Tangled Webs (23 page)

She called in the kit of healing supplies, swearing silently when she heard the gong. Taking the small pair of scissors from the kit, she cut off both sleeves of her shirt, then cut one sleeve in half. The jacket and shirt were hung on the bathroom doorknob. The healing kit was placed on the toilet lid.

She turned on the water in the sink and soaked one piece of cloth. No hot water, and she wasn’t going to use Craft for an indulgence, so she gritted her teeth against the shock of cold water on her skin as she dropped the protective shield and washed off the blood.

Up on tiptoes again to see the wounds as she cleaned that area.

Not too bad, she decided after a moment. A double swipe along her ribs from the bitch’s nails. Deep enough that the wounds did need to be cleaned and sealed, but…

Dropping down again, Surreal frowned at her reflection. Why a double swipe? Why didn’t the Black Widow hit her with all four nails,
especially
the ring finger that had the snake tooth and the venom sac under the normal nail?

“Not there,” Surreal whispered, pressing the wet cloth against the wounds.

Last year, when Hekatah had captured Saetan and held him hostage, she had cut off the little finger of his left hand and sent it to Jaenelle.

Funny how the eyes stopped seeing the loss. Saetan no longer wore the Steward’s ring on his left hand, so there was nothing to call attention to the missing finger. If someone asked anyone in the family about it, she’d bet they’d have to think for a minute to remember it was gone.

The Black Widow had been missing the little finger and ring finger on her right hand. That was why there was only the double stripe and no venom.

A lucky break for her, but she wondered if the loss had come before or after the Widow had worked on this house.

Surreal opened the jar of cleansing cream and dabbed the cream on the wounds. That would take care of ordinary infections until a Healer could take a look at the wounds. Then she took out a thin package the size of her palm and carefully peeled back one layer of paper. The spider-silk gauze was used by Healers in Kaeleer when they needed to close a small wound and didn’t have time for a full healing or there was a reason to let the wound heal at its own pace. The silk was woven into a small web, and the strands helped keep the wound closed.

She pressed the spider silk against her side and didn’t peel off the other piece of paper, using it as a bandage to absorb some of the blood.

Having done what she could, she closed up the healing kit, then reconsidered. She took out the scissors and slipped them into her trouser pocket. Even a small weapon was better than no weapon.

She was just about to create the protective shield when she looked at the toilet—and swore.

“Do whatever you can
before
you shield,” she muttered. Sure, Lucivar had shown her a “shield with access,” but it worked a lot better for someone who peed out of a pipe.

Not that she’d mentioned
that
to Lucivar.

She used the poker to lift the lid and seat. No nasty surprises, thank the Darkness, other than the kind that would give a hearth witch bad dreams.

But as she squatted over the toilet bowl, she thought she heard a sound coming from the bathtub drain. A funny sound. Like fingernail clippings being shaken inside a metal pipe.

It didn’t take long to find the secret door. In fact, finding it seemed a little too easy.

Rainier lengthened the wick on the oil lamp to give himself better light.

Maybe it wasn’t meant to be a secret door, just one that was supposed to blend in with the room. All he could see was a short hallway that ended in another door, and shelving on the right-hand side.

Folded blankets. Decorated paperboard boxes that women used to store hats and gloves or other small items that were used occasionally. Linens. Probably a mutual storage area for the bedrooms on either side.

He didn’t see anything sinister, didn’t hear anything suspect. Of course, if the whole house was riddled with aural shields that kept people from hearing one another, not hearing anything wasn’t actually comforting.

Linens.

He set the poker aside. Planting his right foot in the room they were in, he set his left foot in the storage room.

Something creaked. Might have been the floorboard under his foot. Might have been the door. But something creaked.

Rainier stepped back and studied the door.

Traps and games and illusions. The last time a storage room door was opened, a boy died.

“Kester,” Rainier said. “You and the other two boys brace yourself against this door and hold it open.”

While he waited for them to follow orders, he created a tight shield around himself, barely a finger width above his skin. Three openings in the shield—one for taking in sustenance, the other two for eliminating waste. Lucivar had taught him and the other boyos that particular trick, and they’d all gotten bruised enough times from Lucivar’s surprise attacks to have learned that lesson very well.

Normally a tight shield was a subtle protection, since no one could know for certain it was there unless a person touched you. But…

Somewhere in the house, a gong sounded.

In this damn house, there was nothing subtle about using Craft.

He glanced at the boys and nodded, satisfied that he’d have plenty of warning if the door tried to shut. Then he stepped into the storage room, raising the lamp high.

Pillowcases.

“Girls,” he called. “Come to the doorway.”

He handed Sage the pillowcases, then gave Dayle a box of tapered candles and a globed candleholder. The candleholder would be easier to carry and shield the flame.

Stepping back into the room where the children waited, he set the lamp down near the poker. Taking the pillowcases from Sage, he shook them out to be sure there weren’t any surprises hidden in them. Then he stripped the metal gauntlets off Anax’s hands and took a good look at them before he dropped them into one of the pillowcases. Too small for his hand, but they weren’t made for a child, so they would probably fit Surreal or Kester.

At this point, any weapon they could carry was a good weapon.

He fitted one candle into the holder and created a steady flame of witchfire to burn on the wick—and tried not to wince when the gong sounded.

“Bring that other candle over here,” he said.

“It’s almost gone,” Henn said, handing him the candle in the cup.

Rainier stared at the candle. Almost gone. The bottom of the cup was filled with softened wax.

How long since they’d left the kitchen? Not long enough for a candle to burn down that much.

“Mother Night,” he muttered. “Line up.” He moved his hand to indicate a line in front of him.

When the children were lined up, he created a tight shield around each of them, leaving the openings for sustenance and waste.

“What did you do?” Kester asked.

“Created a shield around each of you,” Rainier replied, trying to ignore the sound of the gong echoing in his mind. He lit a candle from the old one, then replaced the old one with the new.

“It won’t stop something from taking you, but it will keep you from being wounded or killed.”

“Why didn’t you do that before?” Kester demanded.

He put the box of candles and the second pillowcase in the one he was using for a sack. After closing his left fist around the top of the case, he hooked his finger into the loop on the candleholder. “Sage, you carry that other candle. Kester and Henn, you take the lamps.”

He walked back to the storage room door and picked up the poker in his right hand.

“Hey!” Kester shouted. “I’m asking you!”

“It takes Craft to create those shields. One use of Craft for each shield. And every time Craft is used, a way out of this place is closed off.”

The boy didn’t understand—or didn’t want to understand.

“Why didn’t you make these shields before Trist and Ginger got killed?” Kester said.

Because I thought we had a chance of getting out.

Rainier didn’t answer. He just walked into the storage room.

Daemon sat at a round table in Sylvia’s family parlor and stared at the piece of paper in front of him. He made hatch marks on the paper just to give himself time to…Not think, exactly. Just time to assure himself that he was maintaining the correct understanding-but-disapproving expression. Then he looked at Mikal, who sat opposite him. He didn’t dare look at Sylvia, who was standing a full step back and to the right of her son’s chair. He. Did not. Dare.

“Are these all the suggestions you can remember giving Tersa?” Daemon asked. These were bad enough. Skeleton mice that would scurry across a room, their little bones tippy-tapping on the floor. Big spiders that might drop from the ceiling or be hiding in a drawer. And the mousie in the glass.

“There was the eyeballs in the grapes,” Mikal said hesitantly.

“The—” A quick glance at Sylvia. Oh, he should have insisted on talking to the boy alone. This was probably a lot more than a mother wanted to know about the workings of her male offspring’s mind.

“The spell isn’t triggered until someone starts eating the grapes.” Mikal’s voice held an excited enthusiasm. Apparently, since he couldn’t see her, he’d forgotten about his mother being in the room. “Then some of the grape skins split and the illusion spell makes it look like there are eyes, all bloodshot and oozy.”

Boyo, you may have just ruined your chances of ever seeing another grape in this house,
Daemon thought.

“Did you
see
the mouse in the glass?” Mikal asked. “That one was—”

A growl, the voice barely recognizable as female.

Mikal hunched his shoulders and wisely offered no opinion about the mousie in the glass.

“I think I have everything I need,” Daemon said. “Thank you, Mikal.”

Mikal slid off his chair. Then he hesitated, leaned across the table, and said in a loud whisper, “Did Tersa tell you about the beetles?”

Surreal held her hands under the water running from the faucet, cleaning them as well as she could. Then she cupped her hands to fill them with water and took a cautious sip. No obvious foulness. Of course, if the water supply had poison or drugs dumped into it, she may have already done enough damage to kill herself.

That being the case, she drank another mouthful of water before turning off the taps.

She rubbed her wet hands over her face, trying to shake off the fatigue.

Shouldn’t be this tired
, she thought as she dried her face and hands on her shirt.
Shouldn’t be this tired.

She created a tight shield-with-access around her body and tried not to think about another exit closing because she had used Craft.

Then she heard it again. That funny little rattle coming from the bathtub drain.

With one hand resting on the sink, she turned toward the tub, wincing when the move tugged at her wound.

A little black beetle crawled out of the drain. It hustled toward the other end of the tub, making its little beetle noises.

It’s just one,
she thought as she tried to get her breathing under control.
It’s just one, and it can’t get out of the tub.

A movement caught her eye.

Another little black beetle climbed out of the drain.

And another. And another.

Hell’s fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful.

She could put her hands on a body covered in maggots. She could cut up a man using nothing but a dull ax. She could skin a man and not shiver. She could scoop up a head that had been ripped off by a pissed-off cat and dump the damn thing in a bucket while the warriors around her wouldn’t even touch it.

But she didn’t like beetles. Didn’t like the look of them, didn’t like the clacking sound of their bodies. And especially didn’t like the crunch they made when you stepped on them.
That
sound always made her stomach drop and filled her knees with jelly.

Her little secret. Everyone was entitled to one or two irrational fears.

Rattle. Rattle rattle rattle.

She watched them swell as they filled the tub, more and more of them coming out of the drain. Watched them swell, bigger and bigger, until they were the length of her palm and almost as wide. Bigger and bigger until…

POP! POP POP POP!

They burst. Their shells split down the middle and…

A sensation. On her hand. A light sensation, since it was against the shield and not her skin.

She looked at the hand resting on the sink. It was covered by a beetle.

Just one beetle.

She flung her hand up, sending the beetle flying through the air. And she
screamed.

That piercing scream.

What in the name of Hell could make
Surreal
scream like that?

Rainier flung open the door at the other end of the storage room and rushed into an empty room similar to the one he’d just left.

“Surreal!”

He ran across the room, yanked open the door, and charged into the hallway just as Surreal rushed out of another room. He dropped the poker and grabbed for her, only realizing when he felt a shield hitting a shield that she wasn’t wearing anything above her waist except a brassiere and her Gray Jewel.

“Surreal!”

“Be—be—be—”

He shoved the candle and pillowcase into her shaking hands, grabbed the poker, and strode into the room, ready to do battle with whatever had scared the shit out of her.

And found himself staring at a bathtub full of huge, split beetles.

“Be-be-beetles.”

Relief made him giddy for a moment. Or maybe the giddiness was caused by his yanking himself back from the killing edge.

He glanced over his shoulder and fought not to grin. Damn things really must have startled her.

“Do you think they’re edible?” he asked. The beetles were the size of a small lobster tail, and the meat looked like cooked lobster that had been pulled out of a split shell.

“Wh-what? That’s not meat; that’s exploded bug guts.”

Rainier watched the beetles change back into little beetles that went scurrying down the drain. Nothing but an illusion spell. And most likely, even the little beetles were an illusion because they’d have to come out of the drain at the proper time. Since there wasn’t much about dealing with blood and guts that usually threw Surreal off stride, it was his duty as a friend to tease her about getting excited over a bug.