“Just let me concentrate on figuring out how to get us out of here,” she snarled.
“You’re mad!” he said. “We’re never going to get out of here! We’re going to die, and . . . oh, God, that’s right. We’re going to die!”
The words were hysterical, but not with fear. Arun had suddenly been overcome with an odd sort of glee. Anastasia ignored him, ignored the way he began to press his minor erection against her once more.
Carruthers had stopped shouting. Out of her peripheral vision she could see that he was still alive, still staring at the spiders. But he seemed either catatonic or simply resigned, somehow, to the death that was approaching. Once they had completed their cocooning of Hellboy, the spiders would surely attack the rest of them. He had been identified as the threat; they were merely prey.
But without a blade of some sort, how to tear free of the webbing? Anastasia’s mind whirled. Above her, Arun smiled and his teeth seemed sharp and near.
“Slut,” he said quietly. So quietly, she wasn’t quite certain of the word. But she was sure enough.
“Piss off!” she snapped, and head-butted him again.
Arun’s eyes rolled back in his head and he shuddered slightly, then was still. His unconscious weight felt heavier, and Anastasia’s breathing became more labored. She longed to be out from beneath him, to shove him away.
Once upon a time he had been her friend, or at least a fond acquaintance. But something had happened. The man had obviously snapped. The signs had been limited to odd tics and other such quirks at first, but now he had gone completely overboard. He needed help, desperately needed to be returned to the surface, sent home to London for psychotherapy. But the prospects for Arun receiving help, for any of them ever leaving the chasm alive, did not appear to be promising.
“Hellboy, can you still hear me?” she called.
He tried to turn his head, but could not really manage it. Only his eyes, nose, and the stumps of his horns were visible on top. Within the web cocoon, he still struggled. Anastasia could see his arms and hands straining as he tried to reach the pouches on his belt, tried to find anything which might help them. She didn’t know what he hoped to accomplish.
“Just you and me, now,” a voice said softly.
Carruthers.
“Looks that way,” she said. “Any ideas?”
“I haven’t a one,” he admitted.
Anastasia looked over at Carruthers as best she could. She couldn’t really turn and look directly at him, but her peripheral vision told her enough. The man had resigned himself to death. His flesh was ragged from where Hellboy had torn the rooted webbing from his arms and face and belly. But there would be no way he could free himself.
“What I wouldn’t give for a knife, a way to get us out of here, right now,” she said.
“The hell with a blade,” Carruthers moaned. “I’d kill my own mother for a cigarette right now.”
Anastasia froze.
“Oh . . . ,” she said softly. “Oh.”
“Oh, what?” Carruthers asked, suddenly alarmed. “Don’t tell me we’ve got something else to worry about? We’re bloody near as well dead now, anyway.”
“Maybe not,” she said, and a sly smile began to spread across her face.
Anastasia squirmed and stretched. Her right arm was stuck fast to the web beneath her, only inches from her hip. Slowly, carefully, she tried to angle her body slightly so that she might reach her right-hand pocket. Arun’s weight on top of her made it even more difficult. So difficult, in fact, that it might as well have been impossible. As far as she stretched her fingers, she wasn’t going to be able to reach her pocket.
Which left one alternative.
Tensing her every muscle, Anastasia gritted her teeth and began to pull her forearm toward her hip with all her strength. Though she was in excellent physical condition, muscular and healthy, she wasn’t an especially powerful woman. Never had been. But this was their only chance.
With a spitting sound, followed by the eerie chittering noise that had come to represent her fear of the spiders, the two huge arachnids stopped webbing Hellboy. Slowly, they inched toward him. The spider which had once been Agent Meaney still had vestigial human legs and arms, but those limbs had already begun to wither as his eight spider legs carried the burden of his transforming body. It was a revolting sight.
Death would be far preferable. But they couldn’t be guaranteed of death from the creatures.
His voice muffled, still Anastasia heard defiant tones coming from within Hellboy’s cocoon. He forced his head around just enough to see her out of the corner of his eye, and in that moment of eye contact, Anastasia knew she had only seconds left to act.
“No!” she cried, and with the very last reserve of energy within her, she tugged against the webs stuck to her arm, and her flesh began to tear away. Anastasia Bransfield screamed in agony. She didn’t look down at her arm, but she knew the wounds were terrible. Instead, she pulled further, gnashing her jaws together like some mad dog.
Her fingertips felt denim. With a final thrust, she pushed her pelvis to one side, heard the fabric of her pants tear, and thanked God nothing was ever made as well as advertised.
Carefully, she slid her fingers into the pockets of her pants until she touched a thin, plastic tube. Slowly, she withdrew it, taking care not to drop it into the abyss waiting below. Anastasia twirled it within her fingers, turning it right-side up. She felt the metal thumbwheel, spun it, and was rewarded with a tiny jet of flame.
Thank God she had never completely given up smoking.
As quickly as possible, she burned away the webs connecting her to Arun. She was about to do the same to some of the webs holding her down, when a horrible realization dawned on her.
She would fall. She was certain of it. Even if she was careful about where she burned, the webbing would ignite and disintegrate beneath her, perhaps beneath them all. Even if that didn’t happen, she might fall through, her clothes might catch on fire.
“Arun,” she said, hoping to rouse him.
“Arun, wake up, dammit, I didn’t hit you that hard!” she screamed.
His eyes flickered twice, then opened.
“Hmmm? What? Anastasia?” he mumbled.
“Are you you?” she cried, becoming more desperate as the spiders closed in on Hellboy. They had nearly reached him now.
“What?” he asked.
“Are you you or are you still bloody Renfield?” she roared at him. “Are you paying attention?”
“Yes, I’m bloody well paying . . . ,” he began to retort, but she cut him off.
“You’re free, Arun!” she told him. “You’re loose! I’ve released you.”
“Oh, God, thank you,” he said, relieved, and began to roll off of her.
“No! Not that way!” she spat. “Listen to me carefully. We’re only going to get one chance at this! Sit up, keep your ass on my legs, and put your feet down on the web.”
He did as he was told.
“Take off your jacket!” she instructed, referring to the light tan jacket he had worn in case it was cold underground.
“What in God’s name for?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Take off your fucking jacket, you goddamned moron, or we’re going to die!” Carruthers screamed from where he lay, bleeding down into the chasm and gritting his teeth in agony.
Arun whipped his jacket off. He wore a linen button-down shirt, with a white t-shirt underneath, and Anastasia wondered if they would need those as well. Something seemed to jut obscenely beneath the cloth, and she realized it was the tablet Hellboy had found in the lake.
“Now what?” he asked, quickly becoming as frantic as she.
“In my right hand is my cigarette lighter,” she said. “Take it.”
He did.
“Now, ball up your jacket, and set it aflame,” she ordered.
“What?”
“Look at Hellboy, Arun!” she screamed. “Look at him! If we’ve g
ot any hope of getting out of here alive, it means keeping him alive as well!”
Arun glanced over at Hellboy. He seemed to hesitate a moment, and a small smile began to creep over his face.
“Dying . . . ,” he mumbled.
“Arun Lahiri! Earth to Arun!” Anastasia screamed.
The strange look disappeared from his face, and Arun stood, quickly, uncertain on the criss-crossed webbing. The web was tightly knit, with a gossamer sheen of lighter web connecting the strands. It was hard to walk, she saw. His feet stuck, and he had to be sure that he stepped on areas that would hold his weight, rather than on that gossamer shroud stretched within the holes.
But he did it.
“Hey!” Arun screamed. “Come on, you bloody ugly monsters, pay attention to the little guy! Meaney, turn around, you abomination! Hey!”
Half a dozen feet from where Hellboy now lay on his side, immobile within the webs, Arun stumbled and fell to his knees on the gleaming web hammock.
“Shit,” he moaned. “Anastasia, I’m stuck.”
The spiders turned slowly to regard him.
“Light it!” she cried.
Arun lit the ball of clothing on fire. It caught instantly, and the flames quickly spread.
The spiders began to retreat.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Arun said. “I didn’t even get near them.”
“They don’t want you to,” Anastasia said. “Get up, now. Go after them.”
With great difficulty, Arun tore his pants away from the web and struggled to his feet once more. She saw the fear on his face as he stared at the flaming ball of cloth in his hands. One arm of his jacket hung down, fire leaping from it.
“Quickly,” Anastasia said. She didn’t want to tell him what she feared might happen if the web caught on fire.
He stumbled after the spiders. They retreated to the edge of the net of webbing. Arun drew even closer, and both spiders backed up right over the edge.
For a moment, Anastasia was astonished, thinking the spiders had simply allowed themselves to fall into the chasm. Then she saw the web lines. Connected to those lines, the huge spider and the deformed one that had once been Agent Meaney were descending into the abyss. Down, she assumed, to some other system of webs that they considered safer.
“Burn their lines,” she instructed.
“Ow!” Arun cried. “Oh, my God, in about two seconds my hand is going to be on fire! Jesus, Stacie, it hurts!”
“Just burn the lines!” she commanded him.
Arun knelt and swept his burning hand beneath the network of webs. The lifelines the spiders hung from went up in a small puff of black smoke almost instantly. The spiders fell soundlessly away into darkness. Fire ran up the line toward the bed of webbing they were all stuck to, but stopped before it reached the main structure.
“Drop it!” Anastasia cried.
But Arun apparently didn’t need her advice. He had already let go of the burning cloth, and it tumbled out of sight. He stood, cradling his right hand against his body, whimpering softly.
“It hurts,” he said.
“Take the lighter over to Hellboy,” she said, ignoring his pain.
“He can’t even move,” Arun argued.
“I don’t want you to give it to him,” she explained. “I want you to set him on fire. It’s our only chance to get out of here.”
Arun stared at her. Behind her, Carruthers began to laugh.
She knew that Hellboy could withstand the flames, that once the cocoon was weakened enough by them, he would rip himself free and snuff the fire. The web might catch. Probably would catch. How much of it would burn was another question.
But what other choice did they have? Only Hellboy might have something to cut them free.
“Just do it!” she snapped.
And prayed. Carruthers was mumbling something low to himself which might also have been a prayer. Or perhaps he had just gone away for a while, somewhere in his head. The idea was tempting.
Arun walked, stiff-legged, toward the cocoon. From where she lay, Anastasia could only see the crimson horn stumps that jutted from Hellboy’s forehead, and a little bit of one of his sideburns.
Arun knelt down next to Hellboy. He recoiled suddenly, falling on his ass on the web. Stuck.
“Damn it!” Anastasia cursed. “What’s wrong?”
When he turned to look at her, she thought Arun looked as if he were going to be sick.
“Something’s moving around in there, down on his hip, and it isn’t Hellboy,” Arun said, the disgust clear in his voice. “It’s her, Stacie, it’s got to be. It’s that damned head. And it’s . . . it’s muffled, but I can hear it . . . talking!”
“Well for God’s sake, Arun, what’s she saying?” Anastasia asked.
“I’m not completely certain, but it sounds like ‘He’s coming.’ And then, I think, she says, ‘Heaven help us all.’ Then she just repeats herself,” Arun explained, and Anastasia saw a shiver go through him.
She listened hard, and thought she could barely hear the muffled voice of Lady Catherine, her severed head in a canvas bag inside the thick cocoon of webbing that trapped Hellboy.
“Quick,” Anastasia said. “Do it, Arun. Light him on fire.”
I’m sorry, a deep, firm voice spoke in her mind. I can’t allow that.
There was no sound for her to hear, but still Anastasia sensed the direction from which the telepathic contact had come. She strained to see the tunnel which led away from the web. In the yawning darkness that was the tunnel’s mouth, two tiny red embers burned brightly.
The shadows resolved themselves into a man, the embers his eyes. He was pale and bearded, his flesh like alabaster, blue-veined and smooth. The green light from below reflected off his skin and gave it a sickening tint. Or, perhaps his skin was not perfectly white at all. Perhaps, she thought, it had that sickening tint at all times.
She knew without asking who this must be.
“Hazred,” she whispered.
The sorcerer, whose linen robes hung loosely around him, smiled slightly and said something in a language so guttural she thought he might be choking. It wasn’t any language she knew, or had ever heard spoken before. In truth, she believed completely that it was a language no living being outside of those caverns had ever heard spoken.
I’m flattered, his mental voice said, perhaps translating his verbal comments. But I cannot allow your demonic friend his freedom, I’m afraid. Not as yet.
Anastasia didn’t understand. The man looked sickly. Even someone as unskilled at hand to hand combat as Arun ought to be able to hold him off. Even if Hazred could reach Arun in time.
“Arun,” she said. “Do it!”
Nothing happened. She turned to see that Arun was entranced by Hazred’s arrival. He stared at the man with wide eyes.
“Come on, Arun!” Carruthers screamed, another sudden outburst from a man Anastasia continued to write off as catatonic, only to have him erupt violently. “He’s a murderer. He slaughtered Lady Catherine and her entire team! Set Hellboy free and we can go home! Don’t you want to go home?”
“Home?” he asked. “No, I . . . I don’t know.”
The choice is not yours to make, Hazred’s voice said in her head, and, she imagined, all of their heads.
She turned her head to see what he planned to do. The thin, pale man lifted his right hand, and green light seemed to blossom from it, sparks jumping from finger to finger. One spark seemed to grow brighter and larger and he held it in his palm. Hazred hurled the green fire at Arun. It struck his right hand, and the cigarette lighter exploded.
Arun screamed, his hand aflame, and beat his fist against his pants, trying desperately to put out the fire. Hazred waved a hand, and the flames were gone. Arun bent over, whimpering about his twice-burned hand.
“Right, then,” Anastasia snarled, summoning the last of her strength and courage. “Come and get me, you decrepit old git.”
I think not, Hazred said in her mind.
He barked something horrid in that choking language, waved a hand, and stepped aside.
People crowded past him, more than a dozen. But not people, really. Only a few of them looked remotely human to Anastasia. The others were even more pale than Hazred. They were stooped and short legged, barrel chested. They had large heads and huge ears.
Some of them had no eyes. Most of the others had white, bulging eyes and Anastasia assumed they were blind. The few which looked relatively human were bald and pale, and their smiles were perverse.
One of the little, twisted creatures touched her face.
Anastasia screamed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
—
The sandstorm was coming. No denying it now. Creaghan’s men had gathered rations, weapons, bedrolls, and clothing, and tossed the provisions into two jeeps. Agent Rickman drove one of the jeeps with three other men. Captain Creaghan drove the second jeep himself, with three of his men on board. Eight of them, that was all.
They headed for the caves, leaving Colonel Shapiro and his men to hide in the oasis itself. The caves were safer, but there was no way more than a fraction of Shapiro’s men would have been able to hide there. And he knew Colonel Shapiro would not have considered the caves. How could he? The man wasn’t even aware of their existence. Not that it mattered. Shapiro would not even have thought to take cover in the oasis if Creaghan hadn’t warned him.
Creaghan wouldn’t have felt much remorse if something happened to Shapiro, but the American had a lot of good men in his command, soldiers doing their jobs. The question now was whether Shapiro and his legions would make it to the oasis at all. The man had been reluctant to respond to Creaghan’s warning. Only his observance of Creaghan’s own frantic actions, and those of his men, made Shapiro realize the threat was severe.
Sandstorms were common in the desert. This time of year, it would have been uncommon not to have one now and again. But this . . . this was something else entirely. The Bedouins had screamed at one another in panic as the huge brown cloud marched across the desert.
Shapiro had realized his error, but Creaghan wondered if it was too late. If the storm would arrive before Shapiro and his men could evacuate. Probably it would, at least for a lot of them. The lucky ones would make it to the oasis. The unlucky, according to the Bedouins, might have the flesh scoured from their bones by the driving sand.
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