by Ryan Talbot
I opened my eyes, and looked down at my glass. Magnified by the scotch, and colored by it, the Iron Triangle of Willets Point stared back at me.
“Mara,” I called into the living room.
“Yeah?”
“What do you know about Queens?” I asked, taking a sip of my scotch.
“I know the Mets used to play there,” she snorted. “Back when they were worth a shit.”
“I didn’t peg you as a baseball fan,” I said.
“You don’t know me,” she called back. “We met like eight minutes ago.”
“Well, yeah,” I mumbled. “But still…”
“And now I’m sleeping on your couch,” she said.
“Not like I’m worried you’re going to hurt me,” I replied.
“Naked.”
“What,” I whipped around and faced the living room.
She sat up, grinning and fully clothed. “Ha!”
“I’m calling the Barracks in the morning,” I snapped.
“Your loss,” she shrugged and flopped back on the couch.
She flipped off the lights and left me staring at the map by moonlight. Tossing back the rest of my drink, I set my glass down lightly and headed to bed.
I leaned into the limo. “Don’t let them drive you too crazy at the Barracks.”
“They won’t.” She smiled at me. “Thanks for the couch.”
“Honestly,” I said. “It was no problem. All things considered, you’re a pretty bad ass houseguest.”
“You’re a pretty bad ass emissary, Handsome.” She winked.
“Yeah?”
“No,” she laughed. “You’re a pretty terrible emissary. But you’re gonna be better.”
“Gee, thanks,” I shook my head. “Take care of yourself.”
“Let me know if you run across any decent looking vampires,” she grinned. “I’m back on the market.”
“I will,” I mock gagged. “Against my better judgment.” I shut the door and knocked twice on the trunk.
I watched the limo pull into traffic and felt the wind go just a bit colder against my skin. It’d been nice having someone to talk to. Not that I needed it, but it made the ache in the center of my being seem a bit less horrible. I whistled to the cab parked down the street waving him over. I yanked open the door as soon as it stopped and flopped into the backseat.
“Queens, right?” The cabbie asked.
“Yeah,” I nodded.
“You lookin’ to fix ya car?” He looked at me in the rearview mirror.
“Looking to finalize some business,” I said and made eye contact with him. He fell silent and dropped his eyes.
Let’s face it, when a man in a three-piece suit says he’s going to finalize some business and isn’t afraid to stare you down, it’s not the sort of business you question. We rode the rest of the way in silence. When the homes and businesses gave way to the junkyards and rundown streets, my heart began to beat stronger and stronger. Thorne was close. That bastard was here. The reek of his freakish body permeated the air.
“Stop here,” I said as we passed an auto parts yard with a corrugated metal American flag colored wall. I shoved a hundred dollar bill at the cabbie.
“I ain’t never seen you,” he said.
“I love New York,” I muttered as I got out.
Storm clouds were building to the west and the sky grew dark. I could smell rain over the reek of burnt oil and gasoline. I spoke quiet a quiet incantation and traced sigils of repulsion and dissolution in the air around me. I breathed deeply and felt profound relief as the untraceable wards settled over me. If Thorne was looking for me, and I was certain he was, the wards would be a speed bump. I took Corrigan’s advice and ensured all of the sigils and weaves were tied and bound back against themselves. No sense in leaving any openings for Thorne to exploit.
The junkyard was a flurry of activity. Men grabbed parts from massive bins that lined huge shelving units, while others tore apart cars at the far side of the lot. None of them looked at me as I weaved between them, my presence not even a shadow on their consciousness. I felt a pull from beyond the back wall of the junkyard. It was like singing just beyond my hearing, a distant voice crying out. There was someone behind the massive wall, someone screaming in agony. Someone screaming my name.
16
I stopped and pressed my Mark against the cold steel of the wall. I spoke a Word of force and jumped, shoving against the ground. I hurtled over the wall, drawing my Beretta as I cleared it. I landed in a tight crouch, my eyes scanning the jagged and debris-strewn ground beyond the junkyard. A small quarry operation lay just beyond the short fence that blocked off the yard from the street.
Like the chiming of a crystal bell, the voice cut through the wind, through the din of the machinery, through my heartbeat pounding in my ears. It pulled and tore at me, alternately begging me to hurry, and cursing me for coming at all. I shook my head, trying to clear it. The song beckoned me and terrified me. Traps don’t usually get advertised this well. Whoever was calling for me had to know I’d see through the ruse and recognize it for what it was.
I kept low and moved toward the quarry. I threw myself over the small fence and darted across the street. I ducked behind a huge dump truck parked along the upper edge of the quarry. Now it was just a matter of patterns. Thorne couldn’t have supported Aetherics sufficient to run the quarry by themselves, which gave me a distinct advantage. I searched the quarry from behind the back tire of the truck. While workmen and trucks drove and moved all over the worksite, they avoided the southeast corner of the quarry, closest to the water. Two large generators were parked on either side of a man-sized tunnel entrance, each of them belching gouts of flame from large upright exhaust pipes. Mentally, I ticked off the elements. Earth? Certainly. Water? Close by. Fire? What generator burned fuel that poorly? Air? Well, that one’s a given.
Yeah, this was the place. The fact remained that I was being led here. Granted, I’d found it myself. But even had I not gotten lucky, the song would have led me. There was enough of a compulsion on it to drag a person through broken glass on their knees for miles. I stepped out from behind the truck, my pistol at a low ready, and slid down the steep embankment, the loose soil giving way beneath me. I hit the ground in a roll, coming up with my pistol at eye level, pointing straight down the tunnel. The mouth of the tunnel was thirty yards away and I was completely exposed. Launching to my feet, I sprinted the distance, letting my vision give way to my Sight, I dove inside.
I heard the bowstring before I saw the shooter and felt the twin arrowheads bury themselves in my chest a second later. I dropped to my knees as the poison flooded my system. I stumbled and tried to stand, but my knees wouldn’t work. It was impossible to know exactly what was in the toxin, but the rapidly spreading burn through my veins was a dead giveaway that there was a hemotoxic component. My eyes wouldn’t focus and my balance shifted erratically. I stumbled forward, my right shoulder and forehead dragging along the ground. I vomited blood and screamed curses as the veins in my eyes burst.
“Kneeling suits you,” Thorne’s voice came from nowhere, from everywhere. “I trust you will learn, Mr. Beckett, that I do not make empty promises.”
I tried to speak, to say anything, instead, I pitched fully forward and watched the world fade to black.
17
The singing grew stronger as I lay in the incomprehensible blackness. The voice pulsed with restrained power. It was an aria unlike any I’d ever heard. I couldn’t understand any of the words, the language escaped even my polyglot’s tongue. Somehow, I knew that it was speaking to me, speaking of me. I felt myself letting go, pulled and seduced by the song.
Hold. Black scales slid through the darkness, a vast serpentine shape slid through the inky emptiness.
The siren-like voice seemed to wilt in the face of the creature in the dark. But as the black shape receded into the distance, it began its seductive call anew.
Stay your course, Brother. Deep, terrifying
eyes formed within the darkness. Hideous ebony eyes with silver rimmed pupils bored deep within me and filled me with dread and an unholy hunger at once. Be not led, never a slave.
I shook my head and felt my mind beginning to return, but again, the music pulled at me. My heart ached with a need I’d never known. I realized I was dragging myself along the floor by my nails and hissed as the pain registered.
NEVER A SLAVE!
I jerked awake, my hands flying to my head. A tightness around my neck alerted me to the ward before I touched it. A reflecting ward had been fixed around my tongue and throat. The bastards wanted to be damned sure I was without sorcery. Any magic that I might’ve been tempted to use was suddenly and completely off the table. Any spell I cast would reflect back on me. As it was, my skull felt like it might shatter from the thunderous words, the last thing I needed was a Word of agony bouncing back on me. Thick steel chains dangled from the manacles on my wrists. My hands were caked with blood from torn and bleeding fingertips. The skin of my fingertips was gone, in places bone peeked through shredded tissue. My nails were missing, cracked and shattered by the cold stone floor. A loud clatter of wood on stone brought me to my senses.
Gavin Thorne stood behind a wooden chair, his perfectly manicured fingers gripping the backrest. “Awake?” He smiled. “Good, I was beginning to fear I’d have to wait weeks.”
“Fuck you,” I rasped out. My throat was drier than an AA convention.
“Tsk tsk,” he waved his finger in the air. “Manners, Mr. Beckett.”
“If I had any spit,” I snarled. “I’d show you my fucking manners.”
“You surprise me,” he said, amusement playing over his hideous features. “Not your behavior, I’ve become accustomed to that.” He waved the notion away as if it were a fart floating past his face. “It’s that you were chosen. That you alone, in all the worlds, were capable.”
“What are you talking about?” I snapped, trying to stand. “What the fuck do you want with me?”
“Do I seem so egotistical, Mr. Beckett?” He sneered at me. “Do I appear so needy? I am not some storybook villain here to regale you with the dirty little details of my plot.” He sat delicately in the chair. “I am here for you.”
“Me?” I struggled to keep myself standing. The venom had fucked me up terribly. “Why me?”
“Ah,” he smiled. “Now that is the question I expected.” He crossed his legs and rested his hands in his lap. “I won’t answer it, but I did expect it.”
“So you had your little fuck-buddies snatch me, and drag me here to your hole in the ground to what?” I growled. “Bore me to death with your verbal masturbation?” I threw myself at him, and the manacles snapped taut nearly jerking me off of my feet.
“No, Mr. Beckett,” he said, absentmindedly picking at his nails. “You are here to suffer. To suffer as no man before you has ever suffered.”
“Let me out of the chains, you motherfucker,” I yelled hoarsely. “And we’ll see who fucking suffers.”
“Before you waste too much energy,” he gestured with an open hand to a point just behind my head. “I invite you to meet my other guest.”
The clatter of sharp claws on concrete sounded behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw the crimson and black carapace, and my heart sank.
“You heartless fucking freak,” I whispered. “I’m going to kill you, Thorne.”
“I see you’re familiar with her kind,” he laughed. “Then you know what to expect.” The chair screeched against the floor as he stood. “I believe I’ll leave you two alone. Suffer well, Mr. Beckett.”
18
Some horrors live beyond their usefulness. I stared at the monstrous spider and swallowed, my dry throat aching. The Crimson Widows were one of those horrors. They were the daughters of Uttu, a Sumerian spider goddess and her great grandfather, Apzu. Few ancient stories are without cruelty, but their story was one of dark and brutal rape. I didn’t really care about that just then, however, as I was too busy trying to figure out how to get away.
The manacles were bound by a twenty foot long chain to a loop embedded in the concrete floor. Thorne must have wanted to give me some room to move, to prolong the twisted festivities. I grimaced and gave an experimental tug, my eyes never leaving the Widow. She resembled nothing so much as a black widow, sleek and hypnotic. Her limbs were thin and spindly, each capped with a barbed talon and ringed with tiny, razor-sharp thorns. Six of her eyes lay clustered in the center of her head, each glowing a wan purple light, and two large eyes glared at me from the sides of her head. Each of these looked in all respects like a human eye with one small exception. The irises continually shifted, forming and reforming into a million screaming faces. For a brief flicker, the Widow’s eyes were the window not to her soul, but to the souls of the suffering dead trapped within her.
She darted forward, her front legs snatching at me. I whipped the chains upward, taking two running steps toward her. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to be close, as I needed to give the chain some slack into order to use it as a weapon. The heavy chain links smashed into her face, spaying her vile poison everywhere. I covered my face with my arms. A drop of that venom in my eyes would end me at this point. I’d be a twitching wreck on the floor and she’d have her gruesome way with me. I clenched my fists and shook out my arms, looking for all the world like a child that had a case of the jibblies. But for all of the foolish appearance, if any of her venom got into the wounds on my fingertips, I shuddered to think of what that would do.
She backed away, skittering up the wall. Her tortured soul eyes glared down at me. Her abdomen shuddered and twitched. A glyph glowed on the surface of her lower abdomen. As I tried to make sense of what it was, her spinnerets twitched again and a gob of web launched at me. I ducked low and whipped the chains in an arc to the left, trying desperately to deflect, or stop the webbing from hitting me. I was already chained to the damned floor; I wasn’t about to let her make this fight any less fair. The chains grew heavier the moment the web hit them. I could feel the pulse of magic flowing through the chains. There was an enchantment on the webbing. I cursed every god that had ever existed. Why? I was mortal. I was chained. I was bleeding from half a dozen wounds, and to top it all off, I’d been fucking poisoned. How fucking lazy can you get?
“Just come and get me,” I roared. My rage shook the wards binding my tongue. “You can’t honestly be afraid of a mortal, can you?”
She jumped delicately to the floor, her eyes glowing a pulsing crimson. “Do not tempt me with your lies, creature.”
“You can talk?” I rasped. “Why the raging demon act?”
“I hunger,” she said.
“But you don’t want me to tempt you?” I raised an eyebrow.
“I am not master of myself.”
She sidestepped around me, her gaze never leaving mine. Her two front legs lifted, elevating her face enough for me to see the long, poison soaked fangs curled beneath her face. My eyes followed the lines of her thorax, the joints where her legs met her body, down the base of her abdomen. At first I’d thought it was a glyph inscribed and glowing in the space where the hourglass sits on a black widow. Instead, my panicked mind locked and focused on it and I realized it was the cuneiform words for “god” and “slave”. They’d been burned into her with sorcery.
“Look,” I said, holding my hands apart and pointing to my left palm. “They got me too.”
“I doubt that,” she laughed a deep sensual laugh. “Seldom do your kind deign to appear as you truly are. You are, all of you, liars.”
“Look,” I said. “All I want is Thorne. Dead.” I considered my words for moment. “Well, screaming for a long time, and then dead. I don’t have any issue with you, Lady.”
“You wear the Mark of the Usurper,” her eyes rested on my Marked palm.
“I’m his emissary,” I nodded. “For a while, anyway.”
“You are a mercenary?” She laughed low and deep in her belly…thorax…spider part
s.
“Kind of,” I shrugged. “Yeah.”
She stepped closer to me. “You fear me, do you not?”
“Terrified,” I admitted. “I’m not a fan of little tiny spiders” I held my thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart. “Much less ones that can tear apart gods.”
“Touch me,” she said. “Come forward and touch me of your own accord, Liar.”
I reached out my hand as I stepped forward. Inside my head I was screaming like a lunatic. It was like lowering your hand into a moving blender slowly, waiting for the impact. Sweat ran down my back and I felt a maddening urge to piss. My hand grazed the smooth carapace on her cheek, as far from both her eye and her mouth as I could get. Reality pulsed and I felt the Veil give way around me.
I gasped as my eyes adjusted to the darkness beyond the Veil. My jaw fell open and I stared at the creature on whom my hand rested. Her amber eyes, pupil-less and endlessly deep stared at me. Six arms reached out and gripped me by my face, wrists and hips. I glanced down and swallowed. My clothes had apparently remained on the Lifeside.
“Do you fear me still, creature?” She asked breathlessly.
“Yes,” I said, still uncomprehending.
Her skin was the color of coffee diluted by too much cream, with red, inviting lips that barely covered her tiny, but terrifying fangs. Thick, lustrous brown-black hair fell around her shoulders framing her angular face. A belt of hammered gold disks circled her waist, and a necklace of copper and jade rested between her heavy breasts. Each of her fingernails gleamed like black mother-of-pearl. The flesh of her soft, flat stomach was marred by the ragged cuneiform carving that marked her a slave.