By a Thread

by Nyna Queen

  Her eyes found the rearview mirror. The children had frozen in mid-movement, leaning toward each other, now staring at her, shock slapped onto their faces.

  “What the hell?” Alex snapped in a cracking voice. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Max pointed an accusatory finger at Josy.

  “That’s the last chocolate bar!” he exclaimed, nodding toward a red packet Josy was holding out of his reach.

  His sister bared her teeth. “And it’s mine!”

  Alex blinked. A chocolate bar? She’d almost killed them because they couldn’t agree about a stupid piece of chocolate? Right, she might have killed them too, if they had not ripped her out of her micro-sleep, but that was way beside the point right now.

  It was just beyond incredible. These kids were on the run from hardboiled hitmen, who were trying to put them to an early grave, and yet they found time to quarrel over some sweets. Children!

  Max was still glaring at his sister. “Why do you get to get it?” He reached over, trying to grab for the bar, but she pushed him back, shielding the treat in her hands.

  “You took the almond cookie one, although you know it’s my absolute favorite,” she snapped. “It’s only fair I get this one.”

  “Tis not!”

  So, there we are again! Look what a snatch of sleep and a little bite could accomplish.

  “You had the caramel cream bar!”

  “Yes, but you had—”

  “Hey!” This time it was Alex’s snarl that cut through the car. They both looked up at her, surprised, as if they had forgotten about her presence; they probably had, too.

  “It’s pretty simple,” she said with a pleasant smile. “You share—or I’ll take it.”

  Heh! In the blink of an eye the chocolate bar was broken in half and fairly divided. Max had a slightly smug grin upon his face, Josy was slightly scowling, but both of them mostly looked like they had more or less won the argument. Why couldn’t every problem be solved so easily?

  Max rubbed his eyes and sleepily gazed at the hazy canola fields in the early morning light. “Where are we?”

  Alex glanced at the odometer. “At the moment we should be somewhere close to the border of the Province of Sacariah.”

  “Sacariah?” Josy licked remaining bits of chocolate from her slim fingers. “That’s nowhere near Ciradell, is it?” Suspicion laced her voice.

  Alex sighed. Somehow, she’d hoped to avoid this topic a while longer. She’d spend quite some time last night during her lonely drive thinking on how to get them into Ciradell without her ass being roasted on a stick—until she’d gotten too tired to keep a straight thought in her head. There would be no trying to sneak in through the border, so much was for sure. The centers of trueborn high-society were warded with high-end magic and monitored closely by professional sentries who were able to shoot a fly from the center of a daisy. She knew. She’d seen it. Trying to sneak in would be like running along the borderline shouting “Here I am, shoot me, shoot me.” No thanks, they had to find another way. Unfortunately, what she’d come up with wasn’t much to her liking. And she had the strong feeling the kids wouldn’t like it very much either. Oh, well, might as well get it over with right now.

  “We’re heading for Gomorrha.” She braced herself for an outcry of indignation.

  None came. Just two blank faces. Bless those trueborn nobles for raising their kids in innocent ignorance. Not that she’d complain. It meant she’d just received a temporary reprieve. There probably would be hell to pay later, but for now, she was happy to leave it at that. Especially since she had the feeling that what little trust she had gained by now, would be gone as soon as they realized where she was taking them. On the other hand, if they really didn’t know about Gomorrha’s reputation maybe she could avoid the worst. Yeah, and the sun will shine in hell!

  “It’s a city at the Hadez Channel,” she supplied carefully. “I know a guy there who can help us get into Ciradell.” If he feels like it.

  Not a concern she needed to share right now.

  Max popped a handful of chips into his mouth, crunching them with relish.

  “He a faper too?” he asked around the mush. “Wat guy in Gomra?”

  “Gomorrha.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever.” Smart ass!

  Now there was a loaded question. She wasn’t very keen to get into any personal story behind her relationship with the Duke. The less they knew about him—and her own involvement in his little empire—the better for all of them.

  “No shaper,” she said tentatively. “More a businessman, of sorts.”

  “Business?” asked Josy, as if it seemed impossible to her that a person like Alex could actually be affiliated with someone who had some kind of real job. “Of what kind?”

  “He owns a cat house in downtown.” The words just slipped out of her mouth before she could stop them. She pictured herself banging her head against the wheel. An A for subtlety, Alex!

  But instead of sparking with outrage, Josy’s eyes glowed with delight and she clasped her hands in front of her chest.

  “A veterinary just for cats? How lovely!”

  Alex opened her mouth. Closed it. She wasn’t quite sure if she should laugh or cry. “Uhm, sugar, it’s only called a cat house. There are no actual cats in there”—although that was open to interpretation—“it’s more like some kind of … you know … a kind of night club.”

  “Oh.” A hint of disappointment colored the girl’s voice. “Well, that’s okay, too, I guess.”

  Oh, she probably wouldn’t say that, if she had any idea what kind of club Alex was talking about. Considering her sheltered upbringing, the little darling likely had some kind of country club in mind, all finely dressed people, swinging to waltz music and sipping expensive cocktails decorated with colorful little umbrellas. Well, she was in for a shock, but Alex didn’t intend to spoil the surprise for her.

  The road forked in front of them and Alex veered left, overtaking a tractor. As she went back into the right lane, the world slightly shrunk at the corner of her eyes. She blinked, but the dark spot persistently refused to recede, hovering at the edge of her sight, like a nasty little black bug. Splendid. Sure, this would happen sooner or later. She was starting to hallucinate. She had to get them off the street and find a place to recover. And better sooner than later.

  She cleared her throat. It sent her brain dancing madly in her skull. “Take a look out for me, for some deserted place to crash along the road, will you? We need to stop for a while.”

  “Why?” Josy asked perplexed. “Didn’t we just stop?”

  Nothing gets past you, does it?

  “Well, while the two of you were merrily sleeping, I was driving all night. Not to mention that I worked during the day before—and the night before that. It so happens that I am a bit tired, sorry. So, if you don’t mind, just keep your eyes open!”

  Silence filled the car as everybody stared out of the windows, but nothing disturbed the peace of the rural landscape except for a flock of geese taking off from a green field. It was increasingly getting harder for Alex to keep the street line steady in front of her eyes. The trees and pastures around her blurred again, growing bigger and smaller like a balloon someone was breathing into. Another black spot penetrated her vision, teasingly crawling through her sight field. She felt the strong urge to wipe it out of her eyes and knew at the same time that if she got started she wouldn’t stop until she’d scratched out both of her eyes. A couple of years ago she’d seen a snake rip out his own entrails under the influence of shaper’s bite, convinced they were infested with fanged worms that were eating him alive from within. It was nothing to be joked with, shaper’s bite.

  A group of ash trees rocked by, their tops swaying in the wind as if they were silently snickering about her misery. If nothing came soon, she’d have to go for a field, rainclouds hither or tither. It was either that or risking meeting with a tree.

  Just when she thought she couldn�
�t keep her eyes open any second longer, Max pointed a small hand between the seats. “What about that? Over there to the right. Looks pretty deserted to me.”

  Alex squinted at the grove that sheathed the road like a green sleeve. In fact, there was a house almost completely hidden by the trees on the right side. If Max hadn’t pointed it out, she might have missed it.

  She managed a tired smile. “Very good, eagle eye.”

  Max swelled with pride.

  Alex took the turn up the drive that led to the house. It was an old house from its appearance, cupped in the shelter of trees and shrubs like a fox in its den. Encroaching greens sneaked up the walls, covering big parts of the facade. For a moment the image wavered, and she saw another old, green-clad manor house. A child's laugh rang out, once, before silence claimed the scene. Alex looked up at the second story window, almost expecting to see the pale faces of two boys appear behind the clouded glass, hands pressed against the window, becoming smaller and smaller and smaller …

  Alex blinked. An empty window stared back at her. A ridiculous sense of disappointment pricked her throat and she swallowed. The feeling almost made her turn the car around and leave, but she pulled herself together. It was the shaper’s bite messing with her emotions more than anything.

  Carefully, she coaxed the car into a shielded space between some beeches and elms, where nobody would be able to see it from the street and shut down the engine. The sudden silence pounded onto her ears.

  She pressed two fingers to the point between her eyebrows and forced herself to inspect the house. It must have been impressive at some point, but now it had all gone to rack. The signs of neglect were visible all over the place, from the peeling paint to the untended flowerbeds overrun with rampant weeds. She spotted withered hibiscus and elder amongst the plants fighting for space in the unkempt ground. Nobody had laid hand on these in ages.

  Deserted for months she guessed—if not years. Even from her position, she could smell the scents of various animal droppings that spoke tale of all the little rodents and critters that had made themselves at home here.

  All in all, it looked like the kind of spooky house they used in horror movies, the ones that always ended with the main actors all stabbed and sawed to a bloody pulp. Bet there was an old swing behind the house, all rusty and slightly swinging in a nonexistent breeze. These houses always had such a swing. Not that she intended to walk around the house and check because if there really was one, she’d have to leave after all. She wasn’t superstitious, but there were just some things that always ended the same way and spooky houses with swings in the back were one of them.

  Letting her spider skin rise up from her core, she reached out for the surroundings, sending her threads toward the house. They unfurled unwillingly, twitching like a bunch of wild snakes.

  She forced them forward, guiding her mind along the sensory threads, tasting the scents, feeling the vibrations: chirping squirrels in the trees, a woodpecker, little rodents somewhere at the foundation. Only the sounds of nature …

  She stretched her mind a bit further, invading the little cracks and chips in the wall. The spider balked inside her with a snarl. Come on, just a little bit further …

  Her mental threads snapped. The backlash punched her into the chest and she gasped. Pain bloomed in her head, turning her vision black for a second and nausea swept over her. Ouch! Alex blindly reached for her shaper senses again, but it felt like pressing against a solid wall. Deep inside her, the spider curled together in agony.

  Damn, she should have known better than to push herself so far. Stupid. Stupid. Double stupid. She’d bite her own ass if she could.

  Alex raised her throbbing head. So far, she hadn’t felt anything alarming, but this place sent her senses on guard, swing or not.

  Well, only one way to find out now.

  “Shall we?” she asked the kids and cracked the driver’s door open.

  The moment her feet touched the ground, she knew she’d overstepped the mark. The ground shifted beneath her, wobbling like a rubber mat on water. The buzzing in her ears increased into a ring like the sound of a flat-line on an ECG-monitor. Alex reached for the car to steady herself and sucked in air through her nose.

  Breathe, she told herself. Come on, breathe. If you collapse out here, you’re easy prey. It’s just a few more steps. At least the wall provided an illusion of safety.

  She let go of the car and moved toward the front door on unsteady legs. A couple of formerly white wooden steps that were now greenish with traces of moss led up to a solid oak door with a milk-glass window crusted with dirt.

  Alex checked the handle. It was a routine movement, but to her surprise, the door opened with a soft creak.

  Part of her was relieved—picking the lock with her shaper-bitten fingers would have been a real bitch, if not impossible. In fact, she’d already been prepared to break in in a much more drastic way. Sheer force, that she could still manage.

  The other part of her, the one that forced her to sleep with a knife under the pillow each night, rang the alarm bells in her head.

  Years of caution kicked in like a drug shot. Despite her shaper senses not having noted anything alarming, she found herself listening intently. Still, no sound, no sensation. But she was running on fumes and couldn’t trust her senses to be as accurate as they usually were.

  She motioned to the children to stay back and palmed two knives, their weight reassuring in her hands. With her fingertips, she gently pushed against the door and silently slipped inside.

  A parqueted hallway stretched in front of her, ending in a divided flight of stairs that led up to the second floor. It was mostly empty, except for a few pieces of furniture covered in white sheets—chairs, a sofa, pictures, a big shape with a smooth top that was extremely reminiscent of a piano. Everything was coated in a thick layer of dust. In the light that filtered in through the grimed windows dust particles floated through the air, sparkling like powdered crystals. It made Alex’s throat itch.

  In its heyday, this house must have been a posh place to live in, yet now it was only a grave, the white coverings like burial shrouds upon the objects that had once given life to these halls.

  No steps marked the dust. Empty. Dusty. Silent. The very definition of deserted.

  She flipped the knives around so that the tips were facing the floor and let her arms sink.

  “You can come,” she called.

  A rustle of footsteps and Max and Josy inched inside, looking around with big, fascinated eyes.

  “Aaawesome,” Max said in a half-whisper. His voice echoed in the almost empty hall. He giggled, listened to the echo and giggled again, louder.

  “Yep, that’s an echo,” Alex muttered. “Now if you’re done, let us see what’s upstairs.”

  Sleeping upstairs gave you more time if something showed up on your doorstep. Of course, it also made a retreat harder, but then, there were two sides to every coin.

  How she’d made it upstairs she couldn’t tell, just that each step had been a fight of will with the kids trailing around her like two excited puppies.

  There was a big room facing the backyard with a few covered couches and tables, and smaller rooms on each side. All clear. Old, moth-eaten curtains covered the arched floor-to-ceiling windows, dipping them into a dusty gloom. Tugging at the corner of one of the curtains at the backside of the bigger room, Alex peered outside. From her vantage point, she could see a small lake with a rotted dock jutting out into the translucent water. Behind it, woods stretched into the distance. No swing, as far as she could see from here. Yet, there was a balcony with stairs leading down into an unkempt yard. Now that was handy, for once.

  “Iiihhh!”

  Alex turned at Josy’s shriek, almost toppled over in the process and grabbed the wall for support. Sweet Jester, she really was fucked up.

  Josy was staring at the naked white wall with an expression of deepest horror on her face, apparently frightened that it might attack her. In
teresting. Unsettling, too.

  Alex raised an eyebrow. “What?”

  “Cobwebs,” Josy mumbled, rubbing her arms. “They touched me.”

  Heh! “Not afraid of spiders, are you?”

  Josy swallowed. “Nooo-o.”

  Liar.

  The girl averted her eyes, caught, and rubbed her arms more fiercely. “I just don’t want them to scuttle over me.” She shuddered at the mere thought.

  “Don’t worry.” Alex dropped her backpack against the back wall, from where she had a good sight of the whole room and door. “I’ll keep an eye on them—or rather eight.” She gave a sly wink.

  In that moment a cold prickling went up and down her shoulders like icicles being rammed under her skin and the streak of mirth left her. Time for bed.

  “But I’m not tired at all,” Max complained, and she realized she’d said it aloud.

  “Me neither,” added Josy.

  “Suit yourselves,” Alex said with a wave of her hand, earning blinks of surprise. “I’m gonna hit the hay.”

  She took a shaky step toward the corner.

  “Can we—er—can we go exploring a little?” Josy asked, almost timidly.

  Alex stared. They were asking for her permission? Cute. As if she’d be able to stop them or anything. She must have done something right, though, she decided, having turned from a frightening shaper who could not be trusted an inch to an adult whose word had to be respected. Tiredness tugged at her seams and she was inclined to just tell them to do what the hell they pleased, but a tiny voice told her that she might squander all her chances for later.

  “Fine,” she said slowly, “but stay inside the house and keep it down—and don’t touch anything in here that looks like it might disintegrate.” Hah, not too bad for her first pseudo-parental order, right?

  They nodded solemnly.

  “Oh, and before you go,” she added when they turned to go about their mischievous business. “Does any of you have a watch?”