The Lie Spinners (The Deception Dance) (50 page)

“
No!”
I shout at him, “What have you done?”

Pom
turns his mirrored glasses to me and smiles. “I feel
fantastic!” he says.

“
You
took Venom? Aren’t you worried that you’ll end up a
zombie?”

“
No,
Stephen’s Friend, meet my spider,” he says, arching up
his neck. After a second, a thumbprint sized black and red spider
crawls up the webs on his neck to his ear.

“
I
thought you weren’t stupid!” I shout. “You are so
stupid.” As I’m about to plunge back into the crowd,
Pom’s hand shoots out and grabs my shoulder sending a jolt
through my whole body.

“
No!”
Pom says when I spin. “No, wait, I’ll take you to him. He
would want me to.” Pom jumps over the booth station in a too
lithe move, landing beside me on the bench. He grabs my arm with too
much strength, and in an instant three things are clear: his strength
is already inhuman, my friend Pom is gone, and I am his prisoner.

Pom
leads me through the crowd with such force that people shove to each
side of us before Pom gets a chance to shove them. Then we’re
behind the bar, where several guys I’ve never seen before are
quickly tending bar. Pom shoves me through the bar door starting to
laugh hysterically at apparently nothing.

“
Take
it easy, Pom!” I shout at him, but he’s laughing and
so…high, I’m not sure he processes what I say because he
shoves me out the back door too.

He’s
not my friend, not anymore. I elbow him in the ribs, as hard as I
can.

He
only laughs and grabs my arm tighter.

We
walk down the back alley, which unlike usual is filled with
party-goers walking around. With a sudden shock, I realize we’re
taking the very same path that I took earlier today running after
Stephen.

“
I
thought his web was in the middle of nowhere,” I say, “we
took a boat to get there…”

“
That
is the front entrance,” says Pom, entering a store selling
T-shirts in the alley that I lost Stephen in. Pom walks to the back
of the store and the young lady who runs the store only looks up,
then away as Pom shoves me past the cramped store overflowing with
faux-designer shirts. He opens a door in the back of the store and
pulls me into a back room. Opening a metal trap door that spans the
entire length of the room, which has to weigh two hundred pounds or
more, he reveals a large clean polished wood staircase. “This
is the back entrance.”

Pom
leaves the trap door open and leads me down the stairs.

“
Pom,
you used to be my friend, like, an hour ago.
What
is your deal
?
If you weren’t taking me where I
want
to go, I would kick your butt for shoving me around like this.”

Obviously
something in what I said was funny because Pom just starts cracking
up and shoving me harder.

We
enter on The Spider’s dais, from the same direction that
Stephen did when they fetched him and assigned him as my bodyguard.

Even
with the possibility of Stephen being already dead in my mind, I am
not prepared for what I find on The Spider’s dais.

I’m
not sure if I manage to get away from Pom’s grasp or if he lets
me go, but I am running stumbling, hurdling at the front of the dais.

All
I can see is the blood and the mess and the beaten body hanging from
the web. He hangs upside down, strung up like a punching bag tethered
around his feet to the web above by a long cord; he sways back and
forth as if still rebounding from his last beating. Except for in my
visions, I’ve never seen such a destroyed face. His features
are nothing but bruises, already black and purple. But I know it’s
his face. Blood soaks his hair and splatters drops as his body
swings, back and forth, back and forth.

Not
minding that I’m stepping on lounging men and women, oblivious
to my surroundings, I climb and hit and push until I’m at him.
As he swings past, I grab his shoulders, the highest I can reach, and
stop his swinging. I clutch him to me, holding what I can reach of
him against my body. I awkwardly feel for a pulse, for breath but
every time I let go of one hand, he threatens to swing away.

“
Are
you alive?” I scream, raggedly. “Are you alive? God
dammit!”

I’m
wrenched away, my body slamming against something solid and hard. My
vision turns hazy for a second before focusing on Mængmum, The
Spider, whose fangs hover directly above my face.

I’m
in his throne, I realize, he must have thrown me in it.

“
I’m
going to do to you what I should have done in the beginning!”
He hisses at me. “One
woman
from my web killed a greater demon, I’m not afraid of any
amount of lesser demons; you’re going to be ballooned in silk!
Right now!” In the closest web, hundreds of giant black and red
spiders converge. Mængmum picks me up grabbing both my arms
like a naughty child; he tenses as if preparing to throw me into the
mass of spiders.

I
vaguely notice May, sitting up from where she’s lying prostrate
on the ground between me and the mass of Spiders she opens her mouth,
probably to save me (and reveal herself).

“
I’ll
wake all of them!” I scream.

He
hesitates.

“
I
can do it any time I want, Spider. In me, there’s a portal to
Hell, and I will open it. It’s like smelling salts to all those
greater demons you abducted and drained.
Are
you ready to go to Hell, Mængmum?”

The
Spider obviously isn’t, because he drops me back into his
throne.

“
Little
girl, I think you are wielding a gun you are not prepared to shoot.
They’ll kill you first.”

“
I
don’t know…with twenty-what-five of them, I’m sure
a dozen or more will head straight for you. I bet they’re
pretty angry; they might not even kill you…
for
a long time
.
You know what, I’ll tell you this, if he is dead…”
I point to Stephen, “I’ll do it no matter what.”

I’m
sorry, May.

Mængmum
raises his eyebrows and gives me a confident victorious expression.
“No you will not, not while your sister is still in this web.
Stop bluffing—”

“
Why
don’t you check for her, Mængmum? I took my sister out of
your grasp hours ago. You have no leverage over me but his life. And
if you’ve taken him from me, I will see you obliterated and
meet my death smiling.”

“
Truth,”
says Chauncey. I had been so focused, I had not even seen her leaning
against the throne only inches from me. I’m surrounded by
Mængmum
’s
usual entourage, though some of them look a bit battered.

“
You
cannot have him! I will kill him! He did something!” Mængmum
roars. “I cannot summon! I will kill him! He’s only not
dead because he refuses to die—”

The
Spider reels back to punch Stephen’s swinging body, but diverts
his punch instead hitting the throne above my head, shattering the
wood and sending slivers in all directions.

When
Mængmum’s breathing slows he says, “I know better,
I’m not a fool, you would not free the demons for this.”
He gestures to Stephen.

“
I
will.”

“
Truth,”
Chauncey says.

“
Some
people are worth the world,” I whisper, knowing he won’t
understand; some wouldn’t, but if I’ve seen anything this
year it’s that most people have someone they would sacrifice
the world for. It’s not really the choice I face, if Stephen
dies, I die, and this web will implode in a week right after the
Gates of Hell open. But, at the same time, I realize what I said to
Jones is true, if I had to make the choice between Linnie and the
world again, there’d be no question. And now, somehow, I’d
choose Stephen too. They are worth the world to me.

Maybe
that makes me evil. I’ve already somewhat come to terms with
that.

Mængmum
paces around, kicking at people, sending a few people flying off the
dais.

“
You’re
running out of time,” I say, “even if he’s still
alive, hanging him upside down like that will kill him.”

Mængmum
screams then leaps onto the cord that tethers Stephen, sending
Stephen’s body rocking wildly. Swinging his legs up so that he
too is upside down on the tether Mængmum bites through the
tether cord and sends Stephen flying onto some of the crouched women
on the dais. They don’t even shift from their crouched
position; they just take the impact and stay.

Stephen
rolls off them toward the chair and me, I fall to him on the floor.
Licking my fingers I hold them in front of his parted lips; after a
second I feel the faintest breath.

A
cry comes unbidden from my lips. “Thank you, thank you,”
I whisper, “You’re alive.”

Mængmum
flips onto the dais, landing feet from us and giving me an expression
of poorly contained rage.

“
I
swear this to you,” I say, “the moment he dies will be
the same moment that everything you’ve created, everything you
are, will burn.”

Mængmum
calls out an order, and two of his men rush over to us.

When
I tense, Mængmum says, “They will carry him to your
hostel. Then they will leave.” He turns to Chauncey, “I
will not break my deal.” Then he turns to me, “For now.”

Day
Forty-Four, Forty-Five and Forty-Six

Right
in the middle of telling Stephen a story, my second vision comes
true. After it’s played in full, I cling to myself, slumped
against the bed, reeling from the horror of realizing and admitting
inwardly that
I
am in love with Stephen
.
Tremors descend throughout my body, making me feel weak and queasy.

Three
days I’ve watched Stephen, washed him (to the best of my
ability), maneuvered a straw through his lips and held the water
bottle for hours, but he’s drunk little and eaten nothing and
is still caked with his own blood. When I tried to convince the
people at the hostels front desk to call for a doctor, they flatly
told me that no money would be enough to convince them to go against
what The Spider’s goons had told them to do. They added that
asking the local hospital to go against The Spider would be a waste
of a couple hours and the taxi fare. I didn’t tell them that I
didn’t have money for a taxi fare, or a bribe, or a hospital
bill.

So
the only medical care I can offer is just sitting around him; waiting
for some sign, for him to ask me for water or food or anything. After
hours of just sitting, I started whispering to him all my stories,
random thoughts and musings. He’s barely showed as much as a
quivering lip of conscious movement. But, it’s almost like…I
guess if it’s not silent in the room, then he’s here with
me.

Obviously,
whatever Stephen had run back to do that horrible day had stopped The
Spider from summoning another greater demon and breaking the web of
power. It was probably worth the price of his life to him, but he
didn’t know what the true cost would have been.

Four
days left.

No
help has come.

I
have no money to even try to call or email off island, and if Stephen
has some money stashed somewhere besides the money he already gave me
and I gave Linnie, I can’t find it (and I looked everywhere).
When I asked the bungalow people if they’d let me use their
phone and charge it to the room (which I guess Mængmum has been
paying for) they literally ran from me. The hostel staff refuses to
even acknowledge me when I’m shouting but they deliver food to
my room three times a day even though I’m not ordering it.

Before
now, I’d always had some reason not to call for help: first
because I thought it would expose Stephen and he might be killed,
then because The Spider had Linnie, and she might be killed, now, I
just can’t afford it. How stupid it would be if the apocalypse
happened because I didn’t have money for a pay phone.

Throwing
my pride aside, I even asked a couple hostel guests for change to
make a call; when I finally found a guest who spoke English and was
willing to give me a couple baht (in a non-creepy way), a woman that
worked for the hostel ran up and shouted at the guy until he put his
money back and hurried away.