Spider-Touched (5 page)

A thousand discordant notes thrust together in a stabbing cacophony, almost making him wish for a death more permanent than any he had known. It lasted only until her skin was made smooth, her veins healed to prevent her life from bleeding out—but it seemed like an eternity.

“Impressive,” the powerful-voiced one said, directing his comment at his companions. “Worth an investment, though again, it’s important we take precautions at this stage and not proceed until we know more about the prisoner. Have him delivered to the house in the red zone we spoke about on our way here. It wouldn’t do for too many people to know about him. And with the guard involved in a power struggle, it’d be unwise for us to transport anything besides the lion.”

“I’ll give you twenty-five percent of your asking price,” the stranger Tomás called Papa said. “The balance when you make delivery in Oakland.”

“If I make a special trip just for him, I’ll have to go by boat,” Hyde countered. “There are cameras now, and extra patrols. I’ll be stopped as soon as I set foot in the city.”

“Take him by truck,” the one who seemed in control said. “We’re well aware of your dealings with the maze owner and Farold. Do you think we can’t guess where the hyenas and the abomination are heading?”

There was the jingle of coin, the sound of it being counted out. Tomás’s father said, “I am willing to offer a bonus to cover the cost of delivery, if he’s in Oakland by tomorrow at sunset.”

“Where do you want him taken?”

“Tomás will remain here. When you get to the red zone, he’ll guide you to the house. Do we have a deal?”

“And if we get caught?”

“I would suggest you don’t,” came the smooth voice. “The politics in Oakland are unsettled at the moment.”

“I’ll be there by tomorrow night,” the trapper said, the words resonating in Tir strangely, as if this moment was preordained, the strands of destiny woven together by an unseen hand.

“Good.” There was the sound of money changing hands, followed by footsteps and then the slide of metal against metal, the banging of cage bars as the lion was driven outside and the partition lowered again, trapping him there.

Tir waited, half-expecting to be left in the chair. But as soon as the three strangers left the building, the woman was ordered back into his cell and told to free him.

She did as she was told, scuttling in and undoing the bindings holding him in the prison of the chair, rushing away, gone from the cell before he bent over and pulled the burlap sack from his head.

Peace, of a sort, descended with the closing of the building door and the diversion of the trapper’s attention to supervising the loading of the lion into the truck that would take it to Oakland.

Oakland,
Tir mused, settling on a bed of straw and raking through his memories as he idly studied the intricate spiderweb in the upper corner of his cell. He found nothing to distinguish this city from all the others he’d heard about. Nothing to explain the sense of anticipation, exhilaration—hope—that filled him, leaving him unconcerned, uncaring he’d been sold like an animal.

The rumble of an engine nudged his thoughts to the three visitors. Outside, the truck was allowed into the compound and brought alongside the building. There were shouts and the sound of metal striking metal as the lion was driven from one enclosure to another.

Tir visualized Tomás from his previous visit. The boy—though the humans would consider him a man—was only a few years older than Raoul. But there any similarity ended.

Even dressed in traveling clothes it had been easy to see Tomás came from a background of wealth. Perhaps he’d be softer as a result, more careless. His companions wouldn’t leave him unarmed. Not in this place. Not with a man like Hyde.

All it would take was an error in judgment, a moment of inattention . . .

Tir closed his eyes and savored dreams of freedom and vengeance, until hours later the sound of footsteps signaled someone’s approach.

The hyenas moved to the front of their cage as if scenting death and the possibility of a meal, while the wereman’s distorted limbs and half-furred body remained curled into a ball.

Raoul entered the building, the corpse of the man who’d been called Rudy slung over his shoulder. He stopped in front of the cages containing the dragon lizards, and with a shrug, the body dropped to the floor.

He kicked an arm aside then moved to the wall crank and began to raise the heavy canvas curtain hiding the dragon lizards. By the time it was halfway to the ceiling, the trapper returned, his wife behind him, arms crossed in front of her body as if to hold in what courage she possessed.

The dragon lizards stood in anticipation of a feast; the yellow-eyed female lashed her tail as the orange-eyed male moved to the front of the cage and flicked his black tongue out to touch the dead man’s face. They were huge, deadly, the male easily weighing three hundred pounds, the female two hundred.

Tir didn’t know the truth of their origins. He’d heard it claimed their existence was proof of evolution reversing itself after the near destruction of the planet. But he thought it just as likely they were the result of man’s biological weapons, either created accidentally, or a calculated adaptation of the Komodo dragons.

They possessed a chameleon’s ability to blend and could survive a wide range of temperatures. During the years of war and plague, they’d thrived on humans, feasting on corpses as well as live prey, until now the fear of them seemed genetically encoded in mankind.

Eventually order grew out of chaos and the creatures were systematically slaughtered. But it was too late by then to completely eradicate them.

Once the heavy tarp was rolled into place against the ceiling, Raoul slung the corpse over his shoulder. He climbed the metal ladder welded to the front of the cage, its rungs far enough away for him to avoid being bitten.

The dragon lizards grew more animated, their tails thrashing as they backed up, their eyes never leaving Raoul. They were capable of climbing trees, though the heavier they grew, the less they chose to do it. They were also capable of bursts of speed. But their true deadliness came from the venom and bacteria in their mouth. A single bite killed a man of the same weight within twenty-four hours. And if their prey escaped, their keen sense of smell allowed them to follow until they found the dying or dead.

At the top of the cage Raoul opened a hatch. He shrugged, and for a second time sent Rudy’s corpse to the floor. The dragon lizards were on it as soon as it struck the concrete, savage jaws ripping flesh and clothing, crunching bone.

The trapper grunted and turned his attention to Tir, though Tir could see the man watched Raoul out of the corner of his eyes. “I’ve got a little evening entertainment planned for you,” Hyde said.

Tir offered no response, verbal or physical. He remained on the straw bed and waited for events to unfold.

After centuries of being at the mercy of humans, he no longer had the capacity for curiosity when it came to what his captors planned for him. He endured. He survived. He dreamed of freedom and vengeance.

Raoul dropped from the ladder, his gaze going to the woman and growing heated, hungry, then flaring with anger when Hyde said, “Open the cage, bitch, and get in there with him.”

Disgust came to Tir with understanding. Over the centuries hundreds of women had been put in his cage for him to breed. Many had been killed in front of him the next morning when his jailers arrived to find them untouched.

“No, Hyde—”

A slap silenced her.

“Get in there and service him. I’m not likely to get my hands on something like him again.”

“No—”

This time she was interrupted by Raoul’s lunge.

A long, agonized scream followed as the trapper shot a taser round into the Were.

The scream gave way to whimpering and thrashing as electricity continued to surge into the boy’s body.

Urine wet the front of his pants in a growing stain. Material shredded as Raoul convulsed, skin and bone contorting as black hair covered flesh until a wolf lay panting, insensate on the floor.

“Get the silver wire the witch in Sacramento warded,” Hyde said, jerking the keys from his pocket and handing them to his wife before sliding the gun from its holster and leveling it on her.

She obeyed, remaining cowed even in proximity to the weapons stored in the cabinet. He holstered the gun when she returned with a spool. The charmed silver was spun like thread and mixed with another metal to give it physical strength.

Hyde took the offered wire and removed a tool from his belt. He knelt beside the wolf and sent a jolt of electricity into it to ensure the unconsciousness wasn’t a ploy.

The body twitched and jumped, but Raoul’s eyes remained closed while his breathing grew more erratic. It was enough confirmation for the trapper to set the taser down and wrap a thin band of silver thread tightly around Raoul’s neck, trapping him in the wolf form.

Until now, Tir’s time around shapeshifters had been limited to hearing their screams echoing through pitch-black catacombs in centuries past, as torturers tried to extract the names of others like them before war and plague brought the existence of supernaturals out into the open.

Given the band around his own neck, he was surprised at how little it apparently took to keep a Were confined to the furred form. Whatever the sigil-inscribed collar was that stole his history and his power, it was like no metal he’d ever encountered, nor was it the work of a human, of that he was certain.

Across from him the wereman was trembling, his misshapen body pressed tightly into a corner, his face hidden as Hyde dragged Raoul into the cell next to Tir’s and left him there, lying in the stink of the dead human’s body fluids.

The trapper retreated to the doorway then gave a savage jerk to free the taser barb before closing the cell and locking it. A few steps and he was once again in front of Tir’s cage. It took only a glance at his wife for her to shuffle forward.

“The next time I see you, you better look good and fucked, bitch,” Hyde said, unlocking the cage then slamming the door after she entered.

The hyenas cackled as if they approved. The wolf convulsed as if consciousness struggled to return.

Hyde put the taser and the spool of silver in the cabinet then left the building, locking and barring the door behind him. The woman remained cowered against the front of Tir’s cage, her image overlaid onto hundreds of others in his memory.

For the most part they’d all been terrified. Afraid of eternal damnation if they lay with him. Equally frightened of the death waiting for them at the hands of his captors if they didn’t. But some of them had been willing, and paid well, to seduce him.

None had succeeded. None stirred either desire or pity enough for him to take them.

Even when he’d been bound so he couldn’t prevent them from putting their hands and mouths on him, from rubbing their slits against him in an attempt to entice him, he’d easily maintained control over his body so his cock didn’t harden.

He would never mate with a mortal.

Three

ARAÑA sat with her back to the wall, her knees up to provide a pillow for her head. Her hair, freed from its braid at gunpoint, was a welcome curtain against the eyes of the men watching her.

Some sat on the concrete floor of the cage holding them. Others paced along the bars separating them from her.

They all wore the tattoos of lawbreakers. The majority were there because they’d been found guilty of rape or murder. A few of them were thieves caught for a third time, and from their conversation Araña knew they’d been given a choice between running the maze or being put to death under a three strikes law.

If the history books spoke truly, once there’d been an uncount able number of prisons and jails in the United States. Places that filled up as fast as they could be built, providing jobs and financial security for those who worked on and in them.

Now prisons existed only for the wealthy and powerful, those who could afford the cost of keeping a loved one incarcerated in order to avoid the death sentence or a criminal’s tattoo. In most places small crimes were punishable by restitution and community service, more serious ones by hard labor and a tattoo—or death.

The framed “Wanted” pictures of Erik and Matthew rose in her mind. They’d been convicted in absentia on charges of piracy and murder. The first would have gained them a tattoo, but they’d been sentenced to die for killing the son of a councilman when they boarded his boat and discovered he was a child molester.

Araña’s arms tightened around her legs as she fought against the wave of agony thinking about Erik and Matthew brought with it. A shuddering breath was her only concession, but it was noted by the men watching her.

Catcalls came, lewd offers of comfort if she’d push her pants down and bend over to press her buttocks against the bars of the cage separating her from them. She ignored the men, ignored even the sudden silence that came with the opening of a door.

She followed the visitors’ footsteps as they walked down the aisle and stopped in front of the cell she was in. A melodic, unfamiliar voice said, “She’ll make a nice addition to the entertainment tonight.”