The Spider Children (The Warren Brood Book 1)

by Bartholomew Lander

  Her appendages writhed, extending and retracting, an unbelievable strength surging from within them. There was no chance of history repeating itself tonight. This time, she was the one in control of fate. Her path was clear: she’d go to wherever they had taken Mark and she’d save him. And if anyone was foolish enough to stand between her and Mark, she’d tear their throat out without breaking stride.

  With a burst of speed she didn’t think she was capable of, she took off. Her human legs carried her toward Mark’s scent, and her remaining legs unconsciously began picking up the slack between her strides, propelling her ever forward. It was a frightening combination of sprinting, crawling, and leaping.

  Carried by the Instinct’s will for survival, she disappeared into the night.

  Chapter 26

  All In

  Beneath the weeping sky, Arthr fell into a void in his own mind. Shame. He was a coward. He had allowed his sister to be taken by those armed men, and he’d done nothing to stop it. And now that the gunmen had left him alone in the rain he felt a mounting despair over his failure to protect Kara. It was his job to protect her, wasn’t it? Seconds passed in futility. Then, his mind kick-started the pride that lay wounded from the night of Pat’s beating.

  His heart came alive, and a new wave of determination dawned in his mind. He cursed himself for his weakness and hesitation. But he wouldn’t waste another second. He let go of the shingles he clung to and loosened his appendages’ grip, allowing gravity and the running water to pull him backward and down the slant of the roof. The grainy, sandpaper-like surface of the shingles cut shallow lacerations into his exposed skin as he slid, but he didn’t care. He had to save Kara, armed guards be damned.

  When his hips went over the edge, his spider legs grabbed the overhanging lip. He kicked his feet forward, redirecting his momentum toward the side of the house. A moment later he let go of the edge and threw his appendages forward, thrusting them into the cracks between the wooden paneling that made up the exterior of the house. The combined strength in his legs killed his fall and halted the sickening drop in his stomach. Taking only a brief moment to catch his breath, he scanned the wall for the window he wanted.

  There, to the right, only eight feet or so. Ignoring the dirty water pouring down from the roof, he traversed the lateral distance using the same horizontal grooves in the paneling. When he reached the faux-crystal window to the attic, he straddled it with his spider legs and grabbed fast to either side of the frame. It didn’t budge. Locked from the inside.

  He planted his feet firmly below him and grabbed hold of the grooved panel he’d traversed, digging his fingers as deep into the filthy, cramped space as he could. Once he was as stable as he was going to get, he drove the tips of a pair of legs into the razor-thin gap between the wall and the window. The frame creaked and groaned, loose slivers of wood breaking along the sides. He hooked his legs around until their tips rapped against the glass. He grimaced, not caring for that particular sensation, and probed for a couple seconds, searching for a solid grip. When he found it, he pulled back hard with his digging appendages. There was dull splintering sound, then a crack. With a surge of strength, he tore the ornate window open.

  He waited a moment, listening for any sign that he’d been heard. But the house was weighty with silence. He pulled himself up and slipped in through the open window, spreading his legs and landing upon the wooden floor. His appendages deadened the sound of his entry. The boxes that had once been neatly stacked along the walls were overturned and smashed, already checked by the coated men. And on the other side of the attic, a cluster of glowing holes shone in the floor. From above the bullet holes, rainwater leaked through the perforated roof, soaking the floor and boxes. He took a deep breath of the wet, dusty air and crept toward the trapdoor on his spider legs, silent.

  He craned over the opening, peering down. Two humanoid shadows stretched against the carpet below. A third shadow—Kara’s—was partially fused with the taller of the two. He then heard the voice of an older man—a voice he had not yet encountered.

  “You can do what you want,” the voice said, “but you can bet your ass Gauge won’t be happy about it. And when Gauge isn’t happy, I’m not happy.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what that freak says,” the voice of the tall man replied. “There’s a difference between efficiency and excess.”

  “If you want to keep your job and your life, you’ll do what I fucking tell you and not cut corners.”

  “You want to go back up there, then you go.” The tall man was undaunted by the command of the man who must have been their leader. “I did my fucking job, now let’s get moving.”

  A tense moment passed. “Fine, do what you want. It’s not my neck on the line, after all.” He gestured toward the shortest shadow. “Put her lights out.”

  Arthr’s hair stood on edge.

  The tall man hesitated. “You serious? Too much of this stuff will kill her. See how happy that makes the yellow fucker.”

  “It’s premeasured, you moron,” the leader said, his tone dropping into a savage growl. “Put. Her lights. Out.”

  The tall man hesitated once again, and then there came the sound of glass crunching. “Sorry, sweetie,” the tall man said. Before Arthr could figure out what was happening, the shadows moved. In a fluid motion, the tall shadow’s arm wrapped around the smaller one. There came a muffled sound, and Kara’s shadow fell limp.

  The world melted away. An indescribable rage boiled up within Arthr’s core that turned the fading world fiery red. His own cowardice was to blame, and that only deepened his fury toward those men. How dare you, he thought. His spider legs clawed at the floor, hungry.

  “She out?”

  “She out.”

  “Good. Richter, get your ass over here. We’re leaving.”

  “Yes, sir,” came the voice of the young blond man. Arthr felt the vibrations through the floor as the third man walked down the hall. The shadow crept into view on the carpet. If there was a time to act, it was now. If there was a time to redeem himself for his cowardice, it was now. If there was a time to save Kara, it was now.

  His spider legs grabbed the ledge of the trapdoor and he leapt down. He swung on those legs, throwing his feet out in front of him. He bellowed a hateful cry as his feet smashed into the blond man’s face, knocking him supine. A gallop of wild shots went off from the man’s gun, puncturing the wall with fresh lead.

  Ears ringing, Arthr landed. His spider legs grabbed the carpet and redirected his momentum. He hurled himself toward the other men. The so-called leader, whom he now saw had a sizable and unkempt beard, shouted something and drew a pistol from his hip. But Arthr was too fast. He lashed out with two of his legs, putting all of his strength into the attack. He aimed for the man’s eyes, but a reflexive recoil threw him off target. The legs struck just above the man’s brow. There came the distinct and unpleasant sensation of chitin grinding on bone. The tips of those legs swept wide, cutting through the soft tissue of the man’s forehead. Their leader screamed, throwing his hands up to his bleeding face.

  Arthr snapped his head around and saw the tall man halfway down the stairs. He was carrying Kara with a rag pressed against her face. A grimace sat on the man’s lips as he tried to maneuver down the stairway. Both his hands were busy with Kara, and Arthr wouldn’t give him a chance to free them. Arthr vaulted over the banister, teeth bared, a savage growl rumbling from his throat. There was a moment of a weightlessness, and then his shoulder smashed into the man and knocked him off his feet.

  For a moment, the three of them were in free fall together. The man fell backward and then forward when gravity reasserted its control of him. The world became a spinning wheel. Arthr covered his head with his legs and tried not to catch his limbs in any position that might break them. When he felt the first angelic touch of the carpet’s surface, he sprang up from his protective curl and found Kara, who had landed not far from them.

  He regained his footing and be
nt quickly to Kara’s form. She was coughing, muttering something in a chemical-induced stupor. He wasted no time and scooped her into his protective arms. Spying the front door at the end of the hall, he lurched back to his feet. That door was sanctuary. Mustering all his strength, he began sprinting toward it.

  And then he fell flat on his face.

  Kara tumbled from his arms as his head struck the carpet. A wet heat splattered across his lips. He craned his neck back and was greeted by the tall man’s furious visage. The man, lying prone on the carpet, had grabbed hold of Arthr’s ankle. With a sneer, the man reached his free hand toward the barrel of the automatic rifle still strapped to his shoulder.

  In a panic, Arthr brought his free leg to the side and threw his foot against the man’s face as hard as he could manage. The man groaned from the blow, but his grip remained tight. Arthr brought his leg back and threw another kick into the side of his head, letting the hard edge of his shoes bite into the man’s skin and draw a thin trickle of blood. Arthr howled in fury, throwing his foot forward again and again like a wild piston, smashing into the man’s bloodied nose and forehead. On the third thrust, there came a loud, grotesque crack. He shifted his weight and put the rest of his strength into a final kick that clipped across the man’s now-broken nose. That blow broke his grip on Arthr’s ankle and silenced the man’s screams. As soon as he was free, Arthr scurried backward and found his way to his feet again.

  The door was just ahead, still open from when the men barged in. They had to seize that freedom while they had the chance. Arthr moved, and the world blurred. He would have been able to take Kara and disappear into the night had it not been for the burst of rounds fired from the top of the stairway. The shots sent splinters scattering into the air. His reflexes overrode his brotherly instincts, and he dove for cover behind the stairs.

  Heart pounding, Arthr scrambled to his feet once more, but the shouting he heard beneath the ringing in his ears was too close. The stairway trembled as booted feet pounded against the steps. He bit his lip hard enough to scrape the worn top layer of skin away. If he made a move for Kara now, he’d be in perfect line of sight of the remaining gunmen, and he was nowhere near fast enough to dodge bullets. The paralyzing fear began to spread again, and the only motion he could manage was taking a cautious, trembling series of steps backward through the living room. Then, his legs turned to rubber and he fell to his knees. Only a few feet behind him, the large window peered out into the uncaring night.

  Arthr had the thought that he could break through that window, and then try to ambush the gunmen when they left with Kara. By the time that idea crossed his mind, the blond-haired man had appeared in the hallway before him. Arthr raised his hands, a gesture of surrender and despair.

  The man looked almost as shaken as Arthr did. A trickle of blood ran from his lip and nose, and his gun shook as he held it. A few tense moments unfolded, and then their wounded leader appeared from the recesses of the second story. His right eye was clamped shut, flooded by the blood flowing from his slashed forehead, and his brown beard was stained an even darker color.

  Arthr swallowed hard. He was surrounded.

  Mark found himself in a dimly lit room in a secluded complex that the people escorting him had referred to as Site Nineteen. The room was cramped, made of metal, with no windows and only a single door. It may have once been a prison cell or an interrogation room, though Mark thought it most likely the latter. The heavy steel table and the pair of chairs, the sole features of the room besides the metal door, may have been relics from the room’s previous occupation.

  A shallow gash stung his forehead, and a stripe of dried blood sat crusted upon his lip. His wrists were handcuffed to the chair he sat in. They’d used two pairs of handcuffs, convinced he was dangerous enough to warrant the excess hardware. And that was fine by him. Two pairs of handcuffs? Why not two hundred? It was all the same to him.

  The door to his holding cell opened, and three men entered. He gave only a cursory glance up. Two of the men wore yellow coats and carried guns. The third was an older man with matted black hair and deep wrinkles, clad in a yellow robe. Another of the monsters, huh? Unlike the other one, this monster had only two eyes. He may have looked normal were it not for the crusty rashes of chitin splashed across his face. The door slammed shut behind them, and the two guards took their positions at the sides of the door, firearms shaking with readiness.

  “So, you are the one they call Mark Warren,” the robed man said. “I suppose it would only be polite to introduce myself. My name is Silt. Do you know why you’re here?”

  “I could make an educated guess,” Mark said.

  The man smiled. “I’m not so sure. Do not worry. We’re not going to kill you. Unless you try to escape, or otherwise make some unwise decisions, which I don’t recommend. We take care of our guests, so long as they’re cooperative.”

  Mark stayed quiet.

  “Our boss is on the way to speak to you. Do you know who that is?”

  “Aye,” Mark said. “Simon Dwyre. Though you may know him by another name: Clearwater.”

  The man paused in thought. “You are quite informed for an outsider. Have you met before?”

  “I don’t think I have any obligation to tell you.”

  The man nodded amicably. “My apologies. It is not in our standard operation to take people alive, you see. That he was so interested in having you in addition to the children of the Fifth . . . it is curious, to say the least.”

  “If you haven’t anything else for me then leave,” Mark said. The creature fell silent, perhaps offended by his unwillingness to engage in civil discourse. Biting his lip in a scowl, the man opened the metal door and exited, followed by the armed guards. As they vanished, Mark smiled to himself.

  Simon Dwyre, he thought. I’ve been waiting.

  Following Mark’s pulsating scent, Spinneretta was too focused to notice much other than that smell. Her fifteen-minute trek through the wilderness suburbs of Grantwood was a blur. She barely even realized that a squall of needle-like rain had begun to fall. At some point she cleared a high chain-link fence in a single bound, and it was then she knew she was entering Parson’s Grove. The woods were alive with the sounds of creatures that she otherwise would not have heard, and earthy smells meant only for her.

  There was only one other thing she would specifically remember of her trek, though it was of little consequence at the time. As she passed through a small clearing at the base of a hill, something purple flashed through her peripheral vision. It was only visible for a split second, but it was there, riding astride one of the boughs of the area’s famous elm trees. Riding or hanging, living or dying, it made no difference to her. Whatever was in that tree could wait, because it wasn’t Mark, and Mark was still in danger.

  Through the thinning trees ahead, something dead and metallic came into view. Another chain-link fence stretched twenty, maybe thirty feet into the air. Just off to the right was a heavy gate flanked on either side by what appeared to be abandoned guard towers that rose another ten feet above the fence. Beyond the gate and fence, numerous darkened shells of buildings loomed in orderly clusters. As she drew closer and Mark’s scent grew stronger, Spinneretta realized with an unprecedented certainty what this place was.

  Everyone knew the rumors, the urban legends that came from sensational sources and were spread from peer to peer until the original accounts were lost. Legends of paramilitary programs, ghost sightings, necromantic rites—she had always chalked the stories up to the fanciful imaginings that grew from places of abandon and decay. After all, what better place could there be for such urban legends to be born than in the husk of the San Solano Correctional Facility, the long-dead prison where the infamous Norwegian Killer met his end?

  But the Instinct revealed the greatest secret to her: the prison was not dead. There, hiding in the towers, marching unseen between the bunkers and towering concrete slabs, she smelled the ghosts that haunted the prison. Ghosts with
beating hearts and dusty-smelling coats. To an outsider trespassing on the forbidden land, there would be nothing to see save a broken complex far removed from the myths and legends. And those who dared to try to enter San Solano . . . she did not want to consider it.

  Darting forward on all her limbs, she soon reached the foot of the chain-link fence. She began to climb with her spider legs, tearing wide gashes through the wire mesh that covered the fence on either side. The rattling of the fence sent jolts through her appendages to her teeth. Not the most subtle entry strategy. When she reached the top, she pushed the barbed wire spans down with her anterior legs and vaulted over the top. The bottom of her dress caught one of the barbs and ripped, but she didn’t care. Gravity twisted her stomach. She spread her spider legs out to the sides like the wings of a Satanic angel as she fell.

  Gravity slammed the ground into her prepared spider legs, which absorbed the shock with their empowered strength. Ignoring the rattling in her bones and the writhing in her stomach, she got back to her feet. The sound of activity stirred the dark compound. She threw her eyes around her and raised her legs to taste the air. The old prison was coming to life; her arrival had been even less stealthy than she’d thought. The Instinct pulsing through her, however, told her that wouldn’t be a problem.

  In the living room, all sound had died. Arthr hunched on the floor, face to face with the two gunmen.

  The bearded leader of the yellow-coats clenched his right eye shut and gritted his teeth. The blood running from the slash above his brow threw a grisly curtain across his cheek. “You fucking worthless trash, Anansi!” he said, sputtering. “This is how you fucking repay us for letting you live? Looks like mommy never taught this one not to bite the hand that feeds!” He turned to the blond-haired man on his right. “What are you waiting for? Shoot him!”