Page 5 of All Out of Flux
Vera shook her head. “No news, indeed. Last I heard of him was when I hurled the lot of you into the spider dimension, when he followed you into that place of silks and cobwebs.”
Ah, yes. That ghastly, greenish place, where strands of silk fell from an unseen ceiling, where the distant corners of the dark dimensions bristled with the skittering of a million spiders.
“Couldn’t sense you at all,” Tina said, looking me dead in the eye. “I usually have a vague idea of where you are, but that night? You just sort of — disappeared. I would have come to help otherwise.”
I squeezed her hand. “I know you would have. Thank you.”
“But it’s precisely as I explained it.” Vera framed her face with her hands, her fingers splayed out to vaguely resemble a spiderweb. “Some of us spiders dedicate ourselves to the Mother. Hearing her whispers is merely one of the perks. Access to this little dimension is another.”
“That’s why she knows so much,” Leon muttered to Tina. “All the whispers. Her hair is full of secrets.”
Vera fluffed her hair, throwing him a disapproving look. “I wonder if you boys can see where I’m going with this. The Quartz Spider is extremely talented at covering his tracks. How he followed you into the spider dimension, then left safely again of his own accord? Why, it can only mean that he has dedicated himself to the Mother Spider as well.”
I could feel the corners of my eyes crinkle as I studied her face. “So what you’re saying is that we should speak to this Mother Spider of yours, see if she would throw one of her own children under the bus.”
“Arachne may not be so pleased to learn that one among her brood is dabbling in strange magics far beyond her sphere. The Mother approves when we dabble in secrets, in stealth, in the use of poisons.”
Vera dipped the end of one fingernail in her drink, dropped it onto her tongue. The liquid hissed on contact.
“With the right offerings, the right cajoling? She may well be convinced to betray Brendan Shum. Listen to me, selling out one of my own brother spiders. But again, these are the very things that Arachne would approve of. Quick tip: she also approves of fortune cookies.”
Leon cocked an eyebrow. “Huh? Fortune cookies?”
The phone by Vera’s hand lit up, its wallpaper a ghostly jade green. She held it up to her face, eyes scanning the message. When she smiled, her teeth were tinted in the same venomous shade.
“Gentlemen. It appears I have a job for the two of you, after all.”
3
LEON
What a damn night. Max and I walked into Silk to enjoy a nightcap. We didn’t expect to walk out with two whole assignments. Well, the finder job was definitely an assignment. Something about a statuette.
That second thing, though. A communion with Arachne, the spider-woman of ancient Greek mythology? Seemed like less of an assignment and something closer to a nightmare.
But I slept extremely well, thankfully. No nightmares to report. I slipped into my apartment, my mood going as shabby as my surroundings. It was the following morning. I’d come home to pick up a few essentials.
Max had dropped me off before going around town to work on some errands. I spent so much time at his place that it almost felt like giving up my apartment would be more convenient for everybody. I smirked at the emptiness of it, scoffed under my breath.
As if that was such a wonderful idea. We’d barely started dating. Max was a great guy, but I didn’t want to scare him off by showing up at his place with a bunch of cardboard boxes, therice cooker that was the only appliance I actually owned, and the framed picture of my mother.
I plunked onto the bed, smiling at her as she smiled at me. I kissed the tips of my fingers, pressed them against the glass. “I’m home. Sorry, I know I’m barely around these days.”
Not that she cared or even minded. The dead stayed dead, even in a place as miraculous as the arcane underground. And yet it brought me so much comfort, spreading myself out along my rickety bed, chitchatting as if she could hear my endless rambling.
“A communion, Mom. Like, an actual ritual to contact an entity. A queen of spiders. Wow.”
I stared up at the ceiling, wondering whether that weird, grubby spot had always been there. I mean, didn’t I have enough gods meddling in my affairs? Technically, only Tiamat was an actual god. Bakunawa and Arachne were legendary figures, but not quite deities. That didn’t make them any less powerful, though.
Or any less scary, for that matter. Communing with spirits was nothing new to the Alcantara witches, nor to any witches in any tradition, I imagined. Cast a summoning circle, make the offering, spill some blood, and chant the words to entice them, call their attention.
But speaking as someone who had received ancient sea dragons in his apartment? I generally preferred not to call the attention of fickle, centuries-old creatures equipped with volatile powers and potentially even more volatile tempers.
“And more of those thug attacks, Mom. Roscoe used to be so confident about fending them off, but this felt different. And I felt so helpless. What am I without a dragon to Emanate? I knew you taught me the blasting hex, but it was always so hard to pull off.” I rubbed a tight circle around my wrist, pouting. “And painful, too.”
I was never more honest than when I had these little one-way convos with my mother. I hadn’t felt so vulnerable in a long time, what with Bakunawa still asleep inside my body. I never did perfect the blasting hex, even knowing that it was an effective way to get someone the hell out of my face.
The problem was how it seemed to hurt me almost as much as it hurt someone else. I sighed, pretending I could hear my mother scold me. “Yeah, yeah. I know. Practice makes perfect.”
