THE CHILDREN OF THE SPIDER, Part 9

I told Jonah that I had to take a piss. He nodded distractedly, seemingly lost in thought. I think he was thanking the fates that he hadn't been required to have a long talk with his Aunt Gwen.

Ed was dozing. He cocked an ear when I got off my barstool, but didn't wake.

I left via the bar's rear entrance, but didn't visit the privy. Instead, I kept walking. The cylinder was tucked inside my chain-shirt. It was oddly warm and within it I could feel Venom squirming eagerly.

The First Spider was warning me of danger as I sought out a distant alleyway. As always, I couldn't sense any danger from Venom - and that was a lie. The means by which Venom can shield itself from the warnings of the First Spider have always been a mystery, but it's a very real thing. The danger that I could actually sense was from the pair of silent figures who were carefully stalking me. Whether they were common thieves, or agents of any of the at least a half-dozen factions who by then wanted me captured or dead, was a good question. However, at that moment it was not a particularly important question.

I stepped inside the alleyway and was engulfed in darkness. The miscellaneous torches and lanterns that fitfully lit the buildings along that street didn't penetrate past the alley mouth.

There is a formal and ceremonial process for assuming the Dark. It involves ritual cleansing, prayer, a chanting choir, and dolorous music. It also includes a brief and carefully concealed funerary ritual. So many who have assumed the Dark have never returned. Or at least, they never returned as themselves.

I truncated the ceremony. First, I pissed on the alley floor. Then I smashed the cylinder onto the wet cobblestones. The cylinder shattered in the darkness, and Venom was freed in a puddle of my urine - not that it cared. However, that still made me smile.

I couldn't see Venom slide out of the debris and approach me, but I did feel its touch. First it was on my ankle, then my calf, and then I could feel it wetly sliding up my leg.

*Sooo goooooood,* he psychically whispered as he began spreading over my body. As always, the way merging its form with mine seemed to be an almost-erotic experience for Venom made me want to puke. However, I managed fight it down.

The memory of the last time Faye and I were together briefly played through my mind. Her smile, her eyes, her bare and green body pressed against mine. In recent years, we had spent too much time apart as we pursued separate responsibilities. And now there was a very good chance I'd never see her again.

"Quit fucking around," I ordered through gritted teeth. "There's someone we have to kill."

*Gooood,* Venom told me.

Then we became one.

We don't like being followed. The two who had tailed us to the alley were an affront. We would deal with them.

Retreating deep into the alley, we climbed up and out, using stone protrubences, wooden rooftop sheds, and other architectural features to stay out of sight.

One of our pursuers was a Blood. He was crouched within the framework of a tall set of iron stairs, watching the mouth of the alley into which we had vanished. His partner was on the rooftop above. She was an Elf. Both were dressed in the kind of dark and tight clothing that blended well into a nighted city and didn't snag or otherwise interfere with movement.

We used a rat-infested garbage heap as cover as we shifted around the Blood. Sneaking up on a Blood is always a challenge, but once you understand their ways and weaknesses, it's less difficult. Like all of his kind, he trusted his nose more than his eyes and ears. However, cities have an inherent stench, and as a result, he was partially nose-blind. It would have been much more difficult to stealth up on him if we were in the open country.

Even then, he spotted us as we climbed up the ironwork behind him.

Twisting around to face us, his claws came out. One of them caught a stray beam of moonlight and briefly glowed bone-white.

There was a brief pause as he took in what we were. However, the Blood believe that a fast and brutal offense is a good solution to any problem. He did take the opportunity to shout a warning to his pack-mate before he came for me.

So brave. So very brave.

The Elf female fled across the rooftops. Sometimes she made a brief teleportational jump to span distances between buildings even an Elf couldn't leap. Most often, she simply jumped. Every now and then she scurried into and through concealing clutter, changing the direction of her flight when she did. She was trying to lose us.

She was sobbing as she ran. Part of it was fear. Part of it was for the loss of her man - we'd caught his scent on her body. Perhaps part of it was shame. When we showed her the broken and perforated body of her lover, she chose to flee instead of fight.

Actually, running was the correct decision. However, it wasn't going to save her.

We were hugely enjoying the chase. A night of hunting was a tempting thought, but unfortunately we had other things to do.

We'd noticed a pattern in her efforts to get away. It was probably unconscious on her part, but it made her predictable. There was two rooftop structures ahead of us, each on a different abutting building. She would run between them and then jump down to the street. It was obvious.

Once she got down to street-level, we fell back and let her think she'd lost us.

She covered another dozen blocks at a dead sprint before she decided she was free. In utter exhaustion, she leaned against the corner of a building and tried to catch her breath. It seemed to us that she was finally too tired to teleport.

She was still crying.

Hanging just above her, we said, "Boo."

Her reactions were impressive. She almost got away, but we snagged her with our webbing and dragged her back. Then we stuck her to the wall of the building on which we were perched.

There was a surge of energy that quickly disappeared, leaving a faintly sulferous scent. As we'd suspected, the Elf was too exhausted to teleport.

Good.

She was still struggling when we leaned down and peered deep into her solid yellow eyes. It was then that she finally froze.

We licked her from eyebrow to chin, leaving a trail of faintly foaming spittle. We made sure that the fangs in our tongue didn't cut her. By now, the Elf had closed her eyes and was whispering a prayer to the Shifting Lady.

We opened our jaws wide...

*Stop*

*Noooo...*

*Let her go*

*Huuungryyy...*

*No*

Our mouth still gaped open, just inches from the Elf's face. Saliva dripped across her shoulders and breasts as our two halves fought for control. A long and confused moment passed.

Then we turned away and left the Elf behind.

On the roof, frustrated and angry and relieved for reasons that made sense to our different halves, we gazed out at the city. The half-moon had now cleared the horizon and hung, yellow and bloated-looking, above a jagged skyline.

We snarled a greeting at it. Then our greeting turned into an actual howl.

Afterwards, we could the sounds of dogs barking, doors slamming shut, shutters closing, and weapons being shakily drawn for blocks all around.

Our smile was a foot wide and filled with teeth.

We could sense what was out there. Once, it could hide from us, but now it thought we were separated and helpless. So it wasn't concealing itself as it had learned to do so very long ago. It had become complacent. It didn't know that we were one, and that we were free.

So we could sense it. We could feel its hatred and corruption. It was a taste in the air. It stained the stone and brick of the buildings.

*Youuu know what weee face?*

*I do now*

*Suuurprised?*

*Yes and no - it explains a lot*

*Let's kiiill himmm.*

*Agreed"

The Chryse tower is owned, from foundation to spire, by the family of our human-half. Actually, they are quite wealthy and powerful.

"Arrrt Deco," we said aloud. "Very niccce."

Our symbiote-half chuckled at an ancient memory. Our human-half didn't get the reference.

We were crouched deep in shadow atop a crumbling tenement and gazing upwards, taking in the vast extent of the tower. However, our gaze kept returning to the base of the tower.

There were spiked poles set into the stone and concrete near the entrance to the tower. The heads of those who had recently displeased grandfather were impaled upon them. Once upon a time, that had been a rare practice, confined to a savage past. However, in recent years it was becoming common once again. And the reasons for ending up on a spiked pole were becoming steadily more trivial. Other families, thinking that they could not look weak, were beginning to re-adopt the same custom.

We recognized the head on the tallest pole. It was Uncle Otto - once a quiet and scholarly man who was utterly uninterested in politics or power. Jonah told us that Otto was executed after being charged with practicing dark magic. We wondered if Otto had actually somehow learned the truth about grandpa.

What was left of Uncle Otto's face looked suprised.

One step at a time, in a process of slow incrementation, a corruption was creeping into the souls of the Spider-Folk. This was how that sort of thing happens. Our human half's family - and all of the Spider-Folk - were being slowly and steadily twisted into something coldly different.

We knew what the next step would be. Soon those deemed to be accomplices would be chained below the poles. They would languish there for weeks or months, barely surviving on scraps surreptiously thrown to them by frightened passersby, and licking rainwater from the gutters.

But eventually winter would come.

Once that become the new normal, instead of just accomplices chained out to die, family members of the executed would also take their appointed place. First the men, then eventually the women and children.

Our human half's family, his clan, didn't know what was truly happening. Even the vaunted senses of the Spider-Folk, their ability to sense danger, were being deceived. They didn't know what had taken over the once beloved, now feared, clan-elder of the Parker family.

"Grampa" wasn't himself anymore. Instead, he was a tainted and distorted version of us.

He was the offspring of my inhuman half.

Oh, child, we are here and we know who you are. It is time this ended.

Carnage, we are coming for you.