by C.L. Bevill
Chapter 25
Along Came a Spider
and Sat Down Beside Her…
I had come to the conclusion that premonitions are similar to a house of cards. To get to the very peak of the house, the house must be carefully constructed card by card. If one is missed, or one goes awry, then the peak is never achieved. I had begun to realize that the premonitions I saw frequently featured people I cared about in a state of trouble or worse. Not only did I not see a premonition about myself except as a general feeling of danger to come, but a premonition could be squashed at the very least adjustment. I had control over what could or would happen, and acknowledging that fact gave me previously overlooked strength.
Once I had heard Elan’s frantic call, it didn’t matter to me what Spring had told me. “Soophee goes into the building and she falls screaming.” But as I stepped into the deep shadows at the forefront of the building, I heard the cracking of the floor beneath my feet and her foreboding statement shot to my heart immediately. The wood beneath me began to move ominously, boards snapped loudly, and I instantly surged forward. I bent my legs and was readying myself to leap when the landing crumpled beneath me. I propelled myself across the disintegrating wood and jumped into the air.
For a moment all was clear. There were dozens of spiders all around me. Their webs were hidden in the shadows of the walls. Their prey had been carefully captured and wrapped for later consumption. On the opposite wall waiting for me to fall into his trap, was Tate, holding Elan before him, one hand muffling the child. Elan had done what Tate had desired; he had cried out to me in order to get me inside. The scaffolding behind me collapsed into the hole beneath it. Whether it had been there originally or Tate had managed to make it, I didn’t know. But he had sawed through the support beams so that whoever entered first would fall into a hole filled with ruby-eyed spiders and sharpened stakes.
As I landed on the other side, Tate screamed out his venomous hatred of me. His wretchedly perverted face resembled the Burned Man more than ever. He backed away from me pulling Elan with him.
The Japanese broadsword was swinging before my feet hit the dirt floor. I landed hard, one knee came down onto the ground, but it didn’t stop the steel from swinging at its targets. It didn’t stop me from bounding into an upright position and the sword from lashing out in a deadly semicircle. My thoughts went into a state of grayness that shocked me later. I simply wasn’t thinking about what I was doing. I killed the spiders as they came scuttling at me, some of them as they launched themselves at me from the walls.
At the first step into the building, the firefly pixies had thrust themselves into the air, and their war cries were as loud as Tate’s keening howl of rage. They headed for the distant corners of the room, and each success was lauded with triumphant yells. Green blurs of movement showed their attack patterns, and it seemed they were far too quick for the spiders to defend against. I forged a path to Tate and Elan, and when I was ten feet away, Tate snarled at me.
“Stop!” he yelled viciously. His hand lowered to Elan’s throat and immediately closed around the little neck. Elan choked even as he struggled.
I stopped but not before I carved three more of the spiders into little itty-bitty non-spider-like pieces. Bringing the gore-splattered sword back to the middle position, I waited for opportunity. Two things came to me as I waited infinitesimally for my moment to take Elan away from Tate. One was that Tate was exactly who I so desperately feared.
“It is you,” I said grimly. “The Burned Man. All healed.”
His blue eyes scorched me. Somehow I was correct. He had been saved by the spiders. They had healed him just as the pixies had healed me. He had made a devil’s deal with them. After all, they had similar appetites. Maybe they were psychotic things just like him. They had even made him a little less insane so that he could pass for a “normal” survivor for a little while. He knew that we couldn’t see what he was doing and used it to his advantage. He had counted on his previous appearance to fool me. Tate couldn’t have been the Burned Man. He was burned, but it wasn’t quite so obvious.
He’d dyed his hair. He’d put in green contact lenses. He’d hooked up with Blair the gardener from Idaho. He’d kidnapped Elan. All to do what? To kill me? No, to kill the pixies. And maybe me in the process as an added treat.
Tate had been completely insane. Now he was a functional psychopath. Had the union with the spider creatures cured some of his mental illness? Was he a rational being now who could be held accountable for his actions? I didn’t know what I was going to do with him. If I stopped to think about it, then I was going to falter, and I couldn’t afford to do that.
His mouth warped into a bitter smile. “Still can’t kill me, huh?”
“Harm Elan and try me out,” I said fiercely. I stepped closer. The reach with the sword was a nice one, and so far, Tate didn’t have his trusty knife out. The other thing that occurred to me was that the smell of gasoline was overwhelming in the air. I couldn’t look away to see what else he had been doing. Tate had been very busy, and he was very, very dangerous.
Tate’s hand clenched ominously, and Elan’s lips began to turn blue. His brown eyes began to bulge. “You didn’t have eyes behind your back,” Tate said coldly. “Like you said.”
I twisted suddenly and impaled two more spiders. Their bodies fell lifelessly away as I came back to face Tate and Elan. “Let him go,” I said, “and you can walk away today. I won’t follow you. I can guarantee the group won’t follow you. You can go south with the spiders. Live with them. Away from us.”
Tate released Elan’s throat marginally, and Elan gasped in air. “Even though I have killed people?” he asked slyly. “In spite of that?”
“There’s no court here,” I said. “No jury. No judge. Just me right now. You’ve found a connection with the spiders. You can keep that if you want. But never, never, never touch another human being. That’s my ultimatum.”
“I don’t think Gideon would want you negotiating for for peace with me,” Tate said wickedly.
“I’m not negotiating anything,” I said, and it dripped with the ice that I felt in my soul. Tate might not be three-quarters baked, but he was half-baked, and his biscuits were still in the oven. “Do what I say or suffer the consequences.”
Tate leaned forward just slightly. Once he had been a handsome young man in his prime. The change had come and with it, his sanity had trickled away. His features might not be altered from what he had been, but his soul had become as black as the deepest part of the Marianas Trench.
“Once, I was a fisherman,” Tate said, and it was like a reminiscence. His fingers idly caressed Elan’s throat. Elan’s eyes pleaded silently with me. I couldn’t respond. I didn’t dare. “I lived in Bandon. When the change came, I was out to sea. I worked by myself because it was the only way I could stand it. But when I finally rowed back into port in the dinghy, nothing was the same. And I discovered what I truly was, what I had never been courageous enough to be before.” He paused, and his lips curved malevolently. He thought he had me. “You tried your best before and failed. The spiders healed me despite your finest labors.” He laughed at me. “Consequences? You’re just a little girl who knows nothing of consequences.”
Tate began to shuffle sideways, keeping Elan between himself and me. One of the older man’s hands felt along the back wall, guiding him. The other was wrapped around Elan’s neck still. His arm was curled around Elan’s body so that he could maintain the unyielding hold. I heard Spring singing to the sisters behind me, and I didn’t think about what happened next. Two steps from Tate was another door, the stones of which were falling onto the floor. Two steps from where Tate and Elan moved sluggishly, they would be out in the open, and Tate would be free to make his way to the bluff. Then the peak of my house of cards would be achieved. Elan would die.
So instead, the broadsword moved.
The sunlight from above reflected off the sword as it sped into a fantastic arch. The dispersed illumination bounce
d across the moss-covered stones that made up the walls. For a single tension charged, everlasting moment, it caught in Tate’s blue eyes. There was a microsecond of confusion. Then there was clarity. The sword came down and passed exactly where I wanted it to go. Elan’s eyes went as wide as saucers and Tate’s arm that was holding the boy captive fell away, severed just below where the elbow bent. It bounced absurdly, and the fingers continued to flex endlessly as if they still held onto Elan’s neck.
There was another moment. A moment of silence. The pixies didn’t even flutter. Elan’s mouth opened, and he snapped it shut again. Then Tate exploded into movement and sound.
Shrieking, Tate shoved Elan away from him with the hand he had remaining. The boy stumbled and rolled and then started to tumble into the hole that had been Tate’s deadly trap. Disregarding the danger from the injured Tate, I leaped for Elan. As he was about to fall the ten feet into the horrendous pit, I caught his blue down coat with my left hand. His weight dragged me forward for a foot, and then everything stopped in a swirl of dust. His little legs moved in midair as I yanked him backwards so that some of his weight rested on a wooden support that was still unyielding.
Gasping, I turned my head to look at the Burned Man, certain that he would take the opportunity to stab me in the back or worse. But Tate was fleeing the building, holding his severed limb under his opposite arm.
“Have the spiders heal that,” I hissed and pulled Elan up into my arms. I dropped the sword to bind the cut on Elan’s collarbone. I had scored the child when I sliced off Tate’s arm. Elan was crying and clutching me frantically as if he was afraid to let me go.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Elan,” I muttered crazily. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I swear Sinclair will patch you up as good as new, and it’ll be all right.”
I had awkwardly gathered the child up before there was a deafening whoosh of noise. The back of the building went up in a burst of heat, light, and flames. Dimly, I perceived that Tate had set the building on fire. Maybe it had been Plan B.
And the pixies were streaming out one of the broken windows as if demons were flying on their heels. Spring was singing at me in a rushed, loud scream of noise, but I couldn’t understand. I didn’t really need to understand. Without hesitation, I jumped through the closest opening and landed in a heap with Elan in my arms.
I quickly made my way to my feet. The Japanese broadsword was still in the blazing building and would remain there. There was no way I was leaving Elan alone. Looking around, there was no sight of Tate, and another sound suddenly started that made shivers rush down the entire length of my spine.
The spiders that had been left trapped in the building were screaming.
There was a spotted trail of blood leading to the north, well away from the both of us, and I stopped to treat Elan far from the building burning merrily behind us. The wound was minor. The two-inch-long cut wouldn’t even need stitches, but I felt certain that no one was going to let me forget that one anytime soon. Frowning with worry twisting my guts, I muttered, “I’m so sorry, Elan. I wouldn’t have cut you if I…”
Elan threw his arms around my neck and cried as if his heart was broken. The pixies circled us anxiously. Through Elan’s tormented words, I could hear him saying that he was sorry. It was his fault that he had gone into the redwoods alone. “No, no,” I said. “I should have taken you to the pixies. They wouldn’t have minded.”
After a while, Elan’s cries trickled away. Blotting his eyes with the sleeve of his blue coat, he pulled his head back and whispered, “They wouldn’t?”
“Look,” I said, pointing up. “They came for you.”
Elan wiped his eyes and looked up. Spring buzzed his face and tried to smile at him, but she was horrible at the human act. I don’t think Elan minded, however. There was a tentative smile from the child that warmed my heart. Coming to my feet, I wrapped him around my body and started to head back to the trail. I didn’t know where Tate was located, but I thought that help would be coming soon.
“Sak!” Spring said triumphantly from above me. Her little wings fluttered and swished in conquest as if she had bested me in mortal combat. My eyes rolled, and I wondered if she knew what that meant.
“Good,” I sang. “Little-Man-With-Big-Eyes-And-Hurt-Smile needs water and food. Go tell Zach to hurry his cute little tushie up.”
Spring buzzed my face. “Soophee says the word ‘tushie,’ but the sisters don’t understand it.”
“Never mind,” I murmured. Waving the pixies along, I looked around and saw that the old building was starting to fall. The large rocks were falling away as wood supports below burned. We crossed the bridge that I had run over before, and I stopped to adjust Elan on my body. I wasn’t large, and he wasn’t small. Even if my back was screaming, I didn’t want to put him down yet. So I sat against a tree, carefully checking for spiders, and waited.
The sun was on its way down in the west, and the brisk wind was lowering the temperature again. I closed my eyes and let myself smell Elan’s hair. An awful lassitude came over me, and I could have fallen asleep right there if someone hadn’t knelt beside me and cupped his hand over my cheek. My eyes opened and saw Zach staring at me solemnly.
“I’m sorry about Daniel,” I said, and he jerked visibly.
Then his throat swallowed convulsively. “Where’s the Burned Man? I see a trail of blood, but…”
“I don’t know where he is,” I answered. Kara stumbled into sight. She froze into a standstill as she saw us. She saw that Elan was alive, and her eyes closed in thankfulness.
“It’s Tate,” I said. “He’s the Burned Man. Somehow he was healed, same as I was. But I don’t think he’ll be bothering us for a little while.”
Zach stared at me. He wanted to ask the questions I had already asked. But he had seen too many odd and weird things in the last months to really disbelieve me. “What healed him?” he asked instead.
Good question. “The spider things you saw before,” I said. “They like to eat the same things he does.”
Kara grimaced. “That sick…” she said and then covered her mouth. “Is Elan hurt?”
I grimaced. “He’s cut on his collarbone.”
“That rotten, no good…” Kara said, hunkering down beside us. She brushed her hand over Elan’s forehead. Elan had fallen asleep in my arms. The poor little guy had been so wired for days that relief was like a shot of morphine for him. He crashed, and he crashed hard.
“Oh, Tate didn’t do that,” I said tiredly. “I did.”
Zach’s head snapped up. “You cut Elan?”
I rubbed my hand over Elan’s hair. “I wasn’t trying to.” Oh, here was where I was going to get myself in trouble big time. How to explain that I sliced Elan while cutting off Tate’s arm in order to make Tate let Elan go? I could have thought about it for hours and probably still not have come up with a diplomatic way of elucidation. It turned out that Elan wasn’t quite all the way asleep.
“Accident,” Elan muttered. “She cut off his arm. That wasn’t an accident.”
“What?” Zach bit out.
Elan sleepily looked up. “It was the only way, Zach,” he said drowsily. “That guy wouldn’t have let me go. So Sophie cut off his arm with the sword. After she killed about a million of those icky spiders.”
Zach glared at me. I shrugged.
Kara laughed.
“We can’t stay here,” I said after a minute of non-communication. Zach was furious with me. Kara didn’t know what to say to continue being neutral. Elan fell back asleep.
Finally, Zach took Elan from me, and we headed north again. We were following in the footsteps of the Burned Man, but I didn’t feel threatened. The light faded before we could see where the blood trail led. We camped off the trail and took turns keeping watch. The pixies buzzed away to return to the midnight pool with my effusive thanks, although Spring was distinctly annoyed with me.
In the morning, Ethan and a team of four men found us, and I had to endure explan
ations all over again. Zach was irritated at Ethan enough to take him back to the burned out mill to show him the bodies of the spiders and the webs that still survived. When they returned to our group, they reported that the spiders had most likely fled because they had seen no evidence of live ones.
Elan was in a much better mood and cheerful as we hiked back to the camp in the redwoods. It took most of the afternoon, and it was nearly evening when we walked into a camp alive with people and fires.
However, five minutes after we arrived, Gideon was explaining to me why I would have to be exiled for my transgressions, and then I had another premonition that was so strong I nearly fell on my face.
