Spider-Touched

Seventeen

TIR knew the moment he reached the healer’s house that it stood empty of anything living. No emotion emanated from it, especially not Araña’s.

The excitement that had brought him here so she could accompany him to the bookseller’s shop became a cold, gut-wrenching fear before flaring into white-hot fury.

If anything had happened to her…

He entered the house, steeling himself for what he might find, then sagging as relief swept through him when there was no blood, no body. No evidence of a struggle. Nothing to hint she’d left unwillingly or an enemy had been there in his absence.

The drawings she’d done for Levi were on the counter, next to the uneaten bread and cheese he’d placed there. A pile of ash in the fireplace was all that remained of the wood burned there the night before.

Her cloak was also gone, as if she’d left the house on an errand of her own choosing. There was no note. But its lack didn’t mean anything other than she was being cautious.

He couldn’t stay, not when he was so close to gaining his freedom. Yet he prowled the tiny house repeatedly before going to the front door.

Her scent was everywhere. Evocative. Tempting. Taunting him with the memory of her on her knees before him.

A different type of heated fury flared inside him as he left. Something dark and primitive, bringing with it a demand she be punished for defying him when he’d ordered her to remain in the house until he returned.

THE shamaness’s house was freshly painted white adobe with a gray tile roof. It was small, the yard well tended. Flower boxes overflowed with color beneath the windows and on the porch. Tomato plants stood tall along one side, towering over vines holding squash and cucumbers. Songbirds flew to the ground from nearby trees, then back again, while chickens scratched and pecked, looking for food.

Like the witches’ house, a fence marked the boundaries of the property. It bore protective sigils similar to the ones carved into the door frame. And like the witches’ house, there was no symbol announcing what manner of gifted human lived in the house.

Araña had found it only by asking strangers for directions, her heart racing each time she approached someone, fear gathering in her chest that they’d be in possession of her picture and would seek the reward being offered for her.

The fingertips left bare on her gloved hand glanced over the hilt of a knife before going to the fetish in her front pocket. She felt no magic in the crystal, nothing to suggest it was a powerful amulet. And yet it must be.

Tir should be back with news about the boat. She longed for the safety he’d come to represent, for the feel of his arms around her and the strength she gained from his touch. But the desire to see Matthew and Erik again, to be absolved of the guilt she carried over their deaths, kept her from delaying by going back to Rebekka’s house.

Araña’s hand curled around the crystal through the material of her pants. Memories of the men who’d meant everything made her heart ache and her throat tighten on tears of hope and sorrow.

She opened the gate and stepped onto the property. A breeze swirled around her, bringing with it the unexpected scent of hot sand and desert spice.

Gauzy curtains billowed as it passed through an open window. From somewhere inside the house a woman laughed then abruptly went silent—the reason obvious as Araña reached the porch and looked through the bars of the protective outer door.

A man and woman stood embracing, their passion a scorching heat wave that had Araña’s body crying out for Tir’s. The woman’s low moan made Araña feel like a voyeur. She started to back away, only to stop when the woman laughed and extricated herself from the man’s arms, saying, “There’s someone at the door, Zurael, as I’m sure you already know.”

They turned toward her, and Araña was momentarily stunned by their beauty. Both had long hair, the woman’s blond, the man’s black. He was shirtless, his body deeply tanned.

Araña’s fingers rubbed over the sheathed blades of her knives, the habit so deeply ingrained she was barely aware of it until the man’s hand curled around the woman’s arm when she would have stepped to the door.

“No, Aisling,” he said, halting her with a murmured warning.

It was then that Araña saw the serpent coiled around the shamaness’s forearm, its head flattened on the back of her hand, so lifelike it took her a moment to understand it was a tattoo.

A deep sense of foreboding settled in her chest. Her attention shifted back to the man. Zurael.

Inhuman eyes of melted gold met hers. But it was the glimpse of the small, matching serpent on the side of his neck that sent fear slithering through Araña.

Demon, she thought, and realized the spider had reacted to Zurael in the same way it had to Abijah and the scorpion he wore, by sliding down to rest at the base of her spine as if cowering in the presence of a greater power.

There was a subtle change in the—in Zurael’s expression, as though he recognized something in her as well. His face hardened. “What do you want?” he asked, his voice holding a harsh warning. “Who sent you?”

Resolve stiffened Araña’s spine. It was too late to retreat now. It had been too late from the moment she’d seen Oakland. And knowing what fate waited there, hadn’t told Matthew and Erik and pleaded with them to abandon the search for a healer there.

“The Wainwright matriarch sent me.”

Araña slid the fetish from her pocket. She held it up so the shamaness could see it through the bars of the outer door, and noted how Aisling’s eyes widened in surprise.

“The witch said to tell you that your father wants you to use this crystal in order to escort me into the ghostlands. She said if you do it, you’ll gain a favor from him.”

Zurael growled, “Aisling,” but the shamaness ignored the refusal he’d infused her name with and said, “Come in. The door is unlocked.”

Araña entered the house and found the same desert spice and hot sand scent the breeze had held. She gave the shamaness her name, along with the fetish.

Aisling couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the crystal, as if it held some secret in its icy heart that only she could see. With a low growl, Zurael put his arms around her waist, pulling her backward against him until there was an unbroken line where their bodies touched.

“Send it back,” he said, his voice low and menacing. “I warned your father against making you his pawn again. I won’t allow you to risk yourself.”

“I’ll be safe. Using his name to enter the ghostlands will ensure it. And I’d be foolish to throw away the offer of a favor.”

Zurael hissed, a serpentlike sound that sent fear skittering along Araña’s spine. She balled her hands into fists to keep them from curling around the handles of her knives.

The shamaness tore her attention away from the crystal. “What is it you seek in the ghostlands?”

“The fate of my family. I want to see for myself that the Wainwright matriarch told the truth when she said they’d been rewarded in the afterlife for the taking of their lives.” There was no masking the emotion from her voice.

Sadness came to Aisling’s face, making her look delicate and vulnerable. Her hand closed around the crystal. “When did they die?”

Araña’s throat tightened as images from the fight with the guardsmen scrolled past. “Three days ago. The day we arrived in Oakland.”

“Do you have something belonging to them?”

This time she allowed her hands to curl around the dark hilts. “Their knives.”

Aisling nodded. “That will work.”

“I’ll accompany you into the spiritlands,” Zurael said.

Amusement replaced the hint of sadness still lingering on the shamaness’s face. “And leave our physical bodies unguarded?” A muscle spasmed in Zurael’s cheek. The gold of his eyes took on a deadly cast. “I could forbid it.”

His threat was met with a laugh. “You won’t.”

“If anything happens to you—”

Aisling silenced him by turning in his arms and pressing a kiss to his lips before pulling from his embrace. She reached out, probably intending no more than to offer a touch of reassurance or encouragement, but Araña jerked away.

“It’s not safe to touch me. Not here anyway. The witch, Annalise, said it could be done in the ghostlands as long as I stay in the circle.”

The shamaness’s eyebrows drew together in contemplation rather than fear. She worried her bottom lip with her teeth then finally gave a small nod. “I think I know what needs to be done in order to escort you there. This is something you want to do now?”

Araña’s mouth went dry and her heart kicked into a hard, rapid, throbbing pace. “Yes.”

Aisling shared a glance with Zurael. His frown was scorching, but he locked the barred door anyway, then closed the solid front door and secured it as well.

“This way,” the shamaness said, leading Araña to a room that had obviously been created for the sole purpose of journeying into the ghostlands.

It seemed little more than a huge closet with a dirt floor. Fetishes perched at the edges of shallow openings carved into the adobe wall at the corners. They were so lifelike Araña thought they would come alive if filled with the spirits of the creatures they represented.

Bear. Raven. Serpent.

Spider.

Only Aisling’s voice instructing her to sit pulled Araña from the black-onyx thrall of the last fetish.

She sat, cross-legged in the restricted space, and became aware of the glyph-marked wood turning a soft, dirt floor into a well-protected altar.

The shamaness sat next to her, assuming the same compact, cross-legged position before leaning forward and tracing a symbol into earth that smelled of delta waterways.

Araña expected Aisling to draw a circle, but apparently the single sigil in combination with the perched fetishes and the glyph-inscribed wood enclosing the dirt was enough.

When the shamaness was satisfied with what she’d drawn, she turned slightly, her expression solemn, her Angelite-colored eyes meeting Araña’s and holding them. “It’ll take a blood sacrifice, yours I think, to free you from your body enough to enter the spiritlands. The only other time I’ve accompanied someone like this, it took their death. I can’t guarantee it won’t require yours as well. Do you wish to proceed?”

Araña felt calm. She wouldn’t die here. She wouldn’t die like this. When the demon who’d marked her with the spider claimed her for Hell, it would be in terror and pain, in fire. “Yes.”

The shamaness nodded. “Cut yourself with the knives one at a time and hand them to me, giving me the names of your family members as you do so.”

Araña didn’t hesitate. She pulled Erik’s blade from its sheath and sliced across her forearm, welcoming the pain.

A memory welled up with the blood. It flowed across her consciousness as metallic-scented red slid across deeply tanned flesh, making Araña think of those early years when Erik was teaching her to read. How he’d listen to her stumble and struggle through the words each evening until finally they came smoothly and effortlessly.

“This blade is Erik’s,” she said, passing the knife to Aisling before drawing Matthew’s blade and cutting a line parallel to the first. Memories surfaced with the strike, learning of a different kind. From the very first, Matthew had concentrated on teaching her how to wield a weapon, how to defend as well as attack.

He’d cut her a hundred times. And she could still remember the pride and satisfaction on his face the day she’d finally drawn blood—sending him into the cabin for a lecture from Erik and stitches, because even though she’d succeeded, she was still unskilled in controlling the extent of the damage she inflicted.

“This one belongs to Matthew,” Araña said as the blood from the second cut mingled with that of the first.

Aisling took it, dropping the fetish into Araña’s hand. “Use this as a focus,” she said. “Close your eyes and picture them.”

Blood streamed over Araña’s wrist and pooled in her open palm, surrounding the fetish and making her think of a buoy set in a red sea.

She closed her eyes and let the memories come, images as unfettered and uncontrolled as the wind.

There was a pulling sensation, much like the one she’d experienced at the doorway of the occult shop—as if something attempted to suck her soul from the body housing it, but she didn’t fight it.

Sweat poured off her skin as the hot burn of the spider mark spread to encompass and define every inch of her, making her feel like a living flame.

Cold air swirled around her, buffeting her, attacking then retreating. Finally making her aware of its touch on her naked flesh.

Araña opened her eyes to gray nothingness, like being lost in thick fog. A glance downward revealed the truth of what the shifting mist had hinted at.

Her clothing was gone, including the fingerless glove. In the land of spirits, the brand on her hand glowed black-red, like a brick of charcoal.

Movement to her left made her stiffen, but it was only nothingness giving way to the shamaness and bringing with it a quick swell of relief.

“I probably should have warned you,” Aisling said, noting the blush stealing across Araña’s cheeks. “Only those who call this world home can manifest clothing here.”

Araña gave a small nod, unsure of what to expect next. “I don’t see a circle,” she said, and a man’s voice responded, cutting through the grayness like a foghorn. “I believe that’s my cue to appear.”

He stepped into sight, eyes dancing with unholy glee as he made a point of studying their nakedness. His face was marked with a criminal’s tattoos, and for an instant, Araña wondered if Matthew or Erik had introduced her to him in one of the outlaw settlements or boat towns, but her artistic ability allowed her to memorize features, and his didn’t seem familiar to her.

“I like your choice of company, beautiful,” he said, focusing his attention on Aisling. “Light meat and dark meat. My mouth waters. What a tempting, succulent feast you’d both make. If I was willing to pay the price, of course.”

The man gave a mock sigh, his lips turning downward in an exaggerated frown. “I’m afraid I’ve got more than enough on my plate at the moment. So I’ll have to content myself with my fantasies.” His smile became sly. “I hope you don’t mind sharing your starring role with your friend.”

He turned and the band around his neck Araña had thought was crude jewelry became a twisted metal cable trailing down his back and disappearing into the fog. It slithered behind him as he walked, playing out to form a large circle.

When the cable finally met and crossed, color and texture and shape filled it, altering reality by changing nothingness into a sandy beach surrounded by a black ocean. A man shimmered into existence, a robed figure who sent an inexplicable surge of fear and pity through Araña.

She stepped back even as Aisling rushed forward, whispering “Aziel” as she wrapped her arms around him. And then his presence no longer mattered to Araña.

Erik and Matthew rose from the sea and stepped onto the beach as though they’d been swimming. Water glistened and sparkled, dripping from their hair and streaming down bare chests and onto the ragged, worn-out cutoffs she’d so often teased them about.

They smiled and opened their arms, and in her joy she was unself-conscious about her nakedness as she hurled herself forward, able to do what she’d never been able to do before, embrace them without fear of killing them.

A sob escaped, wrenched from the depths of her soul and opening the floodgate to her tears. Her body shuddered with the onslaught of emotion.

“Hush. Matthew and I are fine,” Erik murmured, stroking her hair and pressing kisses to her temple. “Better than fine.”

“You’re wasting time with your crying, girl,” Matthew said, his voice gruff with his own unshed tears and his hand tightening almost painfully on her arm as he fought to keep his emotions in check.

Araña inhaled on a long, shaky breath. They smelled the way they always did, like boats and surf and sunshine.

She pulled away far enough to look up into their beloved faces. “I’m sorry,” she said, the words holding all her guilt and pain. “I—”

“Stop,” Erik said. “You’re not to blame. Going to Oakland was a gamble. I would have died soon anyway. You know that. There have only been a few cases where someone’s been cured of the wasting disease, and those have been called miracles.”

The sand swirled up, as if issuing a warning. Matthew rubbed his stubbled cheek against her smooth one. “Live in the moment. There are no guarantees beyond it. Isn’t that what we taught you?”

“Yes.” Her arms tightened on them. “This place—”

“We’re not allowed to tell you anything beyond that we’re okay,” Erik said.

“You’re together?”

“Yes,” Matthew said. “And what we’ve found here is better than either of us expected after death. It’s better than we deserved. That’s no lie.”

The guilt and sadness and pain drained away with Matthew’s use of their private code. If he’d said they were telling the truth then she would have known it was the opposite.

More sand joined that which was already dancing and spinning above the ground. “We don’t have much longer,” Erik said.

Out of the corner of her eye, Araña saw Aziel gliding toward them. “I love you,” she whispered, saying the words they’d so rarely spoken out loud to one another, unable to stop herself from clinging to them as if she would remain with them or drag them back to the world of the living with her.

It was Matthew who answered gruffly, “You know the feeling is mutual.” And Erik who laughed softly at Matthew’s response then spoke the words she needed to hear, “We love you. Always.”

The cloaked figure had nearly reached them, bringing fear and darkness with him. His shadow was the black sea Erik and Matthew had risen and stepped out of, now coming to reclaim them.

Matthew kissed her. Then Erik did.

“Don’t let your courage fail you,” Erik said, his voice little more than a whisper spoken in the night as Aziel reached them. “Matthew and I did some terrible things when we lived. You were our redemption.” And then they were gone and Aisling was there beside her, both of them standing in the eye of a ferocious desert storm.

The sand swirled around them, gaining in speed. Golden granules gave way to gray nothingness. The roar of the wind became the screams of the dead, hurtling Araña’s soul away, returning it to its flesh housing, to the small room with a dirt floor that smelled of delta waterways, to the place where the demon Zurael stood guard in the doorway.

Araña left moments later, after reclaiming the knives and giving the crystal fetish to Aisling. Her thoughts swung like a pendulum, between all that had happened since leaving the healer’s house, and the anxious need to return to it and find Tir waiting there, safe, the boat secured.

The emotions she’d experienced in the ghostlands still had the power to make her throat clog and her eyes burn with tears. She wasn’t sure she could put into words what it meant to her—to see Matthew and Erik again, to be able to embrace them and to know they didn’t burn in the Hell those who controlled her early childhood would have prophesized for them—but she wanted to try.

She wanted to wrap her arms around Tir, to breathe in his scent and feel the hardness of his body against hers. She wanted to share her joy with him.

Even the prospect of returning to the witches’ house in order to gain control over her gift couldn’t suppress the giddy feelings of relief and happiness, the unburdening of the heavy weight of her guilt over Matthew and Erik’s deaths. Only the empty house had the power to do that.

Araña knew Tir wasn’t back as soon as she reached it. There was no movement at the window, no door opening, no demand to know where she’d been or why she’d risked capture by leaving.

Fear clutched at her, squeezing her stomach in a tight fist. She forced the fingers of icy horror to open as she went inside to verify the truth of his absence.

She refused to believe something had happened to Tir. She told herself his delay meant only that he was paying whatever price the vice lord demanded for safe harbor for the boat.

Araña left, her destination the witch’s house. A chill swept through her at the thought of facing the Wainwright matriarch again. There’d be a price to pay. And she feared it would be her very soul.