'It knows her scent. It knows yours, too. It will hunt her through the streets of this city and fetch her back. When it does so, it will consume her.'
'As in… eat?'
'There are souls trapped within it. When it takes hers, it will join them, and thus any traces of her influence on your mind will be erased. Her soul will go to the hell realm, or so I believe.'
Cerberus lumbered up to him, each of its three heads shifting independently. Muscles rippled beneath its fur, strongly noticeable even in this dreary light. Malum could smell the creature's rank breath and pondered at the cause of that. A head came looming down towards him, till it was almost up against his face, baring its canine jaws. But Malum stood firm, not wanting to give ground despite the threat, almost wanting to growl back. The other two heads began to sniff at him, analysing his scent as if to confirm something they already knew.
'I'm not scared of you,' Malum breathed. He narrowed his eyes, and could sense that the old crone was eager with anticipation. 'How does it know who to kill? Will it go around ripping to pieces every person it encounters in the streets?'
'No more than you would do.'
'I select my targets,' he snapped, returning his gaze to Cerberus. 'I'm no random killing machine.'
'Hmm. Well, in answer to your question, it already knows her scent.'
'Then send it off, and let's get this business over with.'
Sycoraxe hobbled up to the creature and breathed something into Cerberus's nearest ear. She then led it downstairs and Malum followed, watching it descend with its awkward gait.
The mass of black paused in the street as snow spiralled about it. Both moons glowed diffusely beneath a thin layer of cloud hanging low in the west, but above the city itself there hovered the remnants of a sudden blizzard. Cressets and oil lamps glowed from inside neighbouring houses. Cerberus was kicking plumes of snow around, curious and disturbingly ludic, then with a word from Sycoraxe's mouth it ceased, and came to attention.
She uttered another order, and the gargantuan beast lumbered off into the night.
*
'Are you happy now?'
'Yes, of course I am,' Beami replied. 'Relieved too, and happier once I collect the rest of my things. I suspect I'll miss him for a while.'
'Really?'
'It's from habit more than anything else, I guess. Any new routine makes me feel unsettled. I know instinctively I've made the right decision; it doesn't stop me from feeling like a shit.'
Lupus seemed to half expect some thanks from her, and tried to probe her mind further. 'Do you reckon that my staying here, you know, in Villiren, helped things along?'
'I'd taken other lovers after you,' Beami interrupted, and the sudden disappointment in his eyes forced her to continue quickly. Men and their egos… 'They just helped me through when I needed a little help. When I wanted to feel something, before I met him. This isn't only about you. It never was – much as I adore you. It is about getting away from… him. I suppose I could have gone and stayed with Zizi or someone, but I wanted to make a clean break.'
'I'm fine with that, really,' Lupus replied.
He had helped move her into a safe apartment half a mile from the Ancient Quarter, near one of the major stairwells that led down to the escape tunnels, ever concerned for her safety during any forthcoming fighting. It was a plain room, with unattractive furniture, but at least it was her own. He had asked her if she wanted to invite some of her friends from the Symbolist, in fact was hoping to meet them himself, but she declined, preferring something altogether calmer tonight. So while she unpacked he purchased coloured lanterns and cheap food and made a fire. He rustled up a traditional slave dish from the ore-mining days, and they were able to make a night of things. She drank beer from the bottle faster than he could, like they used to.
Later, after several quick alcohol-tinged kisses, they lay on the bed feeling quite separated from everyday life, listening to the sounds of the city nearby, louder than her old home, more sporadic, more unsettling. She didn't like living near two bordellos situated on the south side of the street. He couldn't resist some cheap jokes, and within the minute her hands were moving down towards his breeches.
*
Later, she joined Lupus in peering out of the window. It overlookene of the rare crooked streets that curved away from the Ancient Quarter. The original gothic architectures had been preserved anere well lit by torches and storm lanterns. Two teenagers wearinarish masks shuffled by drunkenly, their arms around each other, anhey walked right past the man sheltering in a doorway without givinim a second glance. Their raucous laughter could be heard echoinrom a nearby alleyway.
Suddenly something lumbered briefly across the periphery of his vision.
Beami must have noticed his reaction because she said, 'What's wrong?'
He glanced instinctively over to his compound bow resting in the corner, then to the quiverful of arrows slung from her bedpost.
'There's something out there,' he said, trying to see where it had gone. 'There it is again, something black and bulky, a sharp contrast against the snow.'
'It's probably nothing, I wouldn't worry.'
There was a scream, followed by 'Oh no… no please shit no-'
'The homeless man's gone.'
There was a noise she couldn't place, like a dog growling.
'Would Malum have come after us?' he asked nervously.
'Possibly.'
'Look down there.' Lupus pointed to where the snow was stained by flecks of blood.
'Maybe this area is rougher than we thought,' Beami said uneasily.
He moved to the bed, slung the quiver over his shoulder, picked up his bow, then checked there was still a backup knife in his boot. He handed his short-sword to Beami. Wordlessly she accepted it and nodded, before turning to the corner, to her leather satchel full of relics.
There was an immense thud.
'The door of the building,' Beami gasped.
'Whatever it is, it's trying to get in,' Lupus confirmed. 'Shit.'
The door was struck again, and she heard it give way.
Beami pulled out a set of Logi chains from her satchel, and began to swirl the ultra-light metal artefact around until it began to emit light, and soon she was carving out shapes that separated from nothingness, bordered with a bright lilac light at first, but then becoming more solid.
A lumbering noise approaching up the stairs.
Lupus nocked an arrow and aimed it at the doorway, stepping instinctively in front of Beami.
Oh, please. Men!
Something threw its full weight against the door, making the wood shudder, and immediately it tried again, sending a thick splinter to cough back and rattle around their feet. Through the gap exposed, something with fur could be seen moving.
Lupus loosed an arrow.
It screamed – no, howled. He nocked another, fired, nocked again, fired and eventually whatever it was moved away, leaving a deep silence.
Then the door burst completely as the creature came exploding through it, and three grotesque heads were biting at everything, saliva slopping to the floor in pools. Blood seeped from the arrow wounds, but they didn't seem to impede the thing's movements.
'Get out of the way,' Beami ordered, but Lupus ignored her.
He drew his blade and assumed a fighting stance, crouching and ready, relaxing back his vision to concentrate on all three heads, and when two of them attacked simultaneously he sliced his weapon horizontally, cutting one in the cheek, then ducked beneath the other set of jaws and punched one of the creature's throats. It reeled back, winded.
Using the Logi, Beami whipped and cracked three bright liquid-lines out to one side of Lupus, where they slapped into the monster repeatedly, leaving a staggered row of burning light-scars in its hide.
The floorboards almost buckled as it collapsed on them, dust motes drifting around it. There was now an overwhelming stillness.
'I think I'm going to lose my deposit on this place,'
Beami said eventually.
Lupus stared breathlessly at his lover, at the thin metal rods in each of her hands, and the two trailing chains that had now lost their light. 'What the hell did you do to it?'
'These things shoot concentrated energy, distilled elements – a bit like lightning. I just stunned the brute, that's all.'
'Couldn't you put enough whatever energy in it to kill the damn thing?'
'No, it came after us specifically, so I wanted to get a better look at it. You can slash its throats afterwards if you want. Anyway, do it outside. I've only just got everything unpacked here and I'm pissed off that I already need to clean up.'
Together they extended the heap of fallen body out till it nearly covered the length of the room. The light-line wounds were still glowing, between the parted fur, and there was a stench of burnt flesh as if it had been branded with a red-hot iron. This was clearly some form of dog, although Beami observed that no cultist had produced this. It was too perfect a specimen – cultists could only splice, creating awkward and macabre hybrids. She felt sorry for it, realizing it wasn't its fault that it had been sent here to hunt them down. The thing began to regain consciousness slowly, and Lupus was forced to kill it.
With all three of its throats slit, it bled slowly to death.
*
And in a distant, unremarkable house, far from the scene of the carnage, an old woman sat staring at her runes, screeching a torrent of abuse against the beast's destroyers.
'Fat lot of good your magic is, if the damn thing's dead,' Malum complained.
'She is evil, with her relics!'
'I suppose I'll get the lads to hunt her down after all, if there's no quicker option.'
'How will you know where to find her? Magic is the best-'
'You've tried and failed, so leave this to my lot.'
'You didn't see what I saw, through its eyes!'
'And what, dare I ask, did you see?' As if it could possibly be anything either natural or sane.
'Another man. A soldier. You have seen him, maybe? One of the Night Guard.'
He stormed out of the room. Fuck this, it was bad enough being abandoned by your wife, but to find she was running around with another man… He had never felt so humiliated. They both had to die, immediately.
He grabbed the relic he'd given to the witch, determined to sell all Beami's crap in the market tomorrow.
'He looks like a wolf!' the witch wailed after him, as he strode out into the cold. Her words followed him down the street, either as an echo, or in his head, he couldn't tell which.
But on his way back, he did something unexpected. With the relic – that extension of Beami – in his hands, he meandered along the lanes where he had once gone walking with her. He headed past the boarded-up stores where he had bought her presents, past bars and bistros where they had shared intimate conversations. Whenever one of his gang members approached, he ignored them, keeping his head down and his hands in his pockets, and tried to identify the moment where he had let things reach the point of no return.
Most of all he was bothered at why he had become so concerned over someone else. How was it that he, a leader of men, a half-vampyr, who could get anything he wanted, now found himself with his wife walking out of his life, and with only emptiness in her place?
Tonight he was a hollow man.
T HIRTY-SIX
Jeryd drank tea, chatted with the waitress as she came to the end of her shift, but mostly he made some ephemeral notes that quickly became doodles. He watched her talking to another old rumel, and wondered if this was all she ever had to do, and if it got boring.
He sat waiting at a table by the window of the bistro, biding his time and thinking about all the things he had seen so far in this intense city.
The street door opened, a little bell rang, and Jeryd peeked up, still fractionally on edge. As if a giant spider would come waltzing in through the front door…
Bellis, Abaris and Ramon strolled in. 'Come along with us, Jeryd,' Bellis called out. 'Tonight, we converse in higher places.'
'Don't you fancy a drink?'
Bellis patted the inside of her tweeds. 'My own supply. But something warming first, to help it along my system, would be delightful.'
*
Up on the flat roof, Jeryd handed over his gift of maps one by one in the darkness, so Ramon and Abaris had to tilt them this way and that to catch some of the dim light from one of the street lamps below. They whispered swift and private matters, which merely heightened Jeryd's curiosity as to what hell they were up to in this city. After some curt discussion, each map was pocketed.
The completion of the exchange prompted Bellis into motion, and she bounded forward keenly to produce her relic. 'Now then, what we have here is a wonderful device designed to attract spiders.'
'That it?' If Jeryd was being honest, it didn't look like much, merely a narrow obsidian rod with a glowing bulb at the top. It seemed even less impressive given that the weather had turned even more sour, and he was freezing.
'Of course it is, you silly man,' Bellis added. 'Its structure is made from tektites, a mineral originating from another world – ha, we always say that, don't we? – since it's found mostly in meteorites, but whatever the stuff contains, it has tested superbly in sucking up dozens of our little arachnid friends. We've augmented – you know the word? – augmented the frequencies of the inner circuitry and so, according to the theory, we should have this giant arachnid of yours bagged in no time.'
'And when it gets here?' Jeryd enquired.
'Ah yes, the boys have been working on that. Ramon?'
The sinister-looking bald man leaned down to pick up a small bag. From it he retrieved a small brass tripod, which he then lowered to the rooftop, several feet away.
'Best move back,' Abaris warned, arms wide, steering them back another several feet at least. He pulled an ordinary stick from his pocket, and threw it in the direction of the tripod.
The relic remained inert, not reacting.
'It wasn't actually meant to do anything because it was too small,' Bellis whispered to Jeryd. 'Now, watch this.'
Ramon moved towards the relic, hands held behind his back. As soon as he was within two feet, light stuttered into being, aggregating into the glowing bars of a cage. Light continued to spit and stutter, and Ramon was totally imprisoned within it. Grinning, he made a flamboyant bow so that the light reflected off his bald head.
'So you see,' Bellis explained, 'when your spider arrives, it will be catered for very well indeed.'
'You lot really are a bunch of wise old geniuses, you realize,' Jeryd said.
'It takes one individual of wisdom to notice another,' Bellis declared.
'Nah, I've done nothing yet,' Jeryd protested. 'I won't consider myself as having achieved a single thing until that monster is locked away.' He waited as the cage was deactivated, the light collapsing into blackness, and there was a noticeable absence, some void left by the relic's trickery, even the faint smell of burning. Jeryd was mightily impressed.
'Let's give it a go then,' Bellis said, and the others set up the two devices next to each other on the rooftop. And they waited, shivering, in the cold winds.
Jeryd regarded the cityscape in anticipation, wondering how his own deepest fears would manifest after his experiences with Bellis's orb.
*
Nanzi felt something deep within, a summoning in her very core. She shuddered, leapt up from her bed, glanced furtively around the room. The black cat peeked up in surprise from the foot of the bed.
'Is everything all right, my love?' Voland asked, glancing up from his book as he lay beside her.
'I don't feel all that well. I might make a drink and take some fresh air outside.'
'Would you like me to get it for you?'
'No, I'll go.' She pushed aside the sheets and clambered off the bed. Her spider appendages rooted out her skirt and boots, and within the minute she was heading downstairs. At the front door, she rested he
r hand on the frame, staring across the street, hoping to find something. The darkened buildings were defined by starlight, while a couple of tramps huddled by a small pit fire.
What was this strange sensation that had seduced her out here? It was like a thirst. All her emotions had condensed. A need for some long-lost lover. A lament for a dead friend. But this was rare – this was calling for her… other state. She felt intoxicated by her urges and, within the minute, she began to collapse inwards, then fold out again into her spider form.
With one limb she pulled the door shut, then crawled up along the surface of the wall to the roof of the abattoir. There, she could read the world in a different manner, decipher these gentle vibrations of activity. The city always appeared thronging to her in this form, but some way in the distance she could sense something so alluring, so delicious, so essential that she could not prevent herself from scuttling as quickly as she could across the deserted nightscape.
*
Jeryd watched in slack-jawed awe as hundreds of tiny spiders bled from the city's architecture.
Out of habit he felt the need to jump on something to avoid them, but there was no way of escape up here. And this time… he felt no fear.
Black streams of arachnids centred on the Grey Hairs' relic, countless trickles and trails of tiny legs and bulbous torsos. As he gazed across the nearby rooftops he could see their massed progress gliding across the slick slate-crowned buildings, and they were coming from all directions. By now Jeryd had retreated well out of the way for fear of being smothered by them, but he did not feel anything like as petrified as he used to be.
Jeryd's nerves jittered from simply being present in this intensely surreal scene, from being surrounded by what seemed like all of the spiders in the Boreal Archipelago. Creatures that normally inhabited the dead regions of the city were gathering in one place – but he did not tremble, and felt only a fraction of that familiar tightness in his heart. All the time, though, he kept a lookout for the one monster, stealing glances between the buildings and wherever the moonlight failed to penetrate.
He untucked a blade from his boot and clutched it uncertainly; of what possible use could it be against this immense arachnid abomination? The Grey Hairs, by contrast, seemed thoroughly relaxed, as they slouched about in casual postures. Bellis turned to focus on him now and then with her hands resting on her hips. Jeryd simply nodded the answer for her unspoken question, Are you all right?
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