“Oh, you mean you didn’t know?” The man on the phone paused. “Ahh, how foolish of me. I forgot. Dramatic irony, if you will. You see, Mr. Dwyre, it seems your Vant’therax friends have done quite a poor job of disposing of the evidence of your little game.”
The words orbited on the periphery of Simon’s understanding. His mind spun rapid thoughts into tapestries of illogical theories. “What?”
“Oh yes, Mr. Dwyre. Though your little pawn was put out to pasture as you might say, he left behind quite a number of loose ends. And I just happened upon one of them. But I much prefer speaking to my friends face to face, so what do you say we chew the cud, so to speak?”
Before Simon could jump to any further conclusions, the air before him shifted. He jumped, terrified, and the shock jolted his phone from his hand. It clattered to the grated floor, its clangs silent beneath the pounding of his own heart. There, mere feet in front of him, now stood a man in a purple pinstripe suit with a matching bowler. Beneath the rim of the hat, tufts of sandy hair framed a rigid, almost unnatural looking face. His eyes glowed a golden hue, and what lips he may have had were stretched tight around a menacing, pearly smile. In one hand he still held a phone to his ear.
“What the hell is this!” Simon staggered a few steps back, one hand instinctually drawn to the pistol he kept concealed at his hip.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
The man’s words stopped Simon’s muscles, locking them with pure terror. His eyes bulged as he stared at the specter who had not been there a moment before. What had he just witnessed? Who was this man?
A laugh billowed out from the purple man’s mouth. “Who am I? Quite a blunt question, wouldn’t you say?”
Simon’s tongue froze in his mouth. Telepathic, too? Every muscle quaked. It had to be a dream. It defied all logic and reason.
With a small chuckle of amusement, the purple-suited man let his phone arm fall away from his head. Extending his lanky neck forward, he closed his eyes and his smile grew even wider. “You may relax, Mr. Dwyre. I mean you no harm.”
The words did nothing to calm him. Had his fingers enough sense to obey his impulses, he’d have drawn his gun and put a whole clip into the purple man. Instead, he just kept drawing ragged breaths into his burning lungs. “What the hell are you?” His voice shook, on the verge of cracking under the strain. “Where did you come from? And how do you—”
“—know your real name?” The man sighed and gave his head a shake. “Well, let’s just say that I’m a friend of a friend. A double-friend, if you will.”
“A friend?”
“Without boring you with the details of the history that your forebears and I share, let us simply say that I, too, have heard the voice of the Yellow King. And now that your little cabal is running circles around you in the shadows, I can no longer sit idly by and watch you jeopardize all that you have worked for.”
Simon shook his head, at the moment more baffled than frightened. “Jeopardize? Wh-what are you . . . ” One of the first things he’d heard from his phone came creeping back to him. “A poor job of disposing . . . ?”
“Ahh, yes. That’s right.” In a single motion, the man broke the back off his phone and pulled a tiny chip from behind the battery. “Recognize this?”
Simon eyed the object. Piedman’s name had stared at him when his phone went off. And that meant that . . . He swallowed hard.
“You are not very good at listening, Mr. Dwyre. One of your disgruntled little insects decided to practice a bit of civil disobedience in his duties. You are so very lucky that I found this tasty bit of evidence before someone else did.”
“G . . . Gauge left . . . ?”
“If you do not believe me, why not peer into the memories of the one you call Gauge? I understand that is something you have the power to do, as the Conduit to these creatures.”
Still shaking where he stood, Simon passed a glance once more down the hall behind him. He half-expected to find one of the damn kid’s bodyguards laughing at him for talking to himself, but no such luck. When he turned back, the purple man was still there, and with that confirmation the dread and anger brewing in Simon’s gut grew thicker and more viscous. His eyes fell closed as he steadied his breath. Blue flashes exploded behind his lids, and soon a glistening network of strands and thoughts unfurled before him. He beheld random frames of perception snatched from those who hosted the mind spiders, and as he focused his attention on the cell he knew to be Gauge’s thought center, the memories began to flow into him. And what he beheld in the painful flashes that followed infuriated him.
All the fear and shock of the purple specter’s appearance left him, and in its place there seethed only hatred. As the hot air filled his lungs and his fists trembled, he leveled his eyes upon the figure in the suit. Though he still had no idea who he was, the fact that he’d brought Gauge’s treachery to his attention proved two things: he knew far more than he should, and he did not seem to be the enemy of NIDUS. Simon licked his lips. “What is it that you want?”
The man tipped his bowler until its rim shielded his glowing eyes from sight. “I want what you want. What the Yellow King wants. For now, I must be leaving you. But fear not, Mr. Dwyre. You are not alone. And we shall remain in contact.” The air around the man shimmered. Without any further word nor motion, he was gone.
Though he could scarcely believe what had just transpired had not been a hallucination, Simon felt inexplicably calm. At ease. He believed the purple man, at least insofar as him being a friend was concerned. He knew of the King and was apparently eager to assist in maintaining order on the path to the Coronation. Besides, had the purple man meant him harm, Simon would’ve been dead. For better or worse, it seemed the Yellow King had powerful allies even Simon was not aware of. Why should that surprise him? The King’s reach exceeded even the boundaries of space and time. But the reverence he felt for the Yellow King was cut short as the fury from before crept back into his mind. The scene of the crime had not been properly dealt with. He curled his fingers, his squared-off nails digging into his palm. Rage turned his vision red, and the seething blue void behind his eyelids came alive again as he activated the neural network connecting him with the Vant’therax. Gauge, he thought, the words echoing along the convex contours of that internal thought-universe. Zay. Come to me at once.
A few moments passed, and then the shadows along the metal walls and beneath the grated floor began to writhe, pooling together and taking shape into two monstrous half-men garbed in yellow robes and covered in cancerous growths of chitin.
“What do you desire?” Zay asked.
Simon glared at the two of them. They were repulsive, grotesque things, with tight skin and lanky appendages. Zay, the only remaining Vant’therax with more than four functional eyes, blinked at him from beneath his drawn hood. The prominent fangs in his mouth hung over his limp lower jaw, to the point that he appeared transfixed by something wondrous and beautiful. Meanwhile, Gauge’s face held the same irreverent expression as always, dead eyes bulbous and oozing.
“I know what you did,” Simon growled, gaze fixed upon the yellow-robed bastard. “That you tried to entrap me.”
Gauge’s face did not move.
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Nothing.”
Simon shook his head, fury building. “Did you truly believe I would not find out?”
“Don’t act so smug. It took you long enough to realize it.”
“I am going to say this once, so you’d best pay attention. I have tried to accommodate your demands. I have moved twice to take the children of the Fifth by force on your behalf, and I can do no more.”
“You can,” Gauge said with a growl, “but you won’t. Because you would rather see us to the grave than keep your covenant.”
“I will not tolerate any more interference. Not from you. Not from Kaj. None of it. If you cannot serve the King with your very life, then I will take even that from you.” He extended hi
s hand, dipping once more into the neural network behind his eyes. He found Zay’s cell, and he delved into it with a malicious voracity. The impulses and signals dancing within surrounded him, and with a snap of his mental cables the spiders within began to move.
Zay’s body started to twitch, stubby hands flying up to his face. But there was nothing he could do now that the parasitic Nothem were in motion. Blood began to hemorrhage from every orifice in his head, and with a sickening crunch and gurgle, his life was extinguished. Zay fell to his knees and then collapsed in a limp heap, just another corpse of Project Zero.
Panting, Simon glared at Gauge, who had not moved even to watch as his brother died. “No more interference. You may still be useful to me. But only until you impede our work. You will live for the King or you will die for nothing. Next time, it will be you on the floor. Am I clear?”
Gauge’s lip twitched, and the lethargy of the motion showed his physical age. “If you do not act quickly, then there will be none of us left to murder.” The shadows again wrapped his form and carried him back into the depths of the facility, leaving Simon alone with the body of Zay.
Simon let out a low sigh. The Vant’therax were becoming bolder. More selfish. If the Coronation didn’t come soon, he would have a hard time controlling them. Though he was loath to admit it, he still needed them, at least for now. Even sacrificing the nigh-useless Zay left him hollow, a sense of slayer’s remorse. Although, with this strange purple-suited thing now watching him, things became complicated. His perspective was hazy, unclear. The only thing that remained clear was that the Eleventh Project had to move forward without any further delays.
He found his cellphone on the floor and brushed it off, checking to ensure it still worked. If the purple man had found the mess Gauge left behind, that meant he had to get somebody out there to clean it up, before any more trouble came of it.
Chapter 11
Once Bitten
“Come on, we’re going to be late!” Chelsea shrieked, her hand tight around Spinneretta’s wrist, as she tore down the packed hall of lockers as fast as a hundred and twenty pounds of dead weight would let her.
Spinneretta sidestepped to avoid some poindexter in a green flannel shirt who stepped out in front of them. “Oww, dammit, let go of me already.”
“We’re going to miss the fight if you don’t pick up the pace, come on!”
As they came to the AP Science room, Spinneretta planted her feet and tore her hand out of Chelsea’s grip. “How are you going to be late if you’re literally the first one to show up? Besides, I’m not going.”
Chelsea halted and spun around. “What do you mean you’re not going? This is, like, the fight of the year! Have you even seen Norm? He’s like three hundred pounds, semi-literally.”
Spinneretta crossed her arms. “I don’t care. I’m not interested in seeing Arthr make an ass of himself, alright?”
“Oh come on! Why do you have to be such a contrarian all the time?”
“Not wanting to see my idiot brother jerk his ego to orgasm doesn’t make me a contrarian, it makes me sane.” She huffed a little and adjusted the strap of her messenger bag, which Chelsea’s haste had twisted into a tightly coiled helix. “Anyway, say hi to Mandy for me. I’m heading home.”
Chelsea leaned against the wall and scowled. “Fine, do what you want. Don’t forget you owe me cookies.”
“I’ll try to remember.” She was halfway down the hall when she heard the door to the AP classroom open, and then Chelsea’s shouts to Amanda began. The telltale pulse of a headache began to hammer at her neck. With a grumble and sigh, she pushed through the small crowd of students and headed out the main entrance of Grantwood High.
On the bright side, the weather was nice. The sky was gray, and the air was wet with a light mist that blanketed the town. The unseasonable chill of the moist air did little to cool the angry blood that swam through her cheeks and forehead, but at least it felt nice. She tugged the olive jacket a little tighter about her and wriggled her concealed spider legs to loosen their muscles. When she got to the bottom of the steps with the budget-cut blue railing and looked out across the lawn, however, she forgot all about her feud with Arthr and his dumb face. There, at the end of the path leading to the parking lot, stood a man with shaggy brown hair in a blue-gray jacket. She smiled in surprise and raised her hand in greeting. “The hell are you doing here?” she hollered, ignoring the glances from the students heading in the opposite direction toward the basketball courts.
When she’d made her way over to him, Mark raised his hand and returned her smile. “Well met. Did you enjoy your lectures?”
She blinked at him. “My lectures. What kind of a question is that?”
His expression fell, and a hint of embarrassment tugged at his eyes. “Ahh. Forgive me. Your mother often asks you about your day, so I figured it would be a good habit to emulate.”
“Well don’t, it sounds weird as hell. Just say how was your day, and you’ll at least sound like you speak English natively.”
He nodded. “Very well. How was your day of education?”
“God, you’re bad at this. What are you doing here, anyway? Doesn’t seem likely that you just happened to be in the neighborhood.”
“Well, to be honest, you and I have an errand to attend to.” He turned and started down the road leading toward the center of Grantwood.
Spinneretta’s spirits lifted at once, and she followed him. “Oh, great. Now I actually have an excuse for ditching Chels and Mandy at the fight.”
“I’m sorry?”
She smiled. “Never mind. Talking to myself. So what kind of errand is this?” In actuality, she didn’t care. The thought of spending time with Mark outside the study, for some reason, made her almost giddy. It shouldn’t have, though; the grave seriousness of the kidnapping, of the yellow-coated men, and of the whispers of spider-god-worshiping cults should have left little comfort for her.
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “There’s someone I’d like to introduce you to.”
“Huh?”
“Her name is Annika.”
Annika? At once her high spirits drained. She frowned and hugged her arms to her chest. “Who’s Annika?”
“I feel we’ve had this discussion before; she’s a friend who is coming to help this little investigation of ours.”
As soon as he said it, she noticed the gleam of plastic from within Mark’s jacket pockets. The evidence. Her stomach grew tight as she remembered the confidence with which he’d collected the dried blood, bullet casings, and cellphone shards. He sure is taking this seriously, I guess. As well as he should. After all, her sister had been freaking kidnapped. The police, who were allegedly investigating the matter, hadn’t turned anything up yet. So at least somebody was willing to flip some rocks in search of the culprit, right?
But if it was such a good thing, why did she suddenly feel so uneasy at the mere mention of the name Annika? She flattened her coiled spider legs against her back and pulled her jacket tighter about her. Without another word, she followed as Mark took the lead and started toward the center of town.
“So let me get this straight,” Spinneretta said. “You picked me up from school so we could wait for your friend in a back alley.”
“For what it’s worth, there wasn’t supposed to be any waiting involved.”
To say that it was a back alley may have been harsh. They were currently sitting in an open corridor that ran between the back of the Navo Supermarket and a chain-link fence at the edge of an overgrown field. A number of crates and pallets were scattered about the area in loose groupings, and it was upon one of these discarded clusters that Mark and Spinneretta now sat, waiting. The blacktop was in a state of progressive disrepair that blurred the boundary with the neighboring field. The rusty, corrugated overhang was pitted with holes through which the diffuse, cloud-dimmed light shone.
“Why did you drag me along, exactly?” Spinneretta asked.
“I thought
you were excited about having something to do today.”
The thought of Arthr’s fight crossed her mind, and it hit her in the hate bone. “Emphasis on the do.”
Mark chuckled. “Perhaps I just wanted to spend some time with you.”
She found something trivial in the opposite direction to stare at. “Somehow I get the feeling that’s not it.” Either way, you don’t have to say things like that. Especially so casually.
He shrugged with one shoulder and leaned back against the stucco wall. “I consider it a bonus. In all seriousness, though, this is as much your errand as it is mine.”
“What do you mean by—”
“Marky!” came a screeching sound from the other side of the alley, where the chain-link fence met the supermarket’s loading zone. When Spinneretta turned toward the terrible noise, she saw a young woman in her early twenties. She was taller than Spinneretta, around Arthr’s height if her estimation skills were accurate. She had long, wavy black hair, striking against her pale skin, that she wore in a ponytail. She wore a tan, wide-brimmed fedora with a matching trench coat that stopped around her knees and billowed out above a cream-colored skirt. The outfit looked like a gaudy costume stolen from the set of a noir film from the ’40s.
What the fuck’s with her? Spinneretta thought.
With a literal hop, skip, and a lazy attempt at a jump, the woman made her way over to where the two of them sat. Mark rose from his makeshift seat, lifting his hand in a casual greeting. The woman wrapped him in a tight hug with a shrill and childish laugh. The combination sent an irrational barb of loathing through Spinneretta’s gut. “Marky! Det var inte igår!”
“Well met,” he replied. “Sorry to call you out on such short notice.”
The woman shook her head and broke away from him. “Oh no! You will not apologize for something as stupid as calling on me! I forbid it!” she said in an overly energetic tone.
The Spider Children (The Warren Brood Book 1) Page 16
