Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3)

by Bartholomew Lander

  Kara leaned her head back against the seat. “I think it’s around four?”

  Great. That meant they were almost to Carland, assuming the initial schedule had not been delayed. She’d finally be able to stretch out, and hopefully eat. Each breath filled her empty stomach with hordes of stinging needles. She couldn’t tell if the sick feeling was hunger, motion sickness, or anxiety. Once the initial rush of fervor had run dry, she’d been left with the hollow realization of how wrong this whole endeavor felt. Their parents must have been worried to death, and she’d been nauseous off and on since that thought first entered her mind. She envied Kara’s carefree nature; since they’d departed, the spark of twice-extinguished childlike joy had again begun to shine in the girl’s eyes. And yet Spinneretta now felt only apprehension and guilt.

  The harsh scent of sweat and stale Cheetos wafted in from behind them. The dim fluorescent lights overhead illuminated little more than the metal panels they were built into. Looking at them was giving her a headache, and so she leaned her forehead against the window, closed her eyes, and breathed out the stagnant poison in her stomach. Each bump and pit in the road echoed in the vibration of the window, and in turn reached her quivering gut. This is how it has to be, she thought. But no matter how many times she repeated it, she couldn’t convince herself.

  “Do you think Mom and Dad are mad?” Kara asked.

  Spinneretta cringed. “Don’t tell me learning your memories are fake made you psychic.” When Kara didn’t answer, she opened her eyes and turned back to her. A pained look awaited her. Her heart sank. “Sorry. I didn’t . . . I was just thinking about that, I mean.”

  Kara slouched, propping her feet up against the back of the seat in front of her. “It’s fine.” To Spinneretta’s surprise, she didn’t sound at all mopey. “I think I’ve been looking at things all wrong up until now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She smiled just a little. “Even if my memories are fake, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make me any more of a monster. It makes me special. Like the heroine of a story. Like, they made me. But they didn’t know I would come back and destroy them.” She giggled. “It’s cool if I think about it like that. And I think that nothing else can bother me as long as I remember that I’m not alone, you know? I’ve got you and Cinnamon, and after we take care of the King and go home we can all be together again.”

  Spinneretta swallowed hard. Going home. Could she dare to hope? The stirring laughter in the back of her mind sure didn’t think so. But to see the hope written on Kara’s face—to hear it ring out in her words—stoked the embers of belief in her own heart. That Kara had wallowed in despair and come full circle to something resembling her old self was telling. Spinneretta had always thought her sister was immature for her age, but for the first time she saw a ghost of an adult in her.

  But that thought was short-lived; Kara’s optimism wasn’t maturity. It was foolishness. No more, no less.

  First sun stained the twilight. When the black sky dissolved into a deep blue, the lights of a town appeared out the bus window. An old wooden sign emblazoned with the words Now Entering Carland zoomed by. Squinting at the dark purple of the sky, Spinneretta could just make out a vast plain beyond a wall of black, feathery trees. Jagged crags on the horizon rose to catch the faintest glints of the morning sun.

  The bus pulled to the side of the road. The suggestion of scenic beauty vanished behind the starkly lit plaster walls of a bus depot. Spinneretta only realized how loud the rumbling of the engine and road had been when they cut into an abrupt silence that left her ears ringing. There came a pneumatic hiss as the doors at the front of the bus slid open. Some passengers were already scrambling to their feet and heading for the door. The bus driver clasped a hand-held microphone, and a clip of static came over the overhead speakers.

  “Attention, passengers. We have arrived in Carland, Colorado. We will be departing for Colorado Springs in thirty minutes, at five forty-five local time. If you are hungry, please enjoy an early breakfast at The Jerkin’ Rooster: so delicious it’ll make your head spin. You can also find a Java Drip just outside the loading area, for all you caffeine addicts. Once again, thank you for choosing Wayfarer, America’s value bus line.”

  The transmission cut off. Kara leaned her head against the seat in front of her and arched her back—a poor attempt at stretching. “How much farther is Colorado Springs?”

  Spinneretta raised her arms above her head. Beneath Mark’s jacket, her spider legs were desperate to unfurl and relieve her trapped muscles. “Should only be a couple hours more, I think.”

  “Why do we have to stop here? Can’t we just go all the way?”

  “Maybe it’s illegal to go a certain length of time without giving people the chance to eat? Besides, weren’t you just complaining about wanting to have a stop?”

  Kara blinked at her. “Was I?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I dreamed it.” Though her dreams hadn’t been so innocent as of late.

  The flood of passengers gushing from behind them finally ceased. Kara and Spinneretta rose clumsily, grabbed their baggage, and began making their way toward the front. But as the line in front of them slowly snaked down the steps and out the door, the bus driver turned and rose from his seat.

  “May I have a word, ma’am.” His stern tone made it clear it was not a question. He was a stocky man whose white and blue uniform could barely contain his girth. Snow-white stubble stood upon his chin, and every muscle in his face was rigid with the veneer of authority.

  Spinneretta’s heart began to beat in her ears. She fell back a step, trying desperately to read the severity in his expression. Had he received a tip-off of who they really were? Had her parents actually gone to the police looking for them, despite the risks that it carried?

  The bus driver tilted his head to the side and slid a step forward. His lips bowed in a disgusted frown. “Just as I thought. You know what you did. Don’t try to deny it, you two saw the damned signs when you got on the bus.”

  Her confusion momentarily eclipsed her fear of being discovered. “Huh? Sign?”

  He snarled, and deep valleys formed beneath his unforgiving eyes. “Don’t you huh me,” he spat. “There are no pets on any Wayfarer buses.”

  “Pet?” Kara said. “We don’t have a pet!” She swung her duffel bag protectively to her other side, placing herself between Cinnamon and the man. Spinneretta cringed at her brazen lack of subtlety, her teeth on edge.

  “Don’t give me that shit. Another passenger told me she saw you feeding something in that bag.”

  “Hey,” Spinneretta said, “hold on a second.” Her lungs were at once starved. “Let’s not get carried away with anything.”

  But the driver, desperately clinging to what authority he had, lunged forward and seized the strap of the bag with one huge hand.

  Kara pulled hard on the strap, but the driver’s fingers didn’t budge. “Let go!” she yelled.

  Spinneretta gasped. She saw the spider legs beneath Kara’s jacket ruffling. “Wait, stop, both of you. Let’s talk about—”

  “No pets are allowed,” he repeated, “on any Wayfarer bus. And if you’ve got a pet, then Carland is as far as you go. Nobody’s going a foot farther on my bus without obeying the damn rules! Your tickets are void, so take your damn dog and get the hell off!”

  Heart pounding harder than ever, Spinneretta raised her palms toward him. “Okay, okay, wait, just relax, okay?”

  But Kara was anything but relaxed. She pulled on the duffel bag’s strap with both hands. “She’s not a dog! Let go of Cinnamon!”

  The blood drained from Spinneretta’s face. “Kara! Shut up!” She grabbed her sister’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s just—”

  “I knew it. Carland’s as far as you go,” the bus driver said again, smiling a deranged grin. He looked like an addict who had just found a basket of cocaine-filled Twinkies. Lips pulled back, he leered at the zipper. “Let’s see what your cute little puppy
looks like, then.”

  Spinneretta’s whole body went rigid. “No!”

  Kara screamed at him to let go. She pulled back as hard as she could on the strap, and the bag flopped over to one side, suspended between the opposing forces of his hand and her arms. Ignoring her resistance, the driver’s bulging fingers took hold of the zipper and threw it open, giving the bag a final, cruel twist.

  A feral shriek tore through the sound of Kara’s voice. Flashes of brown split the sides of the duffel bag. A wild blur severed the strap. As the resistance vanished, Kara fell backward into Spinneretta, throwing her off-balance. They both toppled to the floor of the bus in a dizzy heap. The fabric of the bag fell to the side, ribbons flapping like tattered war banners. The thing within twisted in the air and landed gracefully upon the floor.

  The bus driver’s eyes went wide in horror when he saw the eight legs splayed wide beneath the seats of the aisle. A bestial snarl, beneath which rumbled a series of disjointed clicks, rolled off the Leng cat. The driver screamed. He leapt backward as fast as his tree-trunk legs would allow, but tripped. The entire bus rocked as he slammed into the floor. “What the hell is that!?”

  Cinnamon opened her mouth wider and bellowed a shrill, ghastly scream, revealing the forest of spine-like fangs within. The sound racked Spinneretta with shivers—it was the scream of the hunting adults from Zigmhen. The Leng cat scuttled forward in the blink of an eye, legs clattering against the floor. The driver’s cries of terror grew hoarse and deafening. He raised his arms to protect his face from the attack as the beast leapt upon him.

  “Cinnamon!” Kara shouted as she fought to her feet again, jacket half-slipping from her shoulders. “Heel!”

  Half-mounted on the supine bus driver, deadly fangs bared, Cinnamon paused and turned her head back toward the girls. Though the man was still as a statue, his voice now a droning whisper, a chorus of shouts from outside now filled the void.

  Panic thundered in Spinneretta’s veins. Several people stared in through the door to the bus like gawkers at a sideshow. Their hushed cries of wonder and terror broke against the pounding rhythm of her pulse. Her eyes darted back and forth between Cinnamon and the open door. Panic overtook her. There was no hiding this now. The screams from outside sounded like they came from all directions at once as she used one of the seats to stand herself back up.

  Spinneretta lurched forward and grabbed Kara’s arm. “We’re going!” She rushed past her sister and the beast, stumbling over the bus driver and making their way to the door. Cinnamon hot on their heels, they bounded down the steps and hit the ground running. The cool morning air embraced her, and the sea of rubber-necking passengers parted as though struck by the staff of Moses. Their shouts and cries swirled in a deafening typhoon.

  “What is that?” she heard a woman shouting.

  “Dear God!”

  “¡Chupacabras! ¡La leyenda es verdad!”

  She set her eyes on the darkness between the two buildings of the bus terminal, toward the inky smudge in the distance where the sky met the undeveloped plains. Voices rang, echoing off the buildings. Kara yelled at her to slow down, but she wouldn’t. Cinnamon was snapping a feral anthem. Her bag bounced on her shoulder with each step, trying to wrench her arm away from her sister’s. And yet the three semi-spiders ran on until the concrete under their feet turned to gravel, then dirt, then grass. The revealing light of the depot receded to a glow and then a pinpoint behind them.

  They did not stop running until their sides cramped and ached, and the brightening twilight showed no trace of the civilization they left behind.

  I tell myself that it is providence. That I was created by Mother Raxxinoth to further an original goal of melding man and spider into one. If not for that, then how is it that I exist? And how is it that I happened upon the miraculous artifacts of the timeless dark?

  And so I go forth from here, following the path of least resistance. Though I try to believe that I do only that which I have been charged by the Overspider, I am unable to shake some seed of doubt. Is it possible that my motives are truly selfish? Perhaps somewhere deep in my core I am thrilled by the prospect. Is it wrong that, after being utterly alone for so long, I wish to at last be accepted? To be among my own?

  Chapter 16

  Hide

  What the hell am I doing? Kyle thought. This is just about the craziest thing I could possibly do right now. Fuck, my career’s already six feet under. What happens if anyone finds out I’m abetting two runaway teenagers? The rolling dips in the road rose and fell along with the pit in his stomach. Outside the car windows, the suggestive shadows of Joshua trees and rattleweed loomed against the dark sky, slithering in and out of view as they flashed by the headlights’ periphery. The distant blue tint that had just begun staining the sky filled him with dread. When dawn came, would he find himself under arrest? Or would he find the proof he needed to rebuild what ruins remained of his life?

  He glanced at the mahogany-haired girl sitting in the passenger seat. Her green eyes were set dead ahead, a grim severity etched in her face. She’d looked like that for the better part of five hours. The smell of dragon fruit flooded the car as she took a sip of her gas station energy drink. “So,” Kyle said. “Want to talk about something?”

  She gave him a weary look—one that suggested she may have been second-guessing the whole ordeal. “What about?”

  He shrugged. His gaze shot to the rear-view mirror. The black-haired girl was asleep in the back. “How about telling me about this Spinneretta girl? What was it like growing up with her? I mean, why didn’t anyone know about her until . . . ?”

  Amanda looked out the window. “That’s a hard question. I remember the first day at school in Mount Hedera. She was sitting all alone in one corner of the class, looking scared. Everyone thought she was strange because of the legs. But nobody seemed to think it all that bizarre, and so I didn’t either. It’s like when you’re a kid, you’re just going along with what everyone else is doing. The teacher didn’t make a big deal of it and told us it was fine, and soon enough we didn’t care. Though some of us thought it was scary or cool or whatever. By the end of the first week, Chelsea and I had become friends with her. And that’s that.”

  Kyle scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. Surely somebody must have realized how fucking weird she was. Her existence turns science on its damn head, and you’re telling me every single person just took that in stride?”

  “I don’t really understand it either. All I can think is that somebody really wanted them kept secret. And by the time I realized it, it was way too late to matter.” She gave a dry laugh. “I mean, what was I supposed to do? Call the National Inquirer and offer my best friend up to become a martyr to science?”

  Martyr to science. Was he being heartless? The thought that he’d have done it in a moment struck him at once as sinful. That terribly named girl, even if she was a biological miracle, even if she was the spawn of May and motherfucking Ralph Warren, was a human being. Did she not deserve a normal life? As normal as a spider-girl could have, anyway. And if revealing her to the world would trade her freedom for his career, was that not an equally heartless proposition?

  The smell of dragon fruit came again. “Mind if I ask you something now?” the girl asked.

  “Shoot.”

  “Why did they go to you when they were on the run?”

  He squinted, suddenly all too aware of the stains on his glasses. “Let’s just say her parents and I have history.” He bit the last word off and let it hang in the air, heavy and venomous.

  Amanda didn’t say anything further.

  With a sigh, he ground his teeth. What am I doing snapping at a kid about my own damn problems? Why can’t I just let things go? Perhaps because it was too late. He’d already traded too much to go back now. He soon found himself wondering how his ex-wife and daughter were doing.

  A moment of zero gravity as they crested another of the rolling hills. He didn’t know if it was the motion or the
memories that were making him sick. “About an hour to Manix,” he said, attempting to dissolve the tension. “Mind filling me in on the plan for when we get there?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll figure it out when we arrive.”

  “Figure it out? Seriously? That’s what I’m risking my ass for, you figuring it out?” He breathed out through his nose. “Well, in any case, we should stop for something to eat. There’s an all-hours breakfast lodge in Barstow. What do you say?”

  She stared at the horizon and gave a small nod. “Yeah. Okay.”

  Annika sighed. The morning sun was low on the horizon, but it was still dark in the bus depot, where the shadows of stout office buildings leaned. Damn, wish I’d brought my trench coat, she thought with a shiver. She leaned against a concrete pillar of the depot. Her stomach growled, her head hurt, and she hated everything. The big hand on the wall-mounted analogue clock snapped to six. Any moment now.

  Up ahead, a large and suspiciously punctual bus rounded the corner of a busy intersection, its headlights gleaming like two overlarge eyes set into some cartoonish visage. She didn’t need to check the number; the buses coming to the Wayfarer depot were few and far enough between that this could only be the one. Arthr stood a few feet away, glancing nervously to and fro. It took him several moments longer to notice the coming bus. “Hey, there’s one,” he announced uselessly.

  “Uh-huh. Get behind something. Don’t let yourself be seen.” She strode toward the curb and waited behind one of the foremost pillars supporting the wavy metal overhang.

  The paired lines of early birds awaiting transport had begun putting away their snacks and books, and taking up their bags and luggage. Several agonizing moments passed, and finally the bus entered the depot’s roundabout and pulled up to the loading area, machinery screeching as it came to a stop. A woman’s voice came through the speaker embedded higher up the pillar, instructing the loading passengers to wait patiently while riders were allowed to exit. Then, the door slid open.