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

  “Grandpa,” she said in a quiet tone, hoping not to disturb whatever blackened purpose he now thought upon.

  His eyes cracked open, and what was initially a glower of irritation softened into a loving smile. “Ahh, my child. What is it that you need?”

  Amanda took a deep breath to steel her stomach. Violent and poisonous thoughts still shivered through her mind in response to Chelsea’s realization. “What can you tell me about the children of the spider?” It came out stilted and unnatural; she made a point of using the exact phrase from the video, hoping it would sound distant enough not to betray her intimate knowledge of the Warrens.

  Zurt’s smile vanished, melting seamlessly into a hateful sneer. “The children. Spawn of the traitor king. The greatest sin of the old order, of those who betrayed the Websworn. They are one of the final obstacles to the Dawn’s break.”

  Amanda shook her head, trying to find a way to arrange his words into something that wasn’t that inevitable truth. “Wait, when you say spawn of the traitor king, do you mean that . . . ” The mural flashed through her thoughts. The lithe and shapely legs. The proportions. But that couldn’t be. It simply wasn’t possible—the very thought defied all reason!

  The man grunted. “The children were the result of more than thirty years of research and decadence by the followers of Repton. They are the only abominations which have survived the iconoclasm. That they survived makes them a threat to us. The King’s blood runs through their veins, and if we are to erase all remnants of the Yellow—”

  “You’re . . . ” She swallowed hard. “You’re going to kill them.”

  The contorted smile returned to his face. “And just what could be more sacred than shattering the last possible vessels and spilling the blood of the King’s own children?”

  Amanda felt the heat draining from her cheeks. The core of her chest heaved in violent protest. “No,” she muttered. “Why? Who decided that?”

  “Who? Urn-ma Nemo, of course. Who else?” He chuckled, and then stopped abruptly. His eyes lit up. “And now that I think upon it, you have not yet had the honor of meeting Urn-ma Nemo, have you? Despite your relation, you have yet to see him with your own eyes, to hear the words of wisdom spoken from the mouth of the Malefice. Am I mistaken?”

  Unable to speak, she shook her head.

  Zurt showed her a crooked wall of teeth. “You and your father should do so. You two, above all, have the right to an audience. And as you are my special guests,” he said, the light spots of his eyes reflecting some darker meaning, “I believe I can get that for you. Quite an honor, indeed. What say you?”

  The feeling was slowly returning to her, and her heart raced to keep up. “Meet with Urn-ma . . . ?”

  “Oh, I am certain he would love to meet you. It is a rare opportunity for the both of you. Well?”

  Urn-ma Nemo. The leader of the cult. The one who decreed the end of the Yellow, who released the parasitic Nothem, who swallowed whole the town of Manix, who leveraged the cult’s power against the death of her best friend. What could such a monster look like? She imagined a withered creature, a hundred years old or more, face pitted by spider-eaten holes, teeth mere roots and stubby nerves. If he was the one who now guided the Dawn, if he was the one who had put the mark of death upon Spinneretta and her family, then that meant he was her endgame. He was the gatekeeper to the answers she needed. She’d ask him, even beg him, to call off the hunt for the children of the spider.

  But if he refused, then what?

  A ghost of adrenaline washed through her. If he refused, then there was little to do but leave and find another way. At the very least, she’d surely collected enough evidence during their stay that no police precinct in the country could refuse to intervene. She nodded slowly. “Very well. I will meet him.”

  Spinneretta cursed under her breath. Evening had fallen, tarping the town in a twilit daze. The cover of darkness had allowed them to escape their perch beneath the bridge. But now their need for stealth saw them wandering an old system of concrete drainage canals, the bottoms of which were pocked with pools of still water rife with algae. Negotiating the steep slopes, just below street level, put a toll on Spinneretta’s ankles. Soon she, like Kara, was half-scuttling along the ravine’s side. Every twenty feet or so, a street light stood beyond the lip of the trench. Their glowing halos were the only witnesses to the spider children’s escape. Stupid street lights. Think you’re so damn great.

  Without any sense of direction or plan beyond the immediacy of getting away from the bridge, they kept going until they hit a dead end blocked by a thick metallic grate. Spinneretta sank down to her haunches and slipped her bag from her shoulder. She started rubbing her sore muscles, cringing as she worked at a hard knot just below the surface. “Let’s wait here a few minutes.”

  Kara slid up beside her and sat down, hands reaching to open the zipper of Cinnamon’s backpack. “Okay. And then what? Another bus stop?”

  Spinneretta nodded. “In a few minutes, if the coast is still clear, we’ll go up top and look for one.”

  Cinnamon crackled and Kara hummed. “Maybe it’s time to try something else? The buses don’t seem to be working.”

  “Think I haven’t noticed? You want to try something else, start suggesting.”

  Kara looked up at her, an indignant look on her face. “I’m just trying to help, you know.”

  Spinneretta hissed. “I know that. Look, I’m sorry. I’m just . . . ”

  Cinnamon rattled at her. The voice in her mind moved, perhaps trying to interpret the meaningless clicks and clacks, but she barely noticed it. There were too many immediate worries. Kara was right. Buses obviously weren’t working. But how else were they supposed to get to Manix in time? Trains? Hitchhiking?

  As she considered their options, Kara suddenly shuddered violently. Her spider legs twitched, nearly throwing her jacket off of her shoulders. “Ahh!”

  “Kara? What is it?”

  The girl frowned and slipped her jacket off. “It’s happening.”

  “Huh? What is?”

  She bit her lip and shifted her posture, letting her spider legs extend straight out in all directions.

  Then, Spinneretta realized what she meant. “Oh, shit. You’re molting? Now?” In a half-panic, she looked up the side of the concrete canal toward where the sound of passing vehicles droned. She didn’t think it was likely that anybody would peek down a dry storm channel at this time of night, but the possibility was nonzero.

  Breathing heavily, Kara rose to a frog-like crouch. Her chin dipped, and her blond ponytail flopped to one side. She strained, stretching her spider legs outward. They creaked as they reached their maximum length. Then she pulled them almost completely around her body and straightened them again with another low creak. This continued for a few moments, approximating the rhythmic pulsing of a strange organ. Though Spinneretta could not see, she knew from her own experience that Kara was also flexing and retracting her fangs, coaxing the submerged chitin to expand.

  Finally, after what felt like ages, Kara made a harsh snapping motion, whipping her legs all the way out and back. A cracking sound ripped through her appendages. Kara grimaced and slowly brought her legs around her again. That cracking became a loud crunching. The breaks in her plates were now readily visible, and the fresh sheen of the new chitin gleamed in the street light.

  Spinneretta wrinkled her nose as the dry smell of the old exoskeleton—like burning dust—reached her. That scent would be far worse for Kara, permeating each of her spiracles. A few pieces of broken plating slid away. Kara made a final snapping motion and threw her legs back and out once more. This time, the crack was louder, and the remainder of her exoskeleton broke and fell away. The shattered fragments rained upon the concrete slope, and many slid down to the very bottom where they vanished into the stagnant puddles.

  Kara let out the breath she’d been holding and flexed her legs. Her forehead glistened in the dim light. She made a disgusted face and then sp
it, sending a mouthful of black chunks to the concrete. “Bleh,” she said, wiping spittle and fang-dust from her lips. “That’s better.” She picked off the few pieces of old chitin that still clung to her legs and cast them carelessly to the sloping ground.

  Spinneretta stared at her sister. Her new plates were a light shade of brown and were visibly softer than the old ones. Why here? Spinneretta thought. Why now? Hundreds, maybe thousands of shards of chitin now covered the concrete slope, and those that had spilled down into the bottom of the barranca were lost in the algae-rich water. Their trail grew thicker. “Kara,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were going to molt soon?”

  Kara frowned at her as she picked her jacket back up from the ground. “I didn’t want to worry you. And I didn’t think you’d’ve let me come if I’d said so.”

  Spinneretta sighed. “That’s it,” she said, despair constricting her vocal cords. “It’s over. We’re fucked.”

  “Huh?” Kara slipped her jacket back over her legs while Cinnamon clattered sympathetically. “What do you mean?”

  Spinneretta fell onto her back, her own legs tingling. Her stomach heaved and quivered with the sudden loss of hope. “There’s no way out of this. We’re never going to get there in time because we’re never going to get away from Annika. Even if she didn’t know we were here, she will now. That bridge. She’s going to know that it’s the exact spot we vanished. And if she searches the area, fuck, we can’t clean up all these chitin pieces, Kara! Even if we tried, if we miss a single one in the goddamn muck down there, that’d be a clue. And knowing Annika, she’d find it like a bloodhound. Scratch marks on the bridge? Clue. Where can we even go from here? She’s going to be able to follow us no matter where we go. She’s just going to keep closing in.”

  She buried her head in her hands and her own spider legs crept out from beneath Mark’s jacket. The terrible thoughts she’d had on the bus once again resurfaced. And as she deigned at last to acknowledge them, a precarious calm come over her. She sat back up, assisted by her appendages. “Kara?”

  “Huh?”

  Spinneretta bit her lip. “There’s one way. One thing we can do.”

  Rubbing her freshly molted chitin, Kara once again moved to sit beside Spinneretta. “What’s that?”

  “You can give yourself up.”

  Kara started. “What?”

  “Kara, this is going to sound crazy, but I need you to listen. We can find a TV station or a radio station or a fucking police station for all I care. When we do, you walk in, throw off your jacket, let your spider legs out, and demand a camera on you. And then you tell them what they should’ve known from the beginning: that we exist, and that we’re in danger.”

  “Spins, are you nuts? If we do that, then Annie’s definitely going to find us!”

  “Exactly.” She breathed out, certainty gripping her. “She’ll come and she’ll find you. And you’ll let her take you back home. And when she asks where I am, you point her in the wrong direction. Somewhere completely wrong, so she can never catch up to me.” Nodding, she forced a smile. “That’s it. That’s the only way. Everyone wins this way. You’ll be safe. And the world will know about us, that we’re real. That we’re not a joke. And that means you’ll have a future after all. You’ll have your whole life ahead of you. And you won’t have to worry about the cult because I’ll go ahead on my own and stop them. What do you say, Kara?”

  Kara eyed her skeptically. “You’re joking, right? What if I go on TV or whatever and the cult is faster than Annika? What if they get to us first once they know exactly where we are?”

  Spinneretta started. She hadn’t thought about that. That possibility threw a huge wrench into the plan.

  “Besides,” Kara said, “I’m not just going to leave you after all this. We’re in this together, remember? I’m Kara. I’m not going back to being Melody. All we have to do is outsmart Annika and get to Manix. Easy, right? You can think of something, right?”

  Spinneretta shook her head. The burden of bringing Kara once again felt too heavy to bear. “Annika is . . . ” A deep, algae-tinted breath poisoned her lungs. She wished she didn’t have to confront the obvious truth. “Annika’s smarter than I am, Kara. I thought I could outsmart her by taking the Seattle bus, but I couldn’t. If she was able to predict which bus we were on so accurately, then there’s almost nothing else to do. It’s over.” With a grunt, she laid back upon the cold slope. “Maybe we should just give up. Let her find us. Go back to Minnesota. We tried. But in the end, we failed.” Kara frowned down at her, and even Cinnamon seemed distraught at her despair.

  A car drove by above, and something fluttered down from street level. As it danced on the breeze, Kara reached out and plucked it from the air with one of her anterior legs. It was a piece of paper. She read it, eyes wide, and a smile burst across her face. “Ahh, Spins! Look! There’s a carnival in town!”

  Spinneretta rolled her eyes. Not even listening. For all her stubbornness about staying together, she can’t even keep her thoughts on one topic.

  “Look, look!” Kara pressed the flier into Spinneretta’s face. It was filled with gaudy colors and stylized fireworks. The text, in a barely legible font, dominated the flier.

  The Carnival Sword

  Come Celebrate the 401st Festival of Niiza

  SEPTEMBER 25th – OCTOBER 8th

  “Can we go, Spins? Can we?”

  Spinneretta pushed the flier away from her face. “Kara, no. We don’t have the time or the money for that. And besides, just how is going to a carnival supposed to . . . ”

  And then it hit her. Kara must have seen the light in her eyes, for she drew closer and studied Spinneretta’s expression. “What is it?”

  Spinneretta started to rise to her feet. “If Annika is so damn smart, and she thinks she can predict our path . . . ” She smiled, a fresh determination overcoming her. Confidence tightened her muscles, and she turned to Kara with a commanding posture. “If she’s so damn smart, then we can lose her. By doing something so stupid she would never be able to see it coming.”

  Kara nodded in excitement. “Yeah, okay! What does that mean?”

  “I’ll explain on the way. First, we have to find a bus stop.” She paused. “Also, how do your legs feel? Do they feel any longer?”

  Kara ran her palms over a couple of her tan legs. “I dunno. I think so.” She stretched the appendages out and retracted them again with a giggle. “They’re all tingly.”

  “You must be hungry.” Spinneretta certainly was.

  Kara smiled. “Yeah!”

  “I guess you’re out of luck until your fangs harden up. Unless you’re not too good to eat a gas station burrito with me.”

  Kara sighed and averted her gaze. “Fine. I’ll eat a freaking burrito already.”

  Spinneretta put her hand on Kara’s shoulder and gave her a warm smile. “That’s the spirit. Now get that jacket back on. We don’t have much time.”

  For one thousand years have I reigned over this great kingdom. But now a heathen comes to usurp the throne. Garbed in blue and gray vestments, he is the pupil of the infamous Hasirith the Elder. And when his magic grips my throat, all I feel is sorrow and fury. You would dare to betray me? You would turn your back upon the one who gave you life? Then you leave me no choice. You who bring heresy against me shall be broken. With a shattered mind, you will never use magic again. Never again will you bite the hand that feeds you. Now tell me: who do you serve?

  I granted you life. I built this kingdom for you with my own hands. And you turn your backs upon me? You put your faith into blasphemy? False idols? Prophets of death? You have betrayed me, after all I have done for you?

  It has been a long time since this rage has filled me. I drink deep from the chalice of primal fury, the Wine of Raxxinoth. Those who served, deceivers and sycophants, peddlers of false promises, I will cut all of them apart. These hollow servitors, made in my own image, shall break. I shall break all of them.

 
; Chapter 23

  Man Proposes

  “We’ve been searching the area,” the officer said, “but so far we haven’t found any bodies. Everybody we’ve questioned has corroborated the initial report that they jumped over the railing right here, but that’s as far as we’ve gotten.”

  Annika squinted at the railing in question. The flashing lights of the police cruisers disguised its true color, and the twilight made everything look too damned purple for her tastes. She drew near the smooth concrete rail and leaned just a little over the edge, peering down at the drop to the crisscrossing highways below. Even in the unfavorable lighting, she could make out the telltale white marks where the concrete had been scraped by chitin, leaving a number of cuts down the side of the structure. “Are you certain that they jumped?” The question was one of formality; the answer was right in front of her eyes.

  “Witnesses on the bus and half a dozen other motorists said as much. With the lack of any evidence to that conclusion, I cannot speak with any authority. Sergeant Willis said he’d keep you posted on the investigation as it develops, Agent Bordon. Unless there is something specific you are looking for, I do not believe there is any reason for you to remain here.”

  She turned to the officer, putting on her best angry face. “Are you implying that I am in your way?”

  “Not at all, ma’am,” he replied with something of a nervous shiver. “Merely that at the present moment we haven’t enough information to make your presence here necessary. If there is any other portion of the investigation which demands your attention, your time may be better spent there.”

  Annika narrowed her gaze and thinned her lips. “Very well. I can tell where I am not wanted. See to it you give me an update the minute a body shows up. Is that clear?”