“I was one of those visitors,” I reminded her. “That’s how we met.”
She kissed me then, and my heart came within an inch of exploding.
“Yes, it is. But, as you would put it, that’s another story.” She pulled away and the light around her started to dim. “There are just two more things I want to say. The first is this: during our adventure in the vaults of the Birdhouse, I became one of the undead. In an instant, my beauty was snatched away. I tell you now that it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Suddenly I was equal. Suddenly people faced me not with awe but with simple respect for what and who I was. You have no idea how much dying changed my life.”
Her words burned like a desert wind. Her touch burned too. It was exquisite, unbearable. I felt a whisker away from death. I discovered, to my amazement, that dying wasn’t something I was ready to do. Not just yet.
“The second thing you wanted to say,” I said. “What was it?”
“Just this: in dying, I found out who I really am. You’re lucky—you don’t have to die to discover that about yourself.”
“I don’t?”
“No. All you need to do is to hear what I am about to tell you. About the mystery that needs solving.”
“Which is what?” I had to bite back my anger. I’d just managed to drive away my only real companion. String City was entering its death throes. What did I care about any mystery?
“Simply that someone has been robbed, and that if she does not recover the stolen goods, she will die.”
“I don’t care what …” I stopped. “That’s kind of interesting, I’ll grant you. What’s been stolen that this dame will die without it? What is it, an oxygen tent?”
Deliciosa smiled a knowing smile.
“I mean, why doesn’t she just call the cops?” I went on. “Is there something fishy about the goods? No, wait—you’re a cop. So how come you’re involved? The way you tell it, this story sounds simple. If you ask me, there’s more to this case than meets the eye.”
She said nothing, just stared at me with her supernova eyes. I stared back. I thought about telling her she’d always be beautiful, fire or flesh, skin or bone. Trouble was, I wasn’t sure how she’d take it. I’d seen her when she was angry. Those wings work like helicopter blades—if you get too near, you get more than a close shave.
Soon my eyes were watering so much I had to look away.
“So,” said the angel, “does this mean you’ll take the case?”
85
BLAZING ANEW, SHE gathered me up and carried me out through the window I’d made in the dung. We rose up from street level, breaking through the spider’s web ceiling like it was the flimsiest tissue. The city dwindled beneath us. Soon it was a dust mote lost in a skein of cosmic string. Cold winds blew, but the light of the angel kept me warm.
I thought back to when I’d always used the dimensions to travel everywhere, even to the corner store. Back then, I’d thought nothing of folding myself up and posting myself through the nearest convenient snag to wherever I fancied: the Deserts of Enigma, the Interbrane Fiddleyard, Odin’s Navel. I’d loved every minute of it. You walk the strings, you see the sights.
But, ever since the dimensions had gone wiggy, I’d kept myself city-bound. It amazed me how quickly I’d got used to it. Things change, I guess.
We flew high. The spider’s web covered the city like an undertaker’s shroud. The wind billowed through it, making waves. It was like crossing a silk ocean. Here and there, buildings poked through, concrete islands.
We were headed for the wharf on the River Lethe. I knew this instinctively. My coat’s got a magnetic lining—the label always faces north; I know where I am from the way it scratches my back. I jostled the pockets, reassured by the clinking of the gadgets I’d stuffed into them. After the debacle at the Tartarus Club, I’d resolved never again to go out on a case without forensics.
The nearer we got to the wharf, the thicker the web became. Soon it was a solid silver plate, dazzling in the moonlight. Ahead, in the distance, a stepped triangular structure pierced it: the upper section of the pyramid owned by Quetzal Imports.
Deliciosa started her descent.
“Please don’t tell me our client’s got eight legs, sharp teeth and a temper as short as Cerberus’s leash,” I said.
“Oh,” said Deliciosa, surprised. “You know her?”
86
INSIDE, THE PYRAMID was as cold as a tomb. Last time I’d been here it was wall-to-wall silk; now there was just empty air and a floor heaped high with millions of dead spiders, slowly rotting. They stank.
Arachne was huddled in a corner. She was grey, emaciated. The corpse of Pallas Athene hung upside-down above her. That looked thinner too. I hadn’t realised dead bodies could lose weight.
“Don’t get too close,” I warned as Deliciosa flew us down from the rooflight.
“You’re perfectly safe,” the angel replied.
A spider swung from the ceiling on a rope of silk, hanging from one leg and waggling the other seven. It hissed and cursed, gnashing its fangs and spraying venom in a glistening arc. Behind it, two more spiders trapezed down and went through the exact same act.
“Put your stinking hands up!” said the first spider. “Or down! Nobody comes any further. No bodies either. This area is a quarantine zone. The white zone is for parking only. You have ten seconds to lay down your arms. What you do with your legs is your own affair. Fair’s fair. Do you have anything to say?”
I didn’t recall any of Arachne’s underlings having the power of speech before. Something to do with their transformation into anansi-asansa, I guessed.
“You wanna repeat that, buddy?” I said. “I didn’t catch it all.”
“Catch as catch can,” said the spider, spitting steaming black ichor over one of its buddies. “If you make a move, you’re in the can. I’ll shut the key and throw away the door. Carte d’or, or order off the menu. Which’ll it be? Ding dong, the switch is bread.”
“Uh, we’re here to see the spider lady,” I said. I felt Deliciosa’s body tremble in that special way that meant her wings were cycling up to combat speed. “You gonna let us pass?”
“All things come to pass,” said the spider. Five of its eight eyes rolled backward into its skull. The other three just rolled. “It’s a pretty pass. Show me your passes, please.”
All three spiders had stopped swinging and were now just hanging there. Like Arachne, they looked like they hadn’t eaten for a month. I didn’t plan for us to be their next meal.
I felt in my pockets, wishing I’d brought a gun. It struck me how being with Deliciosa made me feel secure. It was a good feeling, but not one to rely on. String City was more dangerous that it had ever been. I made a mental note: next time out, pack some heat.
“Snatch as snatch can!” said the spider. It started swinging on its line again. Each swing brought it a few yards nearer to where we were hovering. Its buddies started doing the same. “Canned meat—my favorite treat!”
“Leave some for auntie!” cackled the second spider.
“Graargh!” said the ichor-covered third.
They swung like children in a play park, their jaws gaping open. Vampire fangs jostled for position in their mouths. I could hear their stomachs growling.
Deliciosa turned her back on the spiders and spun up her wings to maximum speed.
Enough!
Arachne’s voice filled the pyramid. At its sound, the three spiders scurried back up their lines and disappeared into the rafters. Throttling back her wings, Deliciosa landed lightly on the floor and set me down. We waded through puddles of silk and into the shadow of the dead goddess. Arachne watched us approach.
She’d changed—the way folk change when they take regular acid baths. Two of her eight legs were gone and the seam between spider’s abdomen and human waist had split open; black pus leaked like molasses from the wound. Silk robes hung off her; the skin beneath was pallid and peeling. Her face had melted into a
half-woman, half-spider abomination.
“Can’t say I like the new look,” I said. “But then I never liked the old one.”
Taunt me all you like, gumshoe, Arachne replied. I am beyond torment now.
“And there was me thinking torment was your middle name.”
I confess I have been less than hospitable toward you in the past.
“You mean like trying to eat me alive?”
In some cultures that would be considered a great honor.
“Knock me down for being a slob.” I turned to Deliciosa and said, “Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.”
“Why are you being so offensive to her? What did Arachne ever do to you?”
“You really want to know?” Maybe it was time to unpack the memories I’d kept buried for so long. “Years ago, my friend Jimmy and I fought in the war between the gods and the Titans.”
“The Titanomachy? You were there?”
“Who’s telling this story?” I kept my gaze fixed on the spider woman. “Arachne got mixed up in it too, the way she always does. Got herself a contract spinning quantum silk armor for the Titan cavalry.”
“Titan cavalry? What kind of horse is big enough for a Titan to ride?”
“They don’t ride horses. They ride the rampant diseased spawn of the twelve gates of hell.”
“Oh.”
“Can I get on with the story?”
“Please do.”
Arachne was watching, a crooked smile on her twisted face. I found one of her least decayed eyes and held it.
“Jimmy and I soldiered for a while before we got ourselves a gig working in the stables,” I said. “We rubbed down the... you know.”
“The rampant diseased spawn?” prompted Deliciosa.
“It was a hell of a job.”
“I’ll bet.”
“After the rub-down, we had to prep the steeds for battle. That meant dressing them in the quantum armor. Arachne would deliver the fresh silk, leaving us to drape it over the steeds.”
“How did you do that? Weren’t they huge?”
“They gave us cranes. You want to hear the rest of this?”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was hard work, but we sucked it up. Better than shooting folk, even if they were the enemy. Then Arachne started her tricks.”
“What tricks?”
The smile had disappeared from Arachne’s ravaged face.
“It was little things at first,” I said. “Pranks like leaving the silk hems unfinished so the bare edges sliced our hands. Another time she wove solar flares into the lining so, when we unwrapped the silk, we got sunburn. Just your basic practical jokes. Then she started getting nasty.”
Deliciosa was staring at Arachne like a bug. Which, really, she was. “Exactly how nasty?”
“One night, she hid two sets of silk handcuffs in the material. The second we applied the armor, the cuffs snapped shut. Jimmy pulled his hands away just in time—he always had good reflexes. Me, I wasn’t so lucky. When the Titan mounted up—it was Crius, one of the really big guys—there was me, shackled to the steed’s underbelly. Crius rode into battle with me dangling from my wrists under his mount. The battle raged twelve days. As experiences go, it was... intense.”
It was a long time ago, said Arachne. When we all were young and foolish.
“Right,” I said. “And fooling’s what you do, isn’t it, Arachne? You’re all games and glamors.”
We met again after the war was over. I apologised.
“Sure you did. Just before you took a wafer slice off my immortal soul and ran it up the Colonnade flagpole.”
You got it back.
“Only because I could climb faster than your pet tarantula.” I leaned in close, resisting the urge to throw up. “Or how about the time you had me serve writs on Pallas Athene?” I glanced up at the goddess’s corpse. It seemed to be leering.
That paperwork was perfectly legal.
“That paperwork was laced with supersymmetric acid. You were trying to kill her. I had to run. Very fast. I’ve still got a gorgon burn on my...”
You made good your escape. All ends well that endeth well.
“And how about all the other times, Arachne? Like the time you told the cops I had a Thane buried under my porch? Or when you forced me to release you from the semi-dimensional oubliette where Pallas Athene locked you after that business with the black market silk underwear?”
I seem to remember it was you who came to me that time. And there was that girl, all in pieces.
“World-weaver, they called you! Why do you always have to weave my lifeline into your sordid webs?”
“Enough!” roared Deliciosa. She stepped between us, wings flaring. I shrank from her touch: it burned. Even Arachne had the good grace to look sheepish. “Stop this now! Arachne—do you truly wish this man to pursue your case?”
Arachne hawked black spittle across the floor. If he still calls himself a man.
I turned away in disgust.
“And you,” Deliciosa said to my back. “Do you truly wish to leave?”
“Just tell me one thing,” I said through gritted teeth. “What’s it to you? How come she called you in? And why are you so keen to have me do this?”
“That’s three things,” said Deliciosa. I heard the smile in her voice. It melted me a little.
“Just tell me,” I said.
87
WE MADE A circle. Me, the undead angel and the anansi-asansa spider queen. Deliciosa clasped her hands together and began to speak.
“For days now I’ve been just sitting at police headquarters, alone. Most of my colleagues are dead—really dead. You can’t imagine how empty the place feels. I’ve been scanning the emergency bands, listening out for alerts, for anybody who needs help. But there’s nothing. Only static. Nobody needs the cops any more. It’s a good job, really, because I’m the only one left.
“Then, last night, something came in.”
“Over the radio?” I said.
“No. Through the ground. A vibration, faint but unmistakable. Morse code. Dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, dot, dot, dot.”
SOS, said Arachne.
“I flew immediately toward the source of the signal. An angel’s wing are like the ears of a bat, you know.”
“I never knew that,” I said.
“I traced the signal to this pyramid, where I found Arachne on her web, tapping out the emergency code on a single thread of silk.”
“You still haven’t answered the question—why bother with her at all?”
“Whoever she is, whatever she has done, Arachne has sent out a cry for help. So I have come. I took an oath to serve, and serve I shall. But it is not just the badge—I am an angel. To serve, to help—this is what I was built to do. When the help that is needed is more than I can give, I myself must seek aid. Which is why I asked you to come with me.”
She paused. Deep ripples turned her wings to upturned oceans. The something in her eyes was something I couldn’t bear to see.
“But what can I do?” I said.
An angel’s fingers lifted my chin. “The same as me. What you do.”
With a sigh, I turned to Arachne. “I can’t believe you need my help when you’ve got the whole of String City at your mercy.”
If only that were true, Arachne said. It pains me to inform you that my plan was not entirely successful.
“You think? The entire town’s cocooned. Those folk with homes left—and that’s not many—are jumping faster than rats off a sinking ship. Seems to me like it’s spider heaven out there.”
Arachne shook her lop-sided head. Appearances can deceive. My spinneret squads did well—the initial web deployment went well. But there were two problems I did not foresee.
“What problems?”
First, the degree of disruption caused by the destruction of the Birdhouse. Ever since the Fool detonated the scathefire, every one of the eleven dimensions has been displaying serious instabilities. You must have s
ensed this for yourself. Nothing is stable out there—nothing!
“String City’s in a quicksand, that’s for sure. What’s the second thing?”
The anansi-asansa are not what they seem.
Arachne heaved something out of the shadows and threw it at my feet. It landed with a hideous clatter. It was a dead spider. It looked like a sultana, like someone had sucked out all its juices.
This is what has become of my children, she said. All across the city, the ground is littered with their corpses. Few now remain alive and yet their task is incomplete. The great web is far from finished and the city is vulnerable still.
“What killed them?” I kicked the dead spider’s body away. I didn’t like the way it was staring at me eight times over.
I had thought that transforming my spiderlings into anansi-asansa would increase their strength and make it easier for them to perform their great task. Instead it has proved an evolutionary dead end. Previously, my children were able to eat almost anything—although they always remained especially fond of the dead flies I brought in from the Unknown Worlds. But, as you know, anansi-asansa require fresh blood to survive.
“So what’s the problem?” I said. “There must be plenty of veins to tap, what with all those refugees roaming the streets.”
Sadly, it would appear the needs of the anansi-asansa are highly specialised. It is not human blood they need but fresh ichor.
“Spider blood?” said Deliciosa.
Precisely. It pains me to report that, in enacting my master plan, I have inadvertantly turned every one of my children into a cannibal.
I looked around the deserted pyramid. “So they turned on each other. How many are left?”
Very few, I estimate. Some linger, here and there, surviving on their comrades’ remains. But entropy is running fast now. Decay is everywhere. I fear my three loyal bodyguards may be all that remains of my once-proud army.
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