By a Thread

by Nyna Queen

  “Stop!” she yelled at the top of her lungs and waved her hands. “Don’t go near them!”

  Josy and Max held, looking back at her, startled. Behind them the three liveried men toppled to the ground like marionettes whose strings had been cut, wounds opening in their necks like crimson smiles, spilling dark red blood onto their pristine white uniform jackets.

  Josy turned at the sound and her shrill scream cut through the clearing. Max’s voice joined her only a moment later.

  The fake guards didn’t miss their cue and stepped over the reanimated corpses, swarming toward the kids.

  Twenty yards.

  Alex pumped her legs harder, squeezing every last drop of shaper-speed out of her exhausted body. Her claws burned beneath her skin, the spider wild and angry.

  The kids reeled back and dashed back up the slope, toward her. Toward safety.

  Ten yards.

  A sharp crack pierced the silence over the meadow like a gunshot. Something snapped around Alex’s left ankle. With a jerk, her leg was ripped out from under her body. She barely had time to brace herself before the ground punched her in the face. The scent of grass filled her nostrils, her mouth. Her head swam. Searing pain lashed her ankle, where the whip had cut into her skin.

  Through the daze, she heard Max and Josy shouting her name, heard fear and panic and stark terror in their voices.

  With a growl she attempted to push herself up, true teeth bared, but before she knew it they were on her—four, five, six of them, kicking her and beating at her with wooden clubs.

  Alex gasped and tried to pull up her knees to protect her core, but there were just so damned many of them. A toecap hit her in the ribs, cracking at least one of two of them and taking her breath away. Pain exploded in her side. Then something hard bashed her temple, sending the world spinning around her.

  Rough hands grabbed her and half-dragged, half-carried her away. The ground wobbled beneath her and the world zoomed in and out of focus, the sky circling above her, turning into the twisted branches of a canopy that formed a tangled web over her head.

  Alex blinked her eyes through the pain, trying to get the spiderwebs out of her head. Blurred figures towered above her.

  “Quick,” she heard someone mutter, “think she’s coming ‘round.”

  Her back thudded against the ground and soft grass tickled her cheek. The taste of iron filled her mouth, bitter and coppery. A hand buried in her hair, yanking her head back and something was pushed between her teeth.

  When the shadows finally retreated, she found herself in a little forest clearing, surrounded by a group of men in dark clothes, curiously looking down on her as if she was a wild exotic animal in a trap.

  In the distance rang the desperate scream of a girl. A known voice. JOSY!

  Alex tried to surge up and hit restraints. What the—?

  She moved her hands and realized they were handcuffed above her head and tied to the base of a tree. Twin-ropes wound from her ankles, each fastened to a nearby sapling, stretching her on the floor as if she was being prepared for the rack. Some kind of leather splint had been wedged into her mouth, effectively preventing her from using her spider teeth.

  Her heart sped up. She was caught—caught like a fly in a spider’s sticky web. She, the spider! Panic surged through her and she ripped at the bonds with frenzied desperation, but they had done a good job on her.

  “She’s a fighter, that one,” someone said, but Alex was too busy trying to listen for anything that would indicate that Max and Josy were still alive. But there was no more scream. Nothing.

  Her whole body went ice cold.

  One of the guys stepped out of the circle and leaned over her. He seemed to be the youngest of them, still fighting for his stubble to grow in all places to appear manlier, which actually made him look greener than an unripe apple.

  “She’s quite pretty for one of her kind, don’t you think?” His eyes sized her up, wandering from her face, to her tits, to the hollow between her open legs. “Seems almost a shame to do her in without taking advantage of that fact.”

  Another one of them slapped a hand on the youngster’s shoulder. “Wanna show her who her daddy is?”

  Raucous laughter filled the clearing. The panic in Alex took on another quality. She was easy pickings right there.

  “You’d want to be careful about that,” a gentle voice said, and the hooting blabber trailed off. A man stepped forward and the way the others made space for him marked him as someone who had a say. Around forty, graying at the temples, pale complexion. Despite the gentleness in his voice, there was a coldness in his eyes, a complete lack of emotions. Like a shark.

  Alex shivered. He looked down at her like you’d inspect an insect before squashing it with the heel of your boot.

  She thrashed around, uselessly digging her true teeth into the leather splint in her mouth.

  The man smiled. “See? They got teeth everywhere, that goes as well for the pussy.” He glanced at the mouthy kid. “Wouldn’t want her to chew off your best parts, while giving the daddy to the little bitch, would you?”

  That provoked more laughter from the others. The youngster swallowed, apparently unsure whether he was being pranked or not. Finally, he spat to the side in a very lousy imitation of a cool hard guy from a movie.

  “Just ramblings,” he muttered. “Wouldn’t give it to my neighbor’s dog either, and she’s a pretty bitch, too.”

  That earned him a round of appreciative murmurs and the younger looked pleased that he’d made up some ground.

  The leader clasped his hands behind his back. “There are quite a few people who get off on that kind of … amusement. Never quite understood that myself. But then, when you hit it off with one of her kind”—his chin pointed at Alex—“there wouldn’t be that much of a difference, now would there?”

  A guy with a thick rubbery scar slashing his lip smirked down at Alex’s stiff body. “If you like to see a bitch heel, it doesn’t really matter if she’s a dog, a woman—or a shaper.”

  The younger blinked at him. “You really think you could make this one heel?”

  “Oh, they all heel eventually.” A sadistic glow lit up Scarface’s eyes. “You just have to have the right … incentive.”

  Yes, you would know, Alex thought nauseated. He struck her as a guy who inflicted pain for fun.

  “I heard they don’t feel pain,” a short muscle-head in a tight shirt said. “Not like we do.”

  The leader’s eyebrows rose about an inch. Then, without forewarning, he yanked up his foot and brought it down on Alex’s leg at full tilt. The hollow, cracking sound of breaking bone echoed under the canopy, sending up a flock of startled birds.

  Lightning pain shot up Alex’s body. She let out a garbled moan, her hands cramping into fits.

  A thin smile tugged at the leader’s lips as he leaned forward, watching her writhe on the ground. “Oh, I think they do.”

  Straightening up, he smoothed his jacket. “Take care if this, so we can be gone.” With that, he turned away like he’d simply ordered to settle a bank deal and not her death.

  The one with the scar took his place and crouched down beside her, pulling out a wicked looking knife. It was a heavy hunting knife, short and barbed, the kind that was legally banned in hunting as they caused unnecessary cruelty to animals. A blade constructed for only one purpose: to cause pain.

  He slanted at her as he let the sun play on the polished edge.

  “Now. What are we gonna do with you?” His eyes traveled the length of her body, the knife hovering inches above her, considering—a butcher, trying to decide how to best fillet his carcass. Only that she wasn’t a carcass—yet.

  Defiance kicked in like a drug shot and the spider drew up, she growled in her throat, struggling, eyes flashing at him, pointlessly biting into the leather.

  Scarface cocked his head to the side and sucked his cheek thoughtfully, letting the flat side of the blade travel around her lips, the cold metal
touching her skin.

  “Those eyes, the teeth …” He probed her upper lip with the hilt of his knife, inspecting them and puckered his mouth. “Bet you’re a spider.”

  Oh yes, and she’d just love to give him a taste of her venom, too.

  He rocked back onto his heels. “You know, I killed a spider once, when I was a kid.” His eyes went distant with the memory. “It sat there, on the kitchen table, right beside my cereal bowl—the cheeky thing—staring at me with those tiny disgusting eyes.”

  He shook his head in mocking disbelief and rolled forward onto the balls of his feet until he was eye-level with Alex. “Wanna know what I did to it?”

  Oh, she had a pretty good idea already, thank you very much!

  He smirked at her visible revulsion. “Think I’ll show you.”

  The first cut sent a burning line over her clavicle. From there it was a deliberate game of pain and torture, teasing her, keeping her on the edge of toleration without ever sending her over. He moved the knife methodically, working on her body with the precision of a surgeon—each cut and bruise designed to inflict pain and weaken her, but none of them deep enough to do any life-threatening damage.

  Just foreplay, she realized. Only an appetizer.

  Her world turned into a haze of hot pain, pupils dilating from the strain and from the light beams filtering through the canopy and burning in her eyes. Whenever she thought the oblivion from the bloodloss would finally grant her release another strategically placed slash would rip her back again to point-blank awareness.

  Her throat was long raw from trying to scream and the metallic scent of her own blood drove the spider near crazy inside her.

  “Stop playing around and get it over with,” the cold voice of the leader finally cut through the hazy veil that was slowly falling over her. “We don’t wanna waste the whole day out here.”

  Scarface let out a theatrical sigh. “And here we were just having so much fun.”

  Alex stared back at him full of hatred, determined that when this was the only thing she could do, she’d do it just as long as possible.

  The mocking smile deepened, pulling at his scar.

  “Soooo bellicose!” He snapped his teeth together. “Just like the spider on my kitchen table. You remind me of it, you know. Stubborn to the very last. It simply refused to accept the inevitable.” He shook his head. “Even after I’d pulled out almost all of its legs, it still tried to crawl away.”

  He leaned forward until his mouth was close to her ear, his breath tickling her sensitive skin. “Wanna know what I did?”

  The sunlight flashed on his blade as he flipped it over in his hand.

  DARKEN took the turn too fast. The hover cycle side-slipped and screeched over the asphalt of the U-turn, emitting sparks from the metal. When it crashed into the sidewalk, Darken had already jumped off, rolled to his feet, cleared the green lawn and was racing up the stone stairs cut into the side of the hill, taking several at once. Rage and fear were pulling him forward.

  At the top of the hill, he stopped cold. What he saw chilled his blood.

  Two of the family’s coaches waited at the edge of the wood down below. Close to them three men in the white livery of the country estate sprawled motionlessly in the grass, covered in red. Even from up here he recognized Captain Cammryn’s trademark long hair and leather cord.

  Impotent fury pulsed through him. The kid had been promising. A little bit of a stickler sometimes, but utterly loyal and reliable. And now he was drowning in his own blood, his throat slit, discarded like trash.

  Josy’s scream pulled his focus like a lasso. A little to the left of the coaches several men were chasing her, as she stumbled up the hill, slithering on the grass like an exhausted fawn running from huntsmen. Behind them another man was holding up Max’s limp body, legs and arms dangling down lifelessly—just like those of the girl in the Amplificum …

  The rage inside him exploded and something shattered. His magic roared up, a violent torrent of destructive fire that coursed through his veins, ripping at the seams of his soul.

  Blood flooded his vision.

  He stepped forward.

  The world slowed around him, turning everything to a sluggish crawl. His feet barely touched the ground, as he soared down the hillside—a death raven flying on the wings of wrath.

  Josepha tripped on something and fell. Tried to get to her feet. The closest of her pursuers lounged forward and grabbed her left ankle. Steel sang. Both of them gaped at the severed male hand that wound around the skinny female leg.

  Darken took a small step back and lowered his sword. A thread of blood dripped from the tip of his unsheathed blade, catching the sunlight like a molten ruby.

  The man staggered back, his jaw dropped. A fountain of blood gushed from the stump of his arm.

  With a smile Darken reached forward and gripped his throat, pulling him up with easy force, as if he was made of cloth. His gloves were off, and he couldn’t remember removing them, yet in that moment he was beyond caring. All he saw was Max’s small body drooping in that man’s arms.

  Below his fingers, the pulse of the hunter throbbed fiercely, pumping his lifeblood out of him with every beat of his panicked, racing heart. The scent of it was everywhere: in the air, on his clothes and on his tongue, bitter and coppery and full of delicious life. Only the scent of the man’s fear was more delicious.

  Darken’s fingers tightened. The man twitched in his grip, choking like a fish on land, veins popping in his bulging eyes, mottling them with red.

  Darken felt his soul slipping, teetering toward the edge of death and this time he couldn’t hold himself back. His magic burst out of him, wrapping him in the cloak of death. Black lightning danced over his skin, hot and deadly, and deep inside his soul, the Jester cackled with malicious glee.

  The death magic rushed from him in tendrils of darkness, hooking into his victim like hundreds of tiny black needles. He followed their magic veins with his mind and tapped into the body, sucking on the life that still remained inside. It rushed into him, sweet, sparkling energy, that invigorated him, pulsed through him. It was like dipping his head into a clear, fresh spring after a long, drudging workout.

  The hunter gurgled. Darken leaned forward and opened his mouth, sucking deeper, harder. Feeding, drinking, pulling every last drop of energy out of the dying body, while mentally feasting on the pain and fear, extracting hope and joy and leaving behind nothing but despair.

  The man’s face distorted into a grimace of terror, eyes wide and glassy. Darken nurtured it and rode it like surfer rode the crest of a surging wave.

  The body went stiff, flaccid, collapsing with the failure of every internal organ.

  One last breath.

  Darken stared right into the man’s eyes when they broke, and for a sweet, delicious, tormenting second, he felt full, satiated and so overbearing alive it almost hurt and then it was over, too soon, like always too soon, leaving him hollow and craving for more. More. More. More.

  And there was more.

  With a sleepy smile, Darken tossed the withered husk from him and turned to the other men in the clearing. They had all frozen, caught in the paralyzing waves of his lethal fury and he savored the moment when they realized that Death was among them.

  Their fear pulled at him, a tacit invitation to dance. Darken switched his sword to his other hand.

  For the span of a heartbeat no one moved, then they scattered like sheep in front of a charging wolf. The man holding Max’s body dropped it to the ground, where it landed with sprawled limbs. With the rest of them, he dashed toward the coaches, toward that alleged promise of safety.

  Pathetic fools!

  Almost idly, Darken raised a hand. A blast of magic ripped from his fingers. Both coaches shattered in an explosion of wood and metal. Men threw themselves to the ground, covering their heads with their hands, scrambling to find shelter where there was none.

  Darken strode forward, rolling the sword over in his ha
nd. There was no escape. Not from him.

  Around him, the land was drowning in blood. The crimson darkness opened its arms, inviting him to a place where there was no regret—and no mercy. With a cold, brutal smile, Darken stepped through the veil.

  This time there was no hesitation, no constraint. He ripped into the men like a firestorm, unleashing his curse with all the viciousness for which his caste was feared.

  A man appeared in front of him, swinging a mace, ridiculously slow, as if he was wading through invisible water. Darken leaned away without trouble, reversing the swing of his sword and sliced deep into his lower back, severing the spinal cord. When the man fell, he was already upon the next, always in movement, a natural force, unstoppable and irresistible.

  Another one fell.

  And another.

  His magic soared around him like a cloak made of shadow and death, as he cut through their ranks, sawing death in his wake.

  Bullets peppered the air in a furious hail. Darken dodged, deflecting them with his magic. His eyes fixed the shot. Thirty yards separated them. He sprinted forward.

  A gray-clad giant jumped at him from the side, eyes glowing with blue magic, enchanted blade held high above his head. Almost en passant Darken struck: slash-slash. An open throat and severed tendons. This one would make him no further trouble.

  Then he was in front of the shot, who was still firing wildly, stumbling backward with a slack, panicked expression.

  Boom. Boom. Boom. Click.

  Click. Click. Click.

  Out of ammo. Darken grinned. The man’s mouth dropped open.

  Backing his strength with his magic, Darken decapitated him in one fast stroke. Arterial spray wet the air, incredibly red, like a showering of poppy petals in a funeral ceremony. He could taste its metallic scent. Could hear the sound of the heart that desperately thudded against its fate. It was Death calling to him, luring him, her sweet, intoxicating whispers pulling him under, deeper and deeper into the vicious red, until all he saw were the souls around him, pulsing with life. Turning into glowing beacons for the reaper who sought to harvest them. And harvest he did.