Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3) Read online

  “Huh?”

  Spinneretta gazed at the suggestion of trees out the window, her own sense of unease returning. Her mouth felt like it was full of sand. “None of this makes sense to me.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  She bit her lip, unsure if she really wanted to bring it up again. “I won’t pretend to understand how the memory synthesis works. But if the timeline in the report is right, then that program was still in its infancy when I was born. So then why do I have all these weird thoughts? Not the same as yours, but these flashes or impressions. Why does everything seem so familiar if my memories weren’t modified?”

  “Maybe it was in testing. Maybe whatshisname just didn’t know about it. Or write about it.”

  “Maybe,” Spinneretta said. “But then why wouldn’t they have tested it on Arthr, too?”

  Kara blinked at her. “Because he’s a boy?”

  Spinneretta considered the point. It was a grotesque but perfectly reasonable answer. “I guess that makes sense. Still, I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right.” Somewhere in the deepest recesses of her mind, a half-formed thought was born. It died before it had taken its first breath, dispersing into neuron noise. She hesitated, dread blooming in her core. “Kara?”

  Kara sniffled once. “What?”

  “Does the Hunting ever . . . I don’t know, talk to you?”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean . . . do you ever feel like you have more than one voice in your thoughts?”

  Puzzled, Kara quirked her head to the side and hummed. “No, nothing like that. Why? You don’t have voices in your head, do you?”

  Spinneretta looked away, at once self-conscious. “No. Of course not. Just wondering is all.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Then what the hell are you? she thought at that other force in her mind. Tonight it was silent, and that she expected some reply at all made her again question her own sanity.

  Kara flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “Spins?”

  “Huh?”

  She looked up with an all-too-familiar sadness in her eyes. “Can I sleep in here tonight?”

  Spinneretta gave her a weak smile. “Of course you can.” With all this spider fever nonsense going on, she thought she could use the company herself.

  “Welcome back to the Gralien Report. I’m your host Micah Hanks, coming to you live through the power of the internet. Let me tell you, I can’t remember the last time we had so many listeners writing in and asking for my opinion on one singular topic. I’m talking of course about what the media is calling spider fever. And if you’re a regular listener of the Gralien Report, there’s a good chance you already know what I’m talking about.

  “Now, for those of you who’ve been living in a cave—or a bunker—let me fill you in. About a week ago, a molecular biologist named Harold Wiser published a book. In this book, Wiser alleges that he was kept captive for about thirty years in a secret underground facility in northern California, where he was forced to work on research with the ultimate goal of creating human-spider hybrids. Yes, you heard that correctly. The book is about half research, which Wiser claims he stole while fleeing the secret facility in question, and half a sort of journal recounting his experience over this thirty-year period. The blurb on the back of the book even compares Wiser to the likes of Bob Lazar. Although to be fair, if he wants to be taken seriously then I doubt mentioning Bob Lazar is going to do him any favors. But I digress.

  “Now, I have not yet read the book myself, but some friends of mine have. And, interestingly enough, it seems that amongst all the more sensational claims of hybrids and secret technology, there is actually a surprising amount of information that is quite good. One particularly interesting article was sent along by a Gralien newsy this week. The article, Why Spider Fever Matters, was written by a biologist named Travis Hammond, who writes:

  The research on gene splicing Mr. Wiser claims to have carried out as far back as 1983, even in its incomplete state, so massively outpaces our own understanding of molecular biology that it would be foolish not to put his claims, even the more dubious of them, under the microscope. There are only two possible scenarios that explain the baffling level of accuracy apparent in the research: either Wiser is a savant biologist who decided to torpedo his own career, or there is a kernel of truth to his story. Whichever the case, the vast majority of Wiser’s alleged research is so enigmatic that, by the very unlikelihood of intentional career suicide, it deserves to be examined under serious scientific scrutiny.

  “So, does the fact that at least some scientists are looking at parts of this story with a serious eye mean that there really is some black government agency creating hybrids deep under the Sierra Nevadas? It probably won’t surprise many listeners, but I’m not quite convinced. I think the idea of hybrids—much less those mixing homo sapiens and spiders of all creatures—is a bit out there, to say the least. However, much like the MJ-12 documents, it seems there’s some good information hiding in there just as well. I think it’s dangerous to say, well, we know there aren’t any human-spider hybrids running around, and therefore this whole book including the research is woo. Let’s not jump into things. That’s not to say that I believe there really are human-spider hybrids, of course. But let’s take a good, hard look at the facts before we throw the baby out with the bathwater, as it were.

  “I will say this: isn’t it interesting how these same themes keep cropping up time after time in these sorts of cases? We’ve talked before about Ivanov and Russia’s human-ape hybrid program. And we’ve talked at length about allegations of alien hybrids, secret government programs, secret societies, inner Earth mysteries, reverse-engineered alien technology, and things like this. I think the presence of all these converging elements of established folklore in Wiser’s work is, most likely, deliberate. And I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, quite the opposite. I think there’s a reason why we keep seeing these threads. But I think it likely has more to do with the human condition than it does any secret government bases. Boy, I’d love to get Mr. Wiser on the program, but given the way the mainstream media has been treating him, I don’t expect he’d be too eager. Anybody with a TV knows what I’m talking about.

  “In the interest of not spending too much time on the subject, in summary I’ll say this: I find the report, what I know of it in any case, very interesting, even if the media’s handling of it leaves something to be desired. Time and time again, we’ve seen how popular media goes out of its way to degrade and humiliate those who report anything out of the ordinary, or even utter the word conspiracy. But I think in this case, when the subject of that ridicule is making claims that would give even the fringiest of paranormal advocates pause, it shows just how far some are willing to go to denounce the very notion of conspiracy in the name of narrative. Or perhaps views. In actuality, it’s probably both. But again I digress.

  “Now to shift gears slightly, and finally get to some listener emails.”

  Over the following days, the ridicule and mockery from the media escalated. It seemed like every damn show had to take a jab at Wiser and The NIDUS Report, if only so as not to be outdone by the rest of them. The Entertainment Network celebrated Friday the thirteenth with a spider-fever-inspired marathon of horror films. The schedule included such unclassics as Webs, Horrors of Spider Island, Bite Me!, Spider Baby, Mesa of Lost Women, and In the Spider’s Web. Ironically, the whole thing angered Spinneretta less than the meme-fiesta they had the audacity to call news, and so she’d left it on in the background as white noise for her meditation.

  Sitting on her bed, television droning on the periphery of her awareness, Spinneretta allowed her eyes to fall closed. She took a deep breath, released it into the void like a storm of fireflies, and began to reach out with her mind. Just as Mark had taught her, she kneaded and massaged the imagined field of her body’s energy, trying to force her brain to believe that something was moving. And just as had happened in the Web—and every tim
e she’d made time for the practice since—it worked. The air grew dense around her, and a chill spread its wraith-like fingers across her skin, through her hair. The traces of misty energy, as though exerting a gravity all of their own, began to pull and grate at her chitin legs.

  For a while, she focused only on the sensation—real or imagined—of that energy floating in the air before her. A clump of billowing vapor. As she grew more comfortable, more certain of the sensation playing at her legs and skin, she tried to force it to move according to her will. It resisted her at first, instead sitting like a half-inflated balloon, but then it started to bend and shape itself in compliance with her thoughts. But even when it did begin to flow, forming itself into a serpentine coil of invisible mist, it took a great effort to maintain the feat. When it moved, it moved like molasses in zero gravity—a far cry from the fluidity it had displayed in the Eleventh laboratory when she’d fought and killed Kaj.

  At the time it had seemed beyond natural, to extend her psychic influence and shape the illusory mist. It had gathered, dispersed, and whipped across the room like extensions of her own body. But now, it clung to the air just in front of her and threatened to disperse if pushed too far away. She’d gotten better at controlling it over the past months, but it was still a shadow of what it had been when the Instinct had driven her to blood rapture.

  Her concentration was at last broken around ten o’clock, halfway through Mesa of Lost Women, by her ringing phone. Her heart leapt, and the psychic mist nearly vanished completely. Through a sliver of will, she maintained a thin, wispy strand of it as she snatched her phone from the nightstand. She jammed the call button and lifted it to her ear. “Mark?”

  “Spinny,” he said with a small cough. “Are you alright? I got your message and I called back as soon as I could. Is everything alright?”

  “Relatively alright. Relative to, say, an extinction event. Have you read the book yet?”

  He was quiet a moment. His harsh breathing seemed to calm. “No. I have not yet found the time. Why?”

  “It’s just that I’ve been wanting to bounce something off you for a few days.”

  “Well, I have time now, so bounce away.”

  “You told me once before that magic is not passed through blood genetically.”

  “Aye, that is correct.”

  “Well, what about memory synthesis?”

  “Memory synthesis?”

  “Yeah. Let’s say NIDUS had the ability to craft artificial memories in the fetuses of their creations. If they could do that, could they theoretically have us born with magical knowledge? Like, portal magic, for example?”

  There was a pregnant silence on the other end of the line. “I have never heard of such a thing,” Mark said, “but I suppose it is possible, in theory.”

  “Well, it looks like that’s exactly what NIDUS was doing. There’s a bunch of information about this program they had, which was all about creating artificial, instinct-like memories. And . . . Well, I guess establishing that it’s possible answers some questions, anyways.”

  “Hmm. Memory synthesis. I need to find time to read this report. In any case, I suppose we should feel grateful to have solved the mystery. Your portal magic weighed heavily on my mind for a great while.”

  “Except that we haven’t solved anything.” She took a shaky breath, and the psychic mist wavered. “According to Wiser, I wasn’t a subject of the program. Only Kara was.”

  “Wiser said that?”

  “He did.”

  She heard him exhale, and could almost taste the apprehension through the digitally encoded signals. “Considering you and Kara show the exact same capabilities, I find it dubious that she would have been a subject of this memory synthesis while you were not. I believe Wiser made a mistake in his writings.”

  The certainty of his assertion startled her. “Yeah? Based on what?”

  “Occam’s razor.”

  Spinneretta wanted to protest, but the more she thought about it the harder it became. Wiser making a mistake was far more likely than anything else she could think of. But on the other hand, was it even accurate to say she and Kara had the same capabilities? Kara had apparently known about their purpose long before they’d set foot in that damned lab, after all. And the psychic mist floating just inches above her curled fingers didn’t exactly fit into a worldview lacking bloodline inheritance of obscure occult abilities. She filled her lungs and spread her spider legs around her, joints creaking from the mist’s pull. “And you’re certain magic cannot be passed through blood?”

  “Generally speaking. The only exception I have ever known has been the Sight, which cannot effect any physical change. And even at that, I hesitate to even call the Sight a spell. As I have mentioned before, it is simplest to say that only the potential to use magic may be inherited through blood.”

  “Right.” She continued to prod the field of energy before her, shaping it, tasting its edges. It was a test of her own insanity, like tonguing an open sore in hopes of becoming used to the pain. “Mind if I ask a weird question?”

  “By all means.”

  “Can you tell me anything about anti-magic?”

  “Anti-magic? I have never heard of such a thing. Why do you ask?”

  As she sat there, fingers damp with the psychic mist, she considered telling him. About the strange power that had come to her aid when she’d fought Kaj. About how she’d shattered his pain-nullifying spell, and then stripped his teleportation shadows from him when he had attempted to flee. But something held her back. “In the Repton Scriptures, it talks about this sorcerer who tried to challenge the Yellow King. And the King sealed his magic and killed him, kicking off a giant civil war between the King’s loyal and the rest of his subjects.” She shuddered. Vant’therax. The image from the late pages was a hideous blemish on her memory. Imagining a whole kingdom of the abominations was chilling. “And I was hoping you’d be able to explain to me how anti-magic fits into this fucked up world of ours.”

  “Hmm. I fear I cannot tell you anything, although I am interested in the subject myself. I wish I’d taken more time to look through the volume. Next time we meet, mayhap you will teach me more about it.”

  “I look forward to it,” she said with an embarrassing giggle. Her fragile concentration couldn’t survive that emotional outpouring, and soon the tendrils of strange power dissipated into an ambient mental chill. Maybe next time she’d get up the nerve to tell him what happened in the lab. Maybe she could even go the extra step and show him. With a small sigh, she relaxed her mind, and the imagined fogforms vanished. She flopped back into her bed as the maddeningly repetitive flamenco guitar from the movie started up for what felt like the fortieth time. “Tell me about your day.”

  Mark chuckled, and the sound sank into her lungs like a warm haze. “I’m afraid I have nothing of interest to say.”

  “I don’t care.” Despite the heat, she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and snuggled into her pillow. “I want to hear it. Anything’s better than thinking about spider fever.”

  Another laugh from the other end, and Mark indulged her escapist fantasy.

  “Good evening, and welcome to You Entertainment! I’m Greg Sanford.”

  “And I’m Julie Loch.”

  “Tonight, we’re bringing you a special report on the latest development in spider fever—”

  “If you can indeed call this a development.”

  “You Entertainment has received word that another document has just been published, adding a new chapter to the legacy of The NIDUS Report.”

  “But before you get too excited, this is not a book. Neither is it from Harold Wiser, but from another man, also from California.”

  “Marlin, California, to be exact. Kyle Rogers, an arachnologist, recently submitted his own report to the Journal of Arachnology.”

  “Entitled In Defense of Harold Wiser and The NIDUS Report, this new report includes detailed descriptions and sketches of these alleged human-spider
hybrids. He claims he was even visited by three of them.”

  “Just like Mr. Scrooge.”

  “Scientists have slammed the report as nonsense, while fans of The NIDUS Report are slamming it as a half-assed attempt at cashing in, clinging to Wiser’s coattails and riding spider fever to fame.”

  “That’s right. Where Wiser’s report is beautiful in its Francis Dec-esque insanity, Kyle Rogers says to hell with subtlety. Not only is he trying to ride the coattails, but he’s missing entirely what made The NIDUS Report so magnificent. In fact, it’s clear that he hasn’t even read the report, as he manages even to get the character names wrong.”

  “It’s all really quite pathetic. One of the editors at the JOA broke rank and posted the entirety of the article online yesterday, and since then we’ve seen a huge backlash from fans and critics alike.”

  “While some believe this is more viral marketing in the ongoing Wiser saga, critics have been quick to point out the lack of any apparent relationship between Wiser and Rogers.”

  “But what do we know about either of these two men? I mean, really. Both of these men are entirely absent from any form of social media, which is quite strange for a viral media campaign.”

  “All we know about Kyle Rogers is that he teaches biology classes at some university, though I wouldn’t be at all surprised—or saddened—to hear about him losing his job over such a blatant cash-in.”

  “You and I both, Greg. You and I both. After the break, we’ll be looking at some fan reactions to the report, and then we’ll swing by Applevale Studios for an exclusive tour of their animation department. Fans of 3D entertainment will not want to miss out. Stay tuned.”

  Arthr awoke from a restless sleep to the sound of his heart banging in his eardrums. Sprawled across his bed, he lifted himself up upon his elbows and drank in deep, unsatisfying lungfuls of air. His eyes darted between the corners of his room, half-expecting the darkness to come alive as shadow-dripping hulks. Gradually, his pulse calmed, and he slumped back into his soaking pillow. That explained the chill, he supposed. He cringed a little and flipped his pillow over, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist.