Precise oaths, p.17
Precise Oaths, page 17
Warm cheeks and a twist in her chest happened at the same time, confusing her. His complete trust in her felt good, but it made that awful feeling that she would fail him that much harsher. “Lady Daphne will be here very soon,” Liliana said and walked out of the kitchen.
Pete joined her a moment later. “So what’s the plan, boss?”
“I will try again to negotiate a peaceful resolution, spider to spider.”
“Do you really think that’ll work twice?”
“I do not wish to kill if there is any chance at all.” Liliana shrugged. “Besides, if we must fight, we will most likely lose. Widow spiders are very formidable.”
“They don’t seem that dangerous to me now that I’m not drugged and helpless, but I didn’t expect going up against you would end with me tied to a tree either. So I’ll take your word for it.” He grinned at her with a whole lot of teeth.
Liliana found his fierce, canine smile as dazzling as the human version. She stood there and blinked for a few seconds before she remembered where they were. She shook her head to clear it. “If Stella leaves, and Margaret does not deviate from the path she followed when I looked earlier, then we will have about fifteen minutes alone with Lady Daphne before Margaret arrives. We must use those minutes to convince Lady Daphne to withdraw.”
“If we kill her as soon as she comes in, we’ll have surprise on our side.”
Liliana winced. She did not wish to shed the blood of another spider if there was any possibility of a peaceful resolution. Her heart ached for the young girl she already killed, and there had been no other option then. “Hide in the men’s room. We will not lose the element of surprise entirely if she believes I am alone.”
Pete put a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Lilly, they tried to kill Zoe and me. They’ve killed a half dozen soldiers. Our chances are better if we kill them quickly.”
“Our chances are best if we do not have to fight a widow spider. And there is no more need to stop them to protect others. With Kristen dead, they won’t kill anyone else.”
Pete sighed and dropped his hand. “Okay, you know what we’re up against better than I do.”
“If we must fight, kill swiftly and without warning. That is our best chance. But please, wait until there is no other option. Will you promise me you will wait?”
“I’ll wait until you give the word,” he growled reluctantly.
Just as Pete stepped into the men’s room, the elevator dinged in the foyer.
Liliana stood in full view of the entry so Lady Daphne would see her clearly. The door to the men’s room was directly to her left. Pete should be able to hear and see a little of what was happening through the inch of space where the door wasn’t fully closed.
Lady Daphne Fairchilde walked in with long strides, head high like a queen, red skirt swirling around her knees. She did not seem particularly surprised to see Liliana. “Well, if it isn’t the baby seer. I haven’t talked to you since we came over on the boat decades ago. What are you doing in my building, little seer?”
“Rescuing my friends. Sergeant Zoe Giovanni and Doctor Peter Teague are under my protection.”
Lady Daphne snorted. “You’re a little late.”
“I am not. I freed them already.” Liliana softened her voice. “I am sorry, Lady Daphne. I had to kill Kristen.”
Dark eyes snapped with anger. “Kristen was barely twenty, you little bitch.”
Liliana bowed an apology, without taking her eyes off her enemy. “I am sorry for your loss. The red wolf was under my protection. I could not permit her to kill him. I had no choice.”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve. What do you think, I’m going to forgive and forget the murder of a young girl in my nest because you apologized?”
“I had hoped you would let us leave peacefully. I have no wish to fight you and yours. Kristen’s babies will need someone to raise them.” Liliana popped out her arm blades, exposed her fangs, and opened all her eyes for a moment. “There is no need for more blood to be shed between spider-kin.” She raised her hands in what would look like a placating gesture to the widow spider but was actually an excellent defensive stance.
With her third eyes open, she could see Lady Daphne’s mind flooded with orange anger and yellow-gray contempt. This negotiation was not going well. The widow spider did not fear Liliana at all, and unlike Stella and Kristen, Lady Daphne had no qualms about killing.
The widow spider smiled, and it was not friendly or nice. “Let us leave,” she mimicked Liliana. “So, your pets are still here.” She glanced at the slightly ajar door to the men’s room. “That’s very interesting news, isn’t it, Margaret, love?” Lady Daphne raised her voice for the last part.
Margaret and Stella came through the door from the foyer. They must have come up the stairs while Liliana spoke to Lady Daphne.
Liliana’s shoulders sagged. Three widow spiders at once. The worst possible outcome of all the possibilities she had foreseen. “I let you walk away,” she said to Stella, hurt by the betrayal.
Stella had the grace to look embarrassed. “I couldn’t go without my fiancée.” She reached with the hand without a meat cleaver in it to squeeze Margaret’s hand.
The huge woman gave a sweet smile back to Stella.
“And she refused to leave without her sister,” Stella said, resigned exasperation in her voice. It was obvious she lost an argument with the other two widow spiders. “Regardless of what happens, I respect what you did.” Stella’s mind was colored with deep purple-blue regret.
Liliana nodded back. Under other circumstances, she and Stella might have been friends. Now, she would have to kill Stella or die trying. She regretted it and so did Stella. They had their allegiances, and they would each remain loyal to them.
Lady Daphne sneered and rolled her eyes. “Don’t play with your food, Stella. It’s disgusting.” She turned back to Liliana, and her body began to change, growing bigger and harder. “You will pay for Kristen’s death, you cheeky little bint. You might as well tell your friend to come out and face me too. It would be so undignified to die while cowering in the gents.”
Peaceful resolution was clearly no longer an option. A fair fight with her and Pete on one side and three mature widow spiders on the other was a foregone conclusion. Therefore, fighting fair was also not an option. Pete had promised to hold his fire, to wait for her to give the word. “Pete, don’t wait anymore,” she murmured. She didn’t need to raise her voice for the wolf-kin’s tall ears to hear her.
She launched herself at Lady Daphne, arm blades aimed for the widow spider’s throat.
Two shots were fired in the same moment, a double-tap. The side of Margaret’s head exploded, splattering her fiancée with blood and brains. In human form, widow spiders were as easy to kill as humans.
“NO!” Stella shrieked as if the bullets had pierced her own heart. “No. Not her. Not her.” Tears choked her voice, even as her body changed.
Lady Daphne Fairchilde grew four more limbs and a thick black chitinous shell before Liliana finished her leap. Razor-sharp arm blades met steel-hard natural armor, and the armor won.
The widow spider shrieked an inhuman battle cry and tried to bite Liliana’s head off with fangs as long as the seer’s hand, while the arachnid’s massive body kept on growing bigger and bigger.
Lady Daphne’s full spider form swelled and towered over the petite seer. Her bulbous body as big as a Volkswagen Beetle stood on ten-foot legs ending in sharp points like pikes. Wickedly hooked claws sprouted along those legs like thorns on a particularly vicious rose stem. Her black velvet corset clung now to the narrow separation between her cephalothorax and abdomen. The skirt of the scarlet dress fluttered like an absurd ruffle around the bulbous black belly decorated with scattered blood red blobs .
The massive creature overturned tables to make room for all that bulk with the deafening crash of shattering glass and iron clanging on tile.
The monstrous spider Lady Daphne had become reared up on her back four legs, showing the well-armored underside of her cephalothorax, and stabbed down at Liliana with all four spearlike front legs at once.
The petite spider seer dodged as many strikes as she could, tumbling like an acrobat. Liliana desperately deflected with her arm blades the blows she couldn’t dodge. When even that wasn’t enough, she ducked under a table with a heavy glass top and wrought iron frame. Her heart hammered, and she had no trouble at all identifying her own terror.
Spears of steel-hard chiton stabbed down at her. The thick glass cracked in a spiderweb pattern.
Liliana rolled under another table while the nightmare monster shoved the cracked table out of her way.
A creaky hissing squeal of frustration escaped the gigantic black spider.
Two more shots rang out.
Liliana’s massive opponent whirled on her many feet to see what happened, ignoring the little seer for the moment.
Pete!
Stella in demi-spider form towered a foot taller than the wolfman. Four jointed, spearlike limbs sticking up from her back curled over her shoulders. The shredded remains of her T-shirt hung like tattered flesh from a heavily armored torso. The cleaver gleamed in a hand armored like a black knight’s gauntlet. The blood of her beloved Margaret spattered Stella’s shiny black armor in an ugly pattern of scarlet and gray.
Stella didn’t flinch as Pete fired three more times. The bullets bounced harmlessly off her chest exoskeleton. She stalked toward Pete, her inhuman face with long, thick fangs made even more terrible by the expression of stark grief on the chitonous face.
Pete abandoned his gun. His bullets ricocheting were more likely to endanger Liliana or Pete himself than their enemies. He launched himself at Stella with a guttural growl, a long knife in one clawed hand.
Like a matador dodging a bull, the widow spider side-stepped his charge and countered his blade with the cleaver. Two of her extra limbs stabbed at him as they circled.
Pete twisted to avoid one of the attacks, dropped his blade to grab her hard, shiny black wrist and one extra limb. He swung her off her feet and around like he was playing airplane with a big kid on a playground.
When the wolf-kin let go, Stella crashed into the stack of chairs along one wall. With a terrible cacophony, the ornate wrought iron chairs fell on her, tangling her long limbs. Liliana hoped the soundproofing on top of the hotel was as good as it was on the lower floors. If it wasn’t, they would have curious innocents wandering into the middle of the battle.
Lady Daphne in full arachnid form went up on her front four legs, using her back four to pull a thick line of silk from her spinneret. She added a loop to the end like a lasso and cast the line toward Pete.
Frantically, Liliana grabbed one of the scrolled ironwork chairs. She yelled, “Pete, duck!” and threw the chair, counting on Pete’s trust.
The red wolf dropped to the floor immediately. The chair flew over his head just as the line would have wrapped around his throat like a noose. The lasso hit the chair instead, sticking fast as it flew over Pete.
“Watch for the silk,” she shouted.
While the wolf-kin was on his hands and knees, Daphne the giant spider ran toward him. Her sharp feet clacked on the tiles like eight stiletto heels, her fangs dripped thick, green venom.
Liliana jumped up onto a table and launched herself at a shallow angle, careful not to hit the ceiling. She hooked her arm blade under the widow spider’s carapace as she flew over it, caught it, and yanked.
The blade, with the full force of Liliana’s weight behind it, pulled the giant spider hard enough she staggered to one side just as her fangs struck at Pete, missing his throat by inches and dripping acid venom to smoke on the tile beside him.
Pete scrambled out of the way and up to his feet.
Balancing on the slick black carapace, Liliana lifted her arm blades. Perhaps if she stabbed one of the eyes.
Before she could strike, Lady Daphne let out a piercing, inhuman shriek of rage like the squeal of heavy rusted metal hinges. Her front four legs dropped abruptly, while her back four shoved her body up hard, bucking her unwanted passenger off.
The little spider seer was thrown head over heels right into the glass of the French doors. She curled into a ball and covered her head with her arms and blades as the glass shattered around her.
As she hit the terra-cotta tile of the outside deck, her own weight drove the shattered rain of sharp-edged safety glass gravel into her skin. She rolled to minimize the damage, but when she came to her feet, blood all but coated her. She had a dozen or more cubic chunks of glass embedded in her skin.
She staggered. No bones felt broken, but she made an involuntary sound like a lonely kitten when she took a deep breath. She yanked a piece of broken wooden doorframe as long as a steak knife out of her side. It had skidded on her ribs or she would be dead already. She put her hand over the wound and pushed to slow the bleeding.
She saw Stella fight her way free of the tangle of chairs. The widow spider assessed the situation. Instead of going after Pete, who was still engaged with Lady Daphne’s massive arachnid form, she went for Liliana.
Smart tactics.
The spider seer was weakened, wounded, and too far now from her ally to expect aid. She was impressed that Stella could think so clearly, even in her grief.
There was nowhere for her to go. Liliana retreated back between the tables on the balcony.
Stella stalked her carefully, all eight eyes focused on her target. She tossed the tables aside with her extra limbs, overturning them without care.
There was no place for Liliana to run, and no chance of any attack she made having an effect. She watched eight feet of lethal warrior with four jointed spears coming out of her back, shiny black impervious armor, and toxic fangs the length of Liliana’s hands get inevitably closer. Stella had no weapons. She must have lost the cleaver when Pete threw her across the room. It didn’t matter. The widow spider didn’t need weapons.
Liliana hit the edge railing and stopped backing up. She tapped a spinneret to the railing as a safety line out of habit, though there was no such thing as safety right now. She hopped onto the table where the young couple had been dining when she climbed up earlier that day. It meant Stella would have to stab up at her, a less advantageous angle for the bend of her spider legs.
The demi-spider tilted her insectoid head and looked at the little seer with eyes that shimmered with eerie reflected light. Incongruous tears streamed from those inhuman eyes and across the shiny smooth chitin, smearing the spattered blood on her cheeks.
“I am sorry for your loss,” Liliana said, feeling strangely sad for the widow spider who was about to kill her. Stella might defeat Liliana, but the widow spider had already lost what mattered most to her.
“You gave us the chance to walk away,” Stella said, her voice hoarse and distorted through the fangs. “We could have raised Kristen’s daughters together. I just wish…” She drew in a ragged breath and smeared tears and blood across her chitinous cheek with the back of an armored hand. “I wish I could have convinced her to take the chance you gave us.”
Liliana nodded, a sadness filling her, not for her own eminent doom, but for the future path Stella had already lost with children and a beloved spouse at her side. Even as she crouched and raised her arm blades in defense, she said, “I wish the same.”
“I’m sorry it ended this way,” Stella said. She pounced up onto the table with Liliana and grabbed the loose fabric of the smaller spider-kin’s homemade blouse. All four sharp limbs struck down at the little seer at once while strong, armored arms kept her from dodging.
Liliana deflected two of the widow spider’s thrusts, but she could not deflect the third. The thick claw stabbed clear through her shoulder.
Agony shot through her body like lightning, nearly paralyzing her. She barely felt it as the fourth limb grazed her face, opening her cheek to the bone.
She grabbed the leg stuck in her shoulder out of reflex, then realized she had one chance left to take her enemy with her into death.
The petite spider-kin threw her weight backward with all her remaining strength, hauling the heavier widow spider with her. As she fell, Liliana curled into herself. She pulled her knees to her chin as her back hit the heavy glass tabletop hard. Her fall turned into a sacrifice throw, Liliana continued rolling back, planted her feet in Stella’s belly, and shoved with all her strength.
Stella’s faceted eyes widened in shock as the widow spider flew for the second time that night, right over the safety railing and into open air. The seams of Liliana’s blouse ripped, and it went over with Stella.
The widow spider’s hooked claw, still embedded in the smaller spider-kin’s shoulder, yanked Liliana’s body over the railing as well. She was helpless to stop it.
Liliana let go of Stella’s clawed leg and grabbed with both hands the safety line attached to the iron railing.
Stella’s weight yanked the widow spider’s barbed claw agonizingly out of Liliana’s shoulder, wrenching a scream from the seer.
As the arm with the torn shoulder stopped obeying her, the petite spider-kin lost her grip on the safety line with one hand. Blood streamed down her arm and dripped from her fingertips, falling just behind Stella. Down and down a dozen stories into the dark alley and the black unforgiving asphalt. Liliana’s right hand held, so only some of her blood followed her enemy down to the ground, not her whole body.
With a crunchy squelching sound, reminding Liliana of that sickening feeling she got when she stepped on a snail in the dark, the widow spider’s exoskeleton hit the asphalt.
Stella’s mother must not have emphasized the importance of safety lines as much as Liliana’s.
Liliana’s black blouse fluttered down and covered Stella’s shattered skull with embroidered red roses. The seer hung by one arm in her bloody leotard and torn skirt, looking down at the enemy that had so nearly ended her life.
The other woman had been a brave, honorable, and formidable opponent. The widow spider hadn’t even screamed as she fell twelve stories. Maybe, in her grief, Stella welcomed death.
