Spider-Touched (24 page)

ARAÑA bowed her head so the hood of the dark cloak they’d purchased after the attack shielded her face from view. The heavy material made her feel trapped, and in a fight it would hinder her ability to draw her knives quickly and strike fast.

The only place she knew to look for Levi and Rebekka was the brothel. But as she and Tir approached it, dread built with each step. The healer wouldn’t be there. Araña was as sure of it as she had been that Erik would die in Oakland when she first saw the city rising out of ruin.

“It might be better for you to go in alone,” she said, slowing at the end of an already deeply shadowed alleyway. “Some of the brothel’s clients probably frequent the gaming clubs. One of them might have seen me run the maze.”

Tir’s hand tightened on hers in response and he kept going. His harsh
no
held the same steel as his grip.

Two hyena-faced Weres served as doormen and bouncers. They opened the doors into a leather-and-fur waiting room hosted by a madam with boar tusks and small black eyes in a round human face.

She swept Araña and Tir with a quick, assessing gaze and grunted before saying to Tir, “You pay full price regardless. A quarter if the woman watches. Half if she works my whore. Full price if my whore works her.”

Women lined up without being told. Their clothing left little to the imagination and their appearances ranged from fully human to mostly animal.

“I’m here to see Levi or the healer,” Tir said.

The madam’s eyes hardened. “There’s no healer here. We don’t have any use for the gifted except as paying customers. If it’s Levi you want, then he should have met you outside.”

Araña slid her hand beneath the folds of the cloak. The gesture had two men stepping into the room through doors on either side of the parlor. Their mouths opened in animal threat to reveal razor-sharp teeth.

They retreated when she drew out several bills from the wallet and, keeping her head down, offered them to the madam. “For your trouble. Where can we find Levi?”

The woman grunted and took the bills. “Unless you want to keep paying so you can look at the girls, go outside. I’ll have him located and sent to you.”

They left, and Levi joined them a few minutes later. If he was surprised to see they’d survived, it didn’t show. “Let’s walk,” he said, turning without waiting for an answer and heading in the direction of the boundary between the red zone and the area set aside for the gifted.

When he was out of the hearing range of the Were doormen, he said, “Rebekka was captured.”

Acid rose in Araña’s throat, hot with her guilt. “By who?” she asked, already knowing.

“Guardsmen, but Gulzar, Anton and Farold’s torturer, was in the area as well.”

“When?” Tir asked.

“This morning, as we were taking the child to the Mission.” Levi’s face contorted in furious agony. His lips parted in a silent, impotent human snarl. “I should have hunted the man in the cab with the trapper. He must have overheard us talking about what to do with the child and gone to the maze with the information. The guardsmen and Gulzar were lying in wait for us.”

“She was taken to the maze?” Araña asked, her skin becoming chilled with thoughts of Abijah, her guilt flaying her at the thought of the healer being raped by guardsmen or convicts or the demon.

“I don’t know where she was taken, or even if she lives. None of the men who frequent the gaming clubs and come to the brothels have mentioned her. Pictures of those running are often posted early to stimulate betting interest. We separated. My intention was to draw the guardsmen and Gulzar away and kill any of them I could so Rebekka could escape with the child.”

“Did you recognize the guardsman?” Araña asked, thinking of Jurgen and Cabot and her intention to kill them before she left Oakland.

“Two of them, but not the third. I succeeded in killing one guardsman before I escaped the area. Rebekka works tonight. If she’d managed to escape, she would have come to the brothel, even if she had the child with her. The prostitutes depend on her, and while she’s here, she’s under the protection of the vice lords who own them.”

He glanced up at the sky and quickened his pace. Araña did the same and said, “We need safe shelter for the night.” She didn’t think it would be on the
Constellation
.

“It can’t be at the brothel, not unless you’re willing to pay for a room and a whore.”

Despite Levi’s waiting in the woods when she escaped the maze, Araña couldn’t bring herself to tell him about the reward being offered for her. She’d lived too long among outcasts and outlaws—men and women whom circumstances might turn into bounty hunters—to willingly reveal there was a price on her head. “A recommendation then.”

He considered the request for several long moments before saying, “Rebekka has a house in the gifted area. She rarely goes there and never speaks about it. If she were here, she’d offer it to you.” The last held some of the same guilt Araña felt.

“You’ve checked to make sure she’s not hiding there?” Tir asked.

“Yes. There was no sign of her.” Levi’s fingers flexed in a lionlike gesture of claws being sheathed and unsheathed. “If you intend to eat, you’ll need to buy food at the stall up ahead. You won’t have time to get it elsewhere.”

“We’ll stop,” Tir said.

At the small shop, Araña hung back with Levi and kept her face hidden as Tir bartered for bread and cheese. Her mouth watered at the sight of the fresh fruit, but buying it would deplete their resources.

He rejoined them and they continued walking. When they were well away from the food seller, Tir said, “Araña’s boat has been confiscated. It’ll be auctioned in the morning and most likely be gone from its berth by the end of the day. I intend to steal it tonight. Is there a place along the red zone where I can hide it?”

Levi’s answer was a lion cough of amusement. “Vampires guard the area at night, under contract with the dock owners as well as some of the cargo ship owners. If you managed to slip past them and steal a boat, the harbor is patrolled by private security, guardsmen, and police. If one of them spots you, they’ll hold you in place with machine guns then board at daybreak. And if you’re foolish enough to make a run for it and dodge them by going into the outer harbor, they’ll blockade you and leave you to your fate.”

“And that fate would be?”

Araña couldn’t help but smile at the arrogant, masculine confidence in Tir’s voice.

“The harbor is filled with ruins. Even in daylight it’s nearly impossible to avoid hitting metal sharp enough to rip open a ship. If you manage it, you’d most likely be killed by the vice lord who controls it. He lets very few boats in that aren’t his own or haven’t paid well for the privilege.”

“But he lets some in?” Araña asked, hearing Levi’s qualifier and experiencing a small flare of optimism. She couldn’t offer the vice lord money, but she had the skills of a thief to barter.

Levi shrugged. “I don’t know. But I wouldn’t count on making a deal with him, not if rumors are true. They say he’s consumed with finding a cure for his daughter. She’s said to have the wasting disease.”

Pain lanced through Araña, a sharp, unexpected thrust as she thought of Erik. They’d come to Oakland seeking a cure for him. Seeking a miracle. If the vice lord’s daughter truly had the disease—

Her heart skipped and stuttered its beat with the memory of Tir saving her from certain death after her fight with the dragon lizard. His hand tightened on her arm, warning her to remain silent as he asked, “What’s the vice lord’s name?”

“Rimmon.”

Araña missed a step as the melted-wax face of the man in the occult shop immediately came to mind. Erik and Matthew had never been believers in coincidence.

“Where can I find him?” Tir asked, his voice holding no hint as to whether or not he remembered the name and the man, though Araña suspected he did.

“He’s usually at his club. Temptation. It’s a Victorian on the same street as all the others like it.”

There was a subtle hesitation in Levi when they reached the sigil-marked boundary of the area set aside for the gifted. His jaw muscles tensed and his posture stiffened, though he didn’t flinch as he passed through the wards.

They traveled in silence, staying close to the border for a while, then cutting through a neighborhood where the majority of the houses had collapsed around trees taking root in what had once been living rooms.

Wild grass and flowers sprouted on fallen roofs. Dark green vines with poisonous, bright red berries slowly crushed rusted cars and old fences under their weight.

Rebekka’s house stood alone, isolated. They approached cautiously, though there was no evidence of it having been visited by guardsmen or those in the employ of the maze owner.

Levi pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the door before giving the key to Araña. “There’s another one in the kitchen drawer.”

He pushed inside and they followed. The house had a dusty, closed smell, verifying what Levi had told them about the healer seldom visiting.

Araña expected Levi to leave immediately. Instead he prowled the tiny house like a large, restless predator. She went to the kitchen and took Erik’s wallet from her pocket, blocking the grief that came from handling it, fortifying herself with Matthew’s words as he’d told her to run.

She removed Erik’s boat keys and placed them on the counter before pocketing the wallet. She opened the drawer and found Rebekka’s second house key, along with paper, pencil, and extra candles.

Impulsively she pulled out the paper and pencil. Tir set the food down on the counter and took the keys. Anxiety tightened her chest.

“I should be offended you have so little confidence in me,” he said. “But I find your worry for me oddly arousing.”

“I want to go with you, Tir.”

“No.” His mouth found her neck and sent a pulse of pure need to her cunt. “You’ll stay here until I return.”

When she didn’t acknowledge the command, his lips were replaced by his teeth. They closed on her skin in sharp demand and remained there until she said, “I’ll stay as long as it’s safe.”

Tir rubbed his tongue over the place where he’d bitten. A caress and not an apology.

“You’ll speak with the vice lord before you go for the boat?” she asked.

“Yes.” Neither of them mentioned how he’d done the impossible and saved her from dying after her fight with the dragon lizard.

Heat rose in Araña’s cheeks when she realized Levi stood across the counter from them, his arms folded across his chest. Embarrassment at having been so lost in Tir that the Were was able to get within striking distance without her noticing made Araña pick up the pencil and begin drawing. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but with sure strokes, Jurgen’s face appeared on the paper.

Levi’s arms dropped to his sides. “Jurgen,” he said, and the same hatred Araña felt was in his voice. “There’s always a need for a healer when he visits the brothel. He went after Rebekka.”

On a separate piece of paper she deftly drew Cabot, the man whose cock had shriveled at the sight of the spider on her bare mound. “And him?”

“Dead.”

Araña allowed herself a moment of satisfaction before pulling another sheet of paper from the drawer. The image of the man she’d seen in her vision was as real to her as the others.

Beside her, Tir tensed so subtly that if their bodies hadn’t been touching, she wouldn’t have known it. On the other side of the counter Levi shook his head, the brown-blond tones and length of his hair making him momentarily resemble the lion Rebekka said he could no longer become. “He wasn’t there.”

“He’s not the third guardsman or the man you call Gulzar?” Too late, Araña realized she should have hidden her surprise and puzzlement.

Tawny-colored eyes narrowed. “Why did you think he would be?” Levi asked.

Guilt lashed at Araña. Suspicion appeared in Levi’s eyes, telling her he smelled the emotion on her. She saw no point in lying. “I had a vision this morning, before we left your lair in the forest.” She touched her finger to the stranger’s image. “He was in it.”

“And Rebekka?”

Araña’s guilt intensified. “I saw the three of you on the bus. The man emerged from the guardsman headquarters and bought a pastry from a vendor. He was eating it when the bus passed with Rebekka and the child in the window.”

“That’s all?”

“I didn’t see anything of what happened after that.”

The truth, and yet so much less than it. But even Matthew and Erik, who she’d loved and trusted, didn’t know all of what carrying the demon mark meant.

Levi leaned forward, the gold of his eyes molten with turbulent emotion. “Use your gift to find her.”

Araña’s heart skipped a beat. “I can’t.”

The Were snarled. “Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t.”

“You can try. If it hadn’t been for her, you would have escaped the maze only to become food. Humans don’t survive a night outside, even if they get out of the red zone and into the forest.” His gaze darted to the spider now on the back of her hand. “Against fur and fang and supernaturals, you’d die just as easily as any other.”

Araña knew he could hear the thunder of her heart and smell her fear. “I have no control of my gift.”

Levi snarled again. “Then get it. Go to the Wainwright witch. It was Annalise who told Rebekka you’d be running in the maze.”

The pencil snapped in Araña’s hand as the image of the old witch who’d sent Erik and Matthew to their deaths flashed into her mind and brought a killing rage with it. “What does she look like?”

Levi’s eyes narrowed. “I only caught a glimpse of her. She’s got black hair with a skunk streak of silver down the middle of it.”

Araña dropped the pencil halves on the counter. Not the old witch or the pregnant one, then. “Are there others?”

“There’s never only one witch. I don’t know if there are others by the same last name. What does it matter?” There was a sharp edge to Levi’s voice now. “The Wainwright witch has already demonstrated an interest in you. Ask her to help you get control of your gift.”

Sweat coated Araña’s skin at the thought of willingly entering the heart of the flame. She’d only make it worse by attempting what Levi wanted her to do. And to trust a stranger, a witch . . . “I—”