Spider's Kiss: Book One of the Drambish Chronicles

by Jesse Sprague

Through all their days, he’d never regretted his mother’s choice. The day Silvia came to him as a bond mate was the luckiest day of his life. Halis was two at the time, but he recalled perfectly as Silvia’s thin mother, her face lovely even with malnourishment, had set her daughter on the floor in front of him. He’d tried to bite Silvia, unsure of this girl child, who smelled of mammal excrement. She seemed no different from the others and those his mother had fed to him.

  Halis opened the door and strode over to Silvia. Long ago, Silvia’s mammal smell had burned away, faded into a scent like distant smoke and ripe berries. And the baby smelled as a spider baby should. Havoc looked like a weak human waste, but he was as pure as Halis.

  Halis’ pride grew watching his family rest there. Soon, this world would be overrun with Drambish, but none would ever be as perfect as these two. Halis had already found a few girls adequate to birth companions for his son. The hive’s voice was pleased but called for more. The women who carried them would not be worth keeping, but the children… How lovely his queen would look surrounded in little spiders and the white bones of women picked clean.

  No mistakes this time. The Drambish would thrive.

  Silvia raised her gleaming, black eyes. “Your latest girl, Lilah, made the papers.”

  Was she lecturing again? He located no accusation in her eyes.

  “Maybe it’s time to move on,” she said. “With The Brothel capturing Marim… who knows, she may have picked up some clue to our location. Between that and all the clues you have littered around…”

  “Soon, my love, a girl worthy of investigation was also there the night I met Lilah.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look that way about a human. Shall I be jealous and tear out her heart?”

  “Never.” Halis gave her the soft smile he reserved only for her. “But maybe she can bear our son’s one true companion.”

  “No. When it comes to choosing a companion for Havoc, I’ll make the selection.” Silvia’s black nails slid over Havoc’s cheek.

  “Of course.” That was only proper. It was a mother’s choice, but Halis would make sure the pale girl’s child was among the possibilities. Just in case.

  “Halis?”

  “My queen?”

  “When you go into town, pick up food for Havoc. Human food. I still have a kitten or two.”

  This was a dismissal and Halis stopped himself from correcting her. There were still three kittens in the cage. The walk to town was a solid fifteen minutes, and those minutes were his favorite part of freedom. Clear air, open sky, a godlike family behind him and a variety of human meat down the hill.

  Halis whistled as he left the garden and started on the walk.

  At the bottom of the hill was a small café. Calling it anything but a claptrap was ambitious, but the sign read, “Café.” The place served caffeine, sugar—in the form of frosted treats—and block-like sandwiches that tasted like something from a cross-universe transit vehicle. Whenever he went to town, Halis stopped in for disappointing pie and informative gossip.

  They wouldn’t let Silvia back in since she’d broken that kid’s arm. It had been the child’s fault; the little beast had tried to touch Havoc. Silvia didn’t seem to mind the banishment and occasionally, Halis brought her back a caffeinated beverage.

  Today differed. He halted in front of the window. Buried inside, beyond metallic seats and a rotating counter, stood the girl from the club. Silvia’s caution that it was time to move on rung in his ears.

  Halis chuckled and allowed himself to gaze at the pale woman, shining amid her dismal surroundings. The night before it had not occurred to him that this lovely creature had wanted him to notice her. She was subtle. A practiced predator. What she wasn’t was a waitress.

  The door creaked as he entered. The new girl didn’t look up, but over the smells of grease, stale bread, and coffee, her awareness wafted. No doubt about it, she was here for them. Nothing was visually off. She was perfect, but the smell didn’t match. Not only was she hyper aware of his presence, but the perfume embedded in her hair had elements worth more than she’d make in this place in a month. The cheap toilet water she wore to mask it was a new purchase.

  Halis approached his would-be assassin. Her name tag read Lilly. Which was a lie. Too bad she was here to hurt him and his family. Otherwise, she would be well worth converting. Her body remained completely relaxed, even showing slight signs of weariness. The vein in her neck pulsed. She would taste of honeysuckle and cloves.

  Lilly looked up. Her eyes were a color no eyes had the right to be. I should look into preserving those. So pretty. Maybe I could string them so Silvia could wear them like jewels.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked.

  Halis said nothing. “I’d like to eat you” didn’t feel like the correct opening line. What would the man she thought he was do? She would think he was smart and dangerous. She must think he was human, or she would be approaching the whole thing differently. Which begged the question—were her employers lying to her or was The Brothel sending everyone out crippled?

  “What kind of pies do you have today?” he asked.

  Lilly smiled and looked up through her lashes. “Only have sour-cherry today.”

  “I’ll take it, Lilly.”

  “Aren’t you…? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask.”

  “Aren’t I who, sweetheart?” He grinned.

  “Aren’t you the guy who lives on the hill with his sister?”

  Halis noticed she didn’t refer to Silvia as “that crazy woman.” She wanted to be on his good side and clearly, she knew nothing about Silvia. Only marks and fools mistook Silvia for his sister. “That’s me. Are you new to town?”

  “I came to the colony a while back, but I only left the city yesterday.”

  “Already had the job lined up?”

  She chuckled. “Not all of us are so rich we can waltz in, buy a mansion, and then not work.”

  “How about, I buy you a drink after work and show you around?” Maybe he could learn something about this strange woman. Her sad eyes tugged at him. Was there a way not to kill her? These days Silvia was always seeking ways to leave people alive, but until that moment, Halis had never understood the drive.

  “I’d love that.”

  ∆∆∆

  Mr. Red closed his eyes, feigning boredom. There wasn’t a soul who wouldn’t have been fooled, but he was anything but bored. In the time since Allison had gone on her mission, he’d spent painstaking days hiding his research in a plethora of everyday tasks. Nothing bold or the other owners would notice his interest in something they clearly wanted him out of the loop on.

  He loathed being out of the loop.

  With his eyes closed, he indulged in the luxury of picturing her. Allison. So pale, she seemed always just a step away from death. Even he suffered from the tug on seeing that delicate porcelain to protect her, to shield her. The job never came easier to any girl. She’d brought down nations with a bat of her lashes and a soft word whispered in the correct ear.

  That was what had bothered him in the beginning. Why would they ever send Allison on a simple kill mission? And why leave him out of the planning? The others rarely ever selected a girl without consulting him first. No one knew the girls better than their trainer. Something was off.

  He opened his eyes. After scrolling through the information, pausing only once at a picture, he stood. A word blazed through his mind, but he didn’t know what it meant. Drambish. A thought lingered at the back of his mind, just out of conscious reach. He fumbled to pull the meaning forward and understand the word. When he did, a tightness settled on his chest. One thing was certain; they hadn’t sent her out there to kill something.

  They’d sent her out to be killed. She was bait. The Brothel didn’t want the marks dead, they wanted them captured and sending people after them was a method to get the couple to flee the moon colony. But Allison was worth more than a sacrifice.

  She’d one of my girl
s. No, my girl.

  Not an iota of the rage inside him made it to his face. The Agency. His agency had betrayed him. Did they fool themselves into believing I wouldn’t notice? I never touched her; never even looked at her a moment too long. I’m coming, Allison. I don’t know how, but I won’t let them do this.

  Chapter 11

  Compound DR567R-4

  Dried blood coated Darith’s hands as he wheeled his chair from the mansion. Annabelle slept in his lap. With his parents dead and Mr. N and Mr. Q’s corpses cooling inside, there remained no reason to look back. There was no one alive in the mansion. They’d dug their own graves. He’d said his last respects and nothing more remained to give to the corpses of his parents. The police could sort the rest out.

  “Holy…” Darith said. His eyes swept out along the driveway. Everything was dead. Every blade of grass, every flower. The leaves on the trees were brown and their trunks papery, as if the slightest wind would turn them to dust.

  I ravaged my home. No… That’s Annabelle’s handiwork. I provided a focal point.

  As far as the horizon, only death met the eye. A butterfly lay still in front of the wheel of his chair. How far had they drained the land? The destruction traveled to the edge of the Cortanis estate, but the dried husks of trees blocked any farther view. In the graveyard’s stillness, accusations whispered. Blind and careless, he’d used the world around him like it belonged to him to plunder. It was not his father’s appetite, but the act reminded Darith of dear old dad’s actions.

  I lost control.

  A muttering noise separate from Darith’s internal recriminations teased his ears. Darith rolled forward.

  His driver prayed to some plebian god inside the car. The driver’s folded hands shook as if sensing Darith’s attention.

  Darith laughed, his head thrown back.

  ∆∆∆

  Berrick felt the tap of his case against his leg as he dragged his feet one step after another. Did he look as guilty as he felt? For all the emotional security he had left, he might as well have walked under a neon sign reading, “I stole classified files,” but he couldn’t leave the sheath of paper.

  What to do with the files was hazy. If he sent them anywhere or spoke of the contents, he was putting his confidant in danger of losing their life to a metaphorical firing squad. A few hints to Darith perhaps, to give the boy a fighting chance in his own searches, but nothing more.

  I’m an outlaw now. What if I’d given in sooner? Could I have saved Polly? We could have run, fled as outlaws with our children. With Petyr. Berrick cursed himself, cursed every choice he’d ever made. To wind up where he was, even now, even in breaking the law, he was heading off to enforce The Council of Five’s orders. How pointless to make his stand now, after everything he loved was gone.

  The ticket machine flashed at him as he approached. Hopefully, Silvia and Halis were still on that moon colony. That pale woman, Allison, maybe she’d lived. If she dies, that’s on me too.

  A ticket mark imprinted itself on his palm. From his other hand, he took a deep drink of a liquor that tasted of nothing. He much preferred the warm burn of whiskey, but this starched colony didn’t carry anything similar. The weight of the flask calmed him, gave his hand something to grip. Something to ground him in reality. Aware the switch of talismans from his badge to a flask signaled nothing good in the long run, he excused the change as inconsequential.

  After all, he wasn’t planning on the long run. The weight of deaths was too much for him to survive under. It would crush him.

  As he walked across the platform, he took several more swigs, indulging in the respite of fog over his brain. The case tapped against his leg in rhythm with his step. The beat spelled out the name: D.R.A.M.B.I.S.H.

  Not even alcohol kept words and phrases from the files from surfacing. Entire passages floated up, taunting him.

  Dr. Alroy Drambish’s project on Revia must be considered unrecoverable and taken as a loss. With reluctance, the decision of The Council is to dispose of the remaining samples of compound DR567R-4 and to terminate all subjects exposed. Due to Dr. Drambish’s state of contamination, all inhabitants of Revia must be considered carriers of compound DR567R-4, whether or not in direct exposure to the compound.

  A scuffle in front of Berrick on the platform buried the words, providing a moment’s respite.

  “You’ve gotta be joking! I haven’t done anything!” a woman shouted.

  Berrick transferred the case to his other hand. The process meant putting his flask in his pocket for a moment, robbing him of his only comfort.

  “Just a few questions, miss,” a deep male voice asserted.

  Berrick scanned the platform for the source of the disturbance. The woman’s thin body made the swell of her pregnancy evident. Four, possibly five months along, Polly had looked like that with Petyr. When she’d carried Marim she’d still had the plumpness of her teen years clinging to her.

  “No. No!” she shouted.

  Odd, it was like she was trying to get noticed. The man wore an official law enforcement uniform. Resistance made her appear guilty. None of the other citizens traversing the platform paid her shouts attention, but Berrick’s eyes clung as if this everyday criminal provided a lifeline to drag him from the abyss.

  Early results were overwhelmingly positive. Subject A’s wife bore a child who had a stronger bond to the Drambish gene than Subject A. The child proved that compound DR567R-4 would be obsolete in time. The genetic alteration sustains itself. Prior to exposure, the couple tested infertile.

  Further tests showed that a subject carrying the Drambish gene was almost guaranteed to impregnate any partner who did not carry the Drambish gene. The only limitation for procreation up to this point seems to be that two contaminated parties cannot interbreed.

  “One more time, miss. If you do not comply, we will sedate you,” the officer said.

  What? That sounded a bit over the line. Was that how they did things here? Berrick lowered his flask, his eyes narrowed.

  “I know what you’re doing,” said the woman. “I’ve heard about this. You won’t—”

  The man’s fist hit her jaw, and he produced a needle from his jacket.

  “Stop!” Berrick yelled, striding over.

  The officer paused and looked over with a sneer. “Mind your own business, sir. This citizen poses a security risk.”

  Berrick dropped the flask in his pocket and pulled out his identification. The officer’s expression changed upon seeing Berrick’s rank. But his posture adjustment didn’t just denote respect and training; his hand tightened on the struggling woman. This officer hadn’t expected help from an unknown superior officer, which begged the question of what his precinct was up to.

  Something was off.

  “What has she done?” Berrick asked.

  “Orders, sir. She fits the description of a suspect in a case of galactic security. If she’s guilty of nothing, she’ll be let free in the morning.”

  “After they’ve killed my baby!” the woman hissed. Her dark eyes pleaded with Berrick for help.

  “Is that true?” He wished he could tell her he was no one’s savior, but his mouth fell into old habits and tried to protect her.

  “I just round them up, sir.”

  Them. How many women had he rounded up?

  Did it matter? Berrick’s limited resources and even more limited time disallowed him from looking into any of this. He had to get to Silvia and Halis. If Allison was still alive, he had to save her before they killed her or broke her. Before the Drambish contamination spread.

  “I’ll bring this one into the station,” Berrick said. “Go.”

  The officer walked away, glancing over his shoulder periodically—definitely guilty of something. The woman slumped on the floor, blubbering something along the lines of “Don’t take me in” over and over again.

  Berrick helped her off of the ground, holding her carefully. Now that the officer was gone, the woman let her eyes trail t
o the ground. In his memory, their color grew darker, blacker, until the gaze was the same cold black stare that Marim had had as she’d stared up from her asylum bed.

  “Why’re they aborting babies?” Berrick asked. “You’re making a serious accusation. Do you have proof?”

  “No. I don’t even know why!” The woman wept. “But they didn’t pick me up off any personal description. They didn’t. They’re taking all the pregnant women. Six of the ten women I went to clinic with already went in. Each lost their baby the next day. I can’t lose this baby; I’ve been trying for years to conceive.”

  Even in his fogged brain, the math ticked off. She would have conceived right around the time Halis had visited the colony. That meant all the women in her clinic session would have been close to the same conception date. The remaining alcohol in his mouth suddenly tasted very bitter. If it was true, was he doing anyone any favors by helping this woman?

  He looked into her brown eyes and tried to imagine bringing her into the station. The color of her eyes, a warm brown, not black at all, broke him. It was almost like staring into Polly’s eyes. This woman could almost have been Polly all those years ago.

  What if someone had had the chance to help Polly back then? Pregnant again after Petyr with her second illegal child, knowing she was being hunted, but not daring to confide in her husband. What if someone had stepped in and helped her?

  “I’ll look into it,” Berrick said. “But right now, I have a train to catch. I suggest you do the same.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, thank you.” The woman held a hand over her stomach, protecting the baby inside.

  ∆∆∆

  A piercing beep emitted from the intercom. The noise immediately repeated itself.

  “Whoever that is, get rid of them,” Ymel said, giving a dismissive wave to the bulky security guard in the doorway. The insistent buzzing taken care of, he approached the metal table at the center of the mirrored room. His image hovered on each shiny wall panel, reflected back and forth across the walls. He admired himself as he strode over to the girl.