Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3)

by Bartholomew Lander

  Annika watched from her hiding place as a small crowd flowed through the tight door and descended the steep steps. Sweatshirts, backpacks. Old guy with a mohawk. Some lady in a hoodie who looked like a fat goose left too long in the oven. Several children clinging to a father with the nastiest goatee she’d ever seen. After a dozen and a half people bounded down from the elevated floor, a moment of silence passed. She felt the pit of her stomach drop. Where are they? This is the bus, isn’t it?

  She snapped her head over to the left, convinced Arthr must have let himself be seen and that the girls were now huddled in cowering heaps beneath their seats. But Arthr was obediently hiding behind another column, and he answered her gaze with a confused shrug. Then, the speaker began to blabber once more.

  “Thank you for riding Wayfarer, America’s value bus line. Wayfarer bus L-238 for Las Vegas will arrive in about two hours. Wayfarer bus R-124 for Albuquerque is now boarding.”

  Annika’s jaw clamped shut. Her hands felt numb. Had she made a mistake? No, that wasn’t possible. Something was wrong. She ignored Arthr’s questioning glances and marched out of her hiding place toward the lines of travelers now boarding. She fell in line behind a broad-shouldered man in a red turtleneck, and when her turn came she ascended the steps.

  “May I see your ticket?” asked the woman with the tangled net of hair in the driver’s seat.

  Annika ignored her as she swept her gaze down the aisle and to the back of the bus. No Spinzie. No Kara. In a panic, not quite believing her eyes, she looked back and forth between the rows, hoping that the girls would materialize. Then, her disbelief turned to fury. She scowled and glared at the bus driver. “Where are they?”

  “Ma’am, if you don’t have a ticket then you can’t board. This isn’t—”

  “I said where are they!? The brunette shorty and her blond little sister—they were on this bus, they must have been! Now, where are they?”

  The bus driver’s rebuke died on her tongue. She gave Annika a long look, and the corners of her mouth twitched. “A brunette and blonde?”

  Annika’s desperation coalesced when she saw the driver’s reaction. “Have you seen them? Where are they? It is vitally important that you tell me where they went, right now!”

  The bus driver shook her head. “It would be against Wayfarer’s policy to give out information on our passengers.” Clearly upset by something, she tilted her head to one side. “But I will say that the last driver of this bus had some kind of incident back in Carland. From what rumors I heard, the girls you’re describing may have had something to do with it.”

  “In Carland?” Holy shit, what did you idiots do this time?

  “That’s where the last driver was when I took over. Don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but—”

  Annika turned around and hopped down the stairs. Haste returned to her steps. Out of the bus and into the splintered sunlight, toward the parking lot. “Get back in the car,” she said to Arthr. “Looks like those bitches jumped ship before it came to port.”

  He fell in behind her, looking confused as always. “What? They weren’t on the bus?”

  “Observant.”

  “Then where are they?”

  She ripped her driver door open and dropped into the seat. The engine roared online. As soon as Arthr sat down and his door was closed, she stomped the gas and tore out of the parking lot, slamming the kid back against the seat with the sudden acceleration. “Where are they,” Annika said. “Where are they, indeed? Looks like my intuition was right.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a good thing you’re here.” Her fingers wove into her pocket and clasped the chain within. “Here,” she said. She then threw the finely coiled necklace at him.

  Arthr fumbled to catch it. When he got over the fright of squirming metal flying at his face, he held the pendant between two outstretched fingers. “What is this?”

  She jerked the wheel and the car lurched into another lane. “It’s a necklace your sister got from Mark. I’d wager dollars to dingo eggs she’s been wearing that ever since she got it, just like some lovesick dugong. If your smelling thing works like a bloodhound’s nose, then you can catch her scent with that.”

  He looked up at her, eyes wide and doey. “Smelling thing? What are you talking about?”

  “Like Spinzie and Kara used to find your dad back at the Corporation.”

  “Oh.” He shook his head. “But I can’t do that.”

  The muscles in her face locked, turning as rigid as stone. “You what?”

  “D-did I say something wrong?”

  “What do you mean you can’t do that? Are you seriously telling me that only spider-bitches can smell?”

  A sheepish look came to his face. “I . . . guess so?”

  “Then why the fuck did I even bring you!?” Her fingernails dug into the steering wheel. She took a slow, deep breath. Calm down, Annie. “Okay,” she said with a hiss. “Fine. You can’t track them. So what? I wasn’t planning on using you in the first place, so this changes nothing. Do me a separate favor then.”

  “W-what?”

  “Give that necklace back to Spinzie when we find her. I’m liable to throttle her with it if given half a chance.”

  “Uhh, o-okay.”

  She gritted her teeth. The morning traffic was light, and that was just smashing. But she couldn’t stop thinking about what the bus driver had said. An incident. The girls were connected. And based on the internet history left behind, Carland wasn’t an intended stop on their journey. In all likelihood, that meant they now had bigger problems.

  Though the sun had breached the horizon, two miles of pine forest choked the light of dawn. By the time Spinneretta and Kara emerged from the thick woodland and onto a rolling grassy slope, they were both gasping for breath. Spinneretta stumbled, and when her knees hit the ground she didn’t bother to right herself. She slipped her bag off her shoulder and doubled over on the ground in the midst of a coughing fit.

  Kara flopped down beside her, panting. Her spider legs protruded from her jacket and clutched at her sides. A moment later, Cinnamon slunk up beside her and crawled into her lap. Kara scratched the Leng cat behind her ears and was rewarded with a rattling purr.

  Spinneretta glared at the thing in her sister’s lap. “You just had to bring Cinnamon. You just had to make things complicated.”

  Kara shot her a sharp look. “Well excuse me for wanting to involve her. It’s not like you could’ve picked a line that accepts pets or anything.”

  “That isn’t the issue here! She shouldn’t have come in the first place!” Spinneretta shook a little and wiped her forehead. “God, it’s going to be hard enough to make it to California without getting found out as it is, and you just have to bring the fucking violent little monster.”

  At this, Cinnamon glanced up at her and growled, her voice clicking harshly in her throat.

  The show of undeniable irritation startled Spinneretta. “Don’t give me that hissy crap,” she said with a small cough. “You got us kicked off the damn bus. You don’t get to be mad.”

  Cinnamon growled again, and this time the voice in Spinneretta’s head stirred in its slumber. I was trying to protect you, the voice suggested.

  Spinneretta blinked at the creature, both of their bodies stiff. Was she imagining shit again? It was the stress, most likely. Then she sighed and rolled onto her back. The tall grass tickled her ears and cheeks, and an earthy smell flooded her spiracles. A deep breath pushed her ribs outward. She could’ve drunk that air for hours. “God, what’s wrong with me? I’m talking to a damn spider-cat like it can understand me.”

  “She can understand you,” Kara said, no less indignant than before. “Remember? She heeled when I told her to.”

  “No, she’s probably just attuned to your emotions.”

  Kara huffed. “Whatever.”

  For a short while, Spinneretta just lay in the grass, watching the clumps of clouds drifting overhead, their golden ribbons twirling
toward the rising sun. “We don’t have much time. We need to keep going. We have to be there by the thirtieth. That gives us nine days.”

  Kara rolled over, mimicking Spinneretta. Cinnamon leapt on top of her chest, her spider legs playfully batting at a stray lock of Kara’s hair. “Do you think we can walk there in time?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Then what are we supposed to do? I don’t suppose you want to go back the way we came and get on the bus again?”

  Spinneretta sat up and looked out at the wilderness before them. The sun rising above the pines painted the landscape. Rolling hills, littered with boulders, sloped down onto a wide plain. A babbling creek meandered leisurely through the middle of the flatland, flowing through fields of stones and wildflowers. Farther in the distance, slate-gray peaks rose from another sea of pines, their scarred faces brilliant in the morning sun. The sight was momentarily breathtaking. They were utterly alone with the beauty of the wilds.

  “I think we’re going to need to press on until we find another town,” Spinneretta said after a pause. “Preferably one with a Wayfarer terminal.”

  Kara squealed in delight and sprang into a crouch. “Yay! It’s an adventure!”

  Spinneretta gave her sister a sidelong look. “Kara, this is serious. We’re going to have to make good time. God knows how far we are from civilization.”

  She shrugged, bright smile still on her face. “It’ll be fine. We’re in the middle of America. Civilization is all around us.”

  Her sister’s optimism did little to dissolve the dread knotted in Spinneretta’s gut. She’d never thought she’d find the great outdoors so oppressively vast; now it threatened to crush all hope. If they were unable to make it to Manix before the thirtieth, then calamity would pour out from the desert—and it would be her fault.

  Her lower appendages pushed at the ground and lifted her to her feet. Beyond the forests in the distance, the jagged crags rising from the overgrowth looked like ample locations from which to scout their surroundings. For a moment, she just took in the splendor of the sight. Then she hefted her bag back onto her shoulder and began to walk.

  Chapter 17

  Seek

  Peeking out from behind the Calico Mountains, the morning sun illuminated a pale landscape. Waves of heat had already begun to billow up from the weed-encrusted sands. The punishing glare made it hard to look out upon the town of Manix properly, and so Amanda settled for watching the scattered structures zoom by out the side window.

  The town spread out like a patchwork quilt unfurling from the alluvial fan. Poorly kept lawns full of dried weeds and gravel etched out blighted pockmarks upon the hills. But worse were the ramshackle half-houses that dotted the outskirts of the main thoroughfare. Broken wire fences, their rungs buried in sand and sediment, hurtled by on either side. A greengrocer, made of adobe and covered in flaked paint withered by the unforgiving solar nemesis. A repair shop, vivisected automobiles sitting upon cinder blocks, inert as carrion, mechanical organs ripped out and splattered across the ground in disorganized piles. Telephone pole after telephone pole, splintered and cracked by endless days and desiccating nights. Rust-eaten corrugated metal everywhere. A crude pumping station, visible for only a second before becoming another ghost among the stirring dusts.

  And for all the sights to be seen, all the character and culture embodied in each devoured rivet and collapsed plank, there was one thing Amanda could not escape: the utter lack of life apparent in this town. Wikipedia had taught her that the population of Manix was near four thousand—tiny compared even to Grantwood—but there didn’t seem to be a single soul anywhere. No other cars stormed the roads on the way to work, no early morning joggers or dog walkers, no mailmen, no open signs in the diners or retailers.

  It was as though they’d driven into a ghost town.

  Her stomach crawled with spiders. Sweat moistened her hands as she searched the patchwork town for any sign that would dispute the dawning conclusion: that they were too late, and the cult had already consumed the life of Manix.

  In the driver’s seat, Kyle grunted a weary sound and pulled off to the side of the road, right next to a battered trailer that sat tangled in the remnants of a barbed wire fence. The engine gave a small moan as he killed the engine. For a long moment, they all sat there in quiet contemplation, the only sound the constant whirring of the air conditioner. “Well, where to?” he asked.

  Amanda bit her lip. “I don’t know. I hadn’t quite figured that part out. I thought there’d be something obvious here, like a church or a recruiting station.” In the distance, toward the center of the gray splotches of geometry, she could just make out the shape of a tan expanse framed by adobe-colored walls. The central and almost regal aspect of the anomaly made her wonder if that wasn’t the plaza the video had mentioned. We await them in the central plaza in the town of Manix. The thought gave her the shivers.

  The upholstery crunched as Chelsea leaned in across the passenger seat’s headrest. “Didn’t Rita say anything about where to find them?”

  “I asked her,” Amanda said, “but never got an answer.” The question percolated a moment longer. “Wait, how did you know about Rita?”

  Chelsea jumped. “Uhh, you mentioned something about her before. At Kyle’s.”

  “I did?” I at least don’t remember mentioning her name. She shook her head. “Well, whatever. Point is, this place looks . . . ”

  Kyle took a noisy sip of his coffee dregs. “Dead. I spent a bit of time out in this area as a kid, you know. Never seen a place so desolate as this. Not even fucking Yermo. Something’s wrong with this town.”

  “I told you,” Amanda said, the pit in her stomach growing deeper despite its cushioned pancake lining. “If everyone’s gone, then we might be too late. We need to find the cult.”

  “If everyone’s gone,” Chelsea interjected, “then the cult is the fucking last thing we should be looking for.”

  Kyle jerked his head over his left shoulder. “There was a gas station back on the edge of town that looked like it was staffed. Could go ask there. They’ve gotta at least be aware that something’s off.”

  Chelsea made a low whine in the back of her throat and then laid her forehead upon the headrest. “I mean . . . I’ve got nothing better.”

  Amanda stared at the pale shape in the distance that seemed to dominate the heart of the town. It had to be the plaza. If the cult was waiting there . . . Charging in would be a terrible idea. The thought made her arms and shoulders shake. Was it fear she felt? We need to gather information first. Yeah, that’s it. That’s what a detective does. Can’t go in without knowing what we’re facing. She nodded, mostly to herself. “Alright. Let’s go, then.”

  Amanda wasn’t sure if the brewing storm in her lungs was optimism or nausea. Either way, she hated it.

  Arthr dragged his feet behind Annika as she strode ahead of him toward the small group of buildings. The sun was directly above, having finally escaped the clutches of the vast pine forests in the distance. At last, he could see the gorgeous greenery surrounding them, but he paid that price in sweat. His jacket smothered his spider legs like a sauna towel. He was almost certain he felt sweat pooling in his spiracles. When the hot concrete under his feet went cold beneath a sharp line of shade from an overhang, a shiver of relief washed over him.

  Behind the bus depot’s main building, they came to a door labeled Employees Only. Annika tried the knob, and then rapped on the door. She turned over her shoulder to him. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll play along. No fucking this up, alright?”

  Arthr clenched his teeth. What makes you think I’m going to mess anything up? But he swallowed his irritation and dipped his chin. “What’s the plan?”

  “The plan is I talk and you don’t. Got it?” Before he could answer, she knocked again on the door, louder this time.

  A moment later, the door clattered open, and a short man in a uniform poked his balding head out. He gave them a puzzled loo
k. “Sorry, this is a private area. If you have any questions I can direct you to the front desk for—”

  “That will not be necessary.” Annika reached into her pocket and pulled out a wallet. Her stance widened as she showed him something inside. “Agent Bordon, FBI.”

  The man’s eyes widened as he looked at what Arthr assumed to be a counterfeit badge. “FBI?” He glanced over his shoulder and then stepped outside. Concern dripped from his forehead as the door rattled shut behind him. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “I’m with the government, sir. We do not understand jokes.”

  The man’s gaze darted to where Arthr stood, and then he looked back up at her. “Is there something wrong?”

  She folded her wallet back up and gave a little sigh. “I suppose I wouldn’t be here otherwise. But don’t worry. Nobody here is in trouble. I’m here investigating an incident that supposedly occurred early this morning between the hours of five and seven a.m. I have it on good authority the bus driver of Wayfarer bus number R-124 encountered . . . let’s call it a curious phenomenon for now. My department has taken something of an interest in the incident. Can you tell me where I may find the driver of that bus?”

  The short man seemed to recede into thought for a moment. “Hold on,” he said. “Are you telling me that he really did see a chupacabra?”

  Annika crossed her arms. “I am not at liberty to discuss information pertaining to the investigation. Now please, answer me, Mr. Laster,” she said, glancing at his name tag.

  He started, looking quite afraid. “Ahh, I’m sorry, Officer.”

  “Agent.”

  “S-sorry.” He opened the door again using a key dangling from his pocket, and then gestured for them to follow. “Right this way, please.”

  Annika nodded. “Thank you.” She beckoned Arthr on and slipped through the door into a dim hallway. With a nervous gulp, he followed.

  “George is in the office,” the man said as they walked. “He’s been swearing up and down about the whole thing, but nobody on staff will pay him any mind. Everyone’s just thought him nuts.”