Above them, Liliana watched as the nightclub and restaurant closed for the night. The raucous music went silent. The innocent hotel guests settled snugly in their beds. Most of the employees left.
Only three widow spiders remained: Lady Daphne, Stella, and Margaret, who Liliana discovered was the large woman in the flour-dusted apron from the restaurant.
Liliana walked over to the dead body of the young spider-kin she’d killed. The slightly swollen belly of the headless corpse moved subtly. Her second eyes could see the warm living cluster of spider-kin babies, growing restless as their mother’s body cooled. She put her hand gently on the dead woman’s belly and blinked tears. “I am so very sorry,” she whispered.
Sad and without hope, she sat back down next to her wolf-kin friend. Kristen’s life had been the price paid for Pete to survive, but it was a bad bargain if she could not find a safe way for him to survive the night. She had neither thought of nor seen any way to improve their chances beyond the tiniest of unlikely flickers.
Needing some comfort in the cold, dank basement filled with the scent of blood and death, she lifted the head of the sleeping wolf-kin off his makeshift pillow and laid it in her lap.
Pete curled around her legs in his sleep and muttered, “A few more minutes, Ben.”
She petted his thick red hair absently while she considered her options. They would simply have to fight as best they could and hope beyond reason they beat the odds.
Pete’s destroyed jacket lay under her legs now. Something hard in it poked at the bottom of her leg. She reached into the tattered folds and found Pete’s outdated pocket phone. She turned the phone over in her hand.
Wrist phones had electronics built into the wrist band, sensors and such. The wolf-kin had probably not found a way to get one to flex with his size changes like all his other clothing.
She placed his thumb on the sensor pad to activate the phone. She looked over Pete’s contacts. Doctor Nudd’s number met her eye. Pete trusted Doctor Nudd with his life.
Oh. Pete has allies!
Why hadn’t she thought of this before? Unlike her, he had other friends who might be willing to fight at his side.
She touched Doctor Nudd’s name in the list to call him.
“What now, Pete?” Nudd’s gruff voice answered after several rings.
“I am not Pete. I am Liliana.” She kept her voice soft so as not to wake the sleeping wolf-kin. She looked backward in time to see how Pete used the phone. Oh. She touched a small image resembling an old-fashioned video recorder. A tiny, poorly lit image of herself appeared in one corner of the screen. The rest of the screen filled with a flat image of the tall goblin.
It seemed likely she had woken Doctor Nudd. It was a bit past three in the morning. He sat in a bed big enough for Liliana and three other normal-sized people to sleep in comfortably. A single lamp beside the bed lit the goblin’s messy hair and grizzled face. “Is he in trouble again?” Doctor Nudd asked.
“Pete is safe for the moment, but Sergeant Giovanni is still in danger, and we will both be in very great danger soon, when we go to help her.”
“How can I help?” He rubbed at his face. He wore an old-fashioned flannel sleep shirt. She wondered if his bedroom was cold at night.
She opened her fourth eyes to look around Doctor Nudd’s room where the phone camera didn’t reach. He kept his window open at night. Sheer curtains blew in the light breeze. “I do not know how you can help. I only know we are highly likely to die without aid.”
Liliana gave a general outline of their situation to the unseelie healer.
He became more and more agitated as she spoke. “You should have called me sooner,” he shouted at her, pacing next to his bed. “Even the mag lev train won’t be fast enough to get me from Fayetteville to Raleigh in time to matter.”
Guilt and frustration flooded Liliana. “I did not think of it sooner.” She was so used to doing everything alone.
Doctor Nudd sighed. “Nothing to be done about it.” He scratched at the wiry brown whiskers on his unshaven chin. “I’ll see what I can manage. Watch Pete’s back, would you? The boy is too brave for his own good, if you know what I mean.”
Liliana smiled fondly at the sleeping red wolf. “I do know what you mean.”
It was time, but she hated to wake Pete. Sergeant Giovanni had less than an hour to live. If they moved now, there was at least a chance they could save her, and their probability of living was the highest right now.
Rather than putting it back in his shredded and useless jacket, she put Pete’s phone in the pocket of his blue jeans. She shook him gently.
“Huh?” Pete sat up with a huge jaw-cracking yawn and rubbed at his eyes. The wounds on his neck were closed, and even in the shadows of the single light bulb, his pale skin had better color.
Her venom had granted him a few hours of pleasant, healing sleep free of ugly dreams, despite his recent circumstances. Considering her advice nearly got him killed in the most horrible way possible, she was glad she’d at least been able to give him that.
“It is time, Pete.” Liliana got to her feet. “Follow me and be as quiet as you can.”
He nodded, yawned again, and followed on her heels.
Liliana was relieved to see he planned to keep his word to follow her lead, even now that her venom’s influence had worn off. She smiled a little in spite of their dire situation. He gave precise oaths because he kept them.
They crept up the stairs. The pounding bass no longer vibrated into the stairwell. It left everything eerily silent. Liliana opened the door leading to the first floor of the empty nightclub.
The stairwell opened into a narrow corridor behind one-way glass. On one side of the hall, she could look out through the glass to the darkened dance floor. On the other side, a line of doors led to offices and storage areas.
Liliana knew which office door was the right one, but when she turned the handle, it didn’t move. Locked.
She stood looking at it for a moment, uncertain what to do. She couldn’t break the sturdy wooden door. The knob was made of solid steel. Her arm blades couldn’t cut through steel.
Pete raised his eyebrows at her in question.
“Your gun is in there,” she whispered.
He shrugged his shoulders, reaching outward with his arms as if to embrace her and four other people. His arms and shoulders lengthened as he did. He tilted his head back and opened his mouth as if to yawn again or howl. Fangs pushed past his lips, velvety red-brown fur flowed over his exposed skin, and wiry whiskers pushed out of his upper lip. His nose stretched forward and darkened to a black, shiny, triangular point on the end of a short muzzle. He gained height and breadth, especially in his shoulders, straining the fabric of his formerly loose, stretchy T-shirt with “Keep Calm. I’m the Doctor” written on the front.
Liliana understood that reference. The television show had been around almost as long as she’d been in America. She’d used her fourth eyes to watch it a few times and found it enjoyable.
Deep, ruddy fur with darker brown markings showed through the slits in his clothing where Liliana’s arm blades sliced through cloth when she freed him. The massive wolf-kin towered over her petite form. Only Pete’s pale blue eyes seemed unaffected by the change. The aggressive scent of canine filled the narrow corridor.
“Sorry,” Pete growled softly and ducked his elongated muzzle, as if his demi-wolf form were somehow offensive. He braced a huge, furry shoulder against the door just above the knob and shoved.
The doorframe splintered around the lock, and the door swung open. The sound of wood cracking echoed in the silent corridor, seeming far louder than it probably was.
Pete froze. He glanced at her.
A quick scan with her fourth eyes showed no one had heard the small noise but them. She shook her head to let him know their enemies were not alerted.
As they slipped into the darkened office, Liliana wished her own abilities leaned more toward strength than vision and agility. Strength like that came in handy.
And it was very attractive.
Liliana tapped the metal on the brass desk lamp to turn it on. She watched the play of light on Pete’s fur-covered muscles as he prowled around the office, making it seem far smaller than when Liliana saw it before. The black stylus with the needle sticking out sat on the desk where Lady Daphne left it after injecting Pete in the neck.
Pete yanked opened the drawer in Lady Daphne’s desk, barely appearing to notice that it was locked. He reclaimed his pistol with the special bullets that were effective against Fae. A very toothy grin showed how pleased he was to have it back. He slipped it into his shoulder holster.
The gun had an extra-large trigger guard, making it accessible to Pete’s enlarged, clawed fingers. Very practical. Liliana wondered if it was the work of a certain flower sprite with a passion for customizing weapons.
Liliana turned the desk lamp off again as they left. She led the way up the stairs she’d descended earlier that day. They climbed all the way past the hotel room floors to the top-floor restaurant. While she waited for the best moment in the basement, she’d searched various possibilities. She’d seen herself and Pete die dozens of ways. Many paths branched from this point, but death lay at the end of each turning. Nearly every death she foresaw would happen in the restaurant at the top of these stairs.
She swallowed as she reached the door where the stairs ended.
Liliana could have stayed home today, could have gone on with her quiet life. She chose to be here in the middle of a widow spider nest where she’d murdered one of their own. She chose again to stay and help Pete save Sergeant Giovanni, knowing the price.
She took a breath and sighed, feeling fear fade. This was her choice—perhaps not to survive, but while she breathed, to truly live. If she died tonight, she would die well. Her parents would be proud of her when she saw them again in the next life.
She looked back at the towering wall of masculine muscle and fur following on her heels. Eyes shimmered inhumanly bright in the reflected light of the glowing red EXIT sign.
She would not die alone. She would have a friend at her side.
There were far worse ways to die.
They stepped out of the stairwell and into the little vestibule with the elevators. Everything seemed quiet and dark. Liliana led the way through the restaurant door and past the seating sign. The scent of old grease and faded spices greeted them.
Stars and the city lights of Raleigh both twinkled through the closed glass French doors leading out to the balcony. That dim light shone on the decorative wrought iron, glass-topped tables. The long shadows on the floor looked like the legs of giant black spiders.
Liliana ghosted between the tables, using every ounce of stealth skill she had.
Behind her, the huge shadow of the red wolf followed, nearly as silent in his big combat boots as she was in her ballet slippers. The man understood stealth.
A small sigh escaped her. So few men of any species understood the essentials of stealth.
Figures that he would already be taken.
Brighter light leaked from the cracks around the double kitchen door, reflecting on the terra-cotta tile floor that had been scrubbed clean and shiny.
As they slipped closer to the kitchen, they heard voices.
“She’s an MP investigating a string of murders. People will notice when she goes missing,” Stella’s southern-accented voice pointed out. “We could just tie her up, leave her to be found by the cooks in the morning.”
“That would put the police and the military both on our trail immediately, love. Her death purchases us time,” said an upper-class English voice that sounded a lot like Lady Daphne but wasn’t. “It could be days or even weeks before they trace her disappearance to the Mirror Club if she simply vanishes, especially if no one knows she left Fayetteville.”
To see inside the kitchen, Liliana opened her fourth eyes. The surfaces in the large professional kitchen gleamed. Spotless pans with copper bottoms hung from racks above the broad preparation counters and multiburner stoves.
The big, dark-haired woman in the apron, who Liliana had narrowly avoided earlier that day, stood with a meat cleaver in her hand, arguing. Sergeant Giovanni lay unconscious on a butcher-block table with blood grooves around the edge, clearly meant for cutting up large slabs of meat. The shiny, metal garbage pail marked “Edible Garbage” that Liliana saw in her earlier vision stood nearby.
“Is it really worth killing her, just to gain us a little more time to run?” Stella, the athletic, dark-skinned widow spider who’d knocked out Sergeant Giovanni, stood between the unconscious sergeant’s helpless form and the large woman with the cleaver. “We can be two states away by morning.”
Liliana found herself liking Stella but fought against the urge. She could not afford to become fond of an enemy she would likely have to kill soon. Rather than listen to the rest of the argument, she jumped forward in time to the moment when Sergeant Giovanni would die. In her vision of the future, Stella wore the chef’s apron and reluctantly wielded the cleaver, killing the helpless detective in the same swift, painless way Liliana had killed Kristen.
The kitchen was empty of any other people. The vision was solid, as certain as any event that hadn’t yet come to pass could be. Stella would lose this argument. And she would be alone when she killed the sergeant.
Coming back to the present, Liliana shifted the focus of her fourth eyes.
“Move out of the way, love.” Margaret said gently on the other side of the kitchen door. “I’ll do what needs doing.”
“No. If it has to be done, then I’ll do it.” Stella sighed. “Just…give me a little time, okay?”
Liliana grabbed Pete’s clawed hand and dragged him toward a hiding place. Or tried to. She pulled ineffectually on the mountain of fur and muscle.
Pete’s big boots didn’t budge. His large ears pointed at the kitchen door. Clearly, he could hear the argument too.
She pulled on his hand again, frantically. Margaret would come out of the kitchen at any moment. If they let her pass, they would have only one enemy to fight. If they stayed here, they would have to fight both widow spiders at once.
Pete shook his head, muzzle swinging from side to side in a stubborn, wordless refusal. He leaned down so he could breathe in Liliana’s ear. “They’re going to kill Zoe!”
His warm breath tickled Liliana’s ear distractingly. They didn’t have time to argue. On the other side of the door, Margaret was passing over the cleaver and apron to Stella. They had only seconds. If they fought both widow spiders at once, they would almost certainly die.
Despair hit Liliana hard. If Pete would not follow her lead as he promised, then there was no chance at all they would survive the night. She looked up at the wolf-kin. “You gave me your word,” she whispered desperately.
For a moment, the wolf-kin stood there, glaring down at her.
Liliana opened her third eyes and glared right back at the mountain of stubborn red fur and muscle. His warm breath blew on her cheek, smelling faintly of blood and raising distracting goose bumps on her arms.
He turned away and bared his fangs toward the closed kitchen door in a silent snarl as precious seconds ticked away. Walking away from an endangered friend would have been difficult for him in human form. In demi-wolf form, his protective instincts were even more powerful.
Liliana’s third eyes gave her a front row seat for the battle raging in the wolf-kin. Her despair deepened. Pete would lose the battle. Such powerful instincts would overwhelm anyone.
But Pete had given his oath.
He shook himself, looked back down at Liliana, and nodded sharply.
No time for Liliana to express her relief or how much Pete impressed her. She just grabbed a clawed finger and ran on silent, slippered feet for the men’s room. The closest hiding place.
One side of the double kitchen doors swung open just as they ducked into the bathroom. Margaret walked out of the kitchen while the bathroom door was still shutting behind them. It would make a click sound as it shut that Margaret couldn’t fail to notice. She was too far into the room to reach the door, and Pete was in the way.
She inhaled sharply and covered her mouth with her hand to keep the sound from escaping.
Pete saw the direction of her horrified gaze. One long claw hooked the edge of the door just before it would have latched shut, stopping it silently.
Margaret didn’t so much as glance in their direction as she walked past.
Liliana noticed an odd smell, like licorice only gaggingly intense. Little blue cakes of some chemical sat in the urinals beside her. She looked around curiously. She had never been in a men’s bathroom before. The social rule against entering the bathroom of another gender was immutable under normal circumstances.
Pete’s big ears did a weird sort of embarrassed dip as he saw her looking curiously at the facilities men used for relieving themselves. His ears were remarkably expressive in demi-wolf form.
One of his ears cocked toward the door as Margaret went out to the elevator foyer. The elevator dinged, and the doors opened, then closed.
Liliana peeked with her fourth eyes into the kitchen to see what was happening with Stella and Sergeant Giovanni.
Stella stood some feet away from the butcher-block table, wearing the apron, the cleaver in her hand, watching the soft rise and fall of Sergeant Giovanni’s chest.
The widow spider did not want to kill the sergeant. That much was clear. But Liliana had seen that she would anyway. Very soon.
She led Pete back out of the restroom and motioned him to wait behind the kitchen door, where if anyone swung the door on that side open, the door itself would hide him.
She went in. “Killing Sergeant Giovanni will gain you nothing,” Liliana said softly, so as not to startle the widow spider too much.
Stella jumped anyway and spun into a balanced fighting crouch on the balls of her feet, the cleaver held high. “Who are you?”
Opening all her eyes and exposing her fangs, Liliana popped out her arm blades. “A sister.” She did not have long to bargain, but she didn’t want to kill Stella if there was a chance they could end this confrontation peacefully.
“Seer,” Stella said. “I thought your kind were extinct.”
Liliana shrugged. “The report of my death was an exaggeration,” she quoted.
“Mark Twain.” Stella grinned at her. She shifted the cleaver to a better grip. “What the hell are you doing here, seer?”
“Protecting people who matter to me,” Liliana answered. “Sergeant Giovanni’s superiors know where she went. Kristen is dead, and the man she would have fed on is alive and free. Killing Sergeant Giovanni serves no purpose. Leave now and I give you my word, no one will pursue you or your nest sisters until tomorrow.”
The tall widow spider’s eyes narrowed. “That wolf couldn’t have killed Kristen. We trussed him like a Christmas turkey.”
“I killed Kristen. The red wolf is under my protection.”
“Is he your mate?”
Pete was not hers in that way, but their fates were entangled as closely now as if they were mates.
“We have shared venom twice,” Liliana said. It was as close to a lie as she could manage.
“We didn’t know.” Stella still wielded the cleaver, but her voice held genuine remorse. Even a widow spider would not kill another spider’s mate. She might kill her own mate, but not another woman’s. Widow spiders had their own sort of honor.
Liliana nodded. “I did not blame Kristen for doing what she must for her unborn. Her death was quick and painless. Nor do I blame you for protecting your nest sister. But I cannot allow you to kill Sergeant Giovanni. Killing her will gain you nothing in any case.”
Stella considered her words. Liliana’s third eyes showed her she was getting through, then a sudden thought hardened Stella’s dark face into anger. “Did you hurt anyone else?”
“Margaret is unharmed,” Liliana hastily reassured her.
Stella’s relief showed strongly, both in her mind and in a relaxing of her shoulders.
“I harmed no one but Kristen,” Liliana added. “And her only because I had to. Even her babies still live. You and Margaret could raise them as your own perhaps?” That would be a very good outcome. The orphaned babies would have new parents, and Liliana and Pete would have two fewer widow spiders to fight.
Liliana opened the door Pete hid behind and held it there, a clear path for Stella to leave.
If Stella left, she would never know Pete had been there. If she attacked Liliana, she would find herself fighting both a spider-kin and a Celtic wolf-kin. Surprise was an excellent strategic advantage.
“Go quickly. Leave town tonight,” Liliana instructed the widow spider. Stella was a formidable enemy. She had seen several paths where Stella killed Liliana. If the fierce widow spider left without fighting, Liliana and Pete’s chances of survival went up drastically. Also, Liliana did not wish to kill her. The widow spider had acted honorably for her species in an impossible no-win situation. She’d shown mercy and compassion.
Liliana kept her arm blades out though. She had seen before she left the basement that many paths branched from here, some of which led to Stella attacking her.
Everything was in flux now, uncertain, shifting. Liliana’s fourth eyes were largely useless now that she’d begun to act, to change what she saw before. From here forward, she could only act with honor and strategy, and hope for the best.
Stella stood undecided for a moment. She looked back at Sergeant Giovanni’s sleeping form, and Liliana tensed to leap. She felt confident she could jump onto the widow spider’s back before Stella could get to the butcher-block table, but if Stella chose to throw the meat cleaver, all bets were off.
The tall, dark-skinned widow spider looked at Liliana and nodded. “I served with people like her. I’m glad she doesn’t have to die.” She opened the other half of the double doors and walked warily past the tense spider seer, as far from her as the doorway would allow. Each was ready to fight at any moment if the other didn’t keep the uneasy truce.
As soon as she passed through the door, Stella paused just out of reach of Liliana’s blades and gave a sort of salute with the cleaver. “Thanks for giving me another option.”
Liliana nodded acknowledgment. “I am sorry for the loss of your nest sister.” Kristen and Stella were probably not blood kin, but all the widow spiders in a single nest were considered family.
“Kristen was a good kid, but she was never much of a fighter.” Stella’s face showed a bitter sadness that let Liliana see the centuries-old soul beneath the widow spider’s young face. “The world is rarely kind to innocents.”
“That is an unfortunate truth,” Liliana agreed.
Stella disappeared through the door into the foyer with the stairs and the elevators.
Liliana’s arm blades suddenly felt heavy as she breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe they would survive this night after all.