Arthr rolled to a stop at the foot of the slope, leaving a red sheen across the stones. Chelsea scrambled toward him on all fours. “Arthr!” She grabbed his shoulders and shook him, and a whimper slipped out from the back of his throat. His glazed eyes just stared beyond her into the cave wall. Panicking, Chelsea turned him over onto his stomach. “Shit, we need to stop the bleeding.”
Blood oozed over jagged rings of chitin that barely protruded from his back. The sight made even Annika lightheaded. Chelsea was so pale she looked like she would faint, but her concern seemed to overpower her horror. The girl pulled what remained of her cult robe over her head and balled it up. She pressed the dark fabric against Arthr’s back, trying to choke the blood flow. He winced a little, but it was no more than a ghost of a reaction.
Above them, Nemo stood with his back hunched. The rumbling of distant footsteps grew imminent. “Which of you shall be next, hmm?” His hungry gaze drifted over them. “Who will be the next to taste—”
Annika broke through the nausea wrapping her stomach. She raised her Ruger and fired. The report blew away the Helixweaver’s boast and replaced it with a vile gurgling. Stunned by the impact, he clutched his throat with one hand and fell back a step. Annika bit her lip and fired the last round. The bullet struck his collarbone, and the force knocked him off his feet.
She scrambled to stand. Her left leg almost collapsed from the pain encircling her ankle. “Grab Arthr and let’s go!” she said, slinging Amanda’s arm around her shoulder. She turned hastily, setting her eyes on the tunnel behind them. “Kara, if you can spin web and run, then wrap your brother’s wounds while we get the fuck out of here!”
Chelsea looked up from Arthr. Her expression was blank, her shoulders shaking. But Kara did not share her paralysis. The spider-girl darted under Chelsea’s arms, and her spider legs wrapped around Arthr. “Move! Move, move, move!” She pivoted about and lifted him, bearing his weight across her legs. Her free appendages clawed at the ground, carrying them forward. “Come on!”
Chelsea stumbled to her feet and followed. Her steps were uneven and hesitant, and she almost tripped over Cinnamon as the Leng cat shot after Kara. “W-what about Spins?”
“What the fuck about her!?” Annika yelled over Amanda’s shoulder. The pain in her ankle tore at the muscle. “She’s a big girl; let her die however she wants.”
Burdened by two limp bodies and a twisted ankle, the three hurried into the dark of the tunnel, toward the source of the draft wafting along the cave walls.
When Nemo recovered from Annika’s double tap, he rose to his feet at a measured pace. His broken collarbone rang, pulsing with heat. A trickle of blood ran down his throat. But at a mere thought, magic invaded the torn tissue, and another rash of chitin sealed his damaged flesh. He groaned as the spikes grew between the cracks in his bones and reintegrated the structure. Down below, the footsteps retreated toward nothingness. Not that he minded. Behind him, the sounds of the loyal grew louder. A moment later, the first of the Websworn emerged from the eastern passage.
It was Zurt he saw first. Two of the archon’s limbs had been replaced by arachnid appendages, and a jungle of invasive black spikes protruded from his skin. When Zurt realized who it was that stood before him, he stopped dead in his half-scuttling tracks. Behind him, the phalanx of Websworn halted. “Urn-ma Nemo!” The others at once crossed themselves with the mark of the Dawn, reverent whispers writhing on their tongues.
Nemo hissed, a proud smile breaking through his grimace. “Zurt. I see you have not squandered the gift of the Malefice.”
Stumbling over his own manners, Zurt nodded and bent his remaining knee. “Have you found your victory, Urn-ma Nemo?”
His chitin limbs creaked as they unfurled. He spread his arms to the sides, as though welcoming the rising sun. “The King is dead. Long live the King.”
The Websworn moved to prostrate themselves, but Nemo made a sharp gesture that called them back to their feet. “Your King commands you,” he said. “Pursue Nexara and her allies. Down. Through the tunnel to the surface. Tear them all to pieces and bring me their blood.” His eyes settled upon another of the tunnels branching off the chamber. The soft scuttling of chitin on stone came to him through the lens of his enhanced senses. “I have another to attend to.” He turned, his tattered robe fluttering behind him. “Go!”
Zurt gave an eager nod, followed by the sign of the Dawn. “A-hai, Urn-ma Nemo!” The Websworn all signed their fealty. Fifteen strong, they charged down the incline and raised a hellish howl that echoed down the passage.
Nemo smiled as he made his way toward the narrow fissure in the wall. The scratches along the floor confirmed Arachne was near.
Chapter 47
A’vavel
The liquid universe rushed around Mark in silver currents. Twisting bands of refracting color stole away the images of the barren Web and replaced them with a dull emptiness. Weightless, Mark felt his essence bend and distort in all directions. The molten power bubble rushed inward further, falling beyond the physical reach of space. Then, that bubble burst, ejecting him into the void.
When gravity reasserted itself, he found himself in the middle of a vast and cosmic dark. His ethereal feet touched down on a boundary, and strange-matter prisms began to bloom beneath him in spiraling fractal patterns. A crackle of green energy licked at the ground, casting a light that was immediately swallowed by the pervasive nothingness. He could feel the invisible matter all around.
Cold, gray something—not entirely unlike stone—extended infinitely in all directions. Broken shards littered the deathscape, bearing the smooth scars of the conflict that forged them. Dotted across the expanse, thousands of miles distant, stood remnants of structures neither artificial nor organic. Like monolithic castles carved from planetary blocks, they loomed with sheer faces and unsettling geometric weight.
As Mark scanned the distant relics, searching for his target, the silence of A’vavel was split by an ear-cracking sound. A luminous yellow ripple in the sky rent the black. Where the disturbance passed, shifting patterns appeared. Glowing hexagonal trails weaved their way across the firmament in a yellow aurora. And as the spreading patterns illuminated the sky, their faint light cast a rare visibility upon the realm.
Not far from Mark stood the silhouette of a man with arms spread. The song of maniacal laughter crept from beneath the thundering of the aurora’s birth. Mark’s aetherflame body flared. Still off-balance from the journey through the dimensional tear, he began to approach the Cheshire Man.
“Isn’t it gorgeous, Mark?” the man said, staring up at the light in the sky. Tufts of hair and folds of fabric fluttered in the lack of gravity. “The Barrier holding Raxxinoth entombed. I have waited so long to see it. Isn’t it humbling? Just think: on the other side of that negative space she sleeps. And soon, you will be privileged enough to witness her rebirth. Raxxinoth. Overspider. Oh, how I’ve waited.”
“I know not what you seek,” Mark said in a booming voice that echoed far into the distance, “but I shall not allow you to break the Barrier.” He extended his arm, and a lance of magical energy flashed toward the purple suit.
The Cheshire Man turned on his heel and swept the air with a knife. Mark’s attack scattered into harmless wisps of ghostlight.
Despite the power filling him, Mark felt his legs falter. “Who are you?”
The Cheshire Man snickered. “I have gone by many names. Hasirith the Elder. Rota of the Far. Indrid Cold. The delightfully whimsical Cheshire Man. But in the end, I am the same as you, Mark.”
“You are a Chosen.”
Beneath the purple bowler, a rueful look came upon the Cheshire Man’s face. “Chosen? Don’t tell me . . . You must not have read the book I gave you.” He sighed and crossed his arms. “Mark, you wound me. I went to such great lengths to salvage your mother’s legacy from your warpath, all so you would understand what you truly are. Starblooded to your mother and her ilk. Jailer to the eschatonic cabals. And to t
he rest, Outsider. What else could so perversely weave man into a spell but the parasitic, magicborn soul-spawn you are!”
“If you insist on speaking in riddles,” Mark said, energy rippling off him, “then there is little value in conversation.”
The Cheshire Man’s glowing eyes considered him. They hung in the dark like Chinese lanterns, burning with malice. “I knew you would not be content with simply playing your role. To think that one so—”
Mark threw his hand forward. A deafening roar split the void, cutting off the Cheshire Man’s taunt. Another blast of invisible light spiraled toward the purple-suited devil. Once more the man scattered the attack into harmless sparks with the edge of his blade, but Mark was already moving. Hurtling forward, folding the dimensional fabric around him, he closed on his target from behind. The Flames of Y’rokkrem engulfing his spectral arm in a hungry blaze, he struck at the Cheshire Man only to hit empty air.
A cold flash of steel tore through his chest. Before he knew what had happened, he found himself staggering backward through the weightless dark. The glint of a knife danced before Mark’s eyes. Zigzagging swipes slashed into him, each bringing a tortured echo. He drifted further back, and the Cheshire Man again appeared in his view. Mark roared and lunged at him, only for another squall of cold metal to rip into his arms and chest. With each sweep and sideways thrust of his knife, the Cheshire Man sent a paralyzing pain through Mark’s body, even though it should have been impervious to attacks of the physical domain. Mark fought back the agony and fell back through a dimensional fold, desperate to put some distance between himself and the cackling specter.
“What’s wrong, Mark?” came the mocking cluck of the demon. “Are you still under the delusion that I am bound by the laws of your so-called physical domain? Perhaps I gave your intellect too much credit.”
Mark hissed. His hand found its way to his head, where a chorus of banshees now shrieked. Each beat of his metaphysical heart rattled his frame, and sparks of his essence bled from his core.
“Well,” the Cheshire Man sighed, “if you won’t come to me, then I guess I’ll deign to come to you!” His body flickered and then vanished. Dancing between the folds of reality, he closed the distance in the blink of an eye.
Mark read the approach and swiped his arm. The Cheshire Man’s feint met a curtain of Y’rokkrem’s Flames, but from behind came a hail of blades, eclipsing his mind with pain again.
“I told you, Mark! You shall not be breaking my soul with your heathen spells!”
The limits of Mark’s power neared. The edges of his vision closed in. The fusion-like reaction in his core faltered, and his body went limp. A bolt of ethereal energy arced and rippled off the ground, but even that was a feeble shadow of his power. The pain in his mind was now splitting, paralyzing. As the Cheshire Man leisurely paced around him, pretending to obey the laws of gravity, all he could do was curse.
“Is that it?” the devil asked. “Is that your limit? I must say, I’m disappointed. I always imagined that fighting you would be interesting. But for all the power your bloodline has given you, all you can manage is a feeble resistance. Well, that’s no matter. I’m used to disappointment, after all.”
Mark struggled to keep his mind together. If only he hadn’t exhausted so much of his energy sealing the Web. But it didn’t matter now. Spinny was safe, and that was what mattered. As long as that barrier held, it didn’t matter if Raxxinoth was released. It wasn’t all for nothing. Even if he had to break his oath to Ellie, he’d kept his promise to Annika, and right now that was the most important thing.
The Cheshire Man gave a sharp chortle. “Ellie? Are you still hung up on that little witch? You must have a fully realized sister-complex going on.”
Mark looked up at him, an abrupt hatred overflowing from his chest.
The suited demon gave a long hum, tapping the blade of his knife against his knuckles. “Ariel. That was her real name, wasn’t it? I would never have imagined that she still had so great a part to play.” With a wry, poisonous grin, he stared death into Mark. “Tell me. Do you still believe Golgotha was responsible for her death?”
A chill spread through his flickering form. The implication of that question hardly had time to reach his mind before the man gave another sick peal of laughter.
“Oh, but the doubt has always been there, gnawing at you, has it not? Golgotha’s denial. What was it he said, again? Do you truly believe that I would commit to such pointless slaughter! That I could take the life of my own daughter! It was the Weeping Man, Mark! It was something like that, was it not?”
Mark began to shiver. Those were, verbatim, the words spoken on that death-hallowed night in the hall of the Lunar Vigil.
“For all these years,” the Cheshire Man continued, “you have thought old Auntie Sylvia no more than a liar. An opportunist eager to tap the well of local legend if she could spin it into personal gain. Though she never spoke as much aloud, your precious little Ellie thought the same. But, why would she resort to such an obvious falsity as invoking the name of the moon cult’s resident boogieman? Was it fear? Was it insanity?” The glint of amusement in the man’s eyes brightened. “Or was it, perhaps, the truth?”
The sense of foreboding crushed Mark from all sides. “How could it have been truth?” he asked against his own will.
A placid expression came to the Cheshire Man. His eyes widened, and a thick black smoke began to seep from his skin. The billowing gas expanded, and soon his entire form vanished into a tumultuous cloud. The storm grew more violent as it molded itself again into the shape of a man. Its body was a woven fabric of a substance that was neither metal nor stone nor flesh, yet possessed properties of all three. Thick fumes rolled and writhed in a dark aura. In the creature’s face, two glaring white lights gazed out at the world. Bright, incandescent streams of fluid fell unimpeded from those eyes. Where that liquid met the ground, it evaporated into a vile steam-smoke that reincorporated itself into the thing’s gaseous body.
Mark gasped in horror. The death-chill in his chest spread. The glowing, bleeding white eyes in the midst of the smoke made the monster appear to be crying. There, before him, stood the legendary Weeping Man.
“Are you surprised?” the Weeping Man thundered, its voice ringing in a thousand dead languages. “Do you now understand how long I’ve awaited this day? To what lengths I have toiled to bring about this end?”
Mark’s mind flashed back to the dreams that haunted him. He remembered again the look of loss on his father’s face when he stormed the cathedral and confronted him. Apologetic, but more than that it was devastation—the devastation of having lost everything in a matter of moments. Mark had given in to his hatred and guilt, and in doing so he’d played his part.
It was all for the Weeping Man. It was he who spoke from the shadows in wisps of wicked wonder, twisting minds into hollow thralls that knew not whence they came. Had this demon, then, deceived even the first of the Warrens? Had he truly appeared, masquerading as Charles Edward Warren’s reflection in the Key to Manilius? From the very beginning, he had carefully guided them toward his own ends. And if Golgotha was truly blameless, and the Weeping Man had himself killed Ellie and Sylvia and Laurence . . .
Hatred gushed from the waning heart of Mark’s being. The ethereal flames that constituted his ascended form flared. He surged toward the Weeping Man, slipping through the gaps of spacetime. Four quantum jumps later, he lashed out with a blazing fist of Y’rokkrem, but his target had receded just like before.
The Weeping Man flowed toward him, a wall of roiling blackness. A clawed hand swept up at a sharp angle. The blow took Mark in the chest and hurled him against the strange-matter ground with a rattling thud. He fell back to his feet and folded backward to avoid the column of smoke barreling at him. But the attack curved through subspace and followed. The searing storm slammed into him before he could bend an escape route into being.
The Weeping Man cackled, the glow of its white-hot eyes blinding
. “Yes! Show me your rage! Show me what hatred can accomplish!”
Lashing tendrils of smoke whipped through Mark’s body, showering the stone-gray ground with ghostly sparks. With each attack, the demonic voice boomed louder around him. He fought through the pain and made a jump backward, putting another sliver of distance between them. Roaring, he threw his arms forward and painted the air with a pattern of fiery wreaths. Beads of Y’rokkrem’s wrath sparkled through the void, but the Weeping Man found the gaps in his barrage and slithered nearer. A claw plunged through Mark’s ethereal chest again. He hit the ground, bleeding bolts of magic.
“More!” the Weeping Man cried, its body dispersing into a column of swirling fumes. “More wrath! More ire!”
Mark recovered in time to dodge the falling black pillar. Cackling mad, the Weeping Man flew at him, swiping at him over and over in a single continuous motion. For each attack Mark was able to dodge, two more blasted his mind wide open. The black mass seethed and then plunged. A clamorous crackling lit his nerves with an impossible heat. Every molecule of his body felt like it was turning to lava. When the billowing cloud passed through him entirely, a blow from behind sent him crashing to the ground once more.
“Your hatred fails you, Warren! How kind must your mercy be, if this is what your enemies can expect of you!”
He fought to right himself, only for another torrent of smoke to spread a smoldering pain through his body. He staggered, trying to conjure another attack, but his mind would not yield. The well of his power was exhausted. All he could manage was a meager attempt to stay afloat. Each beat of his magic heart scattered his vision and sent his senses reeling to catch up.
Perhaps seeing his pause, the Weeping Man reformed into a humanoid shape before him. “Is this the limit of Mark Warren’s fury? I have taken everything from you, and this is the shape of your revenge?”
Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3) Page 64