by Dyrk Ashton
Kleron’s hand slides down the stairway railing of her and Edgar’s home, igniting it as it goes. He strolls leisurely through the hall downstairs with his hands out to his sides and a sardonic grin on his face. Smoke and flame rise from his claws as they gouge wainscoting and plaster. He looks into the parlor as he passes. It’s all on fire.
On the bookshelves, Bibles burn.
Hanging on the wall, a Latin cross burns.
From some disembodied perspective in the front yard, Fi sees Kleron emerge from the house, now a blazing inferno. One-armed Surma leans against a white van parked on the street, cleaning his teeth with a stick and sneering.
As Surma and Kleron drive the van away, the house explodes.
This happened.
* * *
Fi gasps, her sight and mind returning to the hub chamber, to the present.
What’s left of Edgar’s ruined shield crumbles from Kleron’s grasp, smoking cinders and ash. He speaks to Max. “Prepare her.” Max leaps atop Fi without hesitation.
“No!” Edgar lunges, but Kleron is on him, hand clamping his throat, slamming him against the chamber wall once again.
“And Max,” Kleron adds, “do something about that insolent tongue of hers, will you please?”
Max grins wide. “Yes, Master.” He grips Fi by the jaw with a disgusting hand, moves the claws of one leg to her mouth, clicking them together in a snipping motion. Fi tries to scream.
Edgar shoves at Kleron and groans.
Zeke yells, “Hey! You mother--”
Kleron realizes what Max is about to do. “Max!”
Max grumbles, then reaches to his bloated ass-end and pulls out a strand of web. “Where was I?” he wheezes. “Oh yes,
Little Miss Muffet, sat on her tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey...”
He wraps the web around Fi’s head and over her mouth. The sticky strands adhere to her skin and hair like tape.
“Leave her to breathe,” Kleron cautions.
“Of course, Master.” Max snips the web, runs his filthy clawed fingers through her hair. He continues to croon his rhyme as he touches her cheek and neck.
“Along came a spider..."
He caresses her breasts through her shirt. She tries to protest, but it’s no use. She sobs as the revolting hand moves slowly over her stomach. His voice becomes a scratchy whisper,
“Who sat down beside her...”
His hand slides down, down. Fi screams, again and again, as loud as she can through her gag of web. Edgar shouts his outrage, tears streaming. Mrs. Mirskaya struggles, helpless, and Mol barks wildly. Zeke writhes in his bonds, cursing Max at the top of his lungs.
Their cries do not go unanswered.
Peter’s voice comes to them, fulminating through the tunnels. “L-U-C-I-F-E-R!!!”
Kleron’s reaction, however, isn’t quite what Edgar would have hoped for. Instead of dropping him and fleeing for his life, Kleron reaches into a small shoulder sack with his free hand and retrieves what looks like a smartphone. His bat ears twitch as he listens. Peter’s voice echoes into the chamber again. Kleron eyes one of the tunnels above, slides his thumb over the touchscreen of the device, and taps it.
* * *
“KLERON!!!” Peter roars, racing through the tunnel. In his haste, he pays no heed to a small heap of stones against the wall. As he runs past it there’s the triple-flash of a red LED accompanied by a quick beep-beep-beep--KABOOM!!!
Peter stumbles and regains his footing, but another explosion rocks the passage, and another. The floor collapses beneath his feet. He falls, bouncing from wall to jagged wall, and plunges into black rushing water.
* * *
The tremors in the hub chamber subside. Dust billows from the tunnel above, wafts down gently over all. Kleron listens. Satisfied, he returns the device to his shoulder bag.
Edgar slumps in Kleron’s embrace, realizing Peter must be trapped--there is no help on the way.
Max turns his attention back to Fi,
“And frightened Miss Muffet away.”
He heaves her onto his back, where he holds her firmly with one arm.
Zeke cries out in despair, his voice painfully hoarse, “Fi!”
Kleron leans in, wings reaching forward, and whispers in Edgar’s ear. “She will undoubtedly serve quite entertaining, your lovely niece.” The wings creep around Edgar, pressing between his back and the wall. “Even if she does not prove to be useful otherwise.” Edgar squirms, groaning harshly. Kleron clenches Edgar’s shoulders with the single talons at the tops of his wings, while the claws at the wings’ ends hook his ankles. He pulls the two of them even closer together, then very slowly opens his horrific mouth, pushes out his pointed blood-red tongue, and licks Edgar’s face. Max watches, silently grinning.
“That was quite an impressive oratory you delivered earlier, gallant Sir Knight,” Kleron says disingenuously. “Are you still so confident you will not die today?” Edgar grunts, unable to move or speak, so tightly is he cocooned in Kleron’s embrace. “Let’s put that famous prophecy of yours to the test, shall we?”
Savoring Edgar’s helplessness, Kleron opens his mouth again, wide enough to engulf Edgar’s entire face. He tilts his head and inches forward.
Edgar finds himself staring straight into The Bat’s gaping maw. Dripping fangs, ridged black roof of his mouth, pulsating uvula in his throat, and vile red tongue.
Fi watches in horror from Max’s back. I’m sorry! she wants to scream at the top of her lungs. I’ll go with you! I’ll do anything you want, whatever you say! Just don’t hurt him!!!
But she can’t speak. It’s all one voluble meaningless rant with the gag in her mouth.
Edgar closes his eyes, and prays.
* * *
But the bite doesn’t come. When Edgar opens his eyes, Kleron is leaning away, mouth hanging open, his expression one of intense concentration--and confusion.
Kleron turns his head to peer into the dark recesses of one of the tunnels that leads from this level, opposite from the way they heard Peter shouting. He peaks his ears and listens.
The others hear nothing, but then again, they don’t have the ears of a bat--and a Firstborn bat at that.
The sounds are faint even to Kleron, the slightest trace of feet scraping stone. What concerns him more, however, is the whispering.
He dilates his broad nostrils, drinks in the air, but what breeze there is flows lazily out through the tunnel where he hears the sounds, away from the chamber, so he smells nothing. He swivels his ears this way and that. No sign of Peter. No sounds of digging, no shouting, no other footfalls. Hopefully The Pater is trapped forever. Just thirty days would be nice, which is all Kleron needs. But he isn’t counting on it.
He retrieves his wings and removes the wireless detonator from his bag, scrolls to symbols for the explosive devices he and Max have planted, pinpointing the ones they placed in the tunnel from which the sounds originate. He taps one. Nothing happens. The device is capable of transmitting a half dozen types of signal. One of them should work, even below ground and surrounded by stone. He tries them all. Still nothing.
Kleron’s grip on Edgar’s throat slackens. Edgar shoves with all his might in a desperate attempt to free himself, but Kleron holds him tight.
And still Kleron listens. The sounds in the tunnel remain distant, but whatever’s making them is coming this way--and from the whispers he has an inkling of the identity of this newly approaching horror. Dread twists in his gut. He shakes himself. How can this be?
He must think quickly. Failing capture of The Pater, the plan was to take the girl alive, but circumstances have now become dire. He can’t slip with her, even if she went willingly or he could earn her trust. There are no equivalent tunnels or caves on nearby worlds. They’d be buried alive. He and Max are old enough and strong enough to survive. Their Firstborn bodies would simply open a space, crushing stone and compacting earth around them, but they’d have to keep slipping in the hopes of e
ventually coming to a world where there was open space, an underground river, deep canyon or some other manner of escape. It could take days, months, even years, if they found a way out at all. The girl would be killed on the first slip, and without quite a bit of luck, even he and Max could eventually suffocate and perish.
Since they must use the tunnels, taking the girl now may not be the wisest course of action. Max is extremely quick and agile, with his many legs. Carrying her wouldn’t slow him much, but it may be enough, and being able to fly does Kleron little good when the tunnels are tight. But if there was something to distract his adversaries, to keep them busy while he and Max flee...
“May I, Master?” It’s as if Max has read his mind.
“Yes,” Kleron decides, “you may.”
Max dumps Fi face down on the floor and pins her there. This is what he’s desired since the first time he saw her this morning on the street. To feed on her succulent, young, tender Firstborn flesh. Still, he hesitates. “Are you certain?”
“Do it,” Kleron confirms. “Do it now.”
Zeke and Edgar watch in horror as Max’s mouth opens wider than any mouth should be able to. Slimy black fangs fold down, shaped like cat’s claws, oozing droplets of cloudy yellow venom from needle-sharp tips.
He jabs them deep.
The searing agony is more intense than Fi ever thought possible. She hears herself screaming, Edgar wailing, Zeke shouting, Mol barking and Mrs. Mirskaya’s moaned protestations.
Her vision blurs and closes in, all sounds fade. Then she feels nothing, and everything goes black.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Flowers & Figs 17
Peter swims through the flooded tunnel, the green glow-stick clenched in his teeth. Something glints in the silt beneath him. Edgar’s sword. He retrieves it and looks up to see a dim circle of light high above.
Peter scrambles from the water in the well. He spits out the glow stick, forces water from his lungs without so much as a choke, and bounds up the curving steps.
Mol barks a harried greeting. Mrs. Mirskaya groans in her fetters of web.
Zeke, wrapped like a mummy except for his head, has tears of anguish in his eyes. “Peter!” he croaks. “Help her, please!”
Edgar sits misty-eyed, muttering prayers, rocking with Fi cradled in his arms. Peter sniffs the air and eyes the tunnel openings, then rushes to set the sword at Edgar’s side. “Edgar, where are Kleron and Max?”
Edgar doesn’t reply.
“They’re gone!” Zeke answers for him.
Peter hurries to Zeke and rips at the web that binds him.
What Zeke doesn’t know is this web can’t be torn by the teeth or claws of any Firstborn other than Max. It can only be cut by the highest class of Astra blade or broken by the hands of The Father. “Tell me what happened,” Peter demands.
“Kleron was about to kill Edgar,” Zeke answers desperately. “They were going to take Fi, but then they didn’t--I don’t know why. Kleron told Max to bite her and they just took off.”
“Bitten...”
While Peter frees Mol and Mrs. Mirskaya, Zeke rushes to Edgar and Fi. Her face is deathly pale. She still breathes, but in shallow, ragged breaths.
Peter kneels next to Zeke. Mrs. Mirskaya and Mol crowd in opposite.
“Oh, Fiona,” Mrs. Mirskaya mourns. She lays a hand on Fi’s forehead, clenches her red rimmed eyes and mutters unrecognizable verse. Fi’s breathing steadies but her pallor remains.
Peter shakes Edgar by the shoulder. “Galahad!”
Edgar forces himself out of his despair. “Yes, bitten.” He moves to turn Fi over and Peter helps. Gaping puncture marks bubble with blood and yellow pus, one low in the seat of her pants and one in the thigh. “The bite of The Spider.”
“No,” whispers Peter, removing Fi’s bindings. “No...”
He rips her pants from waistline to thigh, folds the cloth back to uncover the festering wounds.
Under normal circumstances Zeke would be seriously uncomfortable in the company of an unconscious woman with her pants torn down over her ass, but these aren’t normal circumstances. He just wants to help. He reaches to wipe the poison from the wounds.
Mrs. Mirskaya snatches his hand. “Nyet! Do not touch,” she warns. “Not if you want to live.”
Peter wipes the secretion away himself. He shakes it to the floor where it bubbles and smokes, then examines the wounds, which are becoming swollen, purple and green around the edges. He smooths back Fi’s hair, forces open each eye to see them rolled up in her head.
“Is there anything you can do?” he asks Mrs. Mirskaya.
She looks glum, helpless, ashamed. “I can ease her suffering, but that is all. My items of healing are destroyed in the store. But even if I had them... this Mokosh cannot mend.” She sobs. “I have failed you Papa, and Fiona.”
Peter brushes a tear from her cheek. “You’ve failed nothing, dear daughter.” He lifts her chin to look in her eyes. “It’s good to have you with us.”
She sniffs, then wipes her face forcefully as if trying to erase the fear and regret.
“Here, hold her,” Peter tells Edgar, positioning Fi face down across Edgar’s legs.
“What are you going to do?” asks Zeke.
“Suck out the poison.”
“Is that wise, milord?”
“It’s all I can do for her,” Peter insists. “That she’s still alive is...”
“Miracle,” Mrs. Mirskaya finishes for him.
“A testament to her strength and will to live, I was going to say,” says Peter. “This may not be sufficient, but I will do it.”
And so he does, drawing deep at the injury on her leg. He spits, the spatter again hissing on stone. He shakes his head as if to clear it, then moves to the other wound. He spits again, then leans back against the wall.
“Water, milord?” Edgar offers.
Peter shakes his head. “No, it won’t help.” He wipes his mouth with his sleeve. The venom burns through the cloth like acid.
Edgar turns Fi over in his lap, looks at her face. There’s no change. He takes her hand in his. “Miss Fiona?”
Fi begins to convulse. Mrs. Mirskaya grasps her head in both hands and utters more ancient words, her brow furrowed in concentration. The spasms lessen in severity but Fi still breathes in sporadic rasps.
“Help her!” Zeke begs. “Peter, do something!”
“There’s nothing I can do,” Peter bemoans. “I don’t have the skills necessary--”
“Then we have to get her to a hospital!” Zeke interrupts. “Right now!”
“The venom of Maskim Xul is like no other,” Edgar explains. “She’s beyond human care.”
“If Max is a spider, isn’t she just paralyzed? Won’t she wake up eventually?!”
“This is not that kind of bite,” Peter replies.
“There’s got to be something you can do!” Zeke insists. “You’re, like, the oldest being on earth! You’re a god!” He looks to Mrs. Mirskaya. “Both of you!”
Peter still breathes heavily from the effects of the poison. He has trouble focusing his eyes on Edgar, but the vexation there is clear.
“Yes, milord, I told them,” says Edgar, without remorse. “My oath of secrecy holds no more.”
Peter stares at him for a moment then looks to Zeke, “This requires a level of healing beyond which I possess. There are talents, aptitudes that only manifest in my children, in real creatures of this earth.”
“But you’re of this earth, as much as anyone,” Zeke argues, “even more!”
“Am I?” says Peter, his temper flaring. “Am I?! And you know this for a fact, young mtoto!? Please, enlighten me!”
Zeke feels a great aura emanating from Peter, sees it in the steely glaze of his green eyes, now tingeing red, in the bestial tautness of his features and set of his jaw. And a scent permeates the air, penetrating straight to Zeke’s brain stem, his alligator brain, his most primitive being, prickling his skin, turning his insides cold.
The pheromones of the alpha wolf. The alpha of all species.
Zeke knows he should be groveling, throwing himself on his back, offering his throat in submission--but he isn’t afraid, and that surprises him. He’s just pissed off and desperately worried for Fi. He remembers the dogs on the street, how they reacted to Peter. They loved him. He forces himself to hold Peter’s gaze.
Edgar intercedes in the tense moment. “Perhaps Freyja?”
Peter releases Zeke from his eyes. “Even on this earth she’s too far away,” he answers Edgar. “And she may have been targeted by Kleron’s forces already. Either way, this is beyond her as well.”
“The Buffalo Woman, then,” Edgar suggests. “I’ve heard--”
“Impossible to locate,” Peter snaps back. “Always has been.”
“The Rat, Akhu?”
“This is beyond her capabilities as well. And no one knows on which world she dwells.”
“Then, there is only one other...”
Mrs. Mirskaya looks up in alarm.
Peter is about to snap at Edgar again but stops himself. The crimson drains from his eyes. His words soften to a whisper. “She would be our best hope, yes. But you know very well she hasn’t been seen nor heard from in almost two myria, nearly 20,000 years.”
“Who?!” Zeke asks. “Who can help her?!”
His eyes on Fi, Edgar speaks with an almost superstitious awe in his voice. “The Prathamaja Nandana.” Mrs. Mirskaya’s expression squirms between deference and disdain. “From what I know of her, she could be Fi’s only hope.”
Peter glares at him. “Be careful what you wish for, Galahad.”
And then a new sound wafts into the chamber, an utterance flowing like a prolonged exhale, rushing water or gusting wind. Zeke hears it as much in his head as in his ears, and it’s unlike any language he’s ever encountered, even the terrible speech of Kleron. Edgar stiffens visibly, lifts Fi and clutches her to his chest. It sounds like chanting, a low murmur interspersed with clicks and grunts.