She said nothing, her heart and Instinct pounding as one. If Mark was blind and it came to a fight . . . Though her heart pumped the spider adrenaline throughout her body, the thought of fighting still made her shudder. Those things had venom strong enough to drop a creature as massive as a land-whale in a matter of moments; a single wet scrape from an oversized fang would be a death sentence. Instant-death venom, deadly fast over all terrain, and intelligent. It was a sick joke of evolution, a creature too perfect in every regard.
A few moments passed in utter silence. Then, the two male creatures exchanged a series of clicking noises and crept to the sides, eyes on the shimmering veil. With a surprising alacrity, they both leapt onto the walls of the gully and scaled them in a series of swift lunging motions. The vertical ascent proved no obstacle for their arachnid legs. From atop either cliff, the two began to slowly stalk along the ledges toward them.
Mark cursed under his breath. “Damn them. I cannot reform the wall without dropping it. Spinneretta.”
“Y-yeah?”
“How far is the cliff behind us?”
“Forty feet or so?”
“Can you climb it?”
She glanced over her shoulder and began to nod. “Of course.”
“When I give you the signal, I want you to get up there as fast as you can.”
She watched one of the beasts above. More than their ears, it was their demeanor that reminded her of the felines of Earth; they were toying with them, enjoying the hunt. “Yeah, because telling me to run worked so well last time. I’m not leaving you here.”
He gave a weak smile. “Worry not. I have a bit of magic left in me. I’m not planning on dying for you just yet. Wait for my signal, and then go.”
She nodded, short of breath. There was no room for argument.
The two things crept along the lips of the opposing ledges, demonic eyes shining with sadistic glee. One made a clacking sound with its mandibles and perched over the side, drumming its writhing legs against the cliff face. A moment later, the other beast copied the motion. A mechanical croaking noise rattled in their throats. In calculated unison, they pounced.
Mark’s entire body tensed. “Now!”
Spinneretta didn’t wait to see what he was planning. She turned on her heel and her spider legs clawed at the ground, launching her into a full sprint toward the vertical climb. Against sound reason, she dared to look back in time to see Mark throw his left arm out in an arc. There was a loud cracking sound, as of thunder splitting a monument of glass. The shimmering wall collapsed into a singularity and burst. The shockwave slammed the leaping spider-hounds against the rock walls and nearly blew Spinneretta off her feet. Recovering from the impact, she sprang toward the wall. Her spider legs found purchase, chitin creaking as their tips dug into the stone.
Mark’s right hand went to his head, and his footing wobbled. The veil was now gone, and the female leapt at him, her legs outstretched into lustrous black scythes. Before Spinneretta could yell at him to watch out, an emerald glow wreathed his form. The light from the Flames washed away the dark, and his physical form collapsed into a point of light.
A half-second breath of relief, and then Spinneretta scuttled up the sheer cliff, ignoring the sounds of angry clattering and the creaking in her chitin appendages. Another blinding flash of green came above her; at the ledge, the Flames of Y’rokkrem bloomed. Mark emerged from the fire and extended his hand down toward her. “Hurry!”
She took his hand, though she did not need it. As soon as her feet touched solid ground she was running again. “Glad you had it in you,” she gasped between labored breaths.
Eyes half-clenched, he shook his head. “Just keep running toward the mountains! That bought us little time!”
And he was right. It was only a few moments before she again heard the clicking and clacking of those teeth, and the sound of vegetation being stripped from the ageless stone beneath.
Kara’s spider legs had fallen asleep for the third time in the last hour. And for the third time in as long, she rolled onto her side and let the thick book in her leg-tips fall to the mattress. The blood flow set her legs atingle, and she let her eyes drift shut for a few moments. When she opened them again, she found that the clock had struck 11:30 p.m., and Annika was all the more restless for it. After one more failed phone call, the detective woman kicked her feet up on the desk and turned the on-again-off-again TV off. “Well, kids,” she said, “It’s just about midnight, and no sign of Marky and Spinzie. I think it’s safe to say we’re on our own.”
Arthr stared at the clock. His face seemed to grow paler. “Isn’t there anything we can do?”
“We can make their sacrifice mean something by getting the hell out of here. Grab your stuff.”
Arthr did not protest. He just sighed and made his way over to where his gym bag sat.
But Kara didn’t move. She just lay there, staring at the ceiling. The hard edge of Whispering Unicorns: Pit of Decay spread an odd tingle through her chitin. Something was wrong, amiss. Somewhere in the aether, something was moving. Signs. His signs. She closed her eyes and held her breath, trying to feel out the glowing bits of whateverness that had come so suddenly upon her. There were hundreds of them, thousands of static fixtures in another world. As she focused on the strange feeling of the firefly storm, she recognized the contours and edges of one of the sparks. It was moving. Running.
She bolted upright, at once aware of what it meant. Lips shaking, she breathed a single word. “Web.”
Annika glanced at her and raised her eyebrows. “Web?”
Kara leapt out of bed, casting her gaze around. Panic filled her blood. “I need a wall, now!”
“What? What’s wrong, sweetie?”
“A wall,” she said again. The mottled wallpaper surrounding them on four sides was wrong, all wrong. The bathroom. Her spider legs unfurled and threw her across the carpet. She nearly slammed into Annika as the woman stumbled out of her path. When she reached the bathroom door, she threw it open and barreled right through. She slapped the light switch on and eyed the off-white tiled wall. It was good enough.
“Kara? What are you . . . ?”
She drew in a sharp breath. Her trembling legs lashed out and she attacked the wall. The tiled surface gave, scraping against her chitin as scars began to form.
Annika yelped. “Kara, stop it! I’m going to have to pay for that!”
Kara ignored her, and her legs continued to carve the geometric design into the tile. A sharp V, within which floated a tall oval. Eight lines stretched from that oval, shining beyond the V like rays of a fickle sun. A deep crescent crowned the oval. Finally, with a grand motion, Kara made a downward slash with one of her legs, bisecting the symbol and turning the horizontal baseline into an inverted cross. At once, the etching in the pearly tile began to hum, and a moment later a yellow light shone from within.
At the door, Kara heard a gasp. “Holy shit,” Annika said, “it’s that . . . ”
Another gasp, this time from Arthr. “What the hell!?”
The glowing pattern grew brighter, the humming louder. The whole wall seemed to roll like a stormy lake. The rippling surface began to ooze a gaseous body. Mist rolled down toward the floor, circling about in concentric spirals until the whole wall had become a vortex of fog.
“Kara,” Arthr said, “what are you . . . What are . . . ”
She stepped back from her completed work and stared into the spinning hole in space. “Hurry,” she said in a desperate tone. “Hurry up, Spins!”
Ivy thorns and brambles groped at Spinneretta’s bare ankles as she ran. Muscles starved of oxygen, gasping and choking upon the now oppressive chemical taint of the air, she forced her legs to keep moving. The clacking calls behind grew nearer by the moment, and each stride the beasts made on their arachnid legs shook the ground. At her side, Mark’s limp had grown worse. She could smell the pain grinding at his nerves. Her pulse pounded in her throat.
She was just about t
o ask desperately if he was alright when the peripheral darkness shifted. One of the spider things leapt, brandishing its forelegs like a wall of daggers. Her lungs shook. “Mark, look out!”
In reflex, Mark pivoted on his heel and swept his hand in a wide arc. The air shimmered and ruptured. A wave of force exploded from a blinding light that shone in his palm. The spider-hound, the one with the diminutive teeth and juvenile riding atop it, crashed to the ground a few yards away. The earth shuddered from the force.
Half-deaf from the blast, Spinneretta barely noticed the wet snarl that ripped out from a hungry maw behind her. She snapped her attention back just in time to see a huge shape darting from side to side. The breath stagnated in her lungs; one second stretched into an eternity as the thing leapt upon her.
Spinneretta’s vision blurred as the impact rocked her bones. The ground was below her, then above. Panic. Her spider legs unfurled and found a furry mass. They took hold, desperate to keep the snapping teeth at bay. Gravity’s prophecy came to pass, and her shoulder smashed into the moving ground. Fabric tore. Sharp thorns grated at her back as she was dragged overground. A hot, wet pain spread from her shoulder down her back. The grinding of hard organic matter against the bases of her chitin legs sent an electric pain through their nerves.
She dug the tips of her legs into the beast’s skin. The galloping of the monster’s own spider legs continued to writhe just on her peripheral vision. Hot breath rolled down upon her. Imminent death stared at her through glassy eyes of ruby. But the clattering of its legs slowed. The ivy grinding at her shoulder lurched to a stop. The creature reared up, taking her with it. Then it reversed course and slammed her back against the ground, squeezing a gasp of pain from her chest.
The world spun for a fragment of a second, and then her legs reacted. They shot out, taking hold of the thing’s head and tangling with its massive teeth as it fell upon her. A tight strain ripped at her muscles. The spider-hound’s colossal fangs were mere inches from her face, liquid glistening along their length. Meeting the resistance, it thrashed its head back and forth, its strength twisting Spinneretta on the ground. Broken stalks of ivy stabbed at her blood-drenched back. But she wasn’t going to let go—letting go meant death. With a quick twist of the thing’s body, Spinneretta struck the ground again just in time to see one of the beast’s legs plunging toward her.
She threw her torso to the left. A dark blur split the air, and a sharp pain ripped through her upper arm. A scream exploded from her lips, and her free hand took to the wound. Blood ran from the slash, and hot pain swam up and down her extremities. But the spike of fear hadn’t even reached her heart before a violent, sputtering cackle burst from the beast’s mouth. Its whole body twisted, and its forelegs began to fall like demonic pistons toward her. Her reflexes sharpened. She jerked her body as far as she could to the left, and then to the right. The sounds of the chitin spears penetrating bedrock filled her ears. Plumes of dust rose around her. As it pulled back its legs to attack again, Spinneretta lashed out with two of her own, jamming the locomotion and wrapping them about the creature’s joints.
The forest of fangs inched closer, steam rolling off the slithering tongue within. Every Instinct-soaked muscle in Spinneretta’s body strained against its monstrous strength, fighting to keep those legs and those teeth away. But it was no use. Even with six legs coiled around those great teeth, she could only delay the end.
Something struck the ground ten yards to her left. A momentary, reflexive glance found Mark pinned under the second of the males. One hand, bathed in the Flames of Y’rokkrem, was pressed into the thing’s eyes. There came a sizzling sound, barely audible beneath her own pounding heartbeat. The smell of singed fur and flesh filled the air. Mark’s other hand clutched the hilt of his pocket knife, which was embedded in the thing’s throat. Goddammit, Mark, she thought. Where’s your magic now?
This is your fault, another part of her seemed to say. You’re the one who attracted them with your screaming.
Just shut up, she thought back, legs flexed against snapping fangs. Shut up and help me!
But then, Spinneretta became aware of an imminent pressure on her mind. It was a familiar, strange, airy feeling that wrapped about her. Her eyes widened, taking in more of the scant light. The sigil. She snapped her head back toward where Mark lay. Energy crackled through the air. Yellow sparks flashed from just beside him to a clear spot upon the ground. There, amidst the clumps of alien ivy, a vortex of mist was forming. Why? Why is it here? But she didn’t care. All she knew was they needed to get to that portal before the fickle and arbitrary gods changed their minds.
The snarling beast upon her dipped its maw, fangs snapping and edging toward her. A desperate surge of adrenaline from the base of her spine shivered through her, flooding the muscles of her spider legs. She flexed her limbs against the monster’s fangs with all the strength under the heavens. A crack shook the world. A violent tremor rattled the thing’s body. It tried to readjust, but her grip held. Another flex of her legs, a louder crack, and the resistance vanished.
Splinters of bone and enamel dust filled the air. An acrid chemical scent—venom. The beast recoiled, two of its huge fangs pulled into obtuse angles and four more broken. Streams of clear fluid splattered against the ground. A deafening banshee howl washed away her thoughts as Spinneretta scrambled to her feet, one hand still clutching her bleeding arm. Pain rang through her muscles, and she felt the air shift as the monster moved behind her. “Mark!” she screamed, sprinting toward him.
He gave her a confused nod, and his body blazed with the Flames of Y’rokkrem. The fire brightened to a blinding corona and then vanished just as suddenly. The spider-hound hunching over him stumbled, its legs skittering to catch itself. A verdant spark appeared beside her and blossomed into human shape. “Spinny,” he said, “are you alri—”
“Save it!” She grabbed his hand and arrested his frame with her spider legs. An overwhelming sense of déjà vu filled her mind as she hurled them both toward the swirling vortex of mist. But the third hellish creature closed in with a series of spider-gallops, sending torn ivy and dirt into the air. Spinneretta took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and threw them both into the portal, praying that it was not a mistake.
Mist permeated Spinneretta’s entire body as the world spiraled around her. Gravity roiled, twisted, and then inverted. The fog parted before her and revealed a blinding light. And then she struck a hard, cold surface. The spinning stopped, and that just made her dizzier. Were it not for the hot, wet pain in her arm and back, she may have been unable to find herself again.
“Spins!”
Her heart leapt. She cracked her eyes open and was greeted by a familiar face framed by blond hair. “Kara!” One hand found the tiled floor and then she was on her knees. Mark had somehow ended up behind her, and the motion dumped him onto the floor. “Kara, what happened!?”
“I saved you!” she said with a smile.
Questions filled her head, and she couldn’t decide which of them to ask first. As her eyes began adjusting to the light, she found an unfamiliar bathroom surrounding her. Arthr stood in the doorway beside a woman. It took a moment to recognize the coatless woman as Annika, that damn detective. But the bitterness she felt toward the woman evaporated in an instant; she could have hugged and kissed her, because if Kara and Arthr and Annika were here, it meant that—the breath froze in her lungs, and before she knew it she was choking on her own mad laughter. “We made it!” We’re home! We fucking did it!
That relief, however, was eclipsed by the sound of something churning. The wall behind them, which writhed with living tendrils of swirling mist, resonated. And as she stared at that churning fog, her mind flashed back to the last thing she’d seen before hurling herself and Mark into the rift. Her heart stopped. Fear shivered to the ends of each of her legs. “Shit!” She scrambled to her feet, dragging Mark up with her. She seized Kara’s arm and lurched toward the doorway. “Move! Now!”
The
hissing fog billowed. A rumbling came from the dark within, and then a large shape burst through the portal, ripping tiles from the wall as its girth erupted from the split in the dimensional fabric. Large as a lion, covered in thick black fur. Four reflective red eyes above a fanged maw, and four more peeking out from atop its body. Momentum and gravity smashed the pouncing thing against the side of the fiberglass bathtub. The floor lurched from the force. Its eight chitin legs began to writhe, clattering against the tub and the floor.
Screams erupted all around as Spinneretta leapt through the door with Mark on one side and Kara on the other. Arthr staggered back in horror. “What the fuck is that!?” he shrieked.
She struck the carpet, and Kara scrambled past her in fright. The detective raced toward one of the beds where a pile of things lay scattered. Spinneretta tried to crawl forward, but Mark’s inert weight upon her shoulder pinned her down. A snarl came from behind and she shot a glance toward it. The beast in the bathroom had risen on its pointed legs. Four blazing eyes found her at the threshold. Its mandibles produced a clicking refrain, and it charged.
The Instinct hit overdrive. Spinneretta threw her foot to the side and found the edge of the door just in time. Her hips twisted, and she swept her leg in a wide arc. The door slammed shut. But as soon as the latch took, the doorframe was rocked by the impact of skull on wood. Spinneretta’s pulse boomed through her veins. Every muscle pushed itself to its limit as she held both her feet against the door. It had to stay closed. If it opened and that thing got loose, it could kill them all.
One of the monster’s spear-like legs punched through the door, tearing a piece of wood free. That cracking sound raced through her bones and echoed through her skull. She drew her legs away in fright; a single unlucky swipe of that leg could be deadly. Another leg pierced the other side of the door, creating a second jagged window into the thrashing beast’s collapsing prison. Mark rolled off her, but still she did not move. The screaming all around her became a kaleidoscope of disbelief and terror.
Helixweaver (The Warren Brood Book 2) Page 13
