by Gregory Ashe
“You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain,” the girl quoted.
“Get under the God-damned bed!”
With a yelp, the girl dropped out of sight.
As Cian staggered back into the hallway, he saw Irene dragging a semi-conscious girl out of a room.
“What did you do now?” he asked.
“Nothing. Honestly, Cian, you act as though I make a habit of beating up these girls.”
Harry was still near the stairs, chambering shells in his revolver. “The mask?”
“I’ll get it,” Cian said. “Keep your trousers on.”
A pair of shots came from below, followed by a scream. Harry paused in reloading the revolver and raised an eyebrow.
“They’re shooting at each other?” Irene said.
Another volley of gunfire came from below.
Cian felt his stomach drop. “No. That means that the Dane’s men are here.”
“Perfect,” Harry said. “Now we only have to get past two groups of armed men, both intent on killing us.”
“And killing each other,” Cian reminded him. “That’s something.”
“Just get the mask.”
Cian made his way two doors down and knocked.
No answer.
He opened the door, keeping an eye out for girls who might be caught up in the type of religious frenzy that would end with Cian’s nose being broken. The room was dark, though, and empty. He got onto his belly and crawled under the bed.
And there it was. A small, sealed box.
Damn, he hated that box.
He pulled it free, wormed clear of the bed, and returned to the hall.
“I got it,” he shouted, raising the box overhead.
And that was when the window behind him exploded.
Glass sprayed the floor as the window shattered. Cian stumbled back. He tucked the box under one arm and raised the Colt.
A spider as big as a hound pulled itself through the window. Light from the gas lamps traced the tiny hairs covering its body. The spider made a clicking noise.
Cian shot. The bullet pinned the spider to the wall. Its legs flexed once before curling in.
“Harry,” Cian said.
“What?”
Two more spiders pulled themselves through the window. In the room behind Cian, he heard the crack of breaking glass and a scream.
“Harry!”
“What?”
“We’re in trouble,” Cian said. He shot twice more. The spiders tumbled across the room.
But more were coming. There were always more of the damned things.
Cian pulled the door shut. Behind him, the scream continued to rise, and then the door flew open. A girl tumbled into the hall. For a moment, Cian thought she was wearing a heavy black coat. Then he realized it was one of the spiders that had latched onto her back. The terror in the girl’s face struck something in the back of Cian’s brain. It had the pull of a magnet, drawing his own horror to the front.
The girl stumbled and went down. Cian fired.
Jerking and dancing, the spider rolled off the girl and curled up to die. The girl didn’t move. The back of her dress was gone, and the flesh was corroded and blackened at the edges of jagged puncture wounds. Cian pressed the back of his hand to his mouth.
The girl was crying.
He stepped over her and pulled the door to her room shut. The Colt weighed a hundred pounds.
When he mustered the courage to look back, the girl was shaking. Her eyes were glassy. The poison’s progress through her back was visible, a dark spiderweb under the surface of the corroded skin.
It must have hurt like hell.
She was just one girl. They needed to go. Now. He had to leave her.
She was just one girl.
Corinne had been just one girl. He hadn’t left her, and look how that how turned out.
“Cian,” Irene said. Her voice was impossibly soft, as though she hadn’t noticed that the world had gone mad around them. She set one hand over his.
Cian realized he had the Colt pointed at the dying girl. His knuckles were white.
“Cian,” Irene said again. “It’s alright.” She pushed his hand down.
Cian shook his head and swallowed. The girl had stopped screaming. Now she just trembled as the poison worked its way through her. “She’s—”
“Harry needs you,” Irene said. “I’ll take care of her.”
“Irene,” Cian said. His eyes were hot. He couldn’t figure out why. “She’s not going to get better. You can’t.”
“Go help Harry. I promise. I’ll take care of her.”
Cian hesitated a moment. Then his arm dropped. He wiped his eyes and made his way to the stairs.
The sound of broken glass came from behind closed doors on both sides of the hallway.
“The Children,” Cian said. His voice sounded as though he’d spent the last twenty years eating sand. “They sent those damned spiders.”
“You all right?” Harry asked.
“I’m fucking fine.”
“I was only—”
“Either tell me what we’re doing or shut the hell up.”
Harry frowned. “Fine. You keep them busy. I’ll open a path.”
“How?”
“Do what I say,” Harry said with an angry smile. “Or shut the hell up.”
Cian took Harry’s place. Harry stepped back and pulled an amber disc from his pocket.
“Is that it?” Cian asked.
Harry nodded. “I need a few minutes.”
Cian leaned around the corner. A group of men had set up an impromptu barricade at the base of the stairs. Two men were eying the steps, and one loosed a shot at Cian. Cian pulled back. Plaster and wood puffed into the air.
Harry’s eyes were open. His lips moved, but he didn’t make a sound. In his hands, the amber disc had a faint sheen, as though the gaslight were sliding off a layer of grease.
Further back, Irene had pulled a quilt over the girl on the floor. Irene’s back was to Cian. He didn’t need to see her face, though, to read the pain Irene felt. It was obvious in every line of her body. Plain and simple. Like reading stained glass in church.
He turned around the corner and fired twice. One man fell back, a bullet through the side of the head. The other round clipped the shoulder of a scrawny man, and he sent up a howl. Cian pulled back. The return gunfire sent vibrations through the wall.
Cian counted to ten. His elbow ached from the Colt’s kick. The smell of gun-smoke filled his head. His ears rang from the shots.
Alive. He felt alive.
And angry.
As he readied himself to fire off another shot, though, Cian caught sight of Harry’s face. The other man’s eyes were wide. He looked past Cian. Or perhaps through him. They were the eyes of someone seeing something terrible or wonderful for the very first time. They sent a chill down Cian’s spine.
“When I say the word,” Harry said. It was a voice carried by a broken wire. “I need you to distract them.”
Cian nodded.
Harry shivered. He stood up straight. His pupils had dilated until only a rim of color showed around them. In his hands, the disc glowed like an electric bulb.
“Now,” Harry said.
Cian started to turn around the corner. Then, over Harry’s shoulder, he saw one of the doors splinter. A massive spider, larger than the other, its fur graying, pulled itself through the broken boards.
“Now, Cian,” Harry said.
“Irene,” Cian said. “Irene!”
The spider crawled through the shattered door. Behind it, in the light of the gas lamps, lay the body of a dead woman. Her skin was blackened and puckered, as though she had died in a fire. Fear landed a kidney blow on Cian.
He darted around Harry.
“Cian,” Harry shouted.
Cian heard him like a train shooting past a canary. He raised the Colt and fired. The first shot caught one of the massive spider’s legs. The limb snapped, spraying a th
ick green goo across the floor. Where the sludge touched the boards, it sizzled and steamed, eating away at the wood. The spider rocked forward, off balance, but recovered.
Irene was turning around. Too slowly. Far too slowly.
Cian fired again. His heart was in his hands, throwing his aim off, making him feel as though his fingers were a hundred times too big. The shot skipped off the spider’s back. The wound was no more than a scratch, but more of the thick green fluid showed under the spider’s fur.
The creature reared back, preparing to lunge at Irene.
Cian fired again. This time the bullet flew true. The round caught the spider in the head. There was a wet, crushing sound as a chunk of the spider’s head was torn away. For a moment, the spider wobbled on its remaining legs. Then it fell.
Irene finished twisting around. Her eyes went to the spider’s leg and then to the crumpled body. Color ran from her cheeks like paint in a thunderstorm. With a shaking hand, she pulled out her little revolver and held it, pointed at nothing.
Without waiting for Irene to recover, Cian helped her to her feet. Together, they turned around. Cian froze.
Harry stood at the top of the stairs. His back was to Cian and Irene, and overhead he held the disc. He looked like something out of the pulps, the prophet of a savage god, bathed in the white-gold light that shone from the disc. Irene’s nails bit into Cian’s arms.
Cian tried to draw a breath.
A moment later, the light coiled in on itself and then shot down the stairs. The flare was tremendous. Cian shut his eyes too late, and a purple-green afterimage of Harry clung to the inside of his eyelids. Heat rolled down the hallway, bringing pinpricks of sweat to Cian’s face and chest.
For a moment, silence. Then something in the house below collapsed.
On the superheated air came the scent of wood-smoke, and cooking meat, and the heavier stench of burned cloth. Cian opened his eyes and saw a cloud of ash and smoke boil up the steps. Harry still stood there. His shoulders sagged. His hands had dropped to his sides. The disc was only a piece of amber again.
He was Adam, cast from the Garden.
Harry turned around, exhaustion obvious in his face.
Cian saw the spider too late.
The creature crouched in the closest doorway, a tangled ball of legs and a compact, furry body. It launched itself at Harry without a sound.
Harry never saw it.
The spider landed on Harry’s back and reared back. Harry jerked away from it, but it clung to him.
Cian pulled the trigger on the Colt.
An empty click.
The spider dropped its tiny head.
Harry screamed.
Cian crossed the distance to Harry in two huge strides. The spider still had its head buried in Harry’s back. Cian brought the barrel of the Colt down as hard as he could. There was a pop, and the spider’s head collapsed. The abomination kicked and flailed, still holding onto Harry in death.
Harry was still screaming. Cian had never heard a sound like it before.
And then Irene was there with a knife, prying the thing’s jaws open. The spider dropped, still twitching, and Cian kicked it down the stairs.
Harry fell. Cian caught him around the waist and lowered him to the ground. The back of Harry’s shirt had been eaten away by the spider’s venom. A large circle of skin on Harry’s back, surrounded the obvious puncture marks, was already red and corroded, as though Harry had been exposed to acid. Or, Cian thought, remembering France, to one of those awful gases that the Huns had used. Under the puncture marks, two dark stains were visible, marking pools of venom that inched out across Harry’s back.
“Is he ok?” Irene asked.
“I don’t know,” Cian said.
“Well, will he be ok?”
“God, I don’t know, Irene.”
Irene’s mouth was a thin line. She was holding onto the wall for support.
Harry whimpered. His eyes were wide and unseeing as he stared out across the floor. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth. From the venom or from biting his tongue, Cian didn’t know.
Irene wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hands.
“We have to get him out of here,” Cian said. He lifted Harry. The man screamed again, then stiffened, and then collapsed. Silent.
Cian checked the man’s breathing, just to be sure.
Unconscious. Not dead.
He put Harry over his shoulder and moved to the stairs.
Irene hadn’t budged.
“Well?” Cian said.
“Cian—I can’t. There’s someone I have to help.”
“Who the hell do you have to help?”
She shook her head. “Go, Cian. Get Harry out of here. Now.”
Cian only had a moment. A moment to think about leaving Irene alone here. A moment to think about leaving Corinne.
Irene disappeared into the next room, and then Cian heard a girl screaming, and Irene’s voice.
She would have to take care of herself, but that didn’t make him feel any better. He took the stairs down. The rug on the steps was scorched in places, burned through in others, and fire had blackened the banister and paneling. Below, an entire section of the house was gone: floor, joists, and walls. Charred edges marked the a rectangular space that was now open to the freezing night air. It looked as though someone had run a match along a piece of paper.
It turned Cian’s guts to water. Nobody should be able to do that.
Nobody.
“Harry,” Pearl called from somewhere nearby. The smoke was thicker here, and the night air stirred ash and cinders. “Cian.”
Cian coughed, cleared his throat, and said, “Here, Pearl.”
A gust of air cleared the smoke long enough for Cian to glimpse Pearl, standing on the far side of the hole that had been burned through the hose. Despair filled her face, and then the smoke thickened again.
“Cian,” Pearl said. Her voice broke.
“He’s alive, Pearl. He needs help.”
“I’ll meet you at the car,” Pearl said.
From above came the sound of a shot. Cian glanced up.
“Irene,” he called.
No answer.
“Shit and double shit,” Cian muttered. “Irene!”
Nothing but the creak and groan of the house. Cian waited a moment longer. And then he stumbled towards the front of the building. The large front room was abandoned. An overturned drink made a translucent pool across the bar. The piano sat with its lid raised, as though there should have been music for the occasion, and someone—God, perhaps—had simply forgotten to start playing. A hat lay on one of the chaise longues.
The freezing air pulled the heat from Cian’s skin and breath. It outlined his gasps and pants as he carried Harry toward the car. In the weak light, the frosted breath seemed to hold together longer than it should have, trailing in Cian’s wake.
Like ghosts.
When he reached the car, he threw open the door and climbed into the back, laying Harry across the seat. Pearl arrived a moment later. She took one glance at Harry and got into the driver’s seat. The car rumbled to life, and they pulled out into the street.
The woman could have given the Kaiser lessons in self-control.
“Is he—”
Cian checked Harry’s pulse. It was fast. Too fast. Harry’s skin was hot and moist, and his breath sounded like an ailing electric fan.
And then, Harry’s eyes opened. He looked at Cian. He licked his lips, like a man trapped in the desert. And his hand crept up to take Cian’s. His grip was slick with fever-sweat.
“It’s ok, Ollie,” he said, the words slurred. “It’s ok. I won’t let them take you again.”
Cian froze. Part of him wanted to pull back. Part of him feared what might happen if he did.
“Ollie,” Harry said. His grip tightened, and he tried to pull himself upright.
Cian forced him back down.
“Ollie?” Harry asked.
“It’s ok,”
Cian said, and his voice was tight. “It’s me. It’s ok.”
Harry nodded, and his eyes drifted shut.
After Cian had cleared his throat, he said, “Pearl, drive faster.”
As Cian disappeared down the steps, carrying Harry over his shoulder, Irene felt a pang of guilt. This was exactly what he had feared: leaving her behind again. What was worse, she had been caught out in her lie.
But who in the seven hells would have thought they’d be at a whorehouse tonight?
Irene tried to suppress a sigh. All things considered, she should have expected something like this. She stepped into Anna’s room. Anna was sitting on the bed, a wadded-up cloth held to the side of her head, her eyes shut. Kate, in a dress that showed more cleavage than taste, stood with her back to the shuttered window. A scraping sound came from outside.
“What’s going on?” Kate asked. Her voice had climbed higher, but she didn’t look panicked. A bit wild about the eyes, but still in control. “Who are you? Who are those men?”
“You need to step away from that window,” Irene said. “And we need to leave. Now.”
“Those—those things.”
“One of them is about to break through those shutters, I’d imagine. You don’t want to be here when it does.” Irene bent over Anna and shook the girl’s arm. “Anna, get up. We’re leaving.”
“What do you mean?” Kate said. “She can’t—”
The sound of snapping wood came from outside. Kate threw herself to the side. A heartbeat later, a dark body threw itself against the glass. The window shattered.
Irene fired the revolver. It caught the spider, by luck more than skill, and the creature tumbled to the floor. Through the broken glass, Irene could see more of the dark shapes on the building opposite them.
“Now,” Irene said. Her ears rang from the shot. She grabbed Anna and hauled the girl to her feet. “Come on.”
The three women staggered into the hallway, with Kate and Irene helping Anna to keep her feet. At the end of the hall, another spider crept out of one of the abandoned rooms, its abdomen close to the floor as though it were ready to leap. Irene motioned the other women ahead of her and took the stairs backwards, the revolver ready.