The Spider Children (The Warren Brood Book 1)

by Bartholomew Lander

  She tugged again at Mark’s shoulders, hoping beyond hope he’d regain his strength and stand up. Instead, he just kept shaking his head and muttering something incoherent. A glance over her shoulder at the brightening flashlights outlined her ticking clock. Thirty yards. She gritted her teeth but could do no more than keep tugging. It didn’t make sense. This end was impossible. If she couldn’t protect Mark, if she couldn’t protect what was rightfully hers, then what was the goddamn Instinct good for?

  And then it hit her. A sudden clarity, an epiphany, a moment of true Zen. All thoughts departed her mind, and she was left with only the Instinct and that enigmatic th-thumping from somewhere deeper below. It was an absolute certainty that came from the depths of her genetic memory, a hard-coded answer written millions of years before. And that clarity came upon her in a single clear and powerful word, brought to her on the waves of that terrible pulse that had wormed its way into her skull. And upon hearing that word vocalized within her own thoughts, she was unable to stop herself from whispering it into the cold subterranean air. “Web.”

  There was no time to think. She snapped her head toward the hall, estimating her remaining time. She grabbed Mark’s shoulders again, this time letting her legs join her arms.

  Mark fought her attempt to right him. “For the love of God,” he said through his teeth. “Just get out of here! There’s no time to—”

  She didn’t wait for him to finish. Her legs forced themselves around his trunk and she hauled him up from the ground. Muscles burning, she lunged toward the open pit. Assisted by her powerful appendages, she vaulted over the edge, carrying Mark with her down into the gaping excavation. Below them, the suggestive shapes peeked out from the walls and floor of the pit like broken teeth in an alien maw.

  A moment of weightlessness. Then gravity reactivated. The spider legs unconcerned with Mark spread and absorbed the impact of the fall. Her legs splayed against the rough sediment, a soft shadow of dust rising from the spot where they landed.

  Mark stirred beneath her, recovering from the shock of landing. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Shut up!” Her ringing legs reasserted their grip on his shoulders. She dragged him two steps toward the chiseled stone wall of the pit and shoved him against it with no pretense of care. “You think you can just decide what’s best for me? That you’re some unilateral hero or martyr? To hell with that! If you’re not going to do anything, then just sit there! Just sit there and let me save us!”

  Spinneretta turned to an open section of wall, one that resembled an ancient relief mosaic. She spread her eight extremities, mind flooding with another surge of that Instinctual adrenaline. The adrenaline and the throbbing merged into one another, giving birth to an insane logic. She had no choice but to trust it. A moment of silence, and then the muscle memory came to her. A pair of her legs swiped and slashed into the wall. She bit back the grating sensation of her leg-tips carving away the stone.

  Her other legs joined in, muscles reconstructing the blueprints. A sharp V-shape, and in the center an elongated oval hung. From the oval, eight lines spread at downward angles beyond the V. An upwards-facing crescent crowned the sigil.

  She whispered a silent, panic-induced prayer. God, Jesus, Satan, Mother Raxxinoth—if any of you exist, then please let this work! One of her anterior legs dove, carving the vertical slash that finished the inverted T and completed the masonic glyph. At first, there was nothing. Then, the gouged segments of rock began to hum and emit a faint yellow light. That light flashed, fulminated, and grew brighter. Her lungs refused to take in air; they were paralyzed by the sight.

  Mark turned from his hunched position against the stone wall and froze when he saw the glowing sigil. “What are you . . . Why can you do this? Why do you know the sign, too?”

  She didn’t answer; she was transfixed on the glowing symbol. Before her eyes, the pattern began to seethe as if melting. It blurred into something tangible: mist. It was light at first, but it soon grew thicker, spreading across the open stone wall like a water droplet on a paper towel. Above, the sound of boots on stone echoed through the small chamber and mingled with the wild voices of the yellow-coats. Without a word, Spinneretta seized Mark’s shoulders again with her appendages. Summoning all the strength she had remaining, she heaved Mark up from the ground. Then, she threw both of them into the wall of fog.

  A cool wetness engulfed her, followed by a sense of weightlessness, and then stomach-churning nausea as time and space warped around them. This was not the same feeling as before, when Mark had tried to teleport them. It was not just time and space morphing; it was the feeling of dimensions bending and breaking around her, ferrying her toward an alien world. As the bending strengthened, her stomach twisted in a sickening upheaval and she lost consciousness.

  Chapter 29

  The Spider Children

  The last rays of twilight yet unswallowed by the storm fell upon Kara’s damp hair. Two of her spider legs pulled taut the strands of silken web she’d wrapped around Gauge’s arm. Though she’d lost consciousness again for her efforts, the subtle tactile sensation of web pulling on her leg had reawoken her. Now, she had him in her silken grip.

  Kara bared her teeth, and her eyes locked with the vacant globes of the man in the yellow robe. The blood in her veins was running hotter, lighter. It was the familiar sensation she knew was an instinctual gift, her evolutionary advantage. Before, that exhilaration had been playful—now, it was serious. This was not the man in the yellow coat whom she’d toyed with. This man had hurt her. He had hurt Arthr. He had hurt the lady in the trench coat with the cool name who had risked her own life to save her. We may both be spider children, Kara thought, but we’re far from equal. I’ll show you who’s the hunter and who’s the prey.

  With an explosive speed, she dropped backward over the bough of the oak, dragging the hair-width cord of silvery web behind her. As soon as her legs touched down, she sprang forward, her spider legs propelling her across the wet ground. The end of the web was firm between her legs, and the branch it wrapped about became a fixed axle. Her prey fought the web’s pull, but it was a futile gesture. He’d pay for hurting Arthr and the dark-haired girl, and he’d see just what it was that awaited those who messed with the Warrens.

  Anticipation set her teeth on edge. She let her human legs assist her forward locomotion, and she drew her four left appendages together into what could have been a single terrible limb. The earth moved beneath her as she pulled her legs back. She leapt into the air and thrust that singular chitin spike deep into Gauge’s eye. A narrow fountain of blood and sick off-white goo gushed from the edges of his socket with a squelch.

  The thing howled in agonized fury. His free arm rose to combat her, but her nimble legs seized it, stabilizing herself as she ripped her legs free of the grotesque hole they’d dug. A red and yellow froth bubbled forth and dribbled to the muddy ground.

  As Gauge batted at her with his clawless hand she grabbed onto it, and two of her legs danced in a circle, coiling a nearly invisible lasso around the man’s arm. She threw two of her right legs to the side, restraining the man’s free arm with the new silken restraint. With a hunter’s screech she flourished her blood-covered legs, slashing into the leathery surface of the thing’s face. Both arms restrained by her web, he recoiled, helpless. The blood grew thick in the air, and each movement of Kara’s legs bathed her lungs in the scent. It wasn’t normal blood; it was tainted, poisoned, but that didn’t stop it from feeding her frenzy.

  A bestial growl escaped Gauge’s lips. A violent thrash of his claw-arm split through the webbing. Kara’s spider legs collapsed together, absorbing the impact as the claw struck her. Her feet touched the ground and she threw her weight forward, applying the strength of all of her limbs against that claw. The strength rippled in her legs as she flexed them, and then a loud crack rang out. Two of Gauge’s claw-appendages snapped apart into an obtuse angle, and a trickle of red poured from the broken chitin. Roaring in pain
, he threw that disabled mallet of a hand into Kara’s jaw before she could dodge the blow.

  Everything went topsy-turvy. She reeled backward but remained focused enough to throw another loop of silk around his claw and tighten the slack. Control reasserted, the taste of her own blood hot on her lips, she pulled his broken claw away from him, opening his core to her. Rage burning her cheeks, she lunged forward and thrust her appendages into Gauge’s exposed chest. There was a hard, flexing resistance, and then a splintering sound. Before she could pierce the hard barrier protecting the creature, his claw found an escape.

  Thick, armored limbs wrapped around her neck, choking the air from her. She held fast, digging her own legs into his trunk, fighting his arm back with her other extremities. But his arm was stronger, and she found herself hoisted into the air by the monstrous power in his claw.

  Her feet dangled below her. The force against her windpipe forced her to close it in favor of breathing with her legs. But still she pushed harder into him with her sharp legs. She gritted her teeth and planted two of her appendages on his arm, digging their tips into the flesh. The competing limbs quaked as they strained against one another, neither of them willing to lose ground.

  Kara held her breath. There came another cracking sound in his chest. His left hand was balled into a fist and shaking, still restrained by the remains of her second web. Her breath grew stale in her lungs, and her whole body tensed. Each node of her legs flexed outwards to its maximum, calling upon every ounce of strength. Then, as the breath seemed like it would seep out through her skin if held for a second longer, she felt a satisfying give.

  At last, her legs found purchase. She let her held breath explode in a defiant cry of victory. The grip on her throat loosened. Her legs tore away from his chest, ripping a swath through his yellow robe and hoisting her trophy into the air.

  From her position on the ground, not fifteen feet from Gauge, Annika watched the carnage unfold. As Kara’s legs reached their apex, Annika saw that they held something large and dark in their grasp. It was a jagged, angular piece of shiny, black material. It was a broken plate of the same chitin that grew across the man’s body in tumorous ridges. That plate was the reason her bullets hadn’t harmed the creature. The thing Kara held in her outstretched legs, resembling a massive thumbnail ripped from the quick, was armor.

  Beneath the flaps that now rustled in the dead wind, the monster’s chest was covered in those same cancerous ridges. But in the center, where the armored chitin plate had been, was a deep cavity surrounded by cracked chunks of partially broken chitin. The cavity was deep, and whatever skin there had been beneath the armor had been torn off. Now there was only a blood-red wall of wet flesh marbled with a pale yellow tissue which seemed to gather into organ-like forms beneath the surface. It was an organic kaleidoscope that made Annika feel like vomiting.

  “What are you doing?” Kara screamed, snapping Annika from her trance. “Hurry up and shoot it!”

  Shocked to action, a cold determination came over Annika once more. She swallowed a gulp of cold air to steel herself. Her right arm shook as she lifted her revolver, the Ruger’s grip sending aching tremors through the marrow of her arm with each minute tremble of her muscles. The window between Kara and her target was small, but she didn’t have to look down the quaking barrel to know she would strike true. Biting back against the pain, her index finger closed over the trigger. The hammer fell.

  The shot boomed, and a dumb ringing in her ears followed. Gauge stumbled back, a new hole ripped in its exposed core. Its remaining eye rolled, and it made a wretched gurgling noise in its throat. Annika bit her lip and dropped the hammer again. Once. Twice. Each kick of her pistol felt like a wild stallion kicking her arm, but she clenched her jaw and swallowed the pain.

  Gauge released its grip on Kara, who retreated as the barrage tore through the man’s deformed center. The flow of chunky blood from its abdomen became more voluminous with each shell that struck. Within that thick, dark flow there was a curdled white-yellow substance like runny cottage cheese. Black sinews of some other inky liquid ran within. Gauge’s feet shuffled, trying to find their balance. Its left arm dangled to its side, shaking, while the right remained rigid in the air as though it still held Kara’s throat.

  Two more shots emptied Annika’s cylinder. Her revolver empty, she let her damaged arm fall back to the ground. The gun tumbled mercifully from her hand. Gauge made another grotesque noise, accompanied by an airy hiss, before it collapsed in a limp and nauseating heap. Gauge’s body was dead, and the presence that had reanimated his body had been banished.

  The final bullets had put an end to the ability of that lifeless husk to support itself any further. Even if this Simon Dwyre had been able to control the dead creature—probably thanks to those spiders, brain parasites—without working organs, the body could not function. There was no longer anything to fear from the dead monster in their midst. And that meant there was only one thing left for Annika to do.

  She clasped her forearm, and she let out the scream that had been brewing since Gauge had fractured her arm. Holy hell, she thought through the noise of her own voice. How had she managed to hold on for so long, she wondered. She began to enumerate the most pleasing words she could bump her mind against to distract herself from the pain.

  “Annie, are you alright?”

  Kara’s blue eyes stared down at her. Annika chomped down, trying to choke her scream, and gave a slow, unconvincing nod. She clung to the sensation of her heartbeat throbbing through that radial crack, if only to keep herself conscious.

  “Wait here,” Kara said. She took a few steps away and then ran to a nearby tree. When she reached it, she scuttled upwards on her spider legs in a frightfully natural way.

  Annika breathed out through her teeth and focused only on that sensation. And then she began to laugh. What a fuck-fiesta this turned into, she thought. She hoped Mark was faring as well, and that Kara’s truant sister was still in one piece, wherever she was. With her shooting arm broken, they’d be in trouble if another of those horrors showed up. Guess I’ve been meaning to try out being left-handed, but . . .

  “Relax,” Kara said, startling Annika with her reappearance. The girl held a foot-long switch, covered in rough nodules where other twigs had been snapped away. Kara bent over and placed the stick up against Annika’s forearm. Annika cringed but otherwise did not protest. As her legs held the switch snug, Kara opened her mouth wide. A moment later, her remaining legs went to work catching and pulling the viscous fluid in her mouth into silken strands.

  Annika, distracted from the pain, watched with fascination as Kara’s legs wrapped the silk around her arm, binding it. Each climb and dive of a leg seemed to put a tighter noose on that choking pain. She found herself wondering what those strands would feel like against her skin had her trench coat not been in the way. A deep breath calmed her lungs. “Why can you do this?”

  “Rhai shaw ith ’awn TV,” Kara said, her voice distorted by the gob of raw web she still held in her mouth.

  “I mean the web. I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “Rhi’unno. Rhaim fhe onl’ han th’kan thwo.”

  Annika stopped asking questions. The girl was unintelligible with her mouth full. She just let the dance of Kara’s legs mesmerize her. The spinning in her head got a little lighter, and the knot in her stomach began to undo itself. The edge of that pain felt blunted, although it may have been her imagination. “I appreciate this, I really do,” Annika said, “but you’ll need to finish this later. Right now we have to get moving before anything else shows up.”

  “Rho’kay.” Kara cut the remaining strands with her forelegs and spat the gob of liquid web to the ground. It left a mild chemical musk in the air, sickly sweet, like whiteboard markers.

  Annika retrieved her revolver from the ground, brushed it once against her coat, and dropped it into her holster. Her left arm saw her to her feet. Lightheaded, she walked over to where Arthr lay in the mu
d, Kara right on her heel. She crouched beside the boy and ran her left hand over his cheek. There was a shallow gash in his forehead where Gauge’s boot had struck him. Aside from that gash and the blood on his lip, he appeared to be fine. Better than Kara, at least. “Wake up, Anansi,” she said, using the name she’d heard the surveillance team refer to him as.

  His eyes fluttered open, a dazed look on his face. “It’s Arthr.” His head flopped to the side. “Is Kara okay?”

  “She’s just fine.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief, and Annika extended her hand and helped him to his feet. Arthr stumbled but then found his balance. He walked over to his sister with a weak smile and wrapped his arms around her. She returned the hug and laughed a gleeful sound that was altogether inappropriate. But when he released her, the light relief on his face faded into a grave seriousness. He gestured at the yellow-robed carcass in the mud. “So what the hell is that thing?”

  “Vant’therax,” Annika said. “No time to explain. We have to get moving before any more show up. You two go back to the house. Both of you pack a bag, some changes of clothes, whatever essentials you need. One of you be a dear and pack one for your big sister, too. You’re not going to be coming home for a while, so try not to forget anything important.”

  Arthr eyed her uncertainly. “Where are we going? What about Mom and Dad? And just what in the name of fuck is going on?”

  Her tone hardened. “I promise I’ll explain later. There’s no time now.”

  His eyes showed only confusion. Kara, however, grabbed his hand before he could raise any more questions. “Let’s go,” she said, bursting with excitement. Arthr just nodded numbly as she began leading him back toward the house.