The surprising part was how much effort she put into it, considering her strength. But the braid came free and the woman threw it on the floor between them. Then, without another word, she turned and stalked from the theater.
Adam watched the door swing shut then finally allowed himself to breath. He looked down in dismay at the object at his feet.
“Holy shit,” he breathed, “what the hell was that?”
Next to him, he saw Olivia gazing down at the severed braid as well. She regarded it with a look of horrified fascination.
“Pick it up, Adam,” she murmured. “I’ll explain later. We need to get out of here. I don’t know what the Spider People have done regarding the manager or to distract the police, but I imagine time is about to run out.”
Leave it to Olivia to be on top of things.
Adam did as instructed and they fled the theater out the rear exit.
###
It had been a long night.
Antonio swiveled in his office chair and gazed out his fifteenth floor window. The growing pink in the east heralded the approaching dawn. He sipped his coffee, rubbed his eyes, and wondered if he were getting too old for all of this.
The council meeting had gone late into the early hours of the morn. They had spent hours arguing over possible scenarios, and what overtures to make to their adversaries if the opportunity arose. And it was all pointless. Without more information to go by, their planning amounted to daydreaming.
And speaking of information.
He pulled his cell phone from his breast pocket and scrolled it to Olivia’s number. He doubted she had much new information to add, but she often came up with useful perspectives on stances taken by individual council members. Besides, talking with her would dispel the remaining anxiety he held about leaving her up there in Hallisboro. He understood she had been right about it, but it was still only natural to worry.
A glance at his watch confirmed it to be on the daylight side of six, and Olivia was a notoriously early riser. With this in mind, he pushed the number to her phone without misgivings.
Olivia’s cell phone went to voice mail on the second ring.
“Hello, Sir.
If you are listening to this message then you called before nine in the morning. I have chosen to sleep in and have turned my phone off until then. Adam and I took in a movie last night and didn’t get back in until late.
We did have an encounter with a wayward member of our adversaries, but the incident has been resolved and I shall be sure and have a contact report ready by noon. For the moment, the important thing is both Adam and I are fine. Adam has some superficial facial injuries due to splinters and a minor gunshot wound to the ear. I have a couple of small puncture wounds to the forearm, but those are probably from grenade shrapnel and are therefore most likely my own fault.
Soon after our departure I saw fire trucks rushing to the scene, so I surmise our adversaries set the theater afire to cover up all the bullet holes and damage from the explosives…an effective, if somewhat drastic solution.
Therefore, as you can see, the situation is under control.
You will be delighted to know we now have a name to put to Adam’s blonde, would-be assassin. It is Maggie Weston. At this time I do not know if Maggie is short for Margaret, Marjorie, or Magdalene…but considering I have files on two previous Margarets among their number, and only one Marjorie, who was known as “Marge,” I am leaning toward Margaret. We have no records of them ever having a Magdalene in their ranks.
And she does indeed have a large companion, with a leg span of seven or eight feet. It is a formidable creature. Seeing it from a mere fifteen feet of distance, while being its target, is a most uncomfortable experience. Happily that situation was resolved as well.
I’m sure you will be relieved to know the encounter provided a wealth of data which I am eager to collate this afternoon. At this time I can only guess as to some of its meaning, but I’m now firmly convinced there is more to this situation than simple reluctance to return Tucker Sellars.
Oh, one other item…Adam and I are now dating.
I hope your meeting with the council went well, and I look forward to seeing you this afternoon. If you have a message, please leave it after the beep.
Antonio barely heard the beep.
He goggled at the phone, trying to come to grips with the message. The fact Olivia had delivered it in the same tone she would have used giving a financial report added an extra level of unreality to the whole thing. Then he wheeled around in his chair and stabbed the button to the intercom.
“Cristobal!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE MORNING AFTER
It was never truly dark in the hotel room due to the yellow glow of the outside walkway’s lights filtering in through the thin curtains. Now with dawn approaching, the brightening sky to the east began to add its own slight illumination to the room. It hadn’t reached a level useful for anything productive yet, other than maybe lying in bed and looking at things as the world woke up.
At the moment, that suited Adam just fine.
He lay there under the sheets with his arms around Olivia, gazing down in disbelieving wonder at her sleeping face on his chest. He still couldn’t believe this had happened, that she was here this very moment. In a world that made any kind of sense, she would have been embarrassed to have been the object of his advances and would have most likely found a polite way of letting him down in her usual diplomatic but formal manner.
Yet here she lay…naked, head nestled on his torso, and snoring softly.
Adam marveled at how slight she felt in his arms, and seemed to weigh next to nothing as she lay on top of him. Yet he remembered the surprising firmness of her grip when she had freed his leg from under the chair last night, and the steady nerve she had shown when facing down the madwoman in the theater. She was an exotic combination of strength, courage, and velvet softness, and it frightened him how much she now occupied his entire everything.
And I almost lost her last night. If the kid hadn’t stepped in we would have both been killed by that maniac’s pet monster. When you reach the point you have to be rescued by the enemy, your luck has about run out.
The memory of the great spider hanging on the back wall of the darkened theater rose in his mind again and he gave an involuntary shudder. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea such a monstrosity could exist outside of a cheap horror movie. And it had been only feet away from sinking its fangs into his neck and shoulder. Even worse, Olivia had been right there with him, and it would have killed her, too. One tiny drop of its venom was death for her.
He had finally worked up the courage to take a chance and make a move, and he nearly got her killed in the process. And when things had gone to hell, it had been Olivia who had stepped between him and certain death instead of the other way around. It galled his soul to realize how ineffective he had been. And Maggie’s parting words were still etched in acid on his soul.
“Adam, what’s wrong?”
Startled out of his reverie, Adam looked down to see Olivia’s deep emerald eyes peering back up at his face. With a drowsy sigh, she turned her head till her chin rested on his breastbone and raised her eyebrows at him. He never would have believed she could look more beautiful than her usual polished norm, but with her lids heavy and her hair mussed from sleep she achieved a level of adorable he simply could not resist.
He pulled her up to him and kissed her deeply.
“Nice,” she purred after pausing for breath, “but I am well aware you were changing the subject.”
“Not intentionally,” he chuckled, “you really are too cute for words in the morning.”
“That’s always good to know,” she favored him with a sleepy smile, “but you still haven’t told me what’s troubling you.”
I might as well tell her. It’s something I’m going to be worrying over anyway, and I suppose I better find out how she feels about it now instead of later.
She folded her hands over his chest and rested her chin on them.
“Why? What do you think you did wrong?”
“It’s not that I did something wrong. It’s more like I feel I didn’t do much of anything useful at all. I just think I should have done something…more.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “Nothing comes to mind. But I’m sure if it had been Antonio there, instead of me, he would have handled things differently.”
“Ah, I see.” Her eyes twinkled. “If it had been Uncle Antonio, you think he would have simply beaten the giant spider to death with his bare hands, then bested a telepathic superhuman in single combat, before whisking me away to safety.”
“Something along those lines,” he replied with a sheepish shrug. “Only I’m sure Antonio would have also found a way to look good doing it, and get you a drink and popcorn at the same time.”
That made her laugh, and he noticed how much he liked the sound. She was normally so reserved, but at the moment seemed to glow with life and humor. Olivia shook her head and looked at him with fond amusement.
“You are not my uncle and I don’t expect you to be.”
“Oh, I know,” he conceded. “I wouldn’t even pretend to be in his class. I guess I just don’t want to let you down. And I confess I’m a little confused over your tolerance of my uselessness when it comes to dangerous situations. While I know your uncle is one of a kind, I’m also sure you must know at least a few other men who can handle themselves when things get rough. After all, you guys have been at war for centuries, right?”
With a sigh, Olivia pulled herself up to where she was face to face with him.
“Adam,” she leaned closer till their noses touched, “I am a member of a people with a very long history and a deeply ingrained warrior ethos, and every man I know has been taught to fight, and even kill, since they could walk. Boys get their first knife at the age of four, and most have fired their first pistol by the time they are five years old. Even Cristobal is a black belt in two different martial arts. I am surrounded by ‘warriors,’” she made little quotes with her fingers. “I’m up to my neck in them. But you…”
She leaned down and gave him a light kiss.
“…you are an engineer…a builder. Your instinctual reaction to problems is to find a way to preserve something, to make it better, or to build something new. You think in terms of solutions. You don’t default straight to violence, or some other form of warfare, because it’s simply not who you are. And that doesn’t make you weak, or incompetent, or a coward. Three nights ago, when Antonio told you the spider in the totem was dangerous to me…you didn’t hesitate one second to cover my hand with yours, even though you didn’t know if it was dangerous to you or not.”
“Well, I didn’t have time to think…”
“Exactly,” she kissed him again, “and thus acted from the heart…the same heart wanting to rescue your nephew, not out of some sense of obligation or family honor, but because you played football in the park with him, you love him, and you’re worried about him. I will take that over a thousand ‘warriors’ every time.”
“Really?”
“Every…single…time,” she punctuated each word with another light kiss.
Adam held her tight for a good long kiss of his own before easing his embrace and looking at her again.
“Unbelievable,” he breathed. “Simply unbelievable.”
“What?” She cocked her head with puzzled curiosity.
“Last night, I kissed you outside on the balcony and said I couldn’t imagine loving you more than I did right then. I meant it from the bottom of my heart…yet here I am doing that very thing.”
After that, they were too busy to talk for a while.
Later, with Olivia curled in his arms and him feeling much better about things, he lay there looking back on the previous evening with a clearer eye. Considering the current glow of his mental state, Maggie’s words didn’t bite so deep. After all, if Olivia thought him worth having, and Olivia was obviously pretty sharp, then perhaps he wasn’t quite so worthless.
Besides, he could now understand Maggie’s issues with him had been the result of her own demons, whatever they were. Even the boy last night seemed to know it. And the thought of the boy, and his plea to his deranged compatriot, made Adam a little curious about something.
“Olivia?”
“Hmmm?”
“I was remembering what the kid said last night, and it got me to thinking…who else went AWOL on the Spider People?”
“Pardon?” She rolled over and gave him a puzzled look. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, the kid said ‘Please don’t go rogue on us, too,’ and I wondered who else had gone off on them.”
“Ah. I’m sure he simply meant on top of everything else she had done. The Spider People are an even tighter knit group than we are, joined both by need for secrecy and a high percentage of full-time telepaths.”
Adam considered her interpretation a moment, then shook his head.
“I confess that makes perfect sense, and I’m sure there is a lot I don’t know about it, but that just wasn’t the way the kid said it last night. He definitely meant it the other way.”
Olivia gave him a half smile then closed her eyes. Her brow furrowed in concentration and Adam realized she was replaying the events of the previous evening in her head. He wondered what kind of recall she possessed, and had the feeling it came pretty close to total.
Then her eyes flew back open and she sat up in bed.
“You’re right,” she muttered as she pulled on a nearby robe and slid out of bed. “That’s exactly how he meant it.”
“Yay, me,” Adam groaned, “except now you got up and went over there, so ‘Boo, me.’ Remind me to learn how to keep my big mouth shut while snuggling.”
“But it doesn’t make sense,” she continued, obviously alone in her own world of thought now. “It would take somebody of third generation capability to even have a chance of going outlaw on them. It couldn’t be Grandma Lilah for obvious reasons. And the kid said it like it was a recent event, too.”
“Maybe Maggie had a sibling? Another third generation you don’t know about?”
“I don’t see how.” Olivia shook her head. “A third generation is a once a century phenomenon for a reason. Their genome has been altered to the point it’s arguable whether they are really still human or not. That’s why the odds of even getting a viable outcome are so unlikely at their degree of variance.”
“Identical twins? Those come from a single fertilized egg so the percentages would already be ‘behind it,’ so to speak.”
Olivia considered this suggestion with obvious reluctance.
“I suppose it is possible,” she conceded, “but it would be like getting a full house right after drawing a royal flush. It could happen, but I would put it far out on the rim of possibility.”
“Well,” Adam chuckled, “your options get pretty narrow after that. It is either a case of their ‘once in a century phenomenon’ happening more than once, or one of their cute little sidekicks did it instead. And I think people would notice something like them. Besides, from what I’ve seen, unless they’re reacting to something those things don’t have much initiative of their own. They just follow orders.”
Olivia didn’t answer right away. She simply stood there, staring at the floor without answering. For a moment, Adam wondered if she heard him. He began to realize her powers of concentration could be all consuming when she was pushing them.
Then she raised her head with a look of stunned astonishment.
“Oh!” she breathed. “That’s it! Oh my God!”
“Huh?”
“It’s been staring us right in the face!” she cried as she rushed over to her bag and pulled out her laptop and tablet.
“It’s literally been staring us right in the face this whole time!”
“At the risk of sounding somewhat slow…Huh?”
“Maggie’s gun!” Olivia exclaimed while firing up the electronics. “I can’t believe I didn’t see this!”
“Okay, I definitely remember her gun staring me in the face.”
“No! Think about it! Why did Maggie show up to the hospital with a gun like that, and high powered, armor-piercing bullets?”
“Because she was about to do her Terminator impression and wanted something up to the job?”
“No, Adam,” Olivia sighed in obvious exasperation. “How would she know she was going to be getting in a gun fight with a squad of armored police officers in a matter of hours?”
“Okay, I’ll bite…how?”
“She didn’t. She used that weapon and those bullets because it’s what she already had. The pistol even has her name on it. She went straight home after her father died, picked up her companion, and came directly back to Houston to kill you. She already had those bullets because she needed them for something else.”
“Something else?”
“Yes, Adam.” She turned to face him, holding the tablet in front of her but facing him. It showed the last picture David had ever taken. “Something else.”
The fuzzy spider hung between the two trees, glaring out at the world.
“The Matriarch?” Adam sat up straighter in bed and frowned. “You mean Maggie is trying to kill their Matriarch? Okay, now I’m really confused. Why would she want to do that? Although come to think of it, since that thing killed David and Karen I hereby wish the psycho chick all the luck in the world.”
“No. Not the Matriarch…a Matriarch.”
“What? Waitaminute, you mean…”
“I mean,” Olivia said in a tone approaching awe, “something unprecedented has happened. Something unbelievable. The Spider People have had a new Matriarch emerge…and she has gone rogue on them.”
###
Sonni came to with a gasp and an attempted shudder.
Spiderstalk Page 37
