Spider-Touched (6 page)

Farold, the man who’d paid the guardsmen a handful of bills when they’d presented her at the maze, said, “I thought you’d approve, Anton. The betting audience has grown tired of seeing nothing but hunting. It’s been a while since a woman ran. I thought you’d want to put her in the maze with only the convicts at first . . . Perhaps they’ll even kill each other for a chance at one last f—”

“Language, Farold. There’s no need for us to descend to their crudeness.”

“I apologize. You’re correct. There’s no excuse for it. The income from the wagering proceeds will increase if we give the clubs a chance to offer odds as to what the men will do if given a chance at a woman. I took the liberty of sending her photograph along with the pictures and profiles of the men. She’s really quite beautiful, which is an added appeal. Plus she bears a brand, one of the Church’s, I think. But I didn’t recognize its meaning.”

“You did well, Farold. What was her crime?”

“Jurgen and Cabot brought her in. They warned me against touching her, quite vehemently. In fact, they were disappointed you weren’t on hand to deal with the transaction personally. Both of them claim she’s a witch and one of their companions died as soon as he touched her.”

“Some of those who practice black magic are capable of setting such a spell in place. Jurgen and Cabot certainly displayed a great deal of restraint in not killing her outright. Cabot in particular. He’s the youngest son in a family where the oldest inherits everything. If I remember correctly from my days with the Church and serving as his mother’s confessor, he was terrified of anything that even hinted of witchcraft.”

“You’re correct. I got the impression Jurgen was responsible for keeping her alive and bringing her to us. Have you decided which of the hunters will work the maze tonight?”

“No. I’d hoped Hyde would be here by now with a new delivery. On his last visit he said he’d spotted several dragon lizards. He hoped to trap at least one of them.”

There was a sharp inhalation. Araña almost glanced up at the mention of the lizards.

“Do you think that’s wise with the turmoil going on in the guard? Carlos Iberá’s influence is growing. If he succeeds in having his grandson named commander of the guard, his push to have the red zone done away with will grow even stronger. Hyde getting caught bringing dragon lizards here . . .”

“He won’t get caught. And in the event he does, then I know nothing about his intentions, nor did I commission him to capture the creatures for the maze. Once he crosses the red zone boundary, and as long as we ensure they don’t escape, there won’t be a problem. On the contrary, I imagine they’ll attract a larger crowd to the gaming clubs, especially on the evenings I set them against some of the hunters who have lost their drawing power.”

“The werelion among them?”

“Yes. I’m afraid club patrons have become jaded in their tastes. Running the dregs of society against animals or Weres no longer draws the crowd it once did. But dragon lizards . . . I hope Hyde is able to deliver, and if I were a betting man, I’d bet on him. He’s been an excellent supplier over the last couple of years.”

“What you say is true.”

“I’m curious about the brand and the claim the woman is a witch,” the man with the melodic voice—Anton—said. And though Araña didn’t lift her head, she could feel his attention focus more firmly on her, could hear power in his voice when he directed her to stand.

With a thought she knew the demon mark rode her shoulder again. She hoped it would move to her palm if either of the men dared to enter her cell.

Farold said, “I can get the taser. She’ll stand quickly enough then and comply with your request.”

“No need. I have a better idea. Perhaps I should let the demon amuse himself in the maze tonight. What do you think?”

“He’s always a crowd-pleaser, especially when he’s put in with humans.”

“Announce it to the clubs then, so they can calculate the spreads and let their members know Abijah will be part of the entertainment.” There was a brief pause, then Anton began speaking in an ancient language.

Words ran together, vowels and consonants blending so closely and in such odd combination Araña couldn’t differentiate one from another. But the cadence and sound of them stirred something inside her, sent fear whipping through her, deeper even than that caused by the mention of the demon.

A breathless, nameless dread built in intensity as Anton’s incantation did. Crashed over her in icy shock when it ended abruptly with a summoning name. Abijah en Rumjal.

She felt a wrenching, inexplicable sense of déjà vu at hearing it. A primitive instinctual memory like the ones she sometimes experienced when she was trapped in a spider’s vision and forced by her unwanted gift to destroy lives.

Araña lifted her head, unable to resist looking at the demon. Just as she couldn’t fight when the fire called her to look into its black heart.

Terror left her breathless as Abijah shimmered into existence. He was a dark-skinned thing of nightmare and punishment—a harbinger of the Hell and damnation she’d been told since birth awaited her unless her soul could be cleansed of the evil taint the spider mark meant she carried.

The demon’s eyes flared from gleaming yellow to bright red. His fingers ended in curling, wicked claws. Leathery black wings emerged from his back, like those of a bat, while a snake-like tail coiled around his thigh as though it were a living thing.

A forked tongue flicked out to taste her fear. A smile curled on his lips when he found it. And as if wanting to add to her terror, he reached up and caressed the mark on his chest with a deadly talon, drawing her attention to the golden scorpion there.

At the sight of it, the primitive instinctual memory and the wrenching, inexplicable sense of déjà vu slid through Araña once again. Her heart pounded against her chest as though it would beat its way through ribs and muscle and flesh in order to escape his proximity. The spidery shape of her own mark rested at the base of her spine as if cowering in the presence of a greater demon.

Abijah was naked. She noted it and pressed harder against the back of the cage when his penis stirred to life.

“She interests you,” Anton said to the demon. “That rarely happens. Perhaps you’ll give the gamblers a show they’ve yet to witness.”

The demon made no reply, but apparently one wasn’t expected. Anton said, “Bring her to the front of the cage, Abijah.”

The maze owner’s eyes narrowed when the demon made no move toward compliance. The fast race of Araña’s heart slowed with sudden understanding. Abijah wasn’t a willing participant in the evil of the maze. He was bound somehow, forced to serve a master not of his choosing.

“Bring her to the front of the cage, Abijah,” Anton repeated, his tone holding a threat. And this time when the demon didn’t immediately obey, the command was followed by a flurry of sentences spoken in the same unfamiliar tongue that had summoned him.

Abijah disappeared. Or seemed to. Until she saw the scorpion step through the opening between the cage bars, the deadly stinger at the end of its tail curled over its back.

Without conscious thought, Araña rose to her feet. Scorpion morphed to yellow-eyed demon.

The spider hid on the sole of her foot, as far away from the flicker of the forked tongue as it could get. The golden scorpion now marked Abijah’s cheek rather than his chest, and what small hope Erik and Matthew had been able to foster in Araña, about her own mark, was extinguished. It was demon in nature.

There was no way to avoid Abijah’s touch. No point in resisting it.

Taloned fingers curled around Araña’s upper arm. His skin was hot, but she’d expected as much, knew from the spider birth dream that demons were born in a place of fire and molten lava.

Abijah pulled her from the wall of the cell and forced her to the front of the cage as he’d been ordered to do. Anton smiled and turned slightly toward his human companion. “You’re right, Farold. She’s quite stunning. Quite exotic, actually.”

“It almost seems a shame to run her with the criminals.”

“I know what you mean. We’ll allow her two knives in the maze and give Abijah permission to play with her all night if the convicts don’t kill her first.” Anton took a step closer. “There’s something about her . . . Is she a shapeshifter, Abijah?”

“No.”

“One of the human gifted?”

Abijah’s hand slid down Araña’s arm in a frightening caress. It stopped at her wrist, and the shiny tip of a curved nail scraped over her veins before digging in deeply enough to draw blood.

He leaned down. The forked tongue darted out to lap at her blood before he released her. “She is mortal, but not one of the human gifted.”

“Interesting. Her use of witchcraft must be learned instead of inherited. Too bad, but it might not matter. Given your physical reaction to her, are you capable of breeding offspring on her, Abijah?”

The demon refused to answer, forcing Anton to ask the question a second time, and then a third before an answer was unwillingly torn from him. “Yes.”

Araña couldn’t suppress a shiver of terror. She’d longed to know the feel of skin against skin, to have a lover. But not this one. Not a demon that sent the spider-shaped mark to cower on the sole of her foot.

Farold said, “Why not add a caveat that Abijah can’t intentionally kill her unless she’s escaping the maze? If she survives his attention, that’ll make her next run a profitable one.”

“You prove yourself a worthy assistant yet again.”

Anton spoke in the flowing, frightening language, and at the end of it, the demon disappeared. “Done. Abijah has his instructions.”

“I’ll send the information along to the oddsmakers so they can factor it into their calculations.”

“Do that. It should make for an interesting night.” Anton focused on Araña’s hand. “Let me see the brand.”

She complied.

“Do you recognize it?” Farold asked.

“Yes. It’s one the fundamentalists favor. It’s not used much here, but in the San Joaquin, especially in some of the more isolated communities near Stockton, there are several groups who routinely use it to mark individuals they view as tainted by evil. The brand literally means
touched by Satan
, or alternatively,
one of Satan’s own
. A witch practicing the black arts necessary to kill by touch alone would certainly fall into that category.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t burn her at the stake.”

“I imagine her looks saved her from that fate, and perhaps the fact she’s learned rather than gifted. More than one pious man has been led astray by a beautiful face and form, and thought they’d be able to redeem and reclaim the soul inside it.”

Farold’s eyebrows drew together. “But once she’s branded? How would it be possible?”

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Once she’d been judged redeemed, a second brand would be laid over the first, attesting to the restored purity of her soul.” Anton chuckled. “Very primitive views considering the revelations that have come since The Last War.”

“True.”

“I believe I’ve seen enough here, Farold.”

Murmurs rose in the cage next to Araña’s as soon as the two men left the room. Only now they were the sounds of men speaking in frightened turns about the demon, negotiating to work together in an attempt to survive and escape the maze.

Araña sank to the ground where she was. Fear and adrenaline washed away to leave a deep numbness.

Once again she pulled her knees to her chest to serve as a pillow. She wrapped her arms around them and let the curtain of hair hide her face.

Blood from her wrist soaked into her pants. Her side throbbed with pain, as did the places she’d been kicked and hit.

Thoughts of all she might be forced to endure in the maze overlaid the images of Matthew and Erik lying dead. The combination threatened to paralyze her, to provide an opening for despondency to envelope her in an icy haze.

It pulled at her, nearly succeeded in sucking her under and holding her there. But pride wouldn’t let her remain in the deadly embrace.

Matthew’s last words shamed her for allowing even a hint of hopelessness to invade her.
Live for all of us,
he’d said. And she would.

She would live for them. And she would avenge their deaths by killing the two guardsmen who’d brought her to the maze.

Slowly she became aware of her surroundings again. The words one of the prisoners was speaking sank in, and Araña turned her head slightly, just enough to peek through the black of her hair and read the tattoos on the man’s face.

Wife abuser. But he’d frequented one of the gambling clubs where his money was welcome despite the violence he’d been found guilty of. He’d watched men and beasts run through the maze, and though he’d never seen anyone escape it, he still had answers when the other convicts asked him questions about pitfalls and design, dead ends and traps.

Those answers chased the last of Araña’s emotional paralysis away. Hope blossomed and surged through her veins.

There were places like the maze in other cities. She’d heard them talked about in boat towns and outlaw settlements, wherever men and women gathered to brag and swap stories over beer and moonshine and homemade wine.

The names of the cities were often volunteered, but when a man ran a maze and survived it, he didn’t usually speak of its location or of the offenses leading to his imprisonment—and no one asked. That was unspoken custom among them because desperation could turn a former drinking buddy into a bounty hunter.

How many times had she heard the tale of Gallo’s escape from a maze? How many times had he bought her meals and filled Erik’s and Matthew’s cups with beer while she captured his stories on paper with her pens and pencils?

She’d run Gallo’s maze a hundred times in her imagination as she’d turned those oral stories into pictures. He’d never revealed the city, but as she listened to what the wife abuser said, familiar landmarks rose from her memory with perfect clarity.

She saw Gallo’s run through the maze. Saw the statues he’d passed, the walls streaked with blood where desperate men tried to claw their way up concrete surfaces studded with shards of glass. She saw the traps he’d discovered, the doorway to freedom he’d found, and she knew she had a chance of escaping death. This maze was the one Gallo had survived.