Tatters of the King (The Warren Brood Book 3) Page 18

  The writings included an account of how three spider children had come to his door one day with their ostensible guardians. He provided detailed sketches of the legs on their backs and the fangs in their mouths, which, though slightly inaccurate due to the months that had passed since their visit, were close enough to dispel any doubt regarding the article’s authenticity. And had those sketches not vanquished those doubts, the fact that he even knew the Warrens’ names surely would have. This was the clue she’d been looking for. It was proof Spinneretta and her family left town safely, and that they were still alive, somewhere.

  Amanda had left numerous voice messages at the only number she could find for Kyle Rogers. He’d never returned her calls, and she couldn’t blame him. The media must’ve been hounding him ragged. Last she’d heard, he’d been discharged from his position as an associate editor of the Journal of Arachnology, due in no small part to this article. But she had to keep trying. Right now, he was the only link between them and Spinneretta.

  When Amanda’s phone began to ring, she answered it without moving her eyes from the text. “Talk to me.”

  “Mandy, I’m waiting for you outside,” Chelsea said.

  She panicked and looked at the clock on her nightstand. “Already? You’re early.”

  “Yeah. Because you keep making me wait. Hurry up, alright?”

  Amanda bit her lip. “Fine. I’m going to check my mail quickly and then I’ll be right out.”

  “Fine. If you make me late again I’m disowning you as a friend.”

  “See you in a minute.” Amanda hung up and slid her phone into her pocket. Hopping up from her bed, she set the article on her desk among the other papers and books. She rolled her head in a wide circle and felt her vertebrae pop. A headache was already gnawing at the base of her skull. Her monitor flashed as her computer booted up, and she scrambled to get her notebook and hastily completed homework into her bag. When the machine finished its initiation sequence, she navigated to her inbox and found an email informing her a message had arrived on Beyond Confidential. A spike of excitement hit her in the stomach. A quick glance at the clock. Chelsea wouldn’t crucify her for taking another moment, so she opened the new message from the user named RitaRaccoon.

  Hi Songbird,

  Okay, things are getting weird here. I’m still not sure if it’s all a coincidence or not, but I’m really getting a bad feeling about everything. This weird video aired the other night on the local network. It’s been playing on repeat ever since, and it’s worrying the hell out of me. My boyfriend’s missing. I’m sending you a link to what I managed to capture. I hope you have some idea about what’s going on, because I’m really freaking out.

  Rita

  For a moment, Amanda just stared at the message, reading it over again and trying to make sense of it. Then, she clicked the link leading to an off-site streaming service. The blackness in the video unfurled into a hideous face framed by a dark cowl. Her mouth fell open in disbelief as the man delivered his ultimatum demanding the surrender of the spider children. Even when the video finished, she just kept gazing at the screen. Her mind was churning, her heart racing.

  A minute later, her phone began to ring again, startling her from her thoughts. She stood up and snatched her bag from the floor. The rush of blood to her head almost toppled her. She pressed her phone against her ear and answered, spots swimming before her eyes. “Yeah?”

  “So, I’m kinda still waiting,” Chelsea said, irritation thick in each syllable. “Just because I’m here early, that doesn’t give you the right to take longer than normal.”

  “We have a problem,” Amanda said. She threw the papers on her desk off to the side, uncovering the canvas-bound Repton Scriptures. She thrust it into her bag and dropped back into her seat, holding the phone between her shoulder and ear. “Remember all that shit about the spider-worshiping cult? Well, they’re active. In the Mojave. And they’re setting up something huge by the sounds of it.”

  “Whoa, slow down. The hell you talking about?”

  Amanda began typing, navigating to the Widow’s Creek white pages online. She entered the name Blackburn into the search field. Coincidence or not, she had to head into Widow’s Creek anyway to get to the train station. “Listen, Chels, whatever the stakes were before, they just increased sevenfold. These are the guys who caused the lockdown, I can feel it. I can’t just sit here and watch it all happen again.” The web page spat back an address, and she jotted it in the margins of Kyle Rogers’s article.

  “Mandy, you’re not making any sense at all. And we’re going to be late if you keep me any longer.”

  “You don’t understand. God, you just . . . ” Amanda closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “The cult, Chels. In Manix. This is bad. I mean, really bad. If they caused the lockdown, and they don’t get Spins and the others like they want, then it’s going to happen again. And I have a feeling it’s going to be a lot worse this time.”

  Chelsea was quiet. “Manix? Are you talking about the Order of the Yellow Dawn?”

  “Yeah, that’s them.” Amanda stopped fidgeting with her papers for a moment. “Wait a sec, how do you know about the Yellow Dawn?”

  “Ahh! I, uhh, heard something online. Or something.”

  “Huh? Well, whatever. Point is, I’m going. To Widow’s Creek, and then to Marlin. I’m going to get to the bottom of this once and for all. Now, are you in or out?”

  “Wait, what? What do you mean by going?”

  “Go. Verb. To move from one location to another.”

  “What!? That’s over the line, Mandy! You’ve gone off the fucking deep end if you think you’re—”

  She shut off her computer with a thumb to the power button. “So you’re out, then. Gotcha. Talk to you later.” Her finger swiped the call into silence, and she put her mind back to packing. Two changes of clothes. Her notebook. Her wallet. But before she could get to the bathroom to claim her toothbrush, a ferocious banging came to the front door. A muffled voice shouted from the other side.

  When she’d finished gathering everything she needed, Amanda grabbed a loose piece of paper and wrote a quick note to her parents. Then, she made for the incessantly clamoring door, the strap of her bag already digging into her shoulder. The locks came undone and she threw the door open so fast that Chelsea’s fist only narrowly missed her jaw.

  As Chelsea stumbled back in surprise, Amanda pushed past her. “You’re being especially annoying this morning,” she said.

  Chelsea sputtered. “You’re seriously giving me shit? What do you think I’m going to do, just let you leave? To where? The hell do you think is going to come of this?”

  Amanda closed the door to the apartment and locked it behind her. “I told you,” she said through her teeth. “This cult is a link. They’re looking for Spins and the others, and that means we might be able to find them if we go to Manix.”

  Chelsea’s eyes bulged and her jaw began to shake. “You’re going to pick up and head halfway across the damn state just for a chance of finding them? Mandy, newsflash: who cares about Spins? I hate to say it, but she isn’t coming back. I miss her, too, but you have to be realistic here. After all the shit that happened, it’s better for her if she stays the fuck away from here. What is running off to some cult supposed to accomplish? Do you think if you somehow find her everything’s gonna—”

  Amanda bared her teeth in a scowl. “This isn’t just about Spins!”

  Chelsea paused mid-sentence, stunned at the outburst.

  A deep breath that failed to calm her invaded Amanda’s lungs. “After all this, you can’t tell me you believe it was just a coincidence. That the lockdown just happened to end with the Golmont Corporation fire. I think I’ve proven beyond any reasonable doubt that they were linked to the cause, through the cult. And next time, it’s the Yellow Dawn that will be the cause of it.”

  Chelsea shook her head. “The cause of what?”

  “They said if nobody delivers the children of the s
pider to them, they’re going to unleash a calamity. I just know they’re talking about the same thing as what happened here. They said they would claim our society, on skittering legs of spiders, or some shit like that. If that doesn’t sound like the lockdown, then you have sand between your ears.”

  “And what do you think you can do about it? You’re smart, Mandy—smarter than I am—but running off on some blind dumbassery to stop a goddamn cult? That’s not smart! That’s fucking idiocy!” A shiver shook her from head to toe. “Amanda, I know you’re not stupid, so why would you do something this dumb? Do something intelligent. Why don’t you call the police? Let them deal with this cult or whatever!”

  Amanda rolled her eyes. “Oh, you mean like how the police dealt with them last time?”

  “Take it to the media, then!”

  “And listen to know-it-alls mouth off about how totally epic the new spider fever chapter is?” She started for the stairwell. “I’m going. If I’m the only one who’ll take this seriously, then it falls to me to make everything right.”

  As Amanda turned and started down the stairs, Chelsea just stood there in the hall, shaking. An ominous chill swept through the hallway, tracing the goose bumps forming on her arms. “What are you going to do?” she hollered at her friend.

  “I have a plan.”

  And before she knew what she was doing, Chelsea was rushing after her. “Wait, Mandy, hold up.”

  “No time. Gotta get to Widow’s Creek.”

  A spike of fear hit Chelsea right in the heart. Her stomach rolled. “Mandy! You’re seriously just going to pick up and leave? What about your parents?” She rounded the corner and flew down the stairs after her, nearly tripping over her own feet.

  “This is bigger than them,” Amanda replied. “Or any of us. I have to do this.”

  Chelsea caught up to her on the ground floor and grabbed her by the shoulder. “Hold on a second!”

  Amanda shook her hand off and gave her a death glare. “If you’re not coming with me, then stop wasting my time! If you are coming, then hurry up! That’s all.” She turned and marched through the front door and off down Cedar Road, in the opposite direction of the school.

  Once more, Chelsea found herself unable to move. For a moment she just watched as Amanda’s purposeful haste carried her toward the end of the street. A knot formed in her throat. She’d already lost her best friend once. Could she let it happen again? Amanda was going nuts before her very eyes, and if she just let her go then she would be all alone. A cold fright gripped her at the thought. She’d never been alone before. But to just go full-truant without a second thought . . .

  When Amanda’s figure vanished around the tree-lined bend in the road, the panic crystallized. “Amanda, wait up!” she called, bashing open the door and starting to run after her. “I don’t trust you to not get yourself killed!” Rational thought began to melt away in globular chunks. “Mandy! Can I at least go grab a change of clothes first?”

  Chapter 13

  Blackburn

  The morning sun’s kaleidoscope sent patches of light fluttering across the dirt as Amanda and Chelsea walked side by side down the rustic path. Widow’s Creek babbled beyond the trees, just audible over the rustling leaves overhead.

  “You’re out of your mind, you know that?” Chelsea was saying again. “I mean, Jesus, what are you even thinking? Ditching school is one thing, but just leaving town to go investigating? You realize how crazy this is, don’t you?”

  “I do now, because you won’t stop saying it.”

  “Come on, Mandy! This isn’t funny. We’re going to get in big trouble at this rate. Truancy is no joke, and if you think people are going to look the other way when two teen girls go missing—especially after the lockdown—then you’re in for a rude awakening.”

  “If you’re so worried, why did you come?”

  Chelsea grew quiet. Amanda drew a warm breath through her lips and let it out in a cough. The air was just a little balmy, still afflicted by summer’s fading wrath. The smell of earth and composting leaves reminded her of all the hikes she used to take up on Mount Hedera. After everything that had happened, the nostalgia was no longer so comforting. The yellow and red leaves flourishing between the evergreens now resembled blood splatters on a yellow robe. As the trees ahead parted, revealing a small neighborhood through the curtains of branchlets, Amanda fished the slip of paper from her bag.

  “What are we doing here, anyway?” Chelsea asked. “Isn’t the train station up toward the center of town?”

  Amanda eyed her shoddy penmanship. “It is.”

  “So why are we here?”

  “Errand.”

  “Errand, she says. If you’re going to drag me along, at least fill me in, will ya?”

  Amanda ignored her. She needed her mind sharp and ready to deal with the unexpected. Soon, they’d passed a small clump of uninhabited cottages and made their way to a natural cul-de-sac, where the forest’s edge cradled a neat semi-circle of homes. She set her eyes upon the nearest of them, a warm-colored singleton that was half cabin and half chalet. As they approached the door, the dueling songs of a pair of wind chimes greeted them. The door bore no markings, save the address number.

  “Number forty-four,” Amanda said, briefly convinced her second four was a nine. “Here goes nothing.” She knocked on the door, and the sound rang louder than it should have, rattling the wooden frame and seeming to reverberate through the eaves. A few nervous moments unfolded, and even the playing birds seemed to hold their breath.

  The door cracked open with a clatter, and Chelsea jumped at the sound. When the creaking door swung aside, there stood a boy their age. He was a little taller than them—around Arthr’s size—with messy blond hair and tranquil blue eyes. He stood with a pair of forearm crutches, which gleamed in the golden light of morning. “Can I help you?” the boy asked.

  “Uhh, yeah,” Amanda said, momentarily distracted by the door’s banging. “Umm, I hate to bother you. But are you, by chance, Will Blackburn?”

  He nodded just a little, as though he were distracted. “That’s me.”

  She took a deep breath, ignoring the gasp that Chelsea tried and failed to hide. “I know this is really weird, but during the lockdown in Grantwood, I heard on the news that Xavier Blackburn was among the victims.”

  His face grew momentarily perplexed, betraying a wariness that came with the question. “Yeah, that’s right. If you were going to ask about the funeral, it was months ago.” A trace of bitterness slipped into his tone as he said it.

  Amanda let out a low, nervous breath. “Just as I thought. I knew you had to be related. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”

  “Questions?” Again his face took on a cautious aloofness. One of his crutches rattled as he shifted. He eyed them, brows low. “Who are you two, exactly?”

  Last chance to back out, Amanda thought. But she was all in. “I’m Amanda. This is Chelsea. We’re Spinneretta’s friends.”

  Will’s whole body went rigid. “Spins?”

  “Yeah. I guess it’s nice to finally meet you in person, Will.”

  Dazed by the revelation, he just stood there, wide-eyed. From somewhere inside, a TV was playing altogether too loudly. “What do you . . . ? Uhh, what can I help with, then? And what does it have to do with Spins?”

  “To be honest,” Amanda said, “I was hoping you might tell us a bit more about your relationship with her. And with NIDUS.”

  The wind chimes clanged softly in the breeze. The air buzzed with tension. Will’s face grew long. A fitful sigh pulled his expression into a clear irritation, then fear. And after a silent moment, his features at last settled into an indifferent stare. “NIDUS? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Amanda held her breath. One hand slipped to the latch on her bag and undid it with a snap. The boy’s eyes went even wider as she pulled the Repton Scriptures free. She cracked the heavy volume open to one of her sticky note bookmarks and gestured vaguely
at the roster’s fine printing. Will’s horror deepened, sucking the color from his face. The air seemed to grow heavier around them.

  “Fuck,” he muttered. “Well, I guess there’s no point playing stupid at this point, is there?” He looked over his shoulder into the dark of whatever room was behind him. Shrill voices, laughing, gargling on puerile insults hurled by some talk show host. When he looked back at them, the edges had softened around his eyes. “Come on in.”

  Will led Amanda and Chelsea into the dark interior of the home. The light from a flat-screen TV in the living room scraped away the shadows concealing the first hints of a growing squalor. And as they passed through, the screeching of audience overreaction grew nearly deafening. The screen illuminated a woman sitting motionless upon the couch, red eyes wide and exhausted. The image receded behind a wall, and soon the sound, too, quieted.

  “Sorry for the mess,” Will said over his shoulder. “Mom’s been a bit of a case since Dad died, and it’s starting to show. I’ve been staying home to look after her.”

  At the end of the hall, he cracked open a door to a dim but comfortably lit room. It glowed a warm orange, and the earthen tones of the carpet, blankets, and furniture made it appear overly inviting. A heavy, lumber-sweet scent hung in the air. A bunk bed took up half the floorspace, and the bottom mattress was obscured by a pile of unfolded clothes. It wasn’t exactly the cult-child dwelling Amanda had expected.

  The boy hobbled over to the bed, swept one of his crutches, and sent the disheveled clothes spilling into a hamper just over the edge. He waved one hand at the bed once it was clear. “Go ahead and make yourselves at home.”

  Amanda could feel Chelsea’s hesitation humming in the air around her. Putting on a brave front, Amanda dragged her feet forward and eased herself down onto the bed. Chelsea was quick to follow, as though afraid of being left behind by even a few feet.