The Spider Children (The Warren Brood Book 1)

by Bartholomew Lander

  “Have it your way. I shall just have to thank you instead.”

  “Oh, don’t you dare! You know I hate thank you as much as I hate sorry when it’s coming from you.”

  What the hell is that supposed to mean? Spinneretta thought, a bitter taste on her tongue.

  “I hope it wasn’t too inconvenient getting out here,” Mark said. “I’m sure you have lots of work back home.”

  “Don’t concern yourself with my work, Marky.” She spun on the heel of her dark boot in a childlike manner. “You’re my most important client, after all.”

  Spinneretta stood with an ambivalent lethargy. There was something about the woman she despised, though she couldn’t yet say what it was. It could have been her bizarre dress. If she was a detective, as Spinneretta assumed, then she was taking the job to its romantic extreme. It could also have been the way she carried herself like a girl half her age. As Spinneretta stood, the woman’s gaze shifted to her as though the ill-thoughts had summoned her attention.

  “Ooh,” the woman cooed, “who’s this little cutie?”

  Mark cleared his throat, an oddly cordial air coming over him. “Spinny, this is Annika.”

  With a small curtsy, the woman tipped her hat. “Annika Crane, detective extraordinaire. Nice to meet you.”

  “Annika, this is Spinneretta.”

  Annika froze. “Spinneretta? That’s a weird-ass name.”

  Spinneretta felt her cheeks begin to burn, this time not out of embarrassment of her new nickname. “You think I don’t know that?”

  The woman’s expression remained steady. “In any case, weren’t you here to find a Ralph, Marky?”

  Fingernails bit Spinneretta’s palms. “Ralph’s my father.”

  Annika hummed, a doubtful expression coming over her. She widened her stance and dipped her chin in thought. “That’s impossible. Ralph Warren has no children.”

  For a moment Spinneretta just stared at her, baffled at the brazen remark. “Yeah, I guess you’d know better than me, huh?” Who the fuck is this woman?

  Mark cleared his throat as though to thaw the tension in the air. “Though it may be difficult to believe, Ralph does indeed have children. Three of them. This is his oldest daughter, and things become even stranger. Spinny, show her your legs, if you would.”

  And there was the click. In retrospect, she should’ve known right away why he was dragging her along. “You’re joking.”

  Annika hummed a low note and leaned forward until she was at eye level with Spinneretta. “Legs? What’s wrong with your legs?”

  Spinneretta clenched her teeth. She felt objectified, used. Just like Mark had said during their discussion of Ambras Syndrome, there was no reason for their spideriness to have been kept secret for this many years, and yet . . . if there was anybody she did not want to reveal her appendages to, it was this trench-coated woman. But there was no choice. With a sigh, she gently peeled her jacket from her shoulders, allowing her spider legs to uncoil behind her and drink in the cool, wet air.

  Annika’s face was stricken by an ashen pallor. The childlike glee and mockery from before vanished, leaving only a glare hard enough to cut diamond. “What the hell is this?”

  “I hope you understand now why I called you out here. This girl and her siblings are part spider.”

  Spinneretta self-consciously wrapped her legs around her midsection and glared at Mark. “Please don’t tell me you brought me along just to show me off like some kind of freak show.”

  The edge of his lip twitched, but his expression otherwise showed no change. “Forgive me. But if we are to figure out who’s been after you and your sister, then we need to look at the situation from all angles. And that begins with the most obvious place to start.”

  “The most obvious place.” She tried to ignore the distance in his wording. It stung in a way that she hadn’t felt since she first attended school. “I’d think there’s a few places more obvious to begin with, like, oh, I don’t know, the blood and the bullets? Don’t you think those would be a better place to start looking for the freaks after us?”

  “In time we shall come to them,” Mark said, gaze steady. “But without context, those things are orphaned words in a poem.”

  “Orphaned words in a poem? What are you, some kind of—” Something tugged at the back of her tank top, and Spinneretta went rigid. Cold air met the skin between her shoulder blades. The detective, one hand pulling on the back of the shirt, now peered down at where Spinneretta’s appendages joined her body. With a shriek, Spinneretta spun about and slapped Annika’s hand away from her. “What the hell are you doing!?”

  The woman’s face was fixed. Her skin appeared paler than it had a moment ago. Her gaze drifted to meet Spinneretta’s, a frigid sincerity condensing her pupils to quivering beads of pitch. “Take off your shirt.”

  Spinneretta drew back a step, her cheeks again blazing. “W-what!?”

  “Are spiders naturally deaf? I said take off your shirt. Let Auntie Annika get a good look at you.”

  Terrified of the detective’s zealous expression, Spinneretta desperately pulled her jacket up from where it sat half-peeled from her body. “What the fuck!? I’m not your damn specimen!”

  But before she could get her jacket back over her legs, Annika shot forward and grabbed the hem of her tank top. “Come now, no need to be shy. You don’t have anything that I . . . uhh, well, off with it anyways.”

  Mark gave a startled cry. “H-hey, you two—”

  “Let go of me!” Spinneretta grabbed the detective’s hands and dug her fingernails into the skin, the woman’s incessant force driving her to lower her hips and widen her stance. And when the detective’s superior height and strength broke her grip, her spider legs flew from the confines of her jacket and grappled with the woman’s arms.

  Annika grunted. “Oh, now this is something,” she said through clamped teeth. “Strong, aren’t you?” Her fingers slipped past Spinneretta’s defense and found the naked skin of her shoulders. “Don’t hold back the march of science, now. Be a good a girl and—”

  Spinneretta answered with a harsh growl that tore out of her throat from the depths of her primal heritage. “I said let go of me!” She tried once more to draw a step back, and when she met resistance she instinctively lashed out, flourishing all eight of her legs in an attempt to drive the woman out of her personal space. A wet rip answered her. All at once, the detective’s grip loosened. Spinneretta stumbled back, inertia nearly throwing her to the ground. There Annika stood, one arm frozen in mid-air before her, a rapidly darkening red line across the back of her hand. Spinneretta watched in cold horror as the blood began to run and drip from the wound. And then the smell hit her.

  “Hmph,” Annika grumbled, her dark eyes filled with contempt. “Sharp little friends you have there. Making a note: this ferret doesn’t like to be pet.”

  The scent of blood coated the tip of the leg that had cut Annika’s hand. It was trying to hijack the primal center of Spinneretta’s brain. Her neck and arms began to burn with a preternatural heat. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to shake the violent thrill that was playing at her adrenal glands, demanding entry. “I didn’t . . . if you had just let me go when I—”

  “Go sit on one of the damn pallets like a good little girl,” the detective bit, “I’ve seen what Marky wanted me to.”

  Spinneretta expected Mark to say something in her defense, but he just gave her a slow nod as he dug into his jacket pockets. Anger and embarrassment still burning beneath her skin, she skulked over to one of the brightly colored crates and sat down upon it, trying to shake away the strange adrenaline drawing her focus to the detective’s bleeding hand.

  “So, what’ve you got for me, Marky?”

  “Quite a bit, actually.” He withdrew a clump of plastic bags from his pockets. “Spinneretta’s younger sister was kidnapped recently, and though she got free the culprit has not been found. These are the remains of a cellphone, bullet casings, and some d
ried blood. Do you think you could figure out whom they belonged to?”

  Annika beamed a smile. “With all that garbage it’ll be a snap to figure out!” She snapped her fingers over her head as if to emphasize the ease of the activity. “I thought you were going to give me something difficult, not amateur work!”

  As the throbbing heat in her mind receded, Spinneretta marveled in disgust at the woman’s saccharine tone.

  “I hope it’s as easy as you say,” Mark replied. “Apparently this man was in contact with someone via that cellphone, but when we found it the . . . what was it again?”

  Spinneretta grumbled. “SIM card.”

  “Right. The SIM card was missing. This leaves two important questions: who was he talking to, and who took the SIM card?”

  Annika’s sugary cheer evaporated. She accepted the bags and then nodded her head toward Spinneretta. “Seems like this is a busy little town. Quite a mystery you’ve got on your hands, it seems.”

  “My thoughts precisely. Which is why I need your help.”

  The woman licked her lips. “You suspect something, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “I believe there’s a cult involved here. Or worse.”

  Instead of laughing, as Spinneretta would’ve expected a normal person to do, Annika just dipped her chin in thought. “So that’s why you’re interested.”

  “Correct. You will need to be careful.” He paused. “And about this Ralph Warren. I’d like you to see if you can’t find anything incongruous in his medical records.”

  “Oh?”

  “He was apparently told that he’s genetically spider.”

  Annika cackled. “That’s one way to explain the kangaroo in the room, I suppose.”

  “Here. Some additional details.” Mark pulled a small white envelope from his pocket and held it out to her.

  Annika gave an infantile hoot of amazement when she saw it. “Wow, must be important if you sealed it up! Or is it a secret, so you don’t want to say it aloud? Little one knowing not allowed?” She laughed, as though amused by her own wordplay. Spinneretta wondered if she could spin a self-defense case out of bashing the woman’s skull in.

  “Nothing so secret it warrants specific mention,” Mark said. “Just a few other things I’d like you to dig up information on.”

  “Oh, it’s just been so long since I’ve gotten myself wound up in information for you . . . I’m getting so excited!” She gave another amused cackle at what may have been a poorly framed double entendre as she snatched the envelope from his hands.

  Spinneretta’s stomach turned. What in God’s name is wrong with this woman? Is she drunk?

  “Well, it should go without saying that you should be careful,” Mark said. “Especially if there really is a cult involved here.”

  “Do you know who you’re talking to, Marky? You know I don’t make mistakes. You know I’m perfect!” A slick smile crossed her lips and she again erupted into a sickening peal of bubbly laughter.

  Spinneretta’s distaste for the Crane woman had bloomed into an impassioned hatred. She felt a sharp pain cutting into her palms and noticed that both of her hands were balled into tight, trembling fists.

  Annika swiped her hand across the top of the envelope, splitting the seal in a neat line. She ripped the folded sheet of paper from its cocoon and flipped it open.

  “I know it’s a lot to ask, but of course I have the money for your time.”

  Annika allowed her reading arm to drop limp to her side. All humor vanished from her face. “I don’t need your money,” she said in a dark tone. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

  “Then consider accepting the money part of the job. Assuming you will do it, of course.”

  “Don’t say stupid things.” Her humorless voice was haunting. “Of course I’ll do it.” When she wasn’t acting like an attention-starved preteen, she sounded like a completely different person.

  Mark sighed in relief. “I thank you. I hope I needn’t say anything at this point, but I have a feeling that something very unusual is happening in this town.”

  “Looking at spider-people is liable to do that to you.” Annika then spun on her heel. “Well, you’ve given me quite a lot to think about, Marky, so unless there’s anything else, I’ll be taking my leave and getting started on the sleuthing.”

  “By all means.”

  “If you need anything else, you know how to reach me.” She turned back and gave Mark an unsubtle wink.

  “Of course. I thank you again for your help.”

  “Now what did I say about thank yous?”

  He shrugged, but made no reply.

  “And as for you, Spinzie. I’ll forgive you for my hand,” she said, showing her where the blood still ran, “but only because you’re adorable, despite your legs. Well then, if you’ll excuse me.”

  “Take care,” Mark said.

  The woman began to walk toward the other end of the alley with a spring in her step that Spinneretta thought even Kara would have been embarrassed by. Mark, meanwhile, began walking back the way they’d come. After a moment of watching the insane woman, Spinneretta stood and followed him, a quiet bitterness brewing in her stomach.

  Mark gave Spinneretta a solemn look. “I am very sorry about that. She does not usually commit sexual assault. Are you alright?”

  She nodded. One leg still had the taste of blood on it, but the knocking at her mind had ceased. It had been a long time since she’d felt that adrenal force come on so strong; she wondered if it was because she’d drawn it herself. With a shudder, she tried to shake the thought away. “Whatever. Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter 12

  Twice Shy

  Behind the basketball courts and down the hill, a crowd of freshmen and a few upperclassmen had gathered. Thirty strong, the crowd encircled an open area shaded by the surrounding beech and pine. Arthr leaned against one of those trees, arms crossed, waiting for his opponent to show up. Bustling, breathing as one, the crowd awaited their bloodsport like a pack of sharks circling a wounded alligator. Or something. Arthr wasn’t the best when it came to analogies, especially when he was distracted by imminent glory.

  Some of his peers were standing further up the hill. They were the watchmen, tasked with warning everyone if a teacher started heading their way. Since they were off school property, Arthr thought they were safe, but he didn’t want to take any chances with the stupid zero-tolerance policy that had already gotten him suspended once before.

  A few more stragglers arrived, and he was pleased to discover that his sister’s hot friends had come to watch him, even if Spins herself was absent. He gave them a wide smile but feigned ambivalence, turning his attention back to the crowd. He was a goddamn celebrity. At last, after what felt like an hour, Norman crested the hill and sauntered down the grade, his pseudo-gangster friend, Phil, at his heels. Norman was a hair taller than Arthr and had impressive width. Broad-shouldered with thick arms and legs, his stature was that of a capable quarterback. His deep-set eyes and strong jaw, rounded off by a layer of fat, wore a constant angry expression.

  “Normy!” Arthr called up the hill. “You finally made it! I was starting to think you’d forgotten how to breathe and died somewhere.” The crowd laughed. That was the great thing about being a celebrity—your jokes didn’t have to be funny and everyone would still laugh with you.

  “Cram it, Spiderman,” Norman barked. He shoved a freshman girl out of his way as he pushed through into the makeshift ring. Before Arthr could mock him again—and without so much as a let’s have a clean fight—Norman reared back and threw a huge punch at his head.

  Arthr jumped backward out of the attack’s range and gave Norman a shrug. “Hey, what the fuck, dude?” He gestured at the girl Norman had pushed. “Apologize to Ashley. That shit’s rude, man.”

  “Go fuck yourself, shitface!” Norman flew forward again and tried to bury his knuckles into the spider-child, only for Arthr to backpedal and evade the attack.

 
Arthr’s heart began to pound, and adrenaline took over. As Norman regained his composure, Arthr rushed him with a left cross. The attack snapped Norman’s head to the side. He closed in and threw a right uppercut into his jaw, sending him tumbling back into the soft earth—the classic Arthr one-two combo.

  The small crowd raised a cheer as Norman crashed to the ground. Arthr crossed his arms, waiting for Norman to fumble back to his feet. “I knew you were white trash, dude, but shoving a girl who’s got nothing to do with you is fucked. This is why nobody likes you, you know. I’ll give you to the count of three to apologize, and then I’m painting the ground with you.”

  Norman spat into the dirt and glared at Arthr. His lips shivered with a half-formed insult.

  “Onetwothree!” Arthr pounced. His knee took Norman in the stomach, and a roar went up from the throngs of students crowded around the mock arena. Norman stumbled back, thick arms clutching at his gut. His knees wobbled and he fell, splattering the dirt with a fountain of vomit.

  Arthr danced to the left. “Jesus, dude, that’s fucking gross. Need a minute? I’ll be right here.” He turned his back to his opponent and flashed a wide grin to the crowd. He caught Chelsea’s eye and winked at her, and he thought he saw her blush.

  A sick burping sound behind him melted into speech. “Shouldn’t turn your back on your opponent, you piece of shi—”

  Arthr spun. His elbow crashed across the bridge of Norman’s nose. He grabbed the larger boy by the hair and drove his knee into his gut again. When he only got a dry heave back, he pushed the weak-kneed hulk over with his foot. “Holy shit, when was the last time you showered?” Arthr said, wiping his hand on his pants. “That’s some greasy-ass hair.” Norman rolled on the ground, groaning and clutching his nose. Blood seeped between his fingers. Someone in the crowd shouted a mocking jeer at the fallen tyrant, and Arthr smirked. “Come on, dude. For all the shit you talk to everyone, I’d think you’d have a little more to back it up. Hell, if that’s all you got I could beat you with one hand behind my back. In fact,” he said, “I think I will.”