Authors: James R Tuck
Spider's Lullaby (2 page)
3
I stood in front of Charlotte's cabinets. They were painted a bright yellow and had a nice scrollwork accent that had been carved into the corners. The small ceramic handles had tiny swirling patterns in a cornflower blue. They smelled like they were made of oak. I noticed all of this while looking at the thumb-sized hole through the center of the cabinet door.
If I had my guess, it was a .45 caliber bullet hole. The best I had was a guess because there weren't any shell casings lying around. None. Not one. They had all been picked up.
Opening the cabinet showed the wood around the hole was splintered to hell and back. White plates that had been stacked behind were shattered. The wall in the back of the cabinet had a hole in it. Reaching in, careful of the razor-edged shards of porcelain, I stuck my finger inside it.
Smooth, lumpy metal met the tip of my finger. There was a steak knife in the sink that I picked up. Digging into the wall, I got the point of the knife past the metal lump, pried up, and popped it free. I tossed the knife back in the sink and looked at the snarl of bullet in my palm.
Yep, .45 caliber.
Tricky, tricky, tricky.
Closing the cabinet, I turned to the two ladies in the kitchen who were watching my every move. “This was a professional job.”
Charlotte stood still. Gray fur covering her body shimmered as she quivered in anger. The four spider legs from her back came around her, agitating the air. Her voice was full of venom. “How the hell do you know that?”
Tiff put a hand on her. “Charlotte, please calm down. This is what he does, you know that. Let him explain.” She turned her face toward me expectantly.
I pointed at the cabinets. In my head I could picture what happened here. The bullet holes stitched along the cabinets, trailing off in a line along the wall. I could see a Were-spider in spider form, probably the one taking up both sides of the hallway, scrambling up the wall and ceiling trying to get away from the killer. They had thrown the refrigerator over in an attempt to get away, blocking the killer that was after them. He had chased them with bullets instead.
“We are looking at a professional using two suppressed .45's.”
Tiff looked thoughtful before she spoke up. She was trying to learn. “How do you know they were suppressed?”
My finger tracked the trail of bullets. “A normal .45 will shoot through six layers of plywood without stopping. These bullets stopped in the sheetrock behind the cabinets. When you put a suppressor on a semiautomatic, the bullet speed is reduced so it doesn't crack the sound barrier. And .45's are loud as hell. This many unsuppressed bullets would have had the neighbors dialing 911 like it was their job. We would have gotten here and found a yard full of cops.”
“How do you know they used two guns?”
I pointed at the holes again. “There are twelve bullet holes here. A standard .45 comes with a seven-round magazine, so eight shots if you keep one in the chamber. You can get extended magazines for them, but when you start retrofitting clips they usually misfeed. We know these guns were suppressed, which would make them prone to misfire. A professional wouldn't use an extended magazine.”
Her brow furrowed as she processed what I was saying. “And this wasn't a robbery gone wrong?”
“Absolutely not.” Gently, I tossed the bullet over to her. She caught it with one hand and held it up to the light, studying it. “What do you see, little girl?”
Realization clicked on. “Silver.”
“Got it in one.” I smiled. She was learning fast. “This was done by someone who knew they were hitting a lycanthrope's home.” We looked at each other in understanding.
God, her eyes were blue. Big and bright, like the clearest day you ever saw, they pulled to me from behind a thick lace of lash. We had shared a connection since I took her out of the club where she worked. It had been owned by a vampire douchebag named Gregorios. It wasn't the first time we had met. I had done her first tattoo years prior. That had been before. Before my life exploded. Before all that I had was ripped away by the murder of my family.
I don't want to talk about that.
It hurts too much.
When we met the second time, she decided to become involved in my crazy, monster-hunting life. She had been there at the end of the Appollonia thing, standing strong, trying to fight my fight with me.
I had sent her away to keep her safe. She was completely unprepared for the hell we were going to have to unleash.
She had kissed me before leaving.
It had been a moment in a bad situation where survival wasn't guaranteed. It hadn't happened again and we hadn't talked about it. She seemed to understand without me telling her that I was still too wounded from losing my family so many years ago. Since their deaths there had been no one. She didn't push anything, and because of that we had become very ...
close
. We weren't dating, but there was a connection between us that grew stronger the more time we spent together.
close
. We weren't dating, but there was a connection between us that grew stronger the more time we spent together.
Our attention was broken by the scrape and bang of Charlotte shoving the refrigerator back in place. She turned to face us. Her hair had fallen, hanging in black and gray strands around her alien face. Long, slender fingers with too many knuckles smoothed it back.
Turning away from her task, she looked at us with eight unblinking red eyes. “How is any of this going to help us find the bastard who did this?”
“The more information I can gather the better chance we have.”
Charlotte's spider-lady face is almost expressionless. It's one of the things that makes that form so damn creepy. Thick, painted lips quivered in that alien face, the only trace to show she was upset. That and the fact that her solid red eyes had begun to actually glow, throwing shadows over her brow and under cheekbones so sharp they could cut paper.
Her voice had a mechanical buzz to it as it came out of her thorax, but her words were desperate. “We don't have much time. I can
feel
the hatching coming on.”
feel
the hatching coming on.”
I gave her a sharp look. “Is this a wacky lycanthropy feeling, or a run-of-the-mill feeling?”
“I am psychically connected to my eggs. It's part of motherhood for a spider.”
“How much time do we have?”
She shook her head. “Not long, but I can't give you a precise prediction.” Her head cocked to the side, lidless red eyes unblinking. “It feels like it will happen before dawn.”
I looked at my watch. It was near 2
A.M.
Dammit, that really wasn't a lot of time with almost no information to go on. “What happens when time is up?”
A.M.
Dammit, that really wasn't a lot of time with almost no information to go on. “What happens when time is up?”
“Normally, they would hatch, feed on the meat I provided.” My mind flashed to the ripening half of a cow in the basement as she continued. “And then they would imprint on me as their mother and I could send them out into the world, grounded to me.”
“What happens if you are not there?”
“They will imprint on whomever is nearest after they feed; but if they are not a Were-spider, the imprinting may destroy that person's mind.”
“And if that happens or no one is there?”
Charlotte's fingers flew to her mouth in shock. “They will have no anchor. They will kill until they die.”
That was bad. Really, really, epically bad.
Charlotte had explained that she'd had an egg sac because nature chooses which form a lycanthrope pregnancy will take. She could have had a Were-spider baby that would have been like her, or she could have actual spiders. Nature had blessed her with actual spiders.
But these would
not
be natural spiders. We had no idea what they would be. Not only was their momma a Were-spider who happened to possess flesh-dissolving venom, but their daddy was a man named Longinus, immortal holder of the Spear of Destiny, original sire of all vampires, cursed by God Almighty to walk the earth until Judgment Day.
not
be natural spiders. We had no idea what they would be. Not only was their momma a Were-spider who happened to possess flesh-dissolving venom, but their daddy was a man named Longinus, immortal holder of the Spear of Destiny, original sire of all vampires, cursed by God Almighty to walk the earth until Judgment Day.
That was a potent supernatural DNA cocktail. Hell, it was the genetic equivalent of a Molotov cocktail, and now the fuse had been lit.
Longinus and Charlotte had gotten together after we had all helped to defeat Appollonia. They had met while both were held captive by that crazy hell-bitch. Charlotte as an unwilling servant and Longinus as a tortured prisoner.
The relationship hadn't lasted long, just about long enough to create the pregnancy. Charlotte had explained that she was poly-amorous, taking lovers as she saw fit, not mating for a long period of time. It was part of her nature as a spider and part of her nature as a human. Longinus had gone back to the “walking the earth” part of his curse, and Charlotte had settled here in Georgia with most of the other Were-spiders that had been under Appollonia's control.
Tiff spoke up, “Do we need to call Longinus?”
Charlotte shook her head. “He couldn't get here in time and there would be nothing he could do anyways. We've talked about it. He understands that even though he is the father, he has no connection with the hatchlings. These are not children, they are spiders. Spiders don't form emotional attachments. It's more primal and instinctive.”
I turned toward the hallway. “Okay, let me look at the bodies that weren't shot and then we need to move. Ronnie is short of time.”
I did not say out loud that I thought she had been taken to replace the cow lying in the basement.
Ronnie was a dancer from Polecats, the sort of strip club I own that funds my war on monsters. A couple of years ago her brother got caught up in a Santeria gang war. She tried to get him out of it and got dragged in. I went in to rescue them, but only managed to save Ronnie. I hadn't been able to pull them both literally from the fire. Her brother died in a voodoo inferno that ended the gang war by incinerating all the gangbangers.
I barely managed to save Ronnie. To this day she still wears slick scars on both her palms from holding on to her brother too long, and if you stand too close to her, you get a whiff of hoodoo smoke.
Veronica Maria Benedetta Bellini, or Ronnie to her friends. If my dad had met Ronnie before he left this shitty old world, he would have said she was “built like a brick shithouse,” which is a compliment somehow. At 5'6” in six-inch heels, her figure blew out like a cartoon pinup. With lush, cantaloupe-sized breasts and an ass that mimicked the curve of the earth with twice as much gravity, she was a big hit at the club.
To top it off, she was lovely. Thick ringlets of dark brown hair fell to her shoulders and framed a face with a pair of eyes the color of roasted almonds, a nose that testified to her Italian heritage, and a set of sinfully thick lips.
And she was one of the sweetest people I have ever met.
She was so nice she made me feel bad about myself.
She had volunteered to egg-sacâsit for Charlotte while we went out. The dead Were-spiders had lived with Charlotte, part of her cluster, but apparently it was anathema for one spider to care for another's offspring. Ronnie had signed up so Charlotte could have one last evening out before hatching. Now she had been taken along with the egg sac.
The person who took her had no idea the wrath that I was going to rain down upon them if she was hurt in any way.
Ronnie was my employee.
Ronnie was my friend.
Ronnie was
mine.
mine.
The people I let into my life are few and far between. If someone does make it inside, then I have a damn good reason for letting them. Ronnie was one of those people. I had claimed her the moment I had rescued her. She was mine. Mine to protect and, if need be, mine to avenge.
Back to work.
Stepping into the hallway, I looked at the body lying there. My eyes moved around, tracing and studying the blood spatter. It had begun to dry into a dark, forest green, gelatinous smear.
Lycanthropes shift back to human upon death. Usually this includes all viscera, but for some reason Were-spiders seemed to be different. Maybe it was all non-mammal lycanthropes, I didn't know. I made a mental note to find out later. Right now I had work to do.
The blood arced up and around the ceiling, tracking down into a line that went down the wall. There was a heavy blot of it beside the doorframe. Looking at it, something caught my eye. Reaching up, my fingers slid over an irregularity. It was masked by the blood; if I hadn't been studying the area, I wouldn't have seen it. The wood was sliced. It was a smooth cut, the part in the wood as wide as a fingernail is thick and about four inches long.
Hmmmmmmm.
I filed it away in my mind.
The lower half of the body was in front of me. My fingers closed on one of the legs that were sticking up in the air. The skin was cold, clammy to the touch, and felt like rubber. A sharp tug made the half body flip over. The legs stayed in position, one to the left and one to the right, the first signs of rigor holding them in place. The body was male and naked. My mind casually noticed that rigor held everything in place.
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