Authors: James R Tuck

Spider's Lullaby (3 page)

BOOK: Spider's Lullaby

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I assumed he had been in full Were-spider form when he had died. If he had been half human, half spider like Charlotte, he would at least have some clothes on.

In my mind's eye, I could see him skittering along the cabinets and ceiling as the killer shot at him, then trying to dart into the hallway. It was the doorframe that slowed him enough for the killer to slice him in two.

I knelt down, studying the open waist of the cadaver. Inside, everything was suspended in a green, translucent gel. All the organs and bones were encased in the stuff. It was another weird anomaly of Were-spider anatomy. The slice was completely across, from one side to another, about four inches above the hipbones. The top of the cut was smooth and even, looking like a special effect from a movie. I reached in, fingers seeking out the spine. The green belly jelly squelched as I probed. Cold and slick, it was like jam fresh out of the refrigerator.

My fingers found the spine. Looking up at the white wall, I concentrated on my sense of touch, feeling along the surface of the cut. The bone was slick, surface sheared clean straight through the middle of the vertebrae. Standing up, my hand pulled free with a wet
squelch!
I held my hand out away from me so I wouldn't get any of the goo on my clothes. I wanted to wipe my fingers off on my jeans but resisted.

Only one sword cuts that smoothly. A katana. Any other sword going through that much flesh would
shear
it away, tearing as much as cutting. The edge would leave a pattern of jagged tears. A katana slices, the sweeping edge parting flesh and bone like water.

A professional killer, who knows about lycanthropes, using a pair of silenced .45's and a katana to kill. Maybe there was a chance of finding this bastard after all.

After all, how many of those could be in my city?

Don't answer that.

The chain-link steering wheel gleamed as it spun through Tiff 's fingers. The rosary hanging from the rearview mirror swayed with the rocking of the motor. She wheeled the Comet around and backed into a parking space like she had done it her whole life.

Driving the Comet is not easy. She's a big hunk of American iron powered by a souped-up 351 Windsor motor that runs like a bat out of hell. There is no power steering, no antilock brakes, and the damn car is as wide as a boat. She's dressed in badass black and the barest amount of chrome that is acceptable. I love her, but she is
not
easy to drive.

Tiff pulled it off with grace.

She was behind the wheel since I had been drinking earlier. The alcohol had burned clean from my system by the combo of an inhuman metabolism and adrenaline rush. But as my dad used to say before he left this shitty old world, better safe than being a dumbass with a DUI. My dad was one for specific colloquialisms. Besides, it gave me time to change my shoulder rig and add some weapons.

The shoulder harness I had on now still held my Desert Eagle .357 under my left arm. It hung, a nice, solid, comforting weight. I'll admit it, I bought the gun originally because I thought it looked badass. And it does indeed look badass, but using it I had discovered that the Israelis really know how to make a nice gun. I have never once had a problem out of it. I might one day, but so far the gun was aces in my book.

Under my right arm was a row of clips. Four clips of nine bullets each. The ammo was an Orion Outfitters special. Silver hollow points with a drop of silver nitrate wax sealed in the tip. They were hot-loaded and frangible, meaning they had a lot of gunpowder and the bullet would break apart on impact, giving a bigger wound channel. The damn things would drop almost anything, from a vampire to a hobgoblin.

On the same rig was a holster that held a wicked gravity knife. It was six inches long when closed, but one push of the release and a five-inch blade dropped out, locking in place. It was razor sharp on both edges and silver plated. Under the spare clips was a small two-shot derringer. Made by Bond Arms, the Snake Slayer held two .410 shotgun shells full of silver shot.

I also had my normal backup gun in a lower back holster. It was a .44 caliber Taurus Bulldog snub-nosed revolver. I love my semiautomatics, but they can jam. I want my backup gun to be dead reliable. That's a revolver. Pull the trigger and a bullet comes out every time. You can bet your life on it.

Trust me, I have.

More than once.

Charlotte was in the backseat. She leaned up as Tiff killed the engine. She had changed, both her form and her clothes. Now she was once again a nice-looking conservative lady in her early thirties. Her dress had been ruined by her transformation earlier, so now she had changed into a pair of dark slacks with an unstructured sweater in a light taupe color that swathed around her slender torso. It folded and curved, looking elegant and expensive. The back was open, but she didn't have a jacket despite the fact that it was cold as hell out. Lycanthropes have a metabolic rate somewhere in the thermonuclear range, so they rarely feel the cold, unless they are a reptile or some other cold-blooded animal.

Her hand pointed at the building we were parked outside. “What is this place?”

The building was low, squatting close to the ground. It was stuccoed in a pale sage green and surrounded by nice landscaping. The parking lot we were in was full of cars that were all on the high end of the market. The Comet wasn't the only restored muscle car, but she was one of only a few. Above the door was sign, a simple cross-hair traced out in red neon. The harsh glare of it cut into the night.

I turned to the Were-spider. “This is a place where we will be maintaining our cool. It's a club called Cordite, and someone I know will be inside. I know it looks like a normal nightclub, but trust me, there aren't many places in this town more dangerous than this one.”

Her lycanthropy spiked, skittering across my power. A shiver tripped and fell down my spine. Her human eyes were cold, staring hard across the lot at the building. I could
feel
the tension whirring around inside her. The words she spoke were normal, but there was a lilt to them that scraped along my nerves. “The stealer of my offspring is inside?” It was odd phrasing, not the way Charlotte normally talked.

“Are you all right?” I turned to look at her over the seat back. “If you can't hold it together, tell me now and I will leave you in the car.”

Slowly, her head turned toward me. Scarlet began to boil into her eyes, washing over the hazel emerald color her pupils normally were. The planes of her face began to shift, carving into the alien planes of her spider-lady form. Depressions formed on the edges of her forehead where six more unblinking eyes would be. Her lycanthropy filled the car, making it hard to breath, like the air was made of soup.

The Desert Eagle was in my hand, pointed at her through the seat. My finger pulled all the slack out of the trigger as the air grew thicker.

Her eyes clamped shut and a shudder ran through her whole body, quick but violent. A deep breath was dragged into her lungs, held captive for a long moment and then slowly released. Her lycanthropy cut off like a switch had been thrown. It left me feeling like I had been doused in cold water. She took several deep, slow breaths as she sat there. When her eyes opened, they were human again.

“Sorry.” She shook her head again. “I can feel the hatching coming on. The connection gets more primal the closer it gets. Everything becomes instinct and genetic memory.”

“Will you be able to keep it together?”

Her mouth hardened into a line. “Yes.”

I turned back toward the front of the car, accepting it. After all we had been through, I did trust Charlotte. “Okay, we are here for information, but everybody inside that building is dangerous, so everyone
be cool
and follow my lead.”

My finger punched the button on the glove compartment. It popped open and I reached inside. There was a CZ-75 9mm pistol and two spare clips for it. I handed them over to Tiff. She took them, checking to make sure the gun was loaded and ready to rock. Satisfied, she slipped the compact pistol into her coat pocket and the clips in the other side. I picked my coat up off the seat between us.

Her hand fell gently on my arm. It was warm against my skin. A small spark of... something chased through me. My heart sped up. Just a little. Her eyes looked at me under perfectly sculpted brows that pulled together in concern. Her voice was low as she spoke. “Are you okay?”

I knew what she was asking. The scene back at Charlotte's was similar to what had happened to my family all those years ago. Similar, but not the same. My family had been ritualistically slaughtered, tortured to death. Their blood used to paint arcane symbols on the walls as sacrifice for some dark magick bullshit. They had been tormented before their deaths. Someone had called me while it was happening and I'd had to listen, helplessly, as they screamed and cried out for me to save them. I was too far away, I couldn't get there in time, and I had listened as each of them prayed and begged for mercy.

They had all died calling my name. Every one of them. My wife. My daughter. My son.

I heard their last cries for me to save them as their lives were taken.

I had ...

STOP!

Just.

Fucking.

Stop.

Deep breath, let it go ...

The scene with my family had been worse. Tiff didn't know that because it still hurt too much for me to think about it, much less talk about it.

Thinking about it starts me down the road to a dark, dark place. A place where memory turns to barbed wire and gut-hooks me, ripping up my insides.

“I'm fine, little girl. Thanks for asking.”

Her hand stayed on my arm. “Are you sure?”

I smiled, pushing away the darkness. “Yes. Besides, we have work to do.”

She stared at me for another long moment and then nodded, dark magenta bangs sliding over her eyes.

We got out of the car together.

A cute girl, a pissed off Were-spider, and an occult bounty hunter carrying a small arsenal walk into a bar...

I bet this joke was gonna have one helluva punch line.

“You can't come in here,
sir.
”

We stood in an alcove inside the door. It was small and close, barely enough room for the three of us to squeeze in. The walls were decorated with artwork. It wasn't to my taste, but it looked expensive. I noticed that beside each piece of artwork was a dark spot. Focusing, I made out that they were depressions, holes, in the wall. The modern-day version of arrow slits. A gun barrel could be pushed out of them and the entire room sprayed down with bullets.

It was a death box.

It made my scalp itch, standing there.

I looked back at the human bouncer in front of me. He was young, with a smooth lantern jaw and short-cropped blond hair. He was dressed in an off-the-rack tuxedo and worked out enough that it didn't look bad on him. The jacket was unbuttoned. A blocky plastic semiautomatic stuck out over the top of his black cummerbund. It looked like a Glock from where I stood. His hand jutted out toward me in a “Stop!” gesture. Brown, beady eyes were narrowed, focusing on me.

He was making two big mistakes if this situation went tits up.

The first one was to hold his arm out within reaching distance of me. My mind flashed through the steps it would take to put him down: My hand on his wrist. A sharp twist to the outside, fracturing the ulna bone in his arm. He would drop forward to his knees. My foot would snap up into his stomach, shoving his diaphragm against his spine if I was being nice. If not, my foot would crush his larynx.

I shook my head, visions of violence dissolving.

His second error in judgment was to completely focus on me and ignore the girls. Tiff had a 9mm compact pistol in her coat pocket, forty-three rounds of ammunition for it, and the ability to use it. Charlotte was ... well, Charlotte. Dismissing her was like dismissing a tiger as a kitty cat.

I get it, though. I am the one who
looks
dangerous. He was right at six foot tall, which put me four inches taller than him. I also outweighed him by an easy fifty or sixty pounds. That can be unnerving for a man who is normally the biggest guy in the room at 250 lbs. I had thrown on my coat to cover the guns, so most of my tattoos were also covered, but the ones on my hands, throat, and the back of my shaved head were all still visible, adding to the thug look I had going on. Add the goatee that hasn't been cut in years so it hangs to my chest thick and gnarly, and I look like a real bad dude.

But in this joint that shouldn't be a problem.

So why was I getting flack from the bouncer?

“What's the problem, pal?” I asked.

His finger pointed to a sign on the wall. It read: D
RESS
ODE
S
TRICTLY
E
NFORCED.
He looked down his nose at my tanker boots, jeans, and black T-shirt.

My voice spiked with incredulity. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Absolutely.” Thin lips pulled into a thinner line.

Time pressed in. Thoughts of Ronnie and the egg sac weighed heavy on me. I was on a deadline and time was not my friend tonight. No way was a door monkey going to keep me from going inside because I didn't have a tie on.

I leaned forward, dropping my voice. “I am here to see
The Russian
.”

“We have many customers who happen to be Russian. You cannot enter,
sir.
” He said the word “sir” like it tasted bad.

My teeth clenched as my blood pressure rose. The nerve under my left eye twitched. “You don't understand, slick. I am here for
THE
Russian, and I am going to see him tonight.”

He blinked at me. I watched the synapses in his brain fire as he processed what I had said. I shoved down the urge to fold him in half and stuff him inside a trash can somewhere. His mouth opened, then shut, then opened again.

I was stepping forward when a tall, icy blonde came from the shadows behind him. Her fingers fell on his arm, jerking him out of his befuddlement. She stepped around him. Her face split into a smile that did not reach dark gray eyes.

Sasha.

I should have known she would be here. After all, she owned the club.

She was the picture of elegance in a sheath dress that matched the color of her eyes. It hugged a body that was mannish despite the basketball-sized breasts that rode on her chest and spilled over the top of the dress. There was something that kept her just shy of being the height of femininity. Her shoulders were just a bit too wide, hips a bit too narrow, jaw a bit too square.

Sasha had been Stephen when I met her.

She had spent a childhood at the hands of freaks who made her suffer for being born in the wrong body. She'd spent an adulthood tracking them down and sending them to the hell they deserved. Some of those freaks had been monsters in other ways too.

That's where I had come into her life.

I'd helped her boot the last of those sadistic perverts into the fiery depths of Satan's asshole. After the dust settled, she had gone on to make herself whole. The surgeons had performed magic, but the therapists never could solve all her issues, or settle all her homicidal rage.

I completely understood.

She'd opened Cordite as a place where hit men and assassins could be entertained and do business if they wanted. The club catered to the criminal element, but it was a no-man's-land. You didn't start shit in Cordite. Sasha would bury you out back if you did.

Her hands touched my shoulders lightly as she leaned in and kissed my cheek. Electrolysis smooth skin brushed mine. She smelled like green apples. Stepping back, her fingers lightly brushed over the top of her insane cleavage.

“It is lovely to see you, Deacon. Did I hear you say you were here to see Ivan?”

I took her hand. It was almost as big as mine, the knuckles still large from years of fighting. Her nails were perfectly polished, refined, elegant, and closely clipped so they wouldn't snag in a trigger guard. I brought it up to my lips. “Speaking of lovely, Sasha, you are a vision tonight.” My lips pressed quickly to the back of her hand. The skin was warm and smelled of antibacterial soap. “I
am
here to see the Russian.”

She pulled her hand back as I stood up and used it to fan the air by her face. Her cheeks were bright beneath her base. She rolled her eyes and batted long, thick eyelashes. She smiled. “I see you have not lost your charm, Deacon Chalk.”

“My momma raised me right.”

Her waxed eyebrow arched. “Are you planning to start trouble in my club?”

I smiled at her. “You know I never
plan
to start trouble.”

“That may well be, but somehow it usually happens around you. Try to keep things civilized, darling.” She turned and began walking into the club, fingers beckoning us to follow her.

Me start trouble?

Never happens.

BOOK: Spider's Lullaby

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