Precise oaths, p.13
Precise Oaths, page 13
That wasn’t true as far as Liliana knew.
Sergeant Giovanni glanced at him with one eyebrow raised but made no comment.
Perhaps Pete’s words were not a true statement but were simply provided as a plausible reason to question a nightclub owner in Raleigh about murder victims found in Fayetteville?
Liliana knew lying was a thing other people often did, but it still disturbed her sense of reality. What was was, and she could no more say it was otherwise than she could unsee a thing that had been seen.
Lady Daphne shrugged. “Hundreds of people come here every night. Surely I can’t be expected to remember all of them.” She chose a stylus from the cup full of various decorative styluses on her desk and signed a form on the pocket reader in front of her. Setting the reader to the side, she scrolled out and glanced down at the next one.
Pete chose a stylus from the same cup and played with it idly. The stylus was thick and shiny black with a red hourglass design on the side. “No, but since they were killed by having their dissolved insides sucked out through two large holes in their throats, I thought you might take a special interest.”
Lady Daphne’s eyebrows went up. “I take it you are aware of my race?”
Pete nodded but didn’t add anything. He placed the stylus back in the cup with the others, clearly waiting for Lady Daphne to say more.
“I would be interested to know where you came by this information.” Lady Daphne’s eyes narrowed, and her lips tightened.
Sergeant Giovanni murmured something under her breath the others didn’t hear. “I’d like to know that myself.” She leaned forward, put her elbows on Lady Daphne’s desk, and said at a normal conversational level, “It’s our job to be well-informed about the Others in this state.”
Lady Daphne smiled, a show of white teeth. She gestured to her tightly laced black velvet corset. “As you can see, I am most certainly not pregnant...”
Stella snickered.
Lady Daphne continued, her shark smile widening at the shared joke with her employee. “…so if you’re implying I killed these men because of the drives of my nature, you need to do your research a bit more thoroughly.”
Sergeant Giovanni smiled back at her, showing her own white teeth. “No one is accusing you. We only meant you had a stake in keeping your people’s reputation in the community free of allegations. Maybe you could look at those pictures again. Something might ring a bell.”
“I assure you none of my people are responsible for this, but I’m delighted to help the authorities in any way I can.” Lady Daphne glanced up at the tall, dark woman standing behind them. “Stella, love, do any of these men look familiar to you?” She held the pictures up across the desk.
The muscular woman, Stella, leaned over Sergeant Giovanni, placing a hand on her shoulder as she reached for the pictures.
The sergeant flinched. “Ow.”
“Sorry,” Stella said. “A drunk broke a bottle over my hand the other night. I haven’t gotten my engagement ring repaired yet. It tends to snag on things.” She showed Pete and Sergeant Giovanni the metal tine that stuck up next to the central stone on her ring.
“You’re engaged?” Pete said. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” Stella favored him with a wide, bright grin.
“I don’t suppose you got engaged because you’re pregnant?” Pete asked.
Stella barked a laugh. “That would be quite a miracle, sir.”
Pete’s brows scrunched together for a moment, then widened as he put the pieces together. “Well, congratulations again then.”
“Thanks again,” she said with a grin.
Carefully, Stella looked at each of the pictures. “Huh. I’ve seen this guy here a few times. I remember him.” She handed the picture to Sergeant Giovanni.
The sergeant’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you remember him when Ms. Fairchilde doesn’t?”
“He hassles some of the young college girls when he gets drunk.” Stella shrugged. “I’ve had to call him an auto-cab a couple times.”
Sergeant Giovanni looked at the picture. “Corporal Araus, right.” She probably wasn’t even aware her lip made a slight sneer of disgust. “When was the last time you remember seeing him?”
“Some time last month, I think. He stuck his hand up the skirt of a girl barely old enough to get in the door.” Stella made a face. “You know the type, Sarge.”
The MP and the bar bouncer shared a wry expression. “A little too well, unfortunately,” Sergeant Giovanni said, then yawned. She shook her head and blinked repeatedly.
Stella leaned forward, placing her ringed hand on Sergeant Giovanni’s shoulder. The sergeant flinched again. “Are you all right, ma’am? You don’t look so good.”
“I…I feel a little…” The sergeant fell forward. Stella caught her before her head could hit the desk and eased her body back into the chair.
Pete jumped to his feet and pulled his gun from the holster under his synth-leather jacket. “Get away from her.” He pointed the gun at Stella.
Stella shook her head. “I don’t think you want to do that, sir. I gave her two doses of a strong sedative to knock her out quickly.” She showed him the hollow tube leading up her sleeve. Her hand with the sharp ring hovered just over Sergeant Giovanni’s throat. “Another dose could be fatal.”
While Pete’s attention was on Stella, Lady Daphne pulled her own gun from a holster mounted under her desk and pointed it at Pete. “Your friend won’t be harmed as long as you don’t do anything stupid. Place your gun on the desk.”
Pete hesitated.
Lady Daphne moved the muzzle of the gun until it pointed at the unconscious sergeant. “Now,” she ordered.
A muscle in Pete’s jaw tightened. He pointed his gun at the ceiling and raised his other hand. “Just don’t hurt Zoe.” He laid the gun on the desk.
Without taking her eyes off Pete, Lady Daphne opened a drawer and slid his gun into it. She pushed a button on an intercom. “Leslie, darling, I could use a couple of extra hands with an unruly customer in my office. Family only.”
“Yes, ma’am,” a feminine voice answered.
“Put the sergeant’s handcuffs on yourself, if you please, Mr. Teague,” Lady Daphne ordered.
“Zoe didn’t bring cuffs with her.” Pete gave a shrug.
Stella shook her head. “She’s in uniform. I served a couple of tours myself, sir. I know there’s not an MP around who doesn’t carry cuffs with them when they’re in uniform.”
Pete tensed as if about to fight, but Stella moved her hand right over the pulse point on Sergeant Giovanni’s throat and shook her head. “I wouldn’t if I were you, sir.”
Pete pulled Sergeant Giovanni’s cuffs out of the nylon case on her belt by her right hip. He locked them loosely around his own wrists in front of his body.
Stella kept one hand over Sergeant Giovanni’s throat and squeezed the cuffs with the other, ratcheting them down tight around Pete’s wrists until he winced.
Two more athletic women came in through the office door, letting in the noise from the nightclub. Through the door, Liliana glimpsed a corridor of one-way glass with people dancing on the other side, oblivious to what was happening a few feet away. “Stella, take the sergeant somewhere more comfortable,” Lady Daphne ordered. She came around the desk, gun pointed at the red wolf. With the other hand, she picked up the black pen with the red hourglass design Pete had played with earlier.
“No!” Pete growled. “She stays with me.” He turned his back on Lady Daphne to reach cuffed hands out to grab Stella’s arm.
Lady Daphne placed her gun against the back of his head. “Your opinion was not requested.”
“You’re not going to shoot me,” Pete said, ignoring the barrel pressed to the back of his neck. “You need me alive.”
Lady Daphne chuckled. “You’re quite right, of course.” Behind his back, she bit and twisted the cap off the stylus, exposing a needle. She inserted the needle into his neck and pushed the back down before he could realize his danger. “You are needed alive, but I believe unconscious would be better for all parties involved.”
Pete tried to hit Lady Daphne with an elbow, but she neatly stepped back out of reach. As the wolf-kin dropped to one knee and fought to stay awake, Stella patted him on the shoulder. “It’s better this way, sir.”
The sound of three sets of heavy feet coming down the stairs over her interrupted Liliana’s visions. It was Lady Daphne, Stella, and another woman, Leslie most likely. They carried Pete between them.
Liliana tensed in a quivering crouch, wanting so badly to attack them. They had Pete. They were going to kill him. He would die screaming if she did not stop them. Her fourth eyes popped open against her will and assaulted her with visions of her own blood splattered all over the stairwell. Attacking right now would be a supremely bad idea. She couldn’t save anyone if she was dead.
The spider-kin huddled into her dark corner under the stairs until they passed through the door into the basement. Liliana was a fierce warrior, the daughter of three warriors, trained from childhood to fight, but she was not certain she could defeat a single widow spider in fair face-to-face combat, much less an entire nest of them. Liliana had no idea how many of the women who worked for Lady Daphne were spider-kin, but based on widow spider tendencies to live in nests of their own kind, probably most of them were.
Sergeant Giovanni and Pete’s lives depended on her, but Liliana was outnumbered and outmatched. If she did nothing, they would die. If she did the wrong thing, they would still die, and she would die with them.
She had one advantage over other spider-kin: her eyes. There had to be a moment coming up soon when she had a chance to save Pete. Sergeant Giovanni would live for a few hours yet, but Pete’s helpless body was being carried straight to Kristen, the pregnant widow spider. Liliana dove back into the vision of her fourth eyes and searched forward in time frantically.
How can I save Pete? When is a moment when I might have a chance?
The vision of Pete’s dead face overwhelmed her again, but she tried to fight past it with slow, deep breaths. She needed to see what happened in the time just before he died. She had to see when she could save him.
She still couldn’t see anything but his death.
Stella. I need to see what Stella will do in the near future.
That did it. She was able to watch what would lead up to Pete’s death.
And Kristen, what will she do soon?
With a thrill of trepidation, she found the moment she so desperately needed. It would not be easy for her. It would be terrifying and painful for Pete. But if she acted at the wrong moment, he would die and so would she.
The odds were not good that she would succeed any way she looked at it.
As Liliana watched and did nothing, Stella and Leslie removed their black T-shirts and shifted to demi-spider form. The hair on their heads withdrew into them as if growing in reverse. Their skin hardened into chiton like lacquered metal, Stella in shiny black and Leslie in brown with bands of black around her joints, both with distinctive red hourglass markings on their stomachs. Four extra limbs emerged from their backs with barbed, wickedly pointed tips, Leslie’s with black knee joints. With those pointed limbs, they pulled silk from spinnerets at the base of their spines just above their belt lines. They easily lifted and moved the over two-hundred-pound wolf-kin.
They took the knives from the sheaths he had hidden on his wrists and shins, back and belt, and tossed them to the side.
Liliana sat in her corner in the dark under the stairs and waited with all but her fourth eyes closed. With her fourth eyes, she watched what was happening on the other side of the basement door now in current time. The three formidable widow spiders bound Pete thoroughly in silk.
Pete weakly struggled against the spider women, even as they wound his body with more and more layers.
“He’s waking up!” Leslie commented, in a voice like the squeak of an old rocking chair.
“Impossible. It’s far too soon,” Lady Daphne, still in her human form, said. “I gave him enough to knock out a wolf-kin for hours.”
Stella looked up at her boss with bottle-green, faceted eyes in a face out of a nightmare. “He has red hair,” she creaked around large fangs. “Maybe he’s a Celtic wolf? I’ve heard they’re stronger.”
Lady Daphne seemed pleased at that idea. “Excellent. He will provide greater nutrition for the babes than an ordinary wolf-kin. Wrap him with double the normal amount of silk.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Kristen, the pregnant widow spider, waited for them to make her prey helpless, tears in her eyes. “You said he would be unconscious. He wouldn’t feel anything.”
“He is stronger than I knew, child,” Lady Daphne told her. “But this will benefit your babies. You must be strong for them.”
Kristen sniffed and lifted her chin, her hand stroking her swollen belly.
Pete’s eyes opened wide, adrenaline jolting him to a muzzy wakefulness as the pretty young woman shifted form. Her skin hardened and darkened to the dark brown of shiny leather shoes. Fangs as long and thick as a tiger’s emerged from her hardened lips and dripped a viscous fluid. Where a drop fell on the concrete, it sizzled and smoked. Four extra insectoid limbs with barbed stabbing tips and black knees sprouted from her back. The pretty blue dress she wore left her back exposed, allowing the extra limbs to move freely.
Liliana rocked back and forth and twisted the silken fabric of her red skirt in knots. She did not want to see this. She did not want to be here.
But she waited. She had to wait. She had to.
Pete’s scream echoed on the concrete walls of the stairwell.
Liliana covered her ears and buried her face in her knees.
Chapter 13
Binding Negotiations
Lady Daphne, Stella, and Leslie walked up the stairs a few minutes later, talking about plans to disappear to other parts of the world.
“Give everyone a bonus tonight when they complete their shifts,” Lady Daphne said. “Divide everything left in the safe evenly, then advise our sisters to hastily go their separate ways. We can meet again in a few months in…Texas, I think. I hear Austin is nice. I own a building there under one of my pseudonyms. I shall transport Kristen after she has fed. Stella, you and Margaret meet me in the restaurant kitchen an hour after closing.”
“What about the MP?” Stella asked.
Their voices were swallowed by pounding bass music as they opened the second-floor door and left the stairwell.
Liliana didn’t bother to follow them with her fourth eyes. She knew what they would do to Sergeant Giovanni. The spider seer knew when and where Zoe Giovanni would die, and had some ideas about how to save the soldier, if she could manage to survive that long. Right now, she had to try to save Pete.
The one moment when she had a slight chance to save him and not die had come.
She opened the door to the basement as quietly as she could and slipped inside. A wedge-shaped hunk of brick sat beside the entrance. Liliana slipped it carefully under the door to keep it from closing with a click and warning her prey.
The scent of damp stone and old blood clung to the cinder blocks and concrete along with a hint of something sharply acrid. Pipes and ducts ran everywhere, but the ceiling was more than high enough so Liliana didn’t have to duck under any of them. A bare lightbulb spotlighted the center of the room but left the edges in shadow. Two desiccated bodies in Army uniforms and webbing were stacked carelessly in the back corner. The shadows hid the details of their faces. Liliana carefully did not look. They were undoubtedly the other two missing soldiers, but Pete could confirm their identity later. The last thing she needed was more visions of horrific death right now.
She inched along the bare cinder block wall.
Pete sat propped against the opposite wall in a sitting position, his body completely encased in webbing. Only his head and neck were free. Two fat holes in the corded muscles of his neck oozed dark, thick blood, staining the white webbing. His neck had an ugly greenish color, and crooked branching lines of darker green radiated from the punctures down under the webbing and up onto his cheek.
He coughed wetly.
Kristen knelt in front of him, back in her human form, her arms around her body as if hugging herself. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she murmured like a litany as she waited for her venom to do its grisly work.
Liliana’s first mother taught her about the effects of widow spider venom. Pete must already feel as if his veins were on fire and his throat filled with hot coals. In less than an hour, the young widow spider would begin to drink his liquefied insides while he still lived, unable to even scream.
Pete’s normally pale blue eyes were dark, his pupils blown wide. His freckles stood out starkly against a face gone paper white with a sickly green tinge. He coughed again and cleared his throat as Liliana tiptoed from the shadowed edges of the concrete room. He spoke to Kristen, the pregnant widow spider. “Look, it’s going to be okay. Just…” He swallowed. “Cut me loose, and it will be all right.” His roughened voice sounded calm, soothing.
Liliana looked with her third eyes to see if he were truly that unconcerned.
He was not.
His calm demeanor masked the neon green glow of abject terror. In his place, she would be rocking in a little ball in a corner. Liliana had not seen anyone show so much courage since before her father’s death in battle.
The young widow spider in the pretty blue dress shook her head and laughed a little, although it came out more like a sob. “It’s never going to be all right!” she yelled at Pete. “You’re not even the last one. So many people have to die because I thought it would be okay to date one guy.”
Blue eyes tracked Liliana’s stealthy progress for a moment as she edged closer, then Pete deliberately looked away from her. He kept talking to Kristen, keeping her attention on him.
“Okay, I know. It’s not all right. I get that,” Pete soothed, then coughed hard and spat blood on the concrete. “Look,” he said hoarsely. “Just give me one of my knives, and I’ll get out of this myself.”
