“Be silent, worm,” Kaj thought.
A sudden sharp pain split Nemo’s skull. He recoiled, and his deadweight arms strained against his trunk, threatening to tear.
“You will do as we command you and no more. Withdraw whatever puppets remain from the fight. Watching you struggle to prove your worth has been amusing, but now the time for games is past.”
Dirge hissed. “If the Warren is here, our scenario becomes much more complicated.”
Kaj scoffed. “It is no more complicated than before. We don’t need to kill him. We just need to keep him occupied until we have Arachne or Nexara.”
“Shall we draw lots for the honor?” Rith asked, with a sarcasm that made Kaj imagine splitting the vile creature’s head in two—an image Nemo would have enjoyed had his focus not been drawn into the singular desire of murdering the Warren.
“No,” Kaj answered. “This is the final fight. We all go. We shall seize our destiny together, in one single blow. Come.”
Nal gave an aggravated grunt, one echoed by every other cell in Nemo’s neural network. Shadows swam along the floors of the chamber and consumed the three Vant’therax. With that, Nemo was left alone with his seething fury.
Chapter 35
Helixweaver
Arthr watched as the man in the yellow coat cried in horror, his machine gun empty from the full-auto barrage of bullets that had vanished into the ghostly wall of green fire. Mark, enwreathed in the glowing remnants of flame, cringed and threw his hand toward the man. An invisible blade split the man’s throat apart. Blood splattered through the air. The yellow-coat fell to the ground, feeble and inert, just as the others had.
Mark sighed and slumped against the wall, breath irregular. “And that makes five,” he hissed.
Arthr somehow found the man’s exhaustion more interesting than the pile of bodies and bullets on the floor. No, it wasn’t that it was more interesting—it was just a more welcoming avenue of exploration for his mind, one that would not throw his own involvement in the men’s deaths into moral ambiguity. “Are you alright?” Arthr found himself asking.
Mark nodded. “Just fantastic.” He clenched and loosened his right hand, and beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. The scars that ran up the undersides of his forearms seemed to pulse with each movement of his hand, and the sight of the brighter, newer one made Arthr nervous.
“What happened to your arm?” he asked, unsure why he found the marking so enthralling.
“You’ve had two weeks to ask me that. Why must you ask now?”
“I . . . I thought of it is all.”
Mark pushed himself off the wall and groaned as he shifted his weight back to his legs. “No matter. We’ve cleaned up this problem. Let us go. We must find your sisters before those robes get the same idea.”
And so they made their way down the hall that the girls had vanished into before. A short while later, their wanderings led them to a fire door, where the corpses of two more guards were splayed. Aghast at the sight, Arthr gained a quiet appreciation for Mark’s mystical murder methods—cold and merciless though they were, they had at least been clean for the most part. Even the bloodiest of his methods had a surgical precision, whereas whoever had killed these two coats had been a glutton for excess. He nearly folded over onto the ground as the smell crashed against him.
“Seems they went this way,” Mark said, unbothered. “Come.”
Arthr crushed the rising bile back into his gut long enough to follow Mark over the pair of corpses. As they entered the area beyond the fire door, the yellow lights burning overhead somehow seemed judgmental of him. Mark led the way with an urgent haste. When the hall turned to the right and began to slope downward, Arthr felt they were passing a point from which he would never return.
Minutes passed as they followed the stained metal corridor. Though doors and halls emerged on the sides, none seemed a plausible enough direction to warrant serious investigation. Growing weary of the silence—and more and more terrified of their surroundings—Arthr cleared his throat and again attempted conversation. “So the Golmont Corporation is behind all of this, right?” he asked, trailing a few feet behind Mark. “Like, they . . . created us, or whatever. Right?”
“Something like that.”
“None of this makes any sense to me,” he said, shaking his head and subconsciously erasing the toxic threads of speculation the thought spawned. “So this Dwyre guy, the guy who died, he was like the, uhh, priest or whatever of this spider cult? So who killed him? And why?” Mark didn’t say anything, and Arthr began to grow even more nervous. “You know, you could answer me or something. I’m in the fucking dark compared to everyone else, and I hate not having any idea what’s going on. This whole thing involves me, too. It’s not fair.”
Mark glared at him over his shoulder. “In case you haven’t noticed, we currently have much greater problems than you not being on top of cult politics, Arthr. Namely, the fact that we’re separated in the middle of their damned stronghold.”
Arthr felt the bite of his words. He shut his mouth and cast his eyes toward his feet. A few moments passed in silence.
Ahead of him, Mark relinquished a sigh. “You may call Dwyre a priest of some sort,” he said, his voice now calmer. “He was the leader of NIDUS, and controlled the Golmont Corporation and many other entities from behind the scenes. He was a servant of a creature much more powerful than these we now fight. He had a single job: to carry out the Yellow King’s ambition of merging man and spider. There were others before him given that same task, and he was the latest inheritor of that legacy. But make no mistake, NIDUS is the enemy of the true spider cult.”
The words sent a shiver racing through Arthr’s core. “Enemy? What do you mean?”
“I understand now, having read their scriptures. The true spider cult, the Websworn, ran afoul of the previous leaders. They believed only in the esoteric forces of magic gifted from Raxxinoth, and they resented the cult’s move toward these black science projects. And so the heretic splinter group, which came to be called NIDUS, banished the Websworn.”
Arthr could scarcely make heads or tails of all the names flying about the explanation. “Banished? To where? And why?”
Mark shook his head. “It is tedious to explain. Ask me later.”
Arthr nodded to himself. Somewhere, the smell of burning plastic stung his nostrils. There was a thin curtain of smoke hanging in the hall. The floor kept sloping downward at a constant grade. It felt like they were descending into the very depths of hell. After several long, sloping halls, a blotch in the distance emerged as they rounded yet another corner. No—two blotches, and Arthr recognized one as Annika. Though the light haze blurred his vision of the end of the hall, he was certain that the second one had to be his dad. He heard Mark curse under his breath.
The two figures at the end of the hall began to move toward them. Annika raised her hand in signal, and Arthr repeated the gesture. A smile came to his lips. Mark, however, just jerked his head to the side in a gruff acknowledgment. When the distance between them grew short, Mark raised his voice to her. “Glad you found him. Where’s Spin—”
A vicious growl from Annika cut him off. “Spinzie thought the most important thing to do was run away into the depths of this hellhole.”
Mark froze. “What?”
Her anger vanished in a flash, and she gave an indifferent shrug. “Kara went running off after that damn animal, and big sis ran after her saying she’d be right back. Like a train of ducklings, each stupider than the last. Left me to look after Doctor Strangelove here.”
Mark sighed. “Damn that cat-thing. I knew we should’ve killed it when we had the chance. Which way did they go?”
Annika jerked her head down the hall, and her dark bangs bounced about. “That way, left at the end. You’ll know you’re going the right way when the floor turns into a butcher shop.”
Mark muttered something incoherent under his breath. “Come, let us go!”
; “Wait,” Arthr said, fighting back a shiver of fear. “We’re really going after them?”
Annika narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you really that eager to leave your siblings for dead, kid?”
He shook his head, at once defensive. “N-no, but, they said they’d be back, so shouldn’t we, just . . . I don’t know . . . ”
“Stop being a coward and let’s get going,” Mark said. “We need to find them before . . . ” He stopped, eyes bulging slightly, as though he’d heard something in the distance. Then he drew in a sharp breath. “Goddammit!”
Before Arthr could ask what had come over him, the shadows of the hallway seemed to deepen into an utterly black stain upon his vision. And then those shadows came alive, writhing and creeping across the floor before coalescing into deep puddles of liquid shadow on either side of them. Those puddles solidified, growing upwards into humanoid shapes until the oily exterior faded away, revealing the fierce yellow garments beneath.
Arthr gasped, his heart thudding faster. Five on one side, six on the other. Memories of Gauge came surging back. Eleven robes surrounded them, familiarly hideous faces glowering from beneath yellow cowls.
“Well, well,” said one of Vant’therax with a pernicious laugh. “Seems we’ve found some rats.” Arthr shuddered as he looked upon the creature. He was a thin, lanky thing. He had eight eyes in his withered face, laid out according to perverse laws of symmetry. White and milky, as though beset by cataracts, those eyes were still alight with an unnerving and malicious awareness.
The other creatures laughed and snarled, and the noises scraped their way up Arthr’s spine and gripped him with a paralyzing fear. Ralph stared at the one that had spoken, running his eyes over the thing’s disfigured form. Annika slowly reached for her holster, trying to disguise the movement by sidling a step back. The lanky and talkative Vant’therax rolled his head on his shoulders and glared at them, while the others all seemed to stand waiting. This one was the leader, Arthr thought.
“Don’t suppose you’d save me the trouble,” the leader Vant’therax said, “by just telling me where the children went, would you?”
Ralph glowered at the beast. “What the fuck do you want with my kids?”
The lean creature cackled. “Your kids? Hmm, what indeed?”
Mark looked from one wall of robes to the other and then widened his stance. A spark of green fire danced from his palm up to his shoulder. “Well, Annika,” he said. “Do you want evens or odds?”
Annika pivoted until her back was almost touching Mark’s. She drew her revolver and thumbed the cylinder, one hand concealed in her coat pocket. “Odds. Six might be one too many for me.”
“You wish to fight?” The lanky robe laughed a throaty sound. “I recommend you reconsider. You’re outnumbered three to one, and even if the numbers were reversed we would win. Not all of us wish to see bloodshed, so you will cooperate if you know what’s best for you.” He flashed a mouthful of sharpened teeth at them. “And if not, then we will feast upon your flesh.”
“Now might be a good time,” Annika said in a low tone, “to show us what you can really do, Mark.”
Mark’s jaw tightened. “I cannot do that,” he breathed back. “I promised.”
Arthr could barely breathe. Every muscle in his body was tight. Tension shivered up his neck, making his hair stand on end. Eleven Gauges against the four of them. How could they even hope to fight with those odds? He shuddered, and then a rumbling laugh pulled his gaze back to the leader of the Vant’therax.
“Still determined to fight?” the leader said. A thin sigh, one which betrayed his reluctance as pure pretense. “Then have it your way. Prepare to die.”
Nemo seethed. Through the images flashing in the blue sea of thoughts behind his eyes, he saw the face of a woman. Elizabeth Bordon, the woman who had killed Gauge while his soul was trapped within that decrepit shell. He saw the man who had been chosen to carry the seed of the Yellow King’s legacy. He saw Anansi, the sole failure of the Fifth Project. But most importantly, he saw the face of the prodigy of the Lunar Vigil. Mark Warren. Nemo’s molars scraped against each other. Dissociated images flashed and faded, and phantom pains shocked his ribs and arm.
The Warren. Before his second death, he had loathed that bastard. That night, he’d been forced to watch as the Warren vanished in a blaze of heathen flames. Warren. His damn lineage had been the impetus behind the contrivance of the Fifth, and now he stood to undo all of NIDUS’s progress. What agent of destiny had woven their threads with such mocking prejudice? The greatest insult to be found in the tapestry of fate was that he now had to sit idly by and watch as the vile False Ones carried out the vengeance that was rightfully his.
A low groan pushed its way between his teeth, and a rumbling in his chest began to scatter all outside thoughts. He beheld, for but a moment, a blasphemy. A leech with a thousand insectoid tendrils, each quivering and pulsating, snapping and stretching. A mask, framing a singular eye that folded into itself. Just a flash, and then it was gone. His breath grew short. The enervated muscles of his chained arms pulsed, throbbed harder.
Warren, he thought. Warren. Mark Warren. Mark. Mark Warren. That damned Warren was the cause of all that had fallen apart around him. Were it not for the damn Warren, he would never have dropped his guard so carelessly. He would have stayed the course, bided his time, awaited an opportunity to strike—instead, he had wandered into a trap laid by that purple phantom—another flash, and his rage boiled over. It was the Warren who had caused this pain, who’d sent this reborn soul into a hollow vessel of torture. Mark was the one who’d allowed the Vant’therax to assert dominion over him, bind him as a slave. It was Mark that had denied him his position as the Conduit—damned be that word, treacherous False Ones! It was the Warren. The Warren had caused it all. The blistering rage that Nemo felt boiled away every thought and sensation.
I will not suffer this any longer. He plunged his mind into the violent blue network, and his thoughts struck a wall. A psychic wall of the Vant’therax’s design. Slave Conduit. His mouth fell open, and hot breath billowed over his lips. Slave Conduit. I will show you who the slaves are. Focusing on the pain, the hatred, all the injustice he’d ever suffered, he again thrust his thoughts and soul into the web of shining blue neural links, repeating the mantra of his hatred: Warren. Mark Warren.
Just before he could give the order to advance upon their trapped prey, Kaj heard a choked gasp from the group of Vant’therax on the other side of the intruders.
“M-Mar . . . ”
The way the word echoed through the network drew Kaj’s gaze right to the source. A collective shudder of confusion shook the ranks of the Vant’therax. All eyes, even those of the interlopers, went to the robe that had spoken.
In the middle of the second group, Nal stood hunched over, shaking. “Ark . . . Wa . . . ”
“Nal?” Kaj intoned into the thoughtstream. “What is the matter with you?”
The mumbling robe lurched a step forward, pushing its way out of the throng of six. “Mark,” he sputtered. “Warr . . . Ark Warren . . . !”
A sliver of panic sank into Kaj’s gut. To his left, Faul made to move forward, his scythe-like chitin blades at the ready. Kaj threw out his arm. “Wait!” With a deep breath, he focused on the pulsing of the network that bound their minds. “Nal, get a hold of yourself!” he thought. “What is happening?”
“Get out of my mind,” Nal thought back, anger erupting with each syllable. “Damn you, Nemo, get out!”
Kaj gasped. “Nemo?” He tuned his mind lower, and sure enough he heard it, hammering, stabbing. Mark. Warren. Mark. Warren. He shook his head, skin crawling. “How is this possible? A Slave Conduit cannot pierce the wall! What is happening?”
“Mark Warren,” the thoughtstream echoed back.
“Mark Warren,” Nal growled. Shaking in place, Nal’s hands flew to his head. All at once, his jaw unhinged with a sickening crack. Thick, chunky blood began to drip from the torn edges
of his mouth. “Begone, Nemo!” he shouted. A crazed laugh followed, and his body’s shaking grew more severe, as though physically resisting an unseen invader. After a few seconds of paralyzed seizing, one of Nal’s hands fell away from his head and flattened, fingers extending into a sharp, twitching shape.
“Mark. Warren. Is. Mine!”
Nal’s hand then flew toward his head again at a frightening speed. There was a wet crunching sound as his fingers penetrated his own temple.
Everything in the neural network flashed red. The ambient thoughts of the Vant’therax went deathly silent. A gasp washed over the whole assembly. Kaj’s muscles turned to ice. He could only watch in grotesque awe as blood poured unhindered from the opened cavity in Nal’s skull. When his body ceased its quivering resistance, a manic laugh poured from his hanging jaw. That laugh rang off the walls of Kaj’s own mind, through every fiber of the thoughtstream.
Nal ripped his hand free from his punctured temple, and his blood-drenched fingers groped wildly at nothing. “Warren,” his voice drawled in a high-pitched whine. “Warren! I’ve been waiting for you! I’ve been waiting for this! This time I won’t let you get away from me!”
“What the hell is happening!?” Faul thought.
“How has he pierced the wall?” came Dirge’s mind-voice. “Not even Dwyre was capable of forcing himself upon us!”
Nemo’s thoughts echoed on.“Warren. Mark. Warren.”
Jaw shaking, Kaj felt the strength fading from his arms. “Goddammit!” he spat into the air. “Everyone, get back to the control room! We have to stop Nemo before he ruins everything!” He spread his arms and beckoned the shadows, which unraveled and wrapped about his form. Just before melting into the spell, he saw the other nine still-sane Vant’therax covered in the inky black of teleportation.
Warren, Nemo thought. Mark Warren. Nal’s body was heavy to Nemo’s brain. The great muscles and dense chitin growths weighed his motion. One step forward toward the crowd of invaders. At their helm was Mark. Mark Warren. The taste of blood sat on Nemo’s tongue, or maybe Nal’s tongue—it was so hard to tell. But he savored that taste, for it was the taste of vengeance. Mark Warren. I will drink your blood.
Helixweaver (The Warren Brood Book 2) Page 43