyes! I need your help to save your sister, so stop being a little bitch and let’s go!”
He shook his head in disbelief. “You can’t be serious. What do you expect me to do? It’s suicide. That thing, whatever it is . . . I can’t even win a fight against regular people, and you want me to fight that!?”
“Where’s your goddamn spine? I thought you were a man, not a baby.”
The insult hurt far more than the slap, but the hopelessness in his chest was too heavy for it to matter. Annika’s eyes, though a different color, had triggered the memory of the last thing he’d seen before losing consciousness. Kara’s eyes, filled with pity and something else. Ambivalence? It was a calmness that quite simply made no sense. Contention? Willingness? Was she really giving herself away to that thing . . . to protect him?
“She doesn’t want to be saved,” Arthr said, more to himself than to Annika. She’d made the decision to go with them, whatever they were, in order to protect him. All of them. Was he just standing in her way the whole time? He was a coward for doing nothing, but a fool for trying to help her. Even assuming he was capable of stopping such a terrible creature, or even providing a meat-wall for it to pound on long enough for her to escape, what was the point if Kara didn’t want to be rescued?
Annika’s eyes narrowed. “Fine, then. Do what you want.” She stood up, dumping Arthr back to the ground as his support vanished.
Arthr turned after her, his mouth hanging open. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t you know? This is what not giving up looks like.” She made a sharp motion with her right arm, and the chamber of her revolver clacked open. She again dumped a team of spent shells to the carpet and began to reload.
“What can you possibly do against that monster?”
“I can keep shooting until I’m out of bullets.”
“You can’t be fucking serious! It’s going to kill you!”
“If it kills me, then so be it. At least I tried to do something.” She crossed the threshold of the open door into the night and stopped. “Those who know only shame,” she said, “are already dead.” With that, she disappeared beyond the door jamb.
Arthr stared after her, a tense sigh trembling from his lungs. His knee ground against a bit of glass, but he didn’t care. His chest heaved, and he thought he would throw up. What’s wrong with me? he thought. Why can’t I do anything? He was stalling, making excuses. Whether Kara was serious about going with the yellow men or not didn’t matter. Why should a child’s decision be chiseled in stone? She was too young to know what she was doing. What was he thinking? It was his duty to protect her, and he had failed. Yet again.
What could you do anyways? a cynical part of him said. In the end, that didn’t even matter. Those eyes had told him it didn’t matter. Those ambivalent eyes. For whatever reason, she didn’t want to be saved.
But then, a terrible, undeniable clarity descended upon his mind. Her eyes weren’t ambivalent. They were waiting. But waiting for what? They weren’t waiting for him to save her; her eyes had been calm, restrained. Too restrained. His mind drew sharp underlines under those words. She was too restrained. He rolled those words around in his mind, and he sucked in a harsh breath as he saw the meaning between those lines and realized just what she had been waiting for.
No, he thought, his heart rate climbing. A cold sweat coated his forehead. No, don’t put that on me. Please, don’t put that on me! I was angry! I didn’t mean anything by it! Why me? Why is it my goddamn fault?! You can’t be serious! You can’t make me take the blame for this. Just one more thing Spinneretta was right about? Bullshit, I call bullshit on you, God, because I don’t accept this!
It was all his fault. Kara was waiting for him, and he had missed the answer in front of his eyes. His own stupidity had put not only Kara but Annika in danger. The woman had saved his life, and she was going to her grave over his mistake.
He started moving, off the floor and into the darkness. There was only one thing to do. He couldn’t live with that guilt, even if Annika hadn’t been involved. He could live with the shame of everything else if he had to, but he would never live with that guilt. He couldn’t. He fucking refused.
Mark had never before considered if it was possible to stop bullets with magic. He’d make a note to remember that it was. Off in the margin of that note he would be certain to write DO NOT ATTEMPT in bold, shaky script.
His power was far from unlimited; the strain incurred by deflecting the massive kinetic force was the greatest he’d felt in a long while. A stabbing pain behind his left eye now radiated outwards in rippling waves. He knew from experience the pain would get much worse before it got better; the vacancy in his mental reservoir would spread outwards in an attempt to refill itself. The process was slow, though he was thankful that it occurred at all. Most of those who dabbled in the occult arts could have expected that pain to last for the rest of their lives. But if the growing pain in his knee was any indication, he was nearing his limit. He had to keep himself together. Before the night was over, he had to end Simon Dwyre’s life and destroy the thing that he now knew rested within the Vault.
They had fled from the cramped industrial corridors into a series of descending tunnels. Down had not been the preferred direction, but it was the only option that didn’t lead to an armed militia. Once they’d found themselves in the basement level of the structure, the scenery changed drastically. The previously metal hallway widened. The dusty light from the hanging bulbs cast a filthy yellow tint through the concrete passage. Further down, the dust covering the floor and walls grew thicker. There were old metal doors on either side of the hall at fixed intervals of twenty feet or so. Most were either collapsing in their frames, as though ruined by some massive blunt force, or were rusted into permanent fixtures of the wall. They reminded Spinneretta of rotting sarcophagi lined up in an ancient Egyptian exhibit.
After following the hall for a time, their path took a sharp turn to the left. Beyond that bend, the carcasses of the doors ceased appearing. They ran on, and after a brief interval Spinneretta noted that the floor was gradually sloping downward. “It’s going down again,” she said to Mark. “There’s no way this can lead to an exit!”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Yes, that is obvious! But there’s nowhere else we can run!”
She bit her tongue. Vexing though it was, it was true. Turning back now would more than likely be the end of them. Footsteps echoed not far behind, and she was becoming increasingly aware of a strange hum from somewhere grinding against the front of her mind. And so they continued, down the sinking hall. The dim bulbs above them became dirtier and dirtier as they plunged deeper and deeper, and the smell of decay soon pervaded her spiracles.
After several minutes the hall leveled out and took another sharp turn, this time to the right. Where the corridor bent they found a door facing them. Unlike the sarcophagi, it appeared to be new; its dull metal showed no signs of weathering or rust. In place of a doorknob was a keypad covered in a grid of numbers and cryptic characters. Etched into the metal surface were two lines of small text:
S19 Sector 3 Access
P2-4, P9-11
Before the door, the two caught their breath. The sound of the yellow-coats’ footsteps still approached from behind them, somewhat more imminent than before.
“Looks modern enough,” Mark said of the door. “Think people come to work through that tunnel back there?”
Spinneretta blinked at him. “What?”
He shook his head. “If people work here, there must be a better method of getting in and out.” He pointed to the keypad. “You’re good with computers. Can you hack that panel and open it?”
“Of course not?”
Mark sighed and rolled his shoulder. “Very well. Then I shall take care of this.” He stretched out his hand and began to pull verdant flames into existence once more. The ghosts blo
ssomed, and though Spinneretta was transfixed by their haunting beauty, the cringe on Mark’s face did not escape her notice.
He yelled and lunged toward the door. His flaming hand smashed into its sheer surface. At once that green conflagration began to spread, making his arm tremble. The corrosive emerald glow continued expanding until the entire door was alive with the cold fire. He clenched his jaw and released a final wave of force from his shaking arm. A gust of air burst outward as the metal door was blown from its frame and fell inward with a resounding clatter. His left knee buckled beneath him, and he dropped into a crouch, one hand flying to the side of his head.
Spinneretta’s concern for him overpowered her awe at his power. She crouched down beside him, spider legs reaching to support his shoulders. “Jesus, are you alright?”
He shook his head and grimaced. “Fine. Just fine.” He looked up from the floor to the area beyond the collapsed door. “Oh, goddammit!”
She followed his gaze. Beyond the door, the filthy light of the hallway scraped away the shadows and revealed a corridor in far greater disrepair than the one they had followed there. The tiled floor was broken, remnants strewn about as though scattered by a tornado. Sets of fluorescent lights cast rare illumination upon the ruin. The stench of mold and rot crept outward from the portal, and the scent threatened to turn her stomach. Behind that scent, the shapeless pressure on her mind grew stronger.
Mark winced, a groan of pain slipping from his lips, a sound that then morphed into a cackle. “And that is why they say not to judge books by their covers.” He lurched to his feet, groaning as he shifted his weight to his left leg. The sound of footsteps grew yet louder behind them. He breathed in through his teeth. “No time for second guesses. Let us go.”
Annika hastened her steps, leaving the shell of the house behind. The rain had lightened, and she barely noticed the wet sheen the mist left across her face. The task at hand was too important to give it any less than her full attention. The fear of failure bit deep, threatening to drag her down to the same level of despair that Arthr had shown her. Failure was not an option.
The Spider Children (The Warren Brood Book 1) Page 43