Revenge's Web (Kieran Grey Psionic Hunter)

by R. B. Fivecoat

  “Sorry, I need you to come look. I’ll bribe Vicki later for you, okay?”

  I sighed. This was not going to go over very well. “Where are you?”

  * * *

  At least this time the food was ready when we were leaving. I waited for them to box it up to go, then we paid and left. Vicki was not as nice about the situation as Tanaka had been.

  I still need to make dinner up to him, and now I owe Vicki too. Maybe Ren’s right, I should try staying home for a while.

  I called Mary to let her know what was up so Cassie wouldn’t worry. They were busy at the apartment painting a room for Cassie. It sounded like more fun than going to a crime scene.

  “Where do you want me to park?” Vicki asked gruffly, still pouting ever since Ren had called back at the restaurant.

  The street was full of police cars and other emergency vehicles.

  No wonder there’s never a cop around when you need one. They all hang out at murder scenes whether they’re needed or not. At least it seems that way.

  “Just pull over here. I need my bag from the trunk.”

  With the car stopped, Vicki popped the trunk for me, but never got out of the car. She was upset with me and she was sulking. I got back in the car after shaking off the snow that had fallen on my shields while I was grabbing the bag.

  “I’m sorry Vicki. I really wanted to spend some time with you.”

  She sighed heavily. “No, it’s my fault. I was jealous that you went out with Tanaka last night. I switched shifts at work so we could go out tonight. It was stupid of me.”

  “Not at all. I think it’s great that you think that much of me. I’m just sorry that Jacob had to mess it all up. How can I make it up to you?”

  She lit up for the first time then. “Night after next, the House of Lesser Cats is having a Christmas party. Will you be my date?”

  Damn, I already promised to bring Douglas to Yuric that night. Why must my life be so complicated?

  “I have an appointment to meet Yuric that night just after dark.”

  “The party starts at six. Do you think you could go with me for a little while before you have to meet Yuric?” She was pleading with me.

  I caved, mentally reminding myself to let Yuric know I was going to be a little late.

  “I don’t see why not. Oh, before I forget, I sort of have an early Christmas present for you.”

  I took my guns and the ammo boxes out of the purse and handed it to Vicki.

  “You’re giving me your purse?”

  “No silly, your gift is inside.”

  Vicki looked inside the bag. She looked up at me with a questioning glance then pulled out the pulse gun.

  “You’re giving me a toy gun?”

  “It’s not a toy. Emmy had it made. It is a prototype Taser gun. One shot will take out a human, three shots should take down a shifter or vampire. Just don’t aim for the head, center mass only, and don’t try to use them underwater. There’s more in the bag.”

  She dug out the spare clip, holster, and the small plastic I. D..

  “A concealed handgun license? I never applied for one of these. Not that I don’t appreciate any gift from you, but what’s going on?” she asked suspiciously.

  “I want you to be safe. With this you can protect yourself without shifting. Then you don’t have to worry about anyone finding out and you losing your job or anything. It’s just to help you be safer. I worry about you. I don’t want Jacob or anyone to come after you.”

  “Well thank you. I think. The license is neat. I can carry a gun on me anytime now right?”

  “I believe so. Emmy got the license for you. Lord knows what she did to get it for you so fast, just ask her for the details. What are you going to do now?”

  “Well dinner is getting cold, and you may be out all night. Do you mind if I go back to your place and help with Cassie’s room?”

  “Not at all, tell them I’ll be home when I can.” I leaned over and kissed her. Then once again I was off though the snow to the crime scene. Déjà vu all over again.

  Chapter 8

  Again the body was dumped in the alley between apartment buildings. Everything was very much the same as before, just at a different location and the snow was falling heavier. No one questioned my presence, or the guns so unfashionably over the dress.

  I need to ask about getting a more fashionable holster for my guns. It seems I need one lately.

  Cops all pressed themselves against the walls of the alley making a path for me.

  Do I really scare everyone that much? I’ll have to ask Ren what the deal is.

  Ren stood up next to the body again as I approached. Everything was freakishly familiar to last night.

  I held out the ammo boxes to her. “Merry Christmas.”

  “High-velocity silver-plated hollowpoints? Well now, that is a good gift indeed.”

  “I just wanted to help. I’d heard that the department wouldn’t buy them for you. As much as you deal with vamps and shifters, you need more than just regular ammo.”

  “Well thank you. Really, thank you! Feel free to take a look around. Same set up as the last one. Nothing is different except that we’re ten blocks from the last victim.”

  I moved next to the body. Other than the hair and eye color, the bloated body looked just like the last one. Right arm missing and all. I focused in on the three marks on the neck. They looked just like the last ones.

  “Did your friend have any new ideas on the bite marks?” Ren asked around the empty gun magazine she held between her teeth. She had stopped everything and was switching out the ammo in her clips, but it looked like she needed a third hand the way she was juggling everything.

  I guess she really did like the gift. I’ll have to get her some more.

  “Not really. He’s never heard of anything like this. His best guess was a mutation of either a spider, scorpion, or snake.”

  “Oh, it’s spiders all right. I touched this one already and got the same vision of spiders that the other one had. I’m convinced it’s spiders of some sort.”

  “Well in that case, Nikolai said that it would take a bunch of regular sized spiders attacking all at once, or one about the size of a car to do this, if it really was spiders.”

  “A spider the size of a car? What was he smoking? There’s no such thing.”

  I debated for a second, then decided to tell her the truth. “Uh, Ren, you remember I told you about the Bestiary? In the Halls of Horrors, they have spiders in there that are larger than a tank. Trust me, they’re very real.”

  Ren stopped to glare at me. “No shit? Well could one of them do it?”

  “No. I was also told that spiders have to cocoon their prey because they liquefy the whole thing. And, the skin would be the first thing to go. According to my source anyway.”

  I didn’t mention that my source was my seventeen-year-old housekeeper with a semester of high school biology. It just seemed to discredit her somehow.

  “Damn, that was almost a good lead,” Ren grumbled and went back to her ammo.

  “No witnesses, no leads. Who found the body this time?”

  “A patrol officer thought he saw movement in the alley. He left his car and found the body. The first one was found by some kids playing in the alley. So, no relation there. As far as we can tell there is nothing to link the two victims either. Of course we still don’t have an I. D. on either of them. The fingers are too stretched out to get good prints from, and there are no teeth for dental records. No recent missing persons match either so far. We’re still looking. The closest thing they have in common is no marks. Neither of them had any tattoos or other identifying marks.”

  “Not much to go on. What’s on the other side of the wall here?” I pointed at the short six-foot wall on the other side of the body, splitting the alley in two.

  “Another alley like this one. We already had it checked out. The snow was still fresh there, no tracks at all. It’s like they just flew away.”


  “Has anyone checked the roofs?”

  “No, why would they? There aren’t any fire escapes on this side.”

  “We’re after Jacob here. Vampires and shifters remember? They don’t work like humans do. You remember that black werewolf back at that girl’s apartment when you got your arm tore up a couple weeks ago? It climbed up the brick wall just like it had hand holds in it. They could’ve just climbed the walls out of the alley.”

  Ren called for lights. Four officers brought large handheld spotlights down the alley. They shined the lights over the walls. On the east wall about ten feet up was a set of four holes in the masonry between the bricks. Another set of holes was a few feet above that, followed by another.

  “Shit why didn’t we think of that earlier? Get some men on the roofs now! Look for anything!” Ren ordered the men around.

  “I’ll go up and look around,” I said.

  Ren stopped me before I could move. “You’re not pulling a Supergirl without me!”

  “I don’t know that I can carry you and fly both.”

  Ren threw her arms around my shoulders. “Try it.”

  I flexed my shields. We lifted off the ground a little. Okay, so far so good. I looked up focusing on the roof above, then pushed with my shields. Ren screamed a girlish little squeak as we shot up in the air like a rocket. It took just under a second to clear the five story building. I landed us a little off to one side of the roof. There were tracks in the snow. Something big had crawled up the wall and over the edge of the roof.

  “Christ! I still can’t believe you can do that. Hey look, there’s more than one type of track here.”

  There was a clear set of boot prints next to a number of large clawed footprints. There were also a number of holes in the snow around the rest of the tracks, like they all carried large walking sticks.

  “I’m no expert, but the holes outside the tracks could be giant spider tracks,” I said with a shiver from the creepy thought of one of those monsters running free in the city.

  Ren was leaning over the edge next to where they’d come up the wall.

  “Yeah, well come look at this.”

  I leaned over, looking around her at the wall. She pointed with her pen at something white and silky. She stabbed it with her pen. The silk stuck.

  “Gross! Well I believe this proves the spider theory.” She pulled a plastic evidence bag out of her pocket for the pen and the silk to be placed in.

  “I’m going to see where the tracks lead. You coming?” I asked.

  “Yeah, just not so fast this time. You scared the hell out of me.”

  “Sorry, I overestimated how much power I needed to lift us both.”

  She threw her arms around my shoulders again. With her body pressed against me I couldn’t help but smell her. Her smell was an erotic mixture of jasmine and gun oil. It took all my focus not to think about every little dirty thought I had as she pressed herself against me tighter. The feel of her soft body against mine let me know she wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest.

  How big are her breasts? They feel even softer and warmer than mine. Wait! Bad Kieran, no sex! We’re still at a murder seen dammit!

  Clearing my head, I lifted us off the ground slowly this time. We flew above the slowly filling tracks in the snowfall. They jumped from building to building for a few blocks then the tracks stopped on the sidewalk. I sat us down on the ground where the last of the tracks were.

  “Looks like they had a getaway car waiting. So they grab the girl, take her in the alley, violate her, and climb the buildings to their ride waiting a few blocks away. It would have to be like a moving van, or a semi to hold a spider the size of a car inside right? So they at least had a large van as a getaway car.”

  “Sounds about right,” I agreed. “It would be hard to move a spider that big around in the city without drawing attention, but, one question. Why leave the bodies behind as intact as they are? Spiders liquefy their prey so that they can drink the liquid for food, right? If this one is liquefying people inside their skin, shouldn’t there just be an empty skin left?”

  “Perhaps they got interrupted before it could drink the victim dry?”

  EEEWW!!! The thought made my skin crawl.

  “Even still, shouldn’t we be finding other empty skins around somewhere? Something large like that would have to feed often. Wouldn’t it?”

  Ren was rubbing her temples now. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. The snowfall’s been heavy enough to cover any tracks left last night. So no sense going back there to check. We really have no good leads once again. The techs never could figure out what the unknown substance was mixed in the body fluid. I’ll have them cross reference it with spider venoms. See if we can get a better lead. I’ll have them look at this webbing too. I’m more convinced than ever that a spider is doing this, but the thought of giant spiders . . . creepy.”

  “Yes they are. But how about this bad thought? Jacob has a number of vampire and werewolf followers right? What about a werespider?”

  “Werespider? Is there even such a thing?”

  I shrugged, “Don’t know. I was told it’s a possibility. It could even explain the three fangs. When the lycanthrope virus reacts with a person, the animal form could change some. It could be a murderous werespider that we’re actually after.”

  “If so, how would you stop it?”

  “Almost everything dies if you destroy or remove the head, or so I’m told. I’d say that a wound to the head with a silver weapon is our best chance.”

  “Sometimes you scare me, you know that?”

  “Welcome to my world.”

  Chapter 9

  It was two in the morning when I was dropped off by a patrol car at my apartment. Charles was present just like always to escort me up. In the elevator I finally had to ask him about it.

  “Charles, not to pry, but, do you ever sleep? Or even take a break?”

  He smiled over his shoulder at me. “No one has ever bothered asking before. Everyone just takes it for granted that I am always here. The answer, is no. I do not sleep. I don’t have to.”

  “Okay, let me ask the stupid question then. Why don’t you have to sleep?”

  “Since you are Hunter Class, you have the security clearance, so I can tell you, I’m a cyborg. Built to serve and protect the tenants of this building. I was a Navy Seal before, and then I was injured on assignment. The Archives fixed me and gave me this cushy job. My cybernetics allow me to keep working around the clock without rest. Does it bother you?”

  I smiled honest and pleasant. “No it doesn’t. You’re actually the second cyborg I met today. Trust me, you’re a lot more handsome than he was.”

  “Why thank you. Please call on me for anything.” He bowed his head as he held the elevator door for me while I exited on my floor.

  The lights came on automatically when I stepped into the entrance room. Mary stirred awake with the light. Everyone had fallen asleep on the couch in front of the large TV. Cassie was using Vicki’s lap as a pillow. The scene was too perfect.

  Where’s a camera when you need it?

  Mary gently pushed off the couch holding her finger to her lips. She motioned me to the kitchen. I followed her inside.

  “Welcome home.” She kept her voice low. “Are you hungry? Vicki brought your dinner with her. I could warm it up for you.”

  “That would be great, thanks Mary. What’s with the sleep-over?”

  Mary dug out the takeout box from the fridge, then put the alfredo with shrimp on a plate in the microwave. “Cassie had only seen training videos on a TV before. She’d never seen any movies before. We all got so caught up in telling her about different films that we had a movie night. Mostly comedies, she is even more cute when she laughs.”

  “Cuter then she is sleeping?”

  “Oh no, not at all. Emmy went and bought her some decorations for her room. We painted it a marbled-turquoise. It’s her favorite color, she loves the blue-greens.”

&n
bsp; “Should we put her in a bed?”

  “Probably, her room still has wet paint though.”

  “Put her in the other spare room for now,” Emmy whispered quietly as she came in the kitchen.

  “You’re not staying?”

  “No, I need to get back. I just wanted to stay with Cassie until you got home.”

  “Thank you Emmy.”

  The microwave was almost done when Mary pulled the food out. She stopped it just before the DING! I ate my dinner and told them about the crime scene. Mary was becoming way too interested in my work.

  I hope I’m not becoming a bad influence on her.

  After I finished eating we all moved back to the living room. Cassie and Vicki were just as we had left them. They both looked so peaceful, so happy, so beautiful. I hated to disturb either of them. Mary went to turn down the covers in the other room.

  “Well now it’s time for your first real parental action. Putting the little one to bed,” Emmy whispered to me.

  “Gee thanks.”

  I got on my knees in front of them. It took me a few seconds to slide my hands under Cassie without disturbing her. I stood with her in my arms and made it into the other room with her still sleeping. I placed her down on the bed and started to cover her.

  “Not like that, here put this nightgown on her,” Emmy was whispering at me as she handed me a small nightgown that looked like an extra-long t-shirt with a picture of a sleepy cartoon cat in a nightcap holding a candle on it.

  Sure. Change her clothes without waking her up. Not a problem, right?

  I got her shoes and socks off without incident. Then I started on the buttons on the blouse. I had both hands on the top button when she suddenly sprang to life. One hand locked around my wrist, the other came up behind my neck. She pulled me face first into the bed then knelt on top of me, pinning my arm behind me. The entire move took a fraction of a second. It was a well-trained reflex that left me vulnerable and under her control.

  “Big Sister, you’re back! Oh, I’m sorry.” Her voice was heavy with sleep as she let me up.