Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3)

by Bartholomew Lander

  “I can’t say whether or not it would stop them. But it would stop any more cults from ever cropping up.”

  “Except that doesn’t seem to be the case at all.” Half-startled, she looked up and found herself entranced by his piercing, pale gaze. “You forget that the Dawn has no loyalty to the King. Killing the King would only empower their cause, whatever that may be.”

  She pressed her teeth together. “I didn’t forget. I didn’t know until . . . ” What day is it anyway? Time had ceased to make sense to her. “Until back there.”

  Mark made an empty gesture with his palm. “Point being, it is foolish to believe killing the King would change much of anything. At the present point in time, all it would do is rob the Vant’therax of any reason to protect you.”

  She dropped her chin into her palm and grumbled. “Think I haven’t figured that out?” Then again, was that even true? The way Silt had referred to them as her servants . . . No, that was just rhetoric to keep her in one place. It wasn’t like they actually considered her anything more than stock. “So what about you?” she asked, desperate to change the subject. “How did you find me, anyway?” His gaze penetrated her feeble defense, and for a tense moment she thought he wouldn’t allow her to slip away.

  At last, he exhaled and leaned back in his chair. “As soon as I heard you’d gone missing, it wasn’t too hard to make a connection to the Yellow Dawn’s ultimatum on that entertainment show. Annika went after you, and I headed for Manix as fast as I could. I expected to find the cult. But when I got to the plaza, I instead found one of the Vant’therax waiting for me. As soon as I showed up, he told me to follow him north and then took off in a shadow-puddle. And that brings us full circle.”

  She buried her face between her fingers and chuckled helplessly. “Wait, you saw the ultimatum? At the same time? Guess that explains how Annika figured it out so quick. God, what insane luck. I mean, what are the freakin’ odds you’d have seen the announcement at the same time I did?”

  Mark looked up from the table’s surface, his face blank. “I don’t believe odds have the slightest thing to do with it.”

  “Huh?”

  “The night you vanished, he visited me. In my motel.”

  “He?” Spinneretta gasped. Somehow, she knew at once of whom he spoke. A preternatural shiver assaulted her; the air turned frigid, and she began to click the tips of her legs together. “The Cheshire Man.”

  He nodded. “When he left, the TV turned on, and the Dawn’s ultimatum was playing. He wanted me to see it. I think he wanted me to come after you. But why?”

  Spinneretta’s mouth was dry. She stared at him incredulously, memories from that night resurfacing. “Oh my God. No, it can’t be that simple. Right after I talked to you that night, I went to take a shower. But when I came back into my room, my TV was on. But I know that I had turned it off. And that was when . . . ”

  “Wait. You’re telling me that . . . ” He crossed his arms and lowered his chin. “Indeed, it seems things are not so simple. If he was responsible for us both seeing the ultimatum, then what could that mean? And now that I think on it, didn’t the leader of the Vant’therax say something odd?” He nodded in thought. “We were told you’d be coming. What could that—”

  Mark’s head jerked hard to one side, his words morphing into a growl. One hand flew to his temple, knocking his plate of pizza to the floor as he stumbled halfway out of his chair from the unseen shock.

  Spinneretta was on her feet before he had finished recoiling. “Whoa, are you okay?”

  He held the palm of his other hand out toward her and nodded. “Y-yes. Just the magic.” A few breaths between his teeth later, his eyes opened again. That was when Spinneretta noticed the tomato-sauce-colored capillaries leading to his irises and the dark lines beneath his eyelids.

  She rushed to his side, her hands grabbing at his shoulders and steadying him with her spider legs. “Hey, hold on. You need rest, alright? This can’t be good for you.”

  A shiver started at the base of his neck and worked its way down to his hips. “I’m fine. I just—”

  “This isn’t what fine looks like!” When he tried to turn away, she grabbed his head in her anterior legs and turned his face back to her. “Look at me.” He didn’t speak. He just stared at her with his pale brown eyes, their fringes shining brightly with bloodshot branches. They hadn’t been there a moment before, she was certain. Her desperate fervor to lay the legacy of the King to rest vanished, and Mark’s state of health became her sole concern. “Jesus, Mark, you need sleep, right now.”

  He shook his head and found her hand at his shoulder. His fingers wrapped around hers; she thought he was steadying himself. “I’m fine,” he said again. “I can’t sleep now. I have to make sure you don’t run away until Annika gets here.”

  “Holy shit, do you seriously think I’m going to leave you in this state? What do you think of me?” Her spider legs grappled his trunk and she hauled him away from the wall. She stumbled under his weight before he finally got his legs steady beneath him.

  With a groan he slumped over her, one arm bracing against the wall. “Hold on, what are you—”

  “Shut up. I’m putting you to bed. I’m not going to let you kill yourself over me.” She held her breath and attacked him below his center of gravity. With his balance compromised, she heaved him onto the bed.

  He hit the ruffled sheets and tried to sit back up. “Spinny, I can sleep later.”

  “No, you can sleep now.” Another heave of her anterior legs sent him to the pillow again.

  His strength visibly deteriorated as he cringed and tried once more to right himself. “No. Too much to do. Have to find Kara and . . . the cult, and the Vant’therax, and—”

  “Shut up and go to sleep!” One more push and he fell to the bed without a struggle. She watched him for a few moments, expecting him to awake and continue resisting. Soon, his breathing slowed and normalized. His pained expression faded, and his muscles seemed to relax.

  Spinneretta leaned over him, a smile forcing itself upon her lips. How hard had he pushed himself to reach her? How much pain had he held back on his journey here? On one level, she was immensely thankful for it; on another, she detested that she had brought this upon him. And on yet another, she felt her worries and heart melting as she looked at his sleeping face. She gently brushed her palm along his jawline. It had been at least a few days since he’d shaved, and his stubble scratched at her hand. It was a surprisingly addictive sensation. Her partially rejuvenated mind began to flood with the first traces of the Instinct. Fuck, why is he allowed to do this to me? She shook her head and stood up, determined not to let her hormones and the Instinct cloud her judgment. There were more important things to worry about.

  Kara. She was still out there somewhere, and now there were two separate spider cults chasing her down. Though the Vant’therax wouldn’t harm her sister, she couldn’t bring herself to trust them. But right now, the only way they were going to find Kara before calamity struck was by putting some degree of faith in the Vant’therax.

  And yet, something else now pervaded her thoughts. It was an enigma that until now had existed only on the periphery of her worries. The Cheshire Man. During NIDUS’s pursuit and the lockdown, she’d seen little danger from the purple specter, anomalous though his presence had been. After all, he had been the one to kill Simon Dwyre and deliver to them his copy of the Repton Scriptures. But if he was the one responsible for Mark heading out to find her—and for her seeing the cult’s ultimatum in the first place—then something was amiss. What was he? And more importantly, what was he after?

  After a brief shower, Spinneretta sat outside, her back against the motel room’s door. The setting sun brought a slight chill to the breeze, which felt amazing when it deigned to caress her still-damp hair. Beyond the parking lot’s sun-bleached asphalt, clusters of buildings crowded around the swerving roads of the desert town they’d ended up in. All the buildings seemed to be made of
the same slate-gray concrete, the only deviants being the oddly colored houses arranged in neat rows far off in the distance. Dunes topped by thatches of dead weeds stretched on and on, a sand ocean frozen in the midst of a tempest. Farther toward the horizon, the same white-streaked mountains she’d gazed upon in Manix rose from the desert. A billboard nearby, half-eaten by the elements, displayed only the one word: Elucine.

  And for a long while Spinneretta just sat there, watching birds flutter overhead. Clouds of dust billowed and vanished, existing only long enough to scratch at the buildings. She listened to the sound of nothing, broken by the occasional car passing the motel. The lingering heat of the day rose from the concrete, soaking into her sore muscles. It was all somehow cathartic.

  The sun was in the bottom quarter of the sky when a silver Ford pulled into the dusty parking lot, rounded the fiberglass olive tree that served as The Oasis Motel’s sign and mascot, and stopped in a space not far from where she sat. When she heard the door opening, Spinneretta emptied her lungs and lurched to her feet with a groan. Anxiety gnawed at her gut once more. Her legs were heavy, and she had to grab at the wall to steady herself, momentarily exposing her legs from beneath her jacket.

  “Spins!” came a voice. It wasn’t the voice she’d expected.

  She blinked into the blazing light of the sun. Her mouth fell open in shock. “Arthr? What are you doing here?”

  From out of the light, her brother emerged. When he was finally close enough to see, she found his face filled with relief. A moment later, he slammed into her with a hug that almost toppled her to the sidewalk. “Oh, shit, you’re alright!”

  “Omph, the hell, Arthr?” She couldn’t breathe, but his arms just kept crushing her tighter.

  “Jesus fuck, Spins, do you know how worried everyone’s been about you? The shit are you doing just running off without telling anyone?” His voice didn’t carry the anger of his words; they rang with a thinly veiled joy.

  She instinctively tried to wrestle free of his hug, but was too surprised by his uncharacteristic show of emotion to commit to the escape. Arthr never reacted like this to anything; that he was so relieved about her being safe was surreal. Family was family, but Arthr was Arthr, and this wasn’t Arthr at all. As she felt the sincerity in his grip, she wondered if she hadn’t given him too little credit. He wasn’t the same person that had mocked and jeered at her before his fight with Pat back in May. Since then, the entire world had changed around them, and she’d been too distracted to even notice how it had affected him. With a small sigh, she accepted his hug and grabbed him tightly around his shoulders, shifting her ribs to give her lungs room to move again. “Good to see you,” she said.

  “You should see how crazy Mom’s been since you left. I’m surprised she hasn’t called the goddamn military to go after you. The hell are you thinking? Seriously, what the hell, Spins?”

  Before she could give her evasive reply, the sound of a car door slamming drew her attention once more to the glaring silver vehicle. “Well, well,” a voice called. “How nice to see you two morons getting along.”

  Spinneretta looked over Arthr’s shoulder and found an uncoated Annika stomping toward them. Despite the perilous chase that had led to Manix, there was comfort in the woman’s presence; if anyone could track Kara down before the Vant’therax or the cult, it was Annika. Spinneretta took a step back and finally slipped out of Arthr’s hug. She raised her hand at the older woman in greeting. “Well met.”

  Annika didn’t stop. With a blank expression, she shoved Arthr aside. “Just one.” She drew her hand back and sent it flying across Spinneretta’s face.

  The blow came like a gunshot and sent Spinneretta reeling back. A bright flare lighted her cheek and burned through her eyes. She clutched the searing pain with one hand, tears stinging her eyes, as she glared up at Annika. “What the hell!?” she spat. The woman’s strong arms grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her back. She hit the wall with a bone-rattling thud, and when her vision stopped swirling she looked up into Annika’s brown eyes, which shone with bristling rage.

  “Don’t what the hell me, you selfish little twat,” Annika seethed through clenched teeth. “Do you understand how much grief you’ve caused all of us by running away on this stupid little mission of yours? How much pain you put your family through? The worry you heaped upon Mark and myself? The literal danger you put everyone in? The cost in gas it took to tail you across the whole fucking country?” She raised her hand to strike again, and Spinneretta recoiled, throwing her hands up to absorb the blow. But Annika hesitated. She cocked her head to the side and let a thin sigh slip between her teeth.

  Spinneretta glowered, her spider legs half-attempting to evict herself from Annika’s grip. She wanted to scream at her, to tell her off for daring to impede her mission, and yet she couldn’t find the words. Hearing the list of her sins only amplified the guilt growing in her stomach, and that weight held her tongue in check.

  “After all I did for you and the others,” Annika continued, “after I gave you my parents’ identities, after I paid for Sarah’s and Melody’s and Matthew’s social security numbers out of my fucking pocket, after jumping through flaming hoops of bullshit to make sure nobody ever found out you existed, just so you could live a life free from gawkers and cultist slime, what do you do? You throw it away! You spit right back in my face!”

  Spinneretta shook her head. “I promise you it wasn’t personal.” It was the only thing she could think of to say.

  Annika released Spinneretta’s shoulders and threw her arms into the air. “Oh, great! It wasn’t personal! You hear that, Arthr? That means everything’s okay, right?” She leaned in close and scowled. “The road to hell is paved in impersonal idiocy, of which you are queen.”

  “H-hey, guys,” Arthr interjected from the sidelines, “cut it out, alright?”

  But Annika just snarled. “You, Spinneretta Warren, are too stupid to live. The fact that you have somehow survived the aftermath of every moronic decision you’ve made thus far proves only one thing: the supreme privilege of your birth. Were you anything other than the holy grail of genetic atrocities, you’d have been righteously killed a dozen times over by now. But no, precious little Spinneretta, queen of the vacuous guttersnipes, cashes in her invincibility every chance she gets. Does she care who she fucks over? Of course not. All she cares about is her own worthless self.”

  Annika fell silent, though her words echoed in each beat of Spinneretta’s heart. With a hissing breath, the woman turned away and began to straighten her tangled hair with her fingers. “But,” she said, her voice softening into an airy whisper, “I have to give credit where credit is due. You may have the intellectual capacity of a bran muffin, but . . . ” She grunted and gave her head a quick shake. “I underestimated you. Few people have ever thrown me off their tail before. Even if it was by doing something inexplicably idiotic, you impressed me. Now never do it again, min spindeltjej.” She paused for a breath. “Mark inside?”

  Spinneretta’s chest was tight, her stomach heavy. Breathless, she nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “Good.” Annika walked around her and made for the door.

  Arthr batted a clump of unwashed hair out of his eye as he nervously looked between the two of them. “So, uhh, where’s Kara?”

  Spinneretta bit her lip. As though sensing that imperceptible action, Annika froze, hand on the doorknob. She felt the stirring of the air as the woman turned around and painted her up and down with a cold stare. The hair on the back of her neck stood at attention, injecting her nervous system with liquid anxiety. “Umm . . . We’re working on that.”

  Arthr was deathly silent for a beat. “You’re what? Wait, you lost her?”

  The note of anger in his voice startled her against all reason. “A lot was happening, okay? I mean, when they all turned on us—”

  “Wait, you’re serious about this? I mean, i-it’s bad enough that you just ran off with her without telling any of us! I thought you w
ere supposed to be the responsible one!”

  Spinneretta’s face was already burning. “I wasn’t going to let her be killed because of me, alright!” Arthr’s shape blurred before her eyes. “If it’s between her being lost and dead, which do you think is better, huh!?”

  His jaw went slack. “Dead? Spins, the hell are you saying?”

  She couldn’t stop shaking her head, as though the gesture of denial could somehow absolve her involvement. “I thought the cult just wanted to take us. But it’s a different cult, and they wanted to kill us instead. Look, I know this makes me look like shit and I accept that, but it’ll all make sense when Mark explains everything, okay? Kara’s fine. Everything’s going to be fine.” She shivered. She was aware only of the heavy silence behind her. With a heave of her shoulders, she wheeled on Annika, unable to contain herself. “And dammit, will you stop staring at me?” she said through clenched teeth. “I can feel you judging me, and if you’re going to yell at me for causing another headache I’d rather you do it now and get it over with.”

  Annika’s eyes flickered. After a long moment, the woman reached out and grabbed Spinneretta by the collar of her shirt and carried her two steps toward her brother. When the brief show of force ended, and the two again stood fixed at arm’s length, Annika’s brought her face within inches of Spinneretta’s. And yet not a word passed between them.

  Unable to stand the tension, Spinneretta ground her teeth. “Goddammit, why won’t you say something?”

  “Because there are no words,” Annika said, her voice low and measured. “Not in English. Not in Swedish. Not in any language, to express just how much I loathe you at this precise moment in time. And any words that I found, no matter how venomous, would be utterly wasted on you.” She released Spinneretta’s shirt and spun around. She cranked the knob and slammed her foot into the door, throwing it open. “Cock-a-fucking-doodle, it’s Annika. Wake the hell up!”