by Amy Cross
“Abby,” Mark says, “what's wrong? What -” He stops as we both hear a scream from the stairwell, but I can only stare at Miriam as she tilts her head slightly.
“They're inside her,” I whisper.
“Coming for you,” Miriam replies, as a smile slowly crosses her face. “You can't run, Abby Hart. We've found you and we're coming for you. The more you fight, the more innocent people will get killed. It's better if you just lay down your life now and...” She gasps. “Accept your fate...”
“Who's saying that?” Mark asks. “Abby, what's happening to her?”
Before I can answer, Miriam lets out another gasp and tilts her head back as another spider starts digging its way out through her throat, followed by several more swarming from her eyes, mouth and ears. She lets out a pained cry and reaches out toward me, but I pull back and get to my feet, stumbling back against the wall. Grabbing Mark's gun, I fumble with the safety catch for a moment before aiming at the poor woman. I know I should put her out of her misery, but I can't bring myself to pull the trigger. Finally, after a couple of seconds, I see the life fade from her eyes and her body slumps down, with more spiders carving their way out through the back of her head.
“Someone's coming up the stairwell,” Mark says, stepping past me.
Turning, I realize that he's right. As well as the screams still ringing out from below, there's the sound of footsteps getting closer. Calm, patient, steady footsteps.
A moment later, I spot spiders crawling out from under the double doors, and then a shadow appears on the other side of the frosted glass.
“Who the hell is that?” Mark whispers.
“You need to get out of here,” I reply, taking a step back with my eyes fixed on the door.
“Abby, we -”
“Get out of here,” I say firmly.
The doors start to open.
“Get out of here!” I shout. “Mark, run!”
Stepping through the doorway, a painfully thin man in a dark suit comes into view, grinning as he stares at me. Hundreds of spiders are swarming around his feet and crawling across the doors, emerging onto this floor of the building and scurrying along the walls and ceiling too. I can tell immediately that this man, whoever he is, has to be from the same species as Emilia. He leans heavily on a cane as he takes a limping step forward.
“Stop!” Mark shouts, stepping past me with his gun aimed at the man. “Identify yourself!”
The man stops and lets the doors swing shut, but he seems completely un-threatened.
“You have until the count of three to identify yourself,” Mark says firmly, taking a step toward him. “One -”
“Mark, that's not going to work,” I whisper, putting a hand on his arm to keep him from getting too close.
“Two!”
“Good evening, Ms. Hart,” the thin man says, completely ignoring Mark. “I do hope you won't be struggling too much.”
“Three!” Mark pulls the trigger, but something in his gun jams. He tries again but the same thing happens, and when I turn to look I see several spiders crawling out of the barrel and making their way onto his hand.
“No!” I shout, grabbing the gun and tossing it aside before brushing the spiders away from him before any of them can get to his mouth. “Mark, you have to get out of here right now!” I turn to lead him away, but before I can make another move I see that there are hundreds more spiders swarming along the dark corridor right behind us, blocking our way out of here.
“We have you completely surrounded,” the thin man says calmly. “The only question, Ms. Hart, is how many other innocent lives have to be lost before you accept your fate.”
“Move!” I shout, shoving Mark into the office before following him through and slamming the door shut. Looking around the darkened room, I feel a sense of pure panic rushing through my body as I realize there's nothing here I can use as a weapon. I turn the key in the lock, but I know that won't hold the spiders back for long.
“Abby,” Mark replies, “I think -”
“Quiet!” I hiss, before looking down and seeing that several spiders are already crawling under the door. I immediately stamp on them, crushing them beneath the heel of my boot, but more are coming and I know I need a better plan. Grabbing a towel from one of the nearby benches, I start to push it under the door, even as more spiders crawl through and onto my hands. Their legs are like razors, slicing through my flesh.
“Sirens are getting closer,” Mark says, over by the window. “There are going to be more police here any moment.”
“They can't do anything,” I reply, brushing spiders off my hands and taking a step back as I see that the towel is already being pushed aside. More spiders are crawling through and then swarming up the door and onto the benches. At this rate, they'll fill the room in a matter of minutes. We'll end up drowning in the damn things, if their razor-sharp legs don't carve us up first.
Suddenly someone knocks on the other side of the door.
“Ms. Hart,” the thin man calls out from the corridor as he tries the handle, “I really think you should accept your fate with a little more grace. Death isn't such a terrible thing, you know. There are places to go in the afterlife, worlds to explore. You might even bump into a few people you know.”
“Open the window!” I shout at Mark, hurrying over as he unfastens the latch. Sliding the window up, I lean out and see that we're way too high up for him to survive the jump. Sure, I could make it, but Mark's a human and a ten-storey fall would be extremely bad for his health. “Damn it,” I mutter, turning to him, “why do you have to be here?”
“Me?” he replies, turning to look over at the door, where more spiders are crawling into the room. “I don't think I'm the problem.”
“Of course you're the problem!” I hiss. “If I didn't have to worry about keeping you alive, I'd be fighting back by now.”
“Don't worry about me,” he replies, “I can take care of myself.”
“This is why I shouldn't let people get too close,” I mutter, heading over to one of the few benches that isn't already covered in spiders. “People complicate things, they -” Spotting some of the vials I was working on earlier, I realize I could easily use them to start a fire. After all, the Book of Gothos notes that the venom sacs of the ancient spiders were particularly flammable, which was their one major weakness. Unfortunately, the same problem applies as before: fire and humans don't mix too well.
“Ms. Hart!” the thin man calls out. “I'm starting to lose patience.”
Looking over at the door, I see that several spiders are already swarming all over the key. To my horror, I realize they're starting to make it turn.
“Okay,” I mutter, grabbing the vials and pulling the lids away before dousing the area around the door with the contents, covering hundreds of spiders, “this is going to have to be a two-part plan.”
“What plan?” Mark asks.
“The first part,” I reply, grabbing some matches from the counter and lighting one, before leaning down and holding it against the liquid, “is this.” The liquid bursts into flames even faster than I'd expected, knocking me back as fire ripples toward the door and quickly fills the far side of the room. Despite the brightness, I can just about make out hundreds of spiders immediately burning to a crisp as the flames take hold.
“Great,” Mark replies as we back toward the window, both of us staring at the inferno. “What was the second part of the plan?”
“I didn't get that far,” I tell him, before turning to look out the window. My mind is racing, considering all the possibilities and eliminating them until I'm left with only one option. “It's the only way. I did something like this once before, I jumped off the top of a very tall asylum and I managed to land more or less okay at the bottom. The only difference is that back then I wasn't trying to keep a human alive at the same time, but I guess I just need to have a little more faith in myself and -”
Hearing a crashing sound over my shoulder, I turn just in tim
e to see that the burning door has been pushed aside. The thin man steps through, ignoring the flames. All around him, more spiders swarm into the room, although many of them immediately burn in the inferno. Some make their way up the wall, however, and start crawling toward us across the ceiling.
“If you were hoping for a painless death,” the man snarls, “you really shouldn't have killed so many of my friends and family.”
“I can't fight them right now,” I stammer, taking a step back. “Not like this, not on their terms.” I turn to Mark. “Do you trust me?”
“Sure, but -”
“That'll do.” Grabbing his arm, I pull him over to the window and look down at the street far below.
“Abby,” he says cautiously, “what -”
“Don't worry,” I tell him, “I'll catch you.”
“You'll catch me?” he asks cautiously. “What -”
“You said you trusted me,” I remind him.
With that, I lean forward, keeping hold of his arm and pulling him out through the window. We both tumble down through the cold night air. He tries to turn back, to take hold of the frame, but I keep my grip on him as we start to fall and I twist around, looking up at the window as I see that there are spiders crawling all over the side of the building now.
“Abby!” Mark shouts.
Looking down, I see that we're about to hit the ledge of the next building, so I quickly twist Mark around so that I take the full force of the impact. I immediately feel my shoulder shatter, but at least none of that energy goes into Mark. There's no time to even notice the extra pain, however, as we continue to fall.
When we hit the next ledge, I feel my back snap, but once again I twist Mark around so that he doesn't get hurt.
We fall further, plummeting toward the ground, and there are no more ledges to break our fall.
My plan to take a series of incremental hits failed. I have about two seconds to come up with something new.
There's only one possibility, so I wrap my arms tight around Mark's body and position myself beneath him, and then I hold tight as we both scream and -
As soon as we slam into the sidewalk, time seems to slow down and I feel every bone in my body start to break. The energy of the impact ripples through me, but with sheer force of will I'm able to take that energy and redirect it, forcing it back through my body again and again so that it never reaches Mark at all. I feel my spine shatter into a thousand pieces, and then the impact's force ripples up my neck to the base of my skull. The pain is immense, beyond anything I've ever felt before, and as each millisecond passes I have to absorb more and more of the impact in order to make sure that none of it gets to Mark, and to redirect it so that his organs aren't crushed by the sudden stop. I let out a guttural cry, but even though I'm on the verge of blacking out I know I have to stay focused. My bones are absorbing so much energy now from the impact, they're turning to dust inside my body but still I have to stay in control. Time no longer even seems to exist, replaced by an existence that's defined purely by pain, and with my bones pulverized I'm forced to absorb the rest of the energy directly into my mind. Finally, just when I feel as if I can't go on, I realize that the worst of the impact is over.
As I slip into darkness, I can hear a single heart beating furiously nearby. I just hope it's his, and not mine.
Part Three
CHILDISH THINGS
Jonathan
“What is this place?” I ask, looking around in awe as Emilia leads me along a tunnel several miles beneath Manhattan. “I don't recall seeing anything like this on any maps.”
“Maybe you've been looking at the wrong maps,” she replies from up ahead. She's lighting the way with her phone, and so far she seems to know exactly where she's going.
“Wait,” I say suddenly, stopping as I see a series of shapes carved into the brickwork. Running my fingers over the first shape, I can't shake the feeling that it feels vaguely familiar, even though it's clearly not rooted in any language system I've ever seen before. For a few seconds, a sense of dizziness returns, and I can't help thinking that these symbols remind me of something from my dreams.
On the walls of Gothos...
“Sealed,” Emilia says suddenly, leaning past me and pointing at one of the symbols. With a smile, she points at the next. “This means that something is over, and this third one refers to a specific prophecy that was put in place during the war between the vampires and the spiders. This is where Patrick brought the final members of his own species after the spiders had been defeated. By that point, vampires had become so used to fighting, they'd turned on one another and -”
“No,” I reply, taking a step back. “You've taken this joke too far.”
“If you really thought it was a joke,” she continues, “why did you come all the way down here with me? Most people would have run a mile by now, but you followed me like a curious little puppy. I can only assume that somehow, in the back of your mind, you know I'm telling the truth.”
“I know no such thing,” I reply, turning to head back the way we came. “I'm going to -”
“Your father was here,” she says suddenly. “The man you saw in your dreams. He was right here, right where you're standing.”
I stop, staring straight ahead, unwilling to turn back to her but unable to walk away, not after those words. I want to tell her she's insane, but she's right: deep down, some sense of familiarity is gnawing at my guts.
“You have seen him in your dreams, haven't you?” she asks.
I pause, feeling a shiver pass through my body.
“Long before you were born,” she continues, “and long before your father ever met your mother, he was in this set of catacombs, sorting out some unfinished business. His name was Patrick and he was, for better or for worse, one of the most feared vampires who ever lived. I could show you texts that tell stories of him, legends about his every action, spanning this world from Neratovice and Dannenby to Passchendaele and Chicago. I could explain to you how he ended up in a dull little town named Dedston, hundreds of miles from here, and how he met your mother. Her name was -”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, turning to her.
“Her name was -”
“Why are you doing this?” I shout.
“Doing what?”
“Torturing me. Lying about everything. Trying to get me to believe this garbage. Is it some kind of sick game?”
She shakes her head. “If you thought it was a game, you'd be gone by now.”
I open my mouth to tell her to go to hell, but there's something about her stare, something about her calm demeanor, that makes it impossible for me to leave. I feel as if I'm on the verge of learning some great hidden truth, even though I've spent my whole life insisting that I don't need to know about my real parents. I guess I was fooling myself.
“What was her name?” I ask finally.
“Who?”
“My mother. You were about to tell me.”
“Well,” she says with a smile, “I was, but since you're being so rude -”
“Tell me her name!” I shout, taking a step toward her but managing to hold myself back.
Her smile broadens.
“Tell me her name,” I say again, more calmly this time. “Please.”
She pauses. “Sophie,” she says finally. “Sophie Hart. She and Patrick had two children, twins, before he killed her. Oh, didn't I mention that part before?” She smiles. “Your father killed your mother because he had to fulfill some dumb prophecy. He believed that if she survived, the spiders would return.”
“Spiders?”
“Well, I should probably admit that I -”
“Twins?” I continue, stepping toward her. “What do you mean, they had twins?”
“Can't you sense her?” she asks. “Haven't you noticed her absence? Don't you miss feeling her next to you, the way she was right there while you were both forming in your mother's womb? That's a pretty intimate way to meet someone, it's hard to believe you c
ould have forgotten about each other so completely. Even for vampires, or half-vampires, that's pretty cold.”
I shake my head. She's lying, she has to be, and yet... I have always felt as if something or someone is missing.
“Her name is Abigail,” Emilia continues. “Abby for short. She's right here in New York, but she knows absolutely nothing of your existence. Even your own parents didn't know. Your father was so wrapped up with Abigail, he didn't even stick around long enough to see you slipping out a few minutes later, and your mother was so sick during childbirth, she could have given birth to a dozen elephants and she'd never have remembered. The only person who knew about you was the midwife who delivered you, and she chose to hide you away so that your father would never get his hands on you. All the misery and pain was left for Abby to deal with.”
“Abby?” I take a deep breath. “I've never met anyone named Abby.”
“I guess she wasn't named Abby in the womb,” Emilia replies. “I guess she was just a fetus, like you.”
“Where is she?” I ask.
“Don't focus on her too much,” she replies. “You'll never meet her. As it turns out, the information she possesses can be more easily obtained from another source.” She smiles again, as her gaze shifts slightly from my eyes toward my forehead. “We just have to tease it out.”
Turning, I look along the dark corridor.
“I know it must seem like a lot to take in,” Emilia continues. “You want to tell me I'm crazy, that I'm making it all up, but at the same time you know deep down that every word is true. You must have sensed that you were different to other humans, Jonathan, even if you didn't want to admit that fact. Be honest, didn't you feel as if you didn't fit in? Didn't you know, in your heart of hearts, that those dreams you experienced every night were more than dreams? They were the desperate attempt of your subconscious mind to make sense of the truth buried deep in your thoughts. Call it a race memory if you like, an awareness of -”
