Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3)

by Bartholomew Lander

  She grunted in confirmation and bashed the door open with her shoulder.

  Annika whipped her eyes hither-thither, reconstructing what Spinneretta’s room may have looked like when the girl had been there. No signs of struggle. It was neat enough she couldn’t imagine Spinneretta leaving in a rush. That meant the departure was premeditated as opposed to panicked survival. No surprise there.

  “What are you looking for?” Arthr asked from behind her.

  Unwilling to entertain him, she slammed the door with her foot and left him in the hall. With a huff, she crossed her arms and began to search. Clothes were missing, which meant the girl was planning on changing at some point. That probably ruled out suicide, not that the little bitch had the stomach to go through with it anyway. Her olive jacket was still hanging in the closet, whereas Mark’s was nowhere to be found. She knew from experience the stupid fuzzy lining would have made Mark’s jacket unbearable in the heat around Lake Cormorant, so there must have been a reason she took that one. Annika found Mark’s necklace—the one with that saccharine platitude carved into it—coiled up on Spinneretta’s bed. She hesitated as she examined the object. It seemed vaguely out of place, but it wasn’t important enough to derail her search, so she shoved it into her pocket and kept looking.

  The last thing she checked was Spinneretta’s computer. She powered it on, not expecting to find anything helpful. Spinneretta was reasonably computer-savvy, after all; she had a programmer for a father and the dumb-looking lanyard on her desk made it look like she’d gotten a job as an IT administrator—wait, IT admin at seventeen? That’s bullshit. After the machine booted up, she began to investigate. And when she found that the girl’s search history hadn’t been deleted, all she could do was stare at the screen in abject disbelief. Holy shit, really? You’re a damn IT admin and you don’t even clear your history? I knew you were stupid, but Jesus God. Guess you may have left a little too fast for your own good, Spinzie.

  Bus schedules. Tickets. She’d been looking at a bus from Duluth to Las Vegas, and transfers that would take her to someplace called Manix in the Mojave. The bus would’ve taken a day and a half at a pretty penny, but the more recent searches suggested she’d changed her mind. It was a four-day trip at a budget price, with a ton of stops as the separate buses drifted in their own directions. She’d probably wanted the direct route, but Kara’s involvement must have made her reconsider. Annika smirked, thanking the younger girl in her mind. This gave her a strict timetable. She took a snapshot of the screen with her phone for future reference. Time was short, but she knew she could intercept them before they reached their destination.

  She had a smoking gun. No need to check Kara’s room; there wasn’t time. As she tore out into the hall and past Arthr, who kept trying to get her attention, she dialed Mark’s number. The line came alive just as she reached the kitchen.

  “Annika?” Mark said.

  She pulled the refrigerator open. “Alright, Mark, it’s about time you tell me what this Yellow Dawn you were barking about is.” An apple sat on the bottom shelf, and she grabbed it.

  “I am surprised you haven’t heard about it,” he said with a small pant. “A couple nights ago, some group put out a video demanding that the children of the Fifth be brought to them within two weeks.”

  Annika sighed and let the refrigerator door drift closed. “Great. Just fantastic. So on top of all this, the damn cult is back.”

  “No. It’s not the same cult as before. There’s something different about them.”

  She marched for the front door and took a bite of the apple. “I don’t care,” she said, her mouth full of crunchy fruit flesh. “They want the children, and in my eyes that makes them the same. Either way, I’ll go out on a limb and say that nobody’s taking them seriously except for Spinzie and the pumpkin-bread fairies.”

  “The what?”

  Arthr was waving his hands at her, but she ignored him and stomped out the door into the balmy midday heat. “Never mind. At any rate, you’ll want to head for Manix. Just in case I fail to catch them on the way there.”

  “You’re going after them?”

  “Why does everyone keep asking questions about the fucking obvious?”

  “Be careful, Annika,” Mark said. “I have a really bad feeling about this cult. Whatever Spinny and Kara are thinking of doing . . . ”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll find them. They can’t have gone too far yet. I’m expecting you to pull your weight too, you know.”

  “What do you think I’m doing right now?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care. Annika out.” She hung up and pushed the phone into her pocket. Her hand fumbled with the handle to her car door.

  “Hey, wait!” Arthr called from the porch.

  The door clicked, and just in time. “Beat it, kid. This is grown-up business.”

  “But wait, come on! You can’t just leave like that without even—”

  She scowled at him. “Get back inside.”

  He stopped in his tracks, frozen on the steps of the porch. His eyebrows drifted apart and he lowered his gaze. “You don’t have to be like that, you know. I just want to know what happened to my sisters.”

  A hiss seethed out through her teeth. Her fuse burned out, and she wheeled on the boy. “Do you know how much work it took to make you idiots disappear?” she shouted. “Do you think I can just pull new social security numbers out of thin air? That shit is hard to get, it’s expensive to get, and it’s illegal as shit. I put my money, my time, and my ass on the line for you little bastards. And can you just sit still and enjoy the free fresh start? Oh, no! Heavens, no! Just gotta go run off on some idiotic quest the first chance you get. Please, Annika, we don’t wanna live. We just wanna die, because that’s all we know how to do. You three are living proof that if you give a man a fish he’ll hang himself.”

  Arthr raised his hands defensively. “A-Annika, I’m sorry, I just—”

  The apple crunched between her teeth. It tasted like anger. “Forget it. Tell your mom I was here. Peace out.” She slipped into the seat and stabbed the key into the ignition. It started right up with a purr that conjured an image of the missing Leng cat.

  “Wait!” Arthr leapt in front of her car and slammed his hands on the hood, giving her a desperate look. “You can’t just leave me here to—”

  “Don’t you fucking dare hit my car!” One hand threw the transmission into reverse, and the car lurched backward. May wouldn’t have been too happy if she killed her last remaining moron. She backed up until she could see her brake lights illuminating the trunks of the tree wall, and then put it into drive again just in time for Arthr to jump in front of her. “Move it, retard!” She slammed her fist on the horn, and Arthr winced at the sound.

  “I’m going with you!”

  “Dear God, I’ve given you brain damage. Get the fuck out of the way. You have nothing to add to this, Arthr. Just stay here and—”

  “I can help you look for them! I can—”

  “—let me out of here before I commit manslaughter on your front lawn!”

  “—help, just give me a chance, I know how they think and where they’d be going! Come on, just let me come!”

  She was just about to throw the door open and smash the kid’s head into the nearest tree when a thought occurred to her. Even if she hated to admit it, the kid did have something that could help. Kara and Spinzie had zeroed in on their father’s scent underneath the Golmont Corporation building, and therefore Arthr should’ve had the exact same heightened sense of smell. And that gave her a contingency plan. It didn’t matter where they ended up since he’d be able to lead her right to them.

  She expelled a deep breath. She wished there was another choice. “Alright, fine. You can come. Get in, now. Time is against us.”

  “How much farther is it?” Chelsea asked.

  Amanda rolled her eyes. You’ve asked that three times in the last ten minutes. “Just relax. We’ll be there soon.” Despite her confidence
, she glanced down at the map app showing the route from the Amtrak station to the Rogers estate. Her feet hurt, but she only noticed it when Chelsea whined at her.

  The off-white shops lining the main road of Marlin seemed to grin at them. Half were built out of corrugated metal splotched by rust from constant exposure to the sea winds. A thin layer of sand covered most of the sidewalk. Loose grains rubbed away at the skin between her toes with each step. She hated the beach. It smelled like fish, and not the sushi kind. A gust of salty wind blew a stray strand of hair into her face, and she wanted to scream at her hair to behave.

  “Mandy?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “What?”

  Chelsea was looking at the ground with a troubled look on her face. “What am I supposed to tell my dad?”

  Amanda shrugged. “You should’ve thought about that before you followed me.”

  “Well, what’re you going to say? My dad’ll be getting home any minute now. Am I just supposed to ignore his calls?”

  She looked ahead at the hill that rose beyond the end of the street. “Just tell him the truth.”

  “The truth? Just tell him that I ran away with you for no good reason? Yeah, that’ll go over smoothly. You’re really losing it, you know.”

  “For how often you say that,” she said in a bored tone, “you wouldn’t have followed me if you really thought so.”

  Chelsea didn’t answer her. She just walked along, the sound of her steps narrowly avoiding syncing up with Amanda’s own.

  Amanda checked the time on her phone. Five-thirty. The sound of that thought flowed seamlessly into her musical ring tone, as though invoked by the gods of time and space. She felt Chelsea’s eyes boring into the back of her skull. With a deep, salt-laced breath, she swiped the notification away and brought the phone to her ear. “Hi, Dad.”

  “Amanda?” came her father’s panicked voice. “Where the hell are you?”

  “Based on your tone, you already know where I am.”

  A pause. “What are you doing?” His panic seemed to be strangling him. “You can’t just go running off. I know you feel strongly about the whole thing, but we can’t just have you doing stuff like this. Mandy, can you hear me?”

  “I can.”

  “You’re . . . Tell you what. Why don’t you come on back home? We’ll talk about all this. We can figure something out. We can all work together on this, okay?”

  “There’s nothing to figure out. I’m not coming back until I’ve finished what I set out to do.”

  Her father’s frail calm shattered. “And just what am I supposed to tell your mother about this, huh!? This is going to break her heart! Do you know how irresponsible you’re being? We raised you to be better than this, Amanda! If you don’t get your ass on the next bus back to Grantwood I’m going to call the police to come get you!”

  “If that’s what you’re going to do, then do it.”

  Her father sputtered. “Amanda. Why are you doing this?”

  “I told you in the note, Dad. This is bigger than any of us. And none of us are safe from it.” She closed her eyes and counted to three. “I’m going to go now, Dad. I love you. And I’ll see you when I’m finished. Apologize to Mom for me.” She hung up before her father could come to his senses and scream at her some more. I’m right to do this, aren’t I? It’s the only choice, but . . . She slipped her phone back into her pocket and rolled her neck up toward the hill that was fast approaching them. Upon the crest of the hill, a solitary home stood at the end of a jagged shadow cast by the descending sun.

  “What if he really does call the police?” Chelsea asked in a meek voice.

  Amanda shrugged. “If he calls the police, then they’re obviously going to come after us. And if they come after us, we’ll lead them right to the cult. Then the world won’t be able to ignore whatever it is they’re doing.”

  Chelsea’s eyes widened with a look of apprehension. “Wait, so you’re saying . . . Amanda, was this your plan the whole time?”

  “If I said it was, would you believe me?”

  As if seeing the doubt in her eyes, Chelsea’s expression faded away. “No. I wouldn’t.”

  Amanda frowned. “Neither would I.”

  A knock at the door roused Kyle from his stupor. His head hurt. Even the slivers of light cutting through the blinds were agonizing to behold. He stumbled to his feet, an empty can clanging against the hardwood floor. Had he fallen asleep again? The hangover suggested he had.

  Another knock, and Kyle scowled. That fucking door. Wonder who it is this time. He stood there for a moment before dropping back onto the couch. Let the bastards knock. His hand sought the beer that should’ve been on the coffee table, and then he remembered the empty can on the floor. It was the last one. The pounding from the door forced his teeth tight together and drew a hiss from his lungs. The noise slammed against his temples and the thick nausea in his gut. When another round of knocking began, he growled and lurched to his feet again.

  “Goddammit!” He marched toward the front door, the pain growing heavier as he neared. “Shut the fuck up already!” He grabbed the handle and threw the door open. At once he had to shield his eyes from the searing evening light. As the shadows began to encroach on his vision, two teenage girls appeared.

  “Umm, hello,” the girl in front said. She had wavy, reddish-brown hair, big green eyes, and a bag slung over one shoulder. “I hate to intrude, but would you be Mr. Kyle Rogers?” The other girl shifted uncomfortably behind the first, eying him with an apparent nervousness.

  He glared at the two, hoping his silence would send them running. It hadn’t worked on the other vultures, but he had to hope.

  The braver girl shifted her weight from one foot to another. “Uhh, okay. Well, my name is Amanda Lark. I know you must be busy. But I’ve been trying to get in contact with you for some time. I know I left a number of messages and . . . Anyways, we came to talk to you about Spinneretta Warren.”

  Big fucking surprise. Kyle closed his eyes and bared his teeth. “Right,” he said. “You came to talk about her. Let me guess. You want an interview so you can post it on the internet. The ramblings of a madman. Think you’re the first to come looking for me!?” The girls recoiled at his outburst, the black-haired one in the back retreating two full steps in fright. “Look there!” He snapped his arm to the right, pointing toward his graffiti-covered garage, which had been tagged with yellow spray paint. “Think I had that done because it fucking looks good? No, you little shit-sheep just believe whatever asshole’s holding the mic, and you’ll do anything to be a part of the fucking herd! So shove your interview up your ass and go cry to your little face books and tweeters about it. Fuckin’ buzzards, is it not enough for you that Harold Wiser is dead? Have you no fucking—”

  The girl in front raised her hands. “You don’t understand,” she said. “We’re here because we believe you. Spinneretta is our friend.”

  “Friend. Now that’s a new one. Why don’t you just get the fuck out of here before I call—”

  “No, it’s true! Listen, we can tell you anything about her. We met her at Mount Hedera Montessori Academy. Her favorite color is teal. Her favorite food is buttered pasta, and if she’s really feeling adventurous she’ll put garlic salt on it. She’s five foot three, and hates being reminded of it—one thing you didn’t mention in the report was her height, I noticed. Let’s see. She hates her name but hates her middle name more. She’s addicted to rice pudding. Her sister Kara doesn’t eat solid food, she always dissolves it with her venom first. And she spins web out of her second set of fangs, it’s this weird golden color when it’s liquid. Want me to go on?”

  Kyle stared at her. Was she serious? He had to fight through the liquor-fog still clinging to his thoughts to remember how much he had said about the spider kids in the report. Don’t think I mentioned her height at all, actually, yeah. Five foot three sounds about right. And the color of the youngest girl’s protein precursor was spot on. He shook his head, s
earching this Lark girl’s eyes for some sign of deception. Had that sign existed, he still wouldn’t have recognized it.

  He furrowed his brow and wiped his face. “Well, you’re either telling the truth or a great liar. But even I don’t know some of that shit, so you could still be making shit up. If you’re really her friend, then can you tell me what her parents’ names are?”

  “Of course,” she said without hesitation. “Ralph and May Warren.”

  The muscles in his face loosened. His jaw dropped. “Shit,” he muttered. “You’re serious.”

  From the west, a buffet of wind raced across the hill, kicking dust and sand up around the girls’ ankles. Amanda’s face was stern. “Mr. Rogers,” she said in a gentle tone, “I have to talk to you about her. May we please come in?”

  Chelsea wished they hadn’t been allowed inside. Kyle’s house was a mess. There were no lights on, and the heavy blinds and drawn curtains blotted out every last trace of the sun. As Kyle beckoned, a glimpse of the kitchen down the hall turned her stomach. Amanda wasted no time following him, and Chelsea trailed behind her. You really are crazy, aren’t you? Mountains of envelopes lay unopened, scattered across the hardwood floor. Books and files turned the short walk to the living room into an obstacle course, and more than once she almost tripped over a stack of something that had been trampled into the scenery.

  In the living room, Kyle groaned and turned on a dim standing lamp in the corner. The living room was just as bad as the hallway, with boxes and documents strewn in all conceivable directions. One thin, blue volume, labeled only with the scarcely legible text Starblooded, was leaned against the body of a dilapidated piano. Tinted bottles and crushed aluminum cans crowded the small coffee table, lined up like broken toy soldiers. The scent of astringent alcohol hung thick in the air and made Chelsea wrinkle her nose. She’d never seen such squalor in person before.