TWENTY-SEVEN
I could hear their voices. I was vaguely aware of what was going on around me but my vision was blurry. I lay on the ground but couldn't move my arms and legs. I felt numb all over. It sounded like Wilma and Willie were arguing, and the child, Elizabeth, was screaming, a shrill, terrible sound. I fought to open my eyes and finally was able to focus on the scene before me. Willie was standing very close. Wilma was shaking the little girl, yelling at her to stop crying, and McKay was up on his knees on the ground, handcuffed, his feet bound, trying to make Wilma stop.
Then in the distance, faint and faraway, a gun was fired. Everybody froze. I shut my eyes. My backup was outside, looking for me. It was a matter of time before they found us.
“Wilma, you stay here and keep an eye on them. I'm gonna make sure they haven't found their way in. And don't hurt them, you hear me, don't hurt them, especially the detective!”
Willie ran past me toward one of the tunnels, and then suddenly Wilma was directly over me, grinning down into my face.
“Know what, Detective, I don't believe you've got any archangels protecting you, not for one single second. But we'll soon see, won't we? Maybe I can prove to Willie once and for all that you're not invincible.”
She grabbed the hood of my parka and drug me toward the tanks. I still couldn't move my muscles, had little feeling in my arms and legs. She stopped beside a big tank sitting on its side, and I heard a latch click. Then she rolled me over into the tank on my side and closed the side panel. I could see McKay through the dirty glass. He was on his back, trying to get the handcuff keys while Wilma was busy with me.
I tried to shake myself awake and make sense of what was going on. The drug was wearing off, and my mind was clearing. I could move a little now. I shifted my head and realized the side of my face was resting against a soft padding of cobwebs. Oh God, I was in a spiders' nest.
I struggled to move arms that felt like lead weights. Above me in the glass lid were holes about the size of quarters. I couldn't see any spiders or scorpions, but I knew something was already in there with me.
Then Wilma loomed over me. I could see her innocent-looking face staring down at me. “Willie likes you, Detective, thinks you're special because of that stupid medallion you wear. He thinks you're pretty and smart, but guess what? I don't like you, and I don't like the way Willie treats you. I gave up everything for him. So I've got to get rid of you or you'll end up arresting us. So, darlin', if you've got a special lifeline up to the clouds and the Archangel Michael, you better use it now.”
I tried to speak but nothing came out.
“That's right. You ain't gonna be able to talk for a while, you know. Willie tipped these darts with just the right amount of poison. He and Simon practiced shooting darts and arrows on lots of people to get just the right dose. They're all dead now, 'cause Willie says if you get too much it stops the heart, but you only got enough to paralyze you. It'll wear off but you'll probably wish it didn't.”
My arms and legs were tingling. Maybe I'd diminished the effect of the drug when I jerked the dart out so fast. I shut my eyes. Just hang on for Charlie and the guys. They'll be here, all I had to do was hang on.
I tried to remain calm. I was in a bad spot, all right, but I was okay, just temporarily immobilized. There was a chance McKay would get the cuffs off, and if there were spiders in with me, already biting, I couldn't feel them. I still had the Raid sprayed on my clothes. I thought about Simon Classon, and other victims hung up in black plastic bags, and wondered if they'd started out in this same glass tank.
I watched Wilma move away and pick up a big rock. McKay was back up on his knees, working to unlock the cuffs behind his back. He was watching her, too. Willie was nowhere to be seen. Wilma moved up behind McKay, and when she raised the rock over his head, he tried to evade her but couldn't get away. He took the blow in the back of his head and went over on his face like a downed tree. He didn't move again. Elizabeth started screaming and clung to his lifeless body, and I knew he was out for the count. If either of us was to get out of this place alive, it was now up to me.
I still had the .38 snub-nosed strapped on my ankle. I could feel the weight of it. I just had to figure out how to contort my body enough to reach it. Wilma's face appeared directly above me. Her freckled face and red pigtails made her look young and harmless. Pippi Longstocking from hell. She spoke conversationally, as if I'd come to visit and we were having a real good time. “Simon, I mean, Gabriel, you know, I just can't get used to calling him Gabriel. Anyways, he was inside this very same tank. We knocked him out at his house and brought him down here. He lasted almost an hour without getting bit but then he went all hysterical and started slapping at the recluses, even though he raised them and knew all about them and what made them bite.”
Wilma glanced toward the tunnel where Willie had disappeared. “Willie hit him first but he couldn't bear to hurt him anymore, so I had to do it. Simon deserved it. He treated me like dirt for months out at the academy, tried to get me fired, and then told Willie to kill me. But I got the last laugh, didn't I? Wanna see the games I played with him?”
I twitched my fingers slightly to see if they worked. They did but without much sensation. Wilma loomed over me again.
“Look up here, Detective. This here is a great big black widow spider.” She held it up for me to see. It was in a small glass test tube. “We gotta get this done pretty quick if you got backup comin' down here, but I'm not gonna kill you right out. I'm gonna give you a fighting chance to get found before you die because I liked the way you and that other guy, Bud, bought Willie that cheeseburger and let him eat with the other kids in the cafeteria. Willie felt real bad about how Bud got bit by that rattler I put in your picnic basket. Yeah, that was too bad. Willie said Bud's a good guy. And he wasn't putting pressure on Willie and me the way you was. You just had to keep coming around and asking Willie nosy questions.”
Wilma looked around. “I sure hate to leave this cave. We've had lots of fun down here. Now when I drop this little lady down in there with you, don't you move a muscle. Got that? Maybe you'll live long enough for the other officers to get here, if you do what I say.”
I took a deep breath and waited. As if one spider was going to make me faint. Hell, I just crawled through a tunnel full of spiders. No way one bite was going to kill me. They'd done worse stuff than this on
Fear Factor
. I kept my eyes on McKay where he lay on the ground. He had not moved; blood was pooling on the ground underneath his head. Elizabeth was squatted down beside him, no longer crying, her wide blue eyes watching silently, as if she knew something horrible was going to happen.
Okay, okay. It's just a little black widow spider. But it wasn't little. It was over an inch long, shiny and black and deadly. I tried to remember what I'd found out about them on the Internet. They weren't as deadly as brown recluses, but they were dangerous. I think it said a person could die without proper medical treatment. But I'd get that, as soon as I shot my way out of this glass box and put a couple of slugs between Wilma Harte's eyes.
“Oooookay, Detective Morgan, here we go. Let's see if you got more guts than that awful Simon did. He begged and begged at the end after we got him down here. But I showed him not to mess with me.”
Wilma chose a hole right above my stomach, upended the vial and dumped the huge spider on me. I watched it bounce off my parka, and every fiber, every muscle of my body screamed to shrink away, to brush it off, stomp on it, get it off me. I didn't. I shut my eyes. If I can't see it, it's not there. Let the Raid handle it. Remember yoga, I'm someplace else, someplace faraway and nice and safe, one with the universe, one with the spider.
“I wonder if you'll lie so still if I put in another one? What do you think? Wanna make a bet?” Wilma the Witch, at her most charming.
Wilma rushed off, then she was back. Holding up another glass test tube. “This here one's a brown recluse. I think they're the prettiest things. So did Gabriel before we killed him. Uriel said they used them on lots of people when they were kids. Wonder how Willie's pretty detective's gonna do now? This one's a bit cantankerous. He bites sometimes even when you don't move. And you won't even feel it. It can bite you a hundred times, and you won't know where until it starts hurtin' and rottin' out the skin. Pretty awesome, huh?”
She chose a hole just above my chest and dropped a spider the size of a silver dollar onto my breast. God, surely I wasn't going to die like Simon Classon did, here in this hidden cave with a couple of homicidal maniacs, my body paralyzed, spiders crawling all over me. Somehow, some way, I remained calm, trying to force my muscles to move while I kept my eyes on the big brown recluse. It stood where it landed for a few seconds, as if undecided where to go. Then it got a whiff of the Raid and couldn't get off me fast enough. Hell, I was going to write a thank-you note to the Raid company when I got out of there.
I heard gunshots, closer now, and I knew this wouldn't go on much longer. I just had to stay alive until they forced their way in. Then Willie was back. He was furious, his face was flushed red. “I told you not to hurt her, damn it. I told you! She's protected. We can't fight against the Archangel Michael. He's stronger than Uriel and Gabriel and all the rest of the archangels put together. Gabriel told me so.”
“It don't look like he's doin' much to help her at the moment.” Wilma laughed. “To hell with the archangels. They can't do anythingâ”
It happened so fast I could barely believe it. Willie had my service weapon in his hand and pressed up against Wilma's temple. “That's blasphemy. And you're a blasphemer. You're not what I thought you were. You made me kill Gabriel, and he loved me.”
Wilma's eyes were scared now, her voice shaking. “I'm so sorry, baby. I'll get her out of there, if you want. C'mon, let's go. We'll take the baby, and get clean away. I'll do whatever you say.”
Willie took the gun down from her temple but he was sobbing and pointing the gun at Wilma's chest. Oh, God, he's wigging out. He's going to kill her then he'll panic and shoot all of us. I wrenched my body as hard as I could down toward my feet, nearly pulling my arm out of its socket as I struggled to reach my ankle holster. Elizabeth was screaming for her daddy, and Willie was screaming for her to shut up. He turned the gun on her, and I strained until my forefinger finally hooked the handle of the .38. I jerked it out, got my finger on the trigger, and held it down. The slugs shattered the case into a million pieces of glass, and I rolled out, barely feeling the jagged shards tearing my clothes and slicing my skin. Willie fired at me but the shots went over my head. He grabbed Elizabeth and headed for the tunnel with her. Wilma snatched up McKay's detonator and took off after him. I stood and fired a quick round at her but the bullet hit the wall and ricocheted off the rocks and shattered a couple of glass tanks. I knelt beside McKay and unlocked his cuffs. He was conscious but groggy and moving slow. I desperately worked to loosen the rope binding his feet.
“McKay! McKay, get up! They've got Elizabeth. We gotta stop them!”
I knew I didn't have time to wait on him so I left him there, struggling unsteadily to his feet while I took off into the dark tunnel after Willie and Wilma. Inside the passage, I kept low, weapon ready to fire. Elizabeth was screaming somewhere up ahead, giving me a way to follow. I stopped for a second and leaned against the wall. I only had a couple of bullets left in my gun, and I dug desperately through my pockets, wanting to reload before I faced them. I found only the 9-mm clips. No .38 caliber shells. I grabbed my flashlight and hurried after them but soon heard the echo of running feet in the passage. I couldn't tell what direction the footsteps were coming from. I pressed myself against the wall and almost blew McKay away when he lunged into sight.
“Where's Elizabeth? Who's got her?”
“Willie's got her up ahead. And Wilma's got the detonator.”
He took off ahead of me and I shined the light ahead of us as the shaft twisted and turned its way upward in a gradual ascent. We followed the sounds of Elizabeth's screams and minutes later we caught sight of them. I took aim when my flashlight illuminated Willie but he turned around, holding the struggling, screaming baby in front of him.
“Go ahead, shoot, but you'll hit the kid!” he screamed.
Then he darted left into the darkness and Wilma went right. She had the detonator in her hand. We ran to where they parted company.
“I'm going after Elizabeth,” McKay shouted. “You get the detonator before Wilma blows the place.”
He took off, and I ran into the darkness after the girl. I could hear her ahead of me, running on the loose rocks. She knew the tunnels better than I did but I couldn't let her get outside first. She was crazy; she'd blow the place with all of us inside. The ground began to descend again, and I realized she was leading me back down toward the domed cavern.
I finally took a turn into a larger tunnel that was partially lighted from cracks up above and saw Wilma just ahead at the base of a ladder. She swung herself up the rungs and disappeared from sight. I hit the ladder right behind her and pulled myself out into the boiler room of the old lodge. I stopped in the doorway as she ran toward the woods, slipping and sliding on the icy snow. I braced my weapon with both hands.
“Stop right there, Wilma, or I'll shoot.”
I fired a warning round over her head, and she spun toward me, holding the detonator out in front of her. “You do, and I'll press the button. I will.”