The Lie Spinners (The Deception Dance) (46 page)

Immediately
hundreds of the giant black and red spiders scurry over the web
converging. I grab Stephen’s sword and run for him, intending
to cut him down; but May moves faster, she leaps onto the web
scurrying up one-handed and slashing at the spiders, holding them
back with the fire sword.

Something
comes in my peripheral vision, I instinctively dodge. Eyes wide and
luminous, mouth frothing, arms outstretched, Furcas swipes for me
again.

Forgetting
my incomplete training, forgetting everything, I take the krabi in
both hands and hack and hack, and hack. I’m screaming and
hacking and sometimes I hit something, mostly I don’t.

Furcas
just keeps grabbing for me, but then a slash of fire tears across my
vision. Suddenly, I’m only holding half a bloody sword. Furcas’
head tumbles off his enormous shoulders and I just back up in time to
get out of his way as his headless corpse topples forward.

May
stands, her arm still outstretched from the thrust of her final blow
on the greater demon. The sword still sears with a now blue rippling
fire. She closes her eyes. “Get her out of here, quickly,”
May says.

I
glance around, seeing people crawling down the web from all
directions. Someone shoves me so hard I would have fallen if Stephen
wasn’t there to grab me. That someone, one of the partially
web-tattooed people falls to the ground and starts lapping at the
growing pool of demon blood.

Stephen
throws his arm around my shoulder and quickly leads me away from the
corpse.

We
don’t speak; we just focus on dodging the frenzied people
racing toward Furcas. We’ve almost made it to the end of the
pavilion when The Spider leaps down into our path. He bares his
fangs, obviously furious, and Stephen thrusts himself in front of me.

Taking
heavy inhalations of breath The Spider turns to us. “That demon
tells me that I cannot assign another guard. You must protect her on
your own now, Nathan. If you leave her, if she escapes, if she dies,
you die.”

Stephen
nods.

“
Blindfold
her,” The Spider snaps, “don’t use those glasses
again!” He turns and stalks away in the direction that we came
from.

****

“
I
can’t,” Stephen says, as I take a seat beside him on my
bungalow’s steps. These are the first words he’s spoken
to me since he blindfolded me in The Spider’s pavilion. When we
got back, he simply untied the blindfold and left without looking at
me.

He
exhales a cloud of smoke. “I just can’t do this, Raven, I
am sorry.”

“
Can’t
do what?” I ask, wrapping my hands around my legs.

“
Comfort
you,” He says. Using his almost finished still-lit cigarette,
he lights a fresh cigarette and inhales.

My
first urge is to snap at him that I didn’t come out here to
force him to comfort me; but seeing his expression, I stay silent.

Stephen
tosses his old butt onto the sand where it slowly dies. His hand
scrubs down his face.

A
patchwork of clouds wanders across the sky above; as the clouds
venture past, the odd star peeks out then hides again.

“
I
gave Kasem back his spider, I put it on him,” Stephen says,
eventually. “Mængmum had put it on one of his other
women
and May took it from her while dancing. She gave Kasem’s spider
the counter-spell, the one that will let you escape the island,
thinking that because it was so strong it could weave the
counter-spell into the webs on her skin, which connects to what she
calls the power-web. It didn’t work; Kasem’s spider
wouldn’t weave the spell onto her body. She gave me Kasem’s
Spider and I put it on him. We knew it was risky, that Kasem’s
strength in sorcery could likely force the spider to submit to him
and direct it to unweave the spell—”

“
He
couldn’t,” I say, needlessly.

“
There
was something wrong with him, something more than we had planned
for,” Stephen says.

“
It
was like he was poisoned,” I say. “Do you think it could
be the effects of the counter-spell?”

Stephen
sighs. He pinches his fingers over his eyes. “I killed him.”

“
Furcas
killed him,” I say.

Stephen
looks at me, his expression clearly says:
bull-turd
and you know it
.

“
It
was an accident,” I say, “Even if it was all from the
counter-spell, you didn’t
know
it would kill him.”

“
My
body-count is getting rather high, Raven,” he says it like it’s
a dark-joke yet there’s a sheen of moisture in his eyes.

“
You
know what?” I say, “You don’t get the blame, this
one is on me. I’m the one who woke all the demons... And I did
it because: that portal to Hell that I opened within me last
summer...” I tap my chest, “it’s still in here. I
almost opened it, just because I was being stupid.
My
stupidity killed Kasem, and he was my friend...almost. So you can add
him to my body count, which honestly, is much, much higher than
yours.”

Stephen
peers over at me. “Raven, that portal inside of you doesn’t
necessarily mean that—”

“
We
both know what it means,” I whisper.

He
shakes his head and exhales. After a full minute of tense silence he
says, “You should get some sleep.”

I’m
dismissed
.
Not prepared to force my company on him, I get up and walk into the
bungalow. Taking the folded paper that holds the story Kasem wrote
for me out of where I’ve kept it always- in my back pocket, I
lie down to sleep alone.

I
never would have imagined that I would miss his vigilant stare on me,
but in Kasem’s corner, his absence is so noticeable, it’s
almost a presence in the empty room.

“
Thank
you for shooting Furcas,” I whisper to his absence, “I
know you would just respond that you were following orders, but you
probably saved us. I have a feeling we’re going to end up in
the same place; I’ll probably see you there soon, friend.”

I
close my eyes and let the hell that waits just beneath my eyelids
greet me eagerly.

Day
Thirty-Nine

1:27
am, the Jeep’s clock reads.

Midsummer.

Sighing,
I look over my right shoulder at Stephen as he shifts the Jeep into
gear outside of the club.

I
know that the clock has been ticking since Madeline laid the curse,
but for some reason I can almost hear the tick, tick, tick, of the
seconds remaining in my life. I consider saying something, trying
again to hint at what Madeline did and the importance of him leaving
with me, but I can’t find words. Neither of us have had any
words for each other since our horrid conversation on the steps,
four... now five days ago. We’ve been like robot-people. Wake
up. Work. Sleep. Repeat.

I
lean back into my seat but shift when Stephen turns the wrong way on
the main road leading out of Haad Rin. Stephen’s gaze doesn’t
stray to me; his posture looks deliberately relaxed, but he
concentrates as if the road might vanish if he takes his eyes off it
for a second.

“
Where
are we going?” I ask when he turns onto a totally unfamiliar
road, the almost-full moon shows the road as a slash heading up to
the top of a very sheer-looking cliff.

He
puts his hand on mine and squeezes my fingers once, the first contact
we’ve had since he took my blindfold off all those days ago in
my bungalow.

I
bite my lip.

“
Can
I ask you to trust me?” Stephen says.

“
You
can ask,” I say, trying to make light; but then I whisper, “I
trust you.”

We
curve up the cliff road, then across a ridge. After maybe twenty
minutes, Stephen parks in a two car parking lot and turns off the
ignition.

“
Is
someone meeting us here?” I ask, confused because May said she
couldn’t risk further contact before the morning of the Full
Moon Party (three... no, two days away). Three hours ago I gave her
all but a couple hundred baht of my tip money. Even after what
happened with Furcas, even after it strained all of their conjoined
power to a breaking point to put all the demons back to sleep, The
Spider is going ahead with his plans to raise another greater demon
(I’m actually not all that surprised. He’s dumber than a
dodo bird, extinction is inevitable).

Stephen
finally turns to me, and I can’t gage his expression—sad,
maybe. “Will you come with me?” He asks.

I
don’t answer; just follow as he exits the Jeep and heads down a
path lined with little decorative houses on higher and higher stands.
Stephen pulls a candle from his pocket and lights it with his
lighter. The candle flame reflects off a decorative gold shrine on a
small platform made up of steps on our other side.

Stephen
leads me to the entrance of a small cave, and looks back once before
entering. Inside we find a small cavern, only big enough to hold us
and a giant gold Buddha in lotus position. He’s thin with big
ears and a high pointed headdress; his eyes are closed but he has a
small smile on his face.

The
cave is empty, except for us and the Buddha.

“
The
Buddhist monks living near here blessed all the land around this
shrine,” Stephen says, pivoting to me.

“
Yeah,
but Stephen,” I say as I look into his face flickering with
candlelight, “Twenty something greater demons will just tear
the cliff down under us if we hide in here.”

“
No...
I meant that Andras can’t influence you here,” he says,
stepping toward me so our faces are only inches from each other.

I
bite my lip. I mumble, “Yeah but what does that have to do—”

Stephen
takes that last step toward me, leans in until his lips brush against
mine ever so softly. I inhale, inhaling his exhale. I know he’s
waiting for permission, his lips just tantalizingly brushing up and
down mine.

Because
I think I might fall over, I grab his arm. He wraps his free arm
around my back, stabilizing me.

Just
so lightly, I bring my lips up to his, gently connecting us. His arm
tightens around me, pressing me to him as he gently sucks on my lower
lip, and then releases it. Our kiss deepens, our lips pressing into
each other. His tongue enters my mouth. My hands wrap around the back
of his neck, pulling him closer, so close.

When
it is absolutely necessary, I pull back breathing hard. Amazingly, he
tasted nothing like I imagined he would, no lingering taste of
cigarettes or alcohol, not that I would have really minded, but I
realize I didn’t see him drink or take a cigarette break at all
tonight.

I
close my eyes, wrapped in his arm. “Stephen,” I whisper,
shaking my head “We can’t-”

“
I
know. I won’t kiss you again. All week I’ve kept thinking
that the deal is going to be broken on the full moon, no matter what
we do; I know it’s pessimistic, but I have this horrible
feeling that we won’t make it,” he says. “As wrong
as it is, I keep having this thought that if we only have one day to
live, I wanted to kiss you this once.”

I
open my eyes to stare into his gray-blue ones. “No,” I
say, “My visions. We’ll survive.” But saying it
feels like a lie, somehow, and it comes out uncertain.