by J. R. Rain
SPIDER WEB
A Vampire Thriller
THE SPIDER TRILOGY #2
by
J.R. Rain
Scott Nicholson
Acclaim for the Authors:
“Be prepared to lose sleep!”
—James Rollins, author of The Devil Colony on J.R. Rain’s The Lost Ark
“Sweet and heart-warming. I absolutely fell in love with H.T. Night’s Winning Sarah’s Heart—The Notebook for young adults!”
—Ella Quinn, author of False Dichotomy
“The love child of Stephen King and Sharyn McCrumb.”
—The Mountain Times on Scott Nicholson’s The Red Church
“I love this!”
—Piers Anthony, author of Xanth on J.R. Rain’s Moon Dance
“Vampire Love Story is a passionate story that is told from a refreshing perspective. This book was a blast. Night invents a brand new world for the vampire genre. Great Job!”
—Summer Lee, author of Kindred Spirits
“Scott Nicholson is a writer who always surprises and always entertains.”
—Jonathan Maberry, author of Patient Zero
“Dark Horse is the best book I’ve read in a long time!”
—Gemma Halliday, author of Spying in High Heels
“Night is a true storyteller. Winning Sarah’s Heart is thoughtful and inspirational! I enjoyed the ride.”
—Elaine Babich, author You Never Called Me Princess
“Keep both hands on your pants, because Scott Nicholson is about to scare them off.”
—J.A. Konrath, author of Origin
Other Books by J.R. Rain and Scott Nicholson:
STANDALONE NOVELS
Cursed!
Ghost College
The Vampire Club
THE SPIDER TRILOGY
Bad Blood
Spider Web
Spider Bite
Spider Web
Copyright © 2013 by J.R. Rain and Scott Nicholson.
All rights reserved.
Ebook edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Spider Web
Chapter One
It’s never good when you ask yourself “How did I get into this mess?”
But it’s always good when you know the answer, not that you can do anything about it.
For me, the answer usually involves two things: guilt and an attractive female. Not that I am actually looking for love or anything stupid like that. I’ve never needed a female in my life, and I’ve certainly never needed one in my unlife.
Still, even though I’m a vampire, I’m only human. I’m a sucker for an attractive female, and sometimes I think they can smell that weakness on me in the same way I can smell pretty much everything about them. But it’s not just looks that get me. It’s the guilt they arouse in me.
And as I stood in the darkness of the Tampa dock, the waters of the Gulf of Mexico lapping and the air heavy with salt, I knew I should back out. The night offered plenty of concealment. I could slink between the huge containers and barrels and cranes and boat parts and make my way to my Ford Mustang and head on back to Seattle where I belonged.
But I didn’t really belong anywhere.
And Parker was already on board the Oslo Princess, probably wondering where the hell I was. I scanned the upper decks, wondering if she was one of those humans milling about amid laughter and music and the clinking of beer bottles. The railings were festooned with tiny lights, and gulls soared around the glistening white cruise ship, squawking for scraps of bread. Crew members in crisp uniforms and caps bustled about, preparing for departure.
I gave a wistful glance back toward the long-term parking lot where I’d left the Mustang. Unfortunately, guilt prevented me from making the wise decision, and there was nothing to do but soar a hundred feet across the choppy water and take a cruise.
I can’t exactly fly, and I’ve never figured out that legend where vampires turn into bats, because the closest I’ve ever come is changing into a kind of mist. But I could jump and ride the wind well enough to get me on board. I’d told Parker I was afraid of flying—in a plane, that is—which wasn’t entirely a lie. Given the state of airport security and the TSA searches, it would be practically impossible to smuggle my life-sustaining packets of blood in my carry-on luggage.
And without blood on a cross-country flight, I was likely to get just a wee bit thirsty before we landed. Such a scenario at 30,000 feet would make “Snakes on a Plane” look like a kiddie cartoon.
I had six pints of blood sealed in sturdy plastic bags, the kind collected by the Red Cross. As much as I tried to tell myself the blood was willingly donated, in truth I was stealing it from hospitals and taking it away from people in need. Sure, I felt guilty over it, but I made peace with the fact that at least I wasn’t ripping people’s throats open.
I stepped from the shadows, got a running start, and leaped from the dock. I crossed the open water easily, but I miscalculated my jump and slammed into the bow of the ship a good ten feet below the lower deck. I began sliding down the thick steel hull, but I dug my fingernails into the paint and held firm. The ship’s horn blared into the night, signaling the voyage was underway, and as the ship bobbed and lurched, I hung on for dear life.
You see, I am immortal, but I am a terrible swimmer. And even though I couldn’t drown, I’d probably end up having to walk on the ocean floor until I found my way back onto dry land. Which could take years if I took a wrong turn.
The port was actually a little bay, much of it man-made, and was crowded with watercraft of all kinds: sailboats, yachts, and little fishing boats. A few commercial trawlers sat low in the water, barely moving, like gray leviathans slumbering in the black, frothy sea. A Coast Guard cutter was anchored near the mouth of the bay like a sentinel watching the open water of the Gulf beyond. At least I was unlikely to be spotted by anyone aboard the other boats.
I’m shy like that.
I scrambled up the side just like a spider—which happens to be my name—and soon I was just below the railing of the lower deck, listening to some guy droning about how his Facebook stock had tanked and what he’d like to do to that Zuckerberg fellow. I figured there was no easy way to slip in among all the tourists, so I just kind of blustered my way through it. I reached up, grabbed one of the rails, and swung a leg over.
A choking sound above me caused me to freeze. A middle-aged woman with hair like a possum run through a blender was bent over the rail, her mouth open wide in shock.
I clung to the rail, waiting for her scream, but instead she projectile-vomited a stream of something lime-green and steamy. I took advantage of her misery to vault over the rail and stand just behind her, as if comforting her.
A chubby man, hopefully her husband, came running up. “Hillary, my dear, are you okay?”
She turned to him, wiping her slobber on the sleeve of what looked like an expensive blouse. “Seasick,” she said with a groan of dismay. “And those flirtinis at the bar didn’t help matters any.”
“You sure you’re okay?” I said, pretending to be a concerned fellow passenger. “I thought you might fall over.”
She glared at me, scowled, and then looked over the side again as if not quite fitting together the pieces of a memory. “You...you’re...”
“They call me Spider,” I said.
She nodded vaguely as if that made some sort of sense. “I’ll take a couple more Dramamine and switch to banana daqu
iris.”
“Recommended by four out of five doctors,” I said.
Her husband, a gruff man in an ugly Hawaiian shirt—what I suspected would be the official garb of the balding, fat white men on this ship—said, “She never could hold her liquor. And that stuff’s eight bucks a glass.”
“The night is young, and there’s much drinking to be done,” I said, thinking of the packets of blood in my backpack. I’d worked up a thirst sleeping the day away, and all the human activity on the deck had aroused my senses. The proximity of so much meat on the hoof had me almost drunk myself. I could feel my canine teeth tingle a little, as if they wanted to sprout into full-blown fangs.
I made my way through the crowd, Jimmy Buffet music playing in one of the many tiki bars that lined the deck. I had to find Parker, get to our cabin, and sate myself on stolen blood before any innocent people were harmed.
The last thing I needed was a little more guilt.
Chapter Two
I found her easy enough.
Parker Cole might have just turned eighteen, but she looked in her early twenties. And projected a whole lot of attitude. So much so, that the bartenders had served her some white wine.
Which is where I found her: in the main bar on the upper deck, sipping from her wine glass and looking like she was enjoying it.
“Aren’t you a little young to be drinking wine?” I asked, slipping into the seat opposite her.
“Aren’t you a little late?” she asked, taking a healthy gulp from her wine, perhaps to be defiant. Perhaps because she loved it. Or perhaps because she was thirsty.
“I’m right on time, see,” I said, motioning to the slowly disappearing shoreline and the rows of fading little lights on the dock.
She made a disapproving noise. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“It’s a big ship.”
“So where were you?”
“Outside. Thinking.”
“About what?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” I said easily, crossing my leg and sitting back. The bar was lined with big windows that provided impressive views of the glittering Tampa skyline. I looked at the skyline, held my smile in place, and did all I could do to look as normal as possible. Inside—and not very deep inside, either—I was fighting the monster within. The monster—or ghoul, as I thought of him—that needed blood. Now.
“Call me curious,” she said, studying me closely all over again. I averted my eyes. I don’t like to be studied closely. Or studied at all, for that matter. “At least, curious about you,” she added. “So what were you thinking about?”
“I was thinking about...home,” I lied.
Her eyes narrowed. “Do you miss it?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Well, I don’t have a home. Not after what my father did, and what he put my family through. I’m eighteen now, and I never have to go back. If you want to go back, then you can. Remember, you were the one who followed me.”
“Someone’s got to protect you.”
“I don’t need protecting.”
“Sure,” I said. “Say that to the demon that possessed you in Shasta.”
And what a demon it had been. Powerful, malicious, intent on destroying anything around it. Myself included. And most of Shasta, too. And why stop there? California was ripe for the taking as well.
Parker shuddered, and I immediately regretted bringing up that fateful night. I changed the subject gently. “Look, sorry. But I need to get to our cabin.”
“Why?”
Parker knew I was a vampire, but some things were best left private. “I need to rest.”
“But it’s night. I thought you did most of your resting during the day.”
“What can I say?” I said. “I’m tired.”
“You’re something,” she said, and reached inside her purse and handed me the key card. “Knock yourself out.”
I meandered through the crowded halls, finally figuring out the ship’s numbering system. Back in our cabin—a small suite with two narrow beds as I’d requested—I immediately tore off my backpack and veritably ripped open the zipper. My hands were shaking. My mouth was dry. It had been too long since my last feeding. Much, much too long. My fangs extended at the thought of the sweet treat that awaited.
The packets of blood were sealed in containers of dry ice. As I bit through a corner and spat aside the plastic, I heard voices outside, followed by laughter. Two people. A couple. No doubt enjoying the start of what they hoped would be an eventful cruise.
Except I didn’t think of them as a couple...or even as people. I heard voices and laughter, but I saw food. And as I tilted the packet of blood to my lips, and as the food sources walked past the closed door to my suite, I wondered if they knew just how close they were to having been snatched away, feasted upon, and never heard from again.
I shuddered and drank from the packet.
I’m an animal, I thought. No, a monster. Animals kill because they have to. Monsters kill because they can.
* * *
Better.
I had already deposited the empty packet of blood over the ship’s railing, figuring my secret was more important than the destruction of the environment. My remaining packets were stored away in my backpack. The world was safe for another few days. At least, those aboard ship were safe for another few days.
Flushed and feeling good, I had just decided to go find Parker when she found me. I heard the click of the key card, followed by a light tapping. “You decent in there?” she asked, pushing the door open.
“If I hadn’t been,” I said, grinning from the foot of the bed, “you didn’t give me much chance to do something about it.”
She shrugged and smiled, and I knew she, in fact, hadn’t wanted to give me much chance to do something about it. Lord help me.
“You rested?” she asked.
“All rested.”
“Good, because I’m going to need your help.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What kind of help?”
“It’s not for me,” she said.
“Then for who?”
“A man I met in the bar.”
“You shouldn’t be meeting men in bars,” I said.
“Okay, Dad,” she said, and then, I think, immediately regretted her own choice of words. She winced, then added. “It’s not what you think. You still help people, right?”
I did. A habit that was beginning to annoy me lately. I figured since I had done a lifetime of harm—many lifetimes of harm—that it was time to do some good. “Right,” I said slowly.
“Good. ’cause this guy needs help. Real help.”
“What kind of help?”
“He’s been...” And now she paused and suddenly looked embarrassed, a first for her. She fought through it and continued on. “He’s been cursed, or so he says.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
She grabbed my hand. My cold hand. “Tell you what, Mr. Spider. Why don’t I have him explain it to you? He’s waiting in the bar.”
Chapter Three
“So you want to use me to impress some Sailor Boy, huh?” I didn’t really mind helping Parker, but I just hated the idea that she was setting me up. I’d already been through that, and it hadn’t been pretty.
And, you may ask, why did I continue hanging out with her? Why did I feel guilty and want to protect her?
Because I’m a sucker, that’s why.
They say a sucker is born every minute. And a sucker dies every minute, too. For this particular sucker, the birth and the death happened at the same time. And since then, I’d been walking this Earth with a chip on my shoulder, a dark hole in my heart, and a hunger in my soul. If I’d had a soul, that is. The hunger was about the only thing left, which is why I was so hot to do good deeds.
I had this little fantasy that if I did enough good, then I would at least have the imitation of a soul, a sort of shadow Spider that would get a little gold star from whatever higher power cared about such thing
s.
But I doubt Parker cared about such things.
“You’re not the only one that wants to help people,” she said. “Hey, I was possessed by a demon. There could be some icky residue still hanging around.”
I’d been wondering about that myself, which is another reason I wanted to keep a close eye on her. “So this is just a test for you?”
She rolled her pretty brown eyes. “Get over yourself, Spider. Everything isn’t about you.”
“Yeah, it’s about you hitting on some hunk at the bar, where, incidentally, you are drinking underage.”
“Hey, soon we will be in international waters and those laws don’t apply.”
“Great. So the rest of the trip is going to be me babysitting you through hangovers and keeping you from making a fool of yourself while your inhibitions are down.”
She glanced at the tiny beds. “You don’t know much about my inhibitions.”
“Don’t start. You know we can’t have that type of relationship.” I wasn’t sure whose benefit I was saying that for, hers or mine.
“Okay, but just because you’re Mr. Celibate doesn’t mean I can’t have fun.” She thrust out her ample chest in defiance, and I tried not to look. But there was a gap between her upper buttons and a swell of creamy flesh above black lace. I swallowed hard, tasting blood.
She reached for the door. “If you need me, I’ll be in the bar. But it’s pretty clear you don’t need me.”
Damn you, Parker. I caught her wrist just before she left the cabin. I tried not to bruise her, but sometimes I lose control of my strength.
She turned to me with a look of pain and triumph. “You’re jealous, aren’t you?”
“No, uh...it would just be embarrassing if I had to wait outside the room while you made time with your boy toy.”