Ria's Web of Lies: A Ria Miller Urban Fantasy (Ria Miller and the Monsters Book 1)

by Nigel Henry

  "Remove your finger, Ms. Miller," Foster stresses. I do, only to walk back to my seat and sit down just as the period bell rings. Students come flooding in, forcing Foster to put on a smile as he moves back behind his desk.

  I keep watching him the whole time, but there's no smile on my face.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I'M in my car the moment the last period bell rings and within minutes I'm tearing down the highway headed toward lower Manhattan. I'm heading to Mr. Foster's apartment, and I'm trusting my Honda to get me downtown faster than the subway will for him. Inspector Perkins needs proof? I'll give him proof in spades. No one else is going to get hurt by Carl Foster.

  The phone rings as I hit 86th Street. It's Ariana. "Where are you?" she asks as I take the call over Bluetooth.

  "What?"

  "Science club! The trip to the Museum of Natural History?"

  Crap. "Oh, sorry. Something came up. I can't make it."

  "Are you serious? The other members are out sick with a stomach bug. It's just me and Will! We need you?"

  "You got Will to come?"

  "Only because he thought you were going!"

  I roll my eyes. "Listen, try to have fun without me. This is really important."

  "RIIIAAAA!"

  "I'll make it up to you! Gotta go."

  I hang up before she can lay the guilt on thicker and focus on getting downtown as quickly as possible.

  So here's my plan: I'm going to break into Foster's apartment and tear it apart until I find some proof that he was behind the abductions. That's it. I'll probably try to get lost before he comes home and catches me red-handed. Then again, if I find what I'm looking for, I might stay behind just to stab him. We'll see how it goes, I guess.

  I pulled up the maps app on my phone before I started driving. Turns out Second Place is a ritzy area downtown, near the World Trade Center. I do a quick search for apartment prices in the area, and let's just say my folks would have to work overtime for a couple of lifetimes to afford it. Which of course raises the question: how can Mr. Foster, a high school math teacher, afford it? Just another thing that doesn't add up.

  Traffic's not too bad going down, and Second Place is a straight shot on the West Side highway from Inwood, so I get to the neighborhood in about a half-hour. Of course, I don't have any luck finding a parking spot, so I have to blow the last of my weekly allowance putting the car in a garage. Twenty-five bucks for four hours! I swear to God, if the monsters don't kill you in New York City, the prices will.

  Foster's building is at the end of a Cul de Sac that sits just in front of Battery Park. It's a little hard to get around without being spotted, but I manage to sneak into the building's parking garage—THIS BUILDING HAS ITS OWN PARKING—and make my way up to the fourth floor. There's cameras all over the place, so I've gotta work double-time to stay in their blindspots. Even then, I keep my hood up and my mask on.

  After what feels like forever, I arrive at a black steel door marked 4S that sits at the end of a long, carpeted hallway. This is the place listed on Foster's ID. Suddenly, it occurs to me that this ID might be outdated and I have a momentary panic attack. Man, he may be a kidnapping piece of garbage, but I hope he at least has the patience to deal with a trip to the DMV every once and a while.

  The door's locked, as expected. That's no biggie for me; my folks taught me how to pick a lock when I was fourteen. It takes thirty seconds and then I'm in. Thankfully, Foster doesn't deadbolt. Inspector Perkins would be rolling over in his metaphorical grave right about now.

  Foster's place is large but sparse. The walls are still painted white, and there are no paintings or photos to be seen anywhere. The back wall of the living room is completely windowed, but it's also completely curtained. The living's room devoid of furniture except for two rickety wooden chairs. So he has a baller pad but no decor. What a waste.

  I slowly creep through the living room, taking pains to make sure I'm not stumbling into any cameras or motion-sensitive alarms when my foot steps down on something other than carpet. I glance down and see a pair of black women's flats. Man, I hope those don't belong to Marcela or Camila.

  I keep moving, past an unfurnished bathroom that's still nicer than any place I've ever peed in until I arrive at what I can only assume is the bedroom. The door is closed. I put my hand on the knob, take a deep breath, and open it.

  I stop dead in my tracks.

  There's no bed in here, of course. What is here are six huge balls of something, dangling from the ceiling. It looks like some kind of fabric as if some gigantic grandma knitted huge cocoons.

  I draw my knife and approach one. I'm gonna have to open it. But before I do, I move over to the bedroom window, pull back the curtain and peer out the window. Another important lesson of monster hunting: always make sure there's a second exit. In this case, the bedroom and living room windows lead to a fire escape that runs across to the living room before heading down. I unlock the window. If I need to leave in a hurry, this is my way out.

  Now, with that out of the way, I can turn my attention back to the...balls? I get close to one and pull out my phone to flip on the flashlight. It's then that I see what they're really made of, and it's not yarn. It's silk.

  Everything inside me is yelling for me to back away and get my parents, but I know I can't. Even if Foster is a monster, he knows I'm on to him, and if I leave now, he might not stick around for us to come back in full force.

  Okay, Ria Miller. Time to do your job.

  I cut into the ball and my hand touches the silk. It's then that I really realize what this is.

  It's webbing.

  It's a huge spider web.

  No sooner do I realize that does the ball rip open and something falls out, almost knocking me over. I look down and hold back the vomit that threatens to stain the carpet.

  It's a body.

  I turn it over with my shoe, and sure enough, it's Emilio Castro. Or what's left of him. He looks used up, like something stuck a straw in him and sucked until there was nothing left.

  I dig out my hunter phone and snap a photo of the body. I send it to Dad before cutting the other sacs open. More bodies fall out. Joining Emilio is Camila, Marcela, Kian, and two others I don't recognize.

  They're all here.

  They're all dead.

  Shit.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  MY PHONE BUZZES with a with a text response from Dad. What am I looking at?

  Foster house, I reply. Bodies in spider webs.

  GET OUT OF THERE NOW, comes the all-caps response.

  "Yeah, no shit, sherlock," I say aloud. Still, I can't leave just yet. I have to find out something more about Foster. I need to know what he is. Maybe there's something around here that will give me a clue. You know, besides the giant freaking spider cocoons.

  And for the record, yes; I know this is how every teenage girl dies in horror movies. But give me some credit, I've killed more than my share of monsters. Hell, I hope that one day monsters make a horror movie where I'm the big bad and they all scream in fear when I'm on screen.

  I exit the bedroom, leaving the door open behind me because fuck it, and I examine the kitchen. There's some mail on the breakfast bar. Credit card offers, cell phone bills, and such. Nothing personally useful. I look in the drawers but find nothing other than a couple of forks and spoons.

  I'm about to head to the closet when I hear a jingle at the front door. Shit, he's here.

  I consider staying and stabbing, but I'm not exactly sure what he is, so there's no guarantee that'll even work. So I decide to get out while the getting is good. I backtrack to the bedroom and close the door before I hear the front door open. Then I scoot out through the window and onto the fire escape. I cross it slowly, to make sure there's no creaking while I'm outside the living room, and then I book it once I get to the third floor. In no time I'm on solid ground headed out of Battery Park and back to my car.

  I pull out my hunter phone and dial Dad. "Tell me you've got a
clue about what I'm dealing with."

  "Where are you? Tell me you're not calling from his house."

  "I got out. What is he?"

  I can hear Dad's sigh through the receiver. "I don't know. I've never seen anything like this before. He's clearly not a troll, ghost, werewolf, or vampire."

  "I'm clear on that. What do I do about it?"

  "Get out of there. Do not engage with it until we we've figured out what the hell it is and what it wants."

  "But he already knows that someone's been to his apartment. What if he packs up and leaves before you guys get down here?"

  "Then we'll track him and find him, the same way we've tracked every other monster in this city. But for now, get out of there."

  "Fine," I huff. "I'm on my way back." I hang up as I reach my car. I start fumbling around my pockets, looking for my keys. I feel something metallic and pull it out. It's the spare cell tracker. No good.

  I keep searching until I notice a reflection appear in my car window. It's man-shaped, with ear-length brown hair that parts in the eyes.

  Shit. He found me.

  I duck out of the way a moment before he drives a fist through my car window. I'm facing him a moment later, my baton out and extended.

  "You just couldn't leave well enough alone, could you, Mariah?" He pulls his arm out of the shattered window. It's covered in gashes and bleeding green blood.

  I eye the wound. "What the hell are you?"

  "You don't know? I thought you'd seen it all. After all, you killed a werewolf, didn't you?"

  He charges at me, fists flying. He's fast, and it takes all of my concentration to avoid getting hit. Still, I can hear the sound as his fists cut through the wind by my head.

  I go low with the baton, batting at his knee. There's a crack as I snap the knee cap. I follow it up by sweeping his leg out from under him. He falls backward but shoots his hand backward to catch himself. For a half-second, he's there, holding himself up with his hands and his good leg, looking like a demented contortionist, or some kind of freaky insect. I'm willing to bet he's the latter.

  I attack, trying not to give him a chance to recover.

  Here's the deal: if lesson one of demon hunting is "don't mess with things you don't know how to kill", lesson two is "if cornered, attack with everything you've got and figure out how to kill on the fly." Now that Foster's made up his mind to come after me, I can't let him gain the upper hand.

  At that, I slam the baton into his left hand with all of my strength. The blow vibrates through the concrete and back up my arm, but I very clearly hear his fingers break.

  I turn to his face and I bring the baton down, but he reaches out and grabs it with his broken hand at the last moment, yanking it out of my grasp and tossing it aside.

  Okay, so broken bones aren't a big deal to this guy, whatever he is.

  "You're going to die, little girl," he snarls.

  "Why does every monster say that like it's supposed to scare me? We're all going to die!"

  I reach down to my thigh for my knife, but my hand comes up empty. Foster then raises his good hand, showing off my blade. "Looking for something?"

  Okay, that was actually a good trick. And I should probably mention right about now that I'm moving from "in a bad situation"-junction to "things are fucked"-ville pretty quickly.

  Foster tosses the knife under my car and squares up to face me. "Look at you with all your weapons. Did you come here to kill me? Did you actually think you could?"

  "I thought about it," I say. Without my weapons, I've got virtually no chance to kill this thing. I need to get away, which means I need it to make a mistake. So I need it to keep talking.

  "You never had a shot, child," Foster snarls. "You will die like the pathetic children you fought to save."

  He delivers a right cross. I duck but walk right into a jab. The blow lands in my eye and stars explode across my vision. I take a step back and shake my head. I open my eye again in time to see Foster wind up and deliver a haymaker that connects with my forehead. Everything goes black.

  I'm out.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  THE FIRST THING I feel as I come to is the thundering headache. My skull is throbbing, and it feels like I was punched in the head by an angry gorilla. I mean, jeez, this really hurts. It's so painful that it's hard to even see.

  Then comes nausea, so heavy and thick that I have to choke down some vomit. Or, should I say, choke up.

  I glance around, and it's only then that I realize I'm upside down. I scan the room. I'm surrounded by spider web sacs. They're all dangling from the ceiling. I look down at my chest. So am I. I try to move my arms, but it feels like I'm stuck, trapped upside down in the fetal position.

  Shit.

  I try to move, to swing the sac, to see if my weight and momentum and can bring it down. But no luck. I don't move the sac so much as I make myself sick.

  I'm coughing and gagging when the bedroom door creaks open and a stream of bright light streams in, blinding me. I shut my eyes, and that's when I hear his voice.

  "You know, swinging is the second thing they all try. Screaming's the first, obviously. But eventually they realize this place is soundproofed and yelling will do them no good, so they get to swinging and swinging."

  He closes the door and walks over to one of the sacs, touching it with his hand. "But here's the thing they don't remember about spider's webs: the more you try to escape, the more stuck you become." He turns to me, and I can see that his arm's heavily bandaged.

  "You should've kept your nose out of my business, Mariah."

  "And what?" I snap, my voice finding its strength despite my sickness. "Let you keep killing students? Let you place the blame on an innocent kid?"

  "You have to admit, you'd be in a better situation than you're in right now."

  He walks over to a closet, pulling it open and revealing my jacket. He tosses it on the ground under me, along with my mask. "You are something, though. You're the first human to track this back to me. And then you go and kill the wolf. That was unexpected."

  He nudges the mask forward with his foot. "You think yourself some kind of superhero, don't you? The mighty Mariah Miller; here to get justice for the sweet innocent children."

  "I think of myself as the girl that's going to kill you. The moment I get out of this, I'm going to grab a knife and stab it through your head."

  Foster laughs, batting a neighboring sac into mine and sending me swinging back and forth. "No, Mariah. You're not. You're going to die. Right here, in this room. I could make it quick, but because of the trouble you've caused me, I'm going to make it take as long as possible. I'll suck the life out of you very slowly. I'll bring more kids here. Like your friends, Mr. Archer and Ms. de Los Santos. I'll make you watch helplessly as I drain every bit of fluid from their bodies. And then, when you're too weak to fight and too broken to even want to live, that's when I'll end you."

  I roll my eyes. "Do you give this speech to every girl and boy you bring home? Because you should have it perfected by now, but something's just not right. I think it's your voice. Maybe you should drop it an octave."

  Mr. Foster chuckles. "Keep telling jokes, Mariah. You'll want to keep that sense of humor for as long as you can. You won't be laughing soon."

  A phone rings from out in the living room. "I've got to go get that," he says. "Don't you go anywhere. Just hang out where you are."

  "Har har, we've got a regular Hannibal Burress here."

  The moment he's gone I start swinging the web back and forth. That gets me nowhere, and I feel the panic as it starts to rise in my core. It takes everything I've got to force it back down.

  Don't you dare freak out, Ria Miller. You've been through way worse than this. Of course, at the moment I'm drawing a blank on anything that could possibly be worse.

  I try to move my arms again, but they're stuck tight. I can move my left hand, but that's about it. I give my feet a shot, but my boots don't give.

  How am
I going to get out of this?

  The door opens again, and Foster moves in. "You wouldn't believe the shit-storm you kicked up by killing that werewolf. And no one's seen the vampire. What'd you do, stake him through the heart?"

  "I think I got him in the stomach, actually. But vampires are actually pretty sta—"

  I clam up momentarily as I realize something. Foster got my coat and my hoodie before he put me in here, and I lost my knife and baton in the fight. But he left my boots on.

  I've got a stake in my boot.

  Slowly, carefully, I move my one free hand to my foot and reach for the stake. But I've gotta do something to keep Foster preoccupied.

  "I've been wondering," I say, "how does a spider-man hook up with a werewolf and a vampire? Like did you all sit next to each other at Monsters University or did you meet online? Is there like a Grindr for monsters? Would it be called Growlr?"

  Foster smirks "Let's just say the world of supernaturals is much bigger than you or any human can comprehend."

  "Oh, I don't know about that. I'm pretty open-minded about these things." My fingertips close around the stake, and I slowly pull it out and into my palm. Success! Carefully, I angle it away from me and start poking through the web. It's tough work with one hand. It's kind of like trying to cut through an entire mattress with a butter knife.

  Foster turns to one of the other sacs. "You know, I'm feeling a little famished. That fight took a lot out of me. Do you mind if I have a quick snack?"

  He raises his hand, and a claw extends from his palm. With one fluid motion, he cuts through the bag. Emilio's body tumbles out. Foster picks the body up and angles the neck near his face. "You'll want to look away for this part. Unless you're really as open-minded as you say."

  He opens his mouth and two hand-sized, hairy pincers extend out of his jaw. They dig into Emilio's neck and Foster starts sucking. The pincers are translucent, so I can see the blood and flesh as it flows into Foster.