The Fallen 4 (7 page)

“Be thorough,”
their leader had said.
“Because evil has the nasty habit of sneaking up and biting you in the ass.”

Cameron actually turned around then, to be sure that nothing was following him. The tunnel appeared clear, and he again directed his attention to the train in front of him.

Wanting to be thorough, the Nephilim wished away his sword and hauled himself up onto the car. Then he pushed open the rear emergency door.

He thought about what he might say to the passengers, maybe that he worked for the MTA and that they were fixing the problem. Maybe he wouldn’t say anything at all.

Cameron stepped into the car and immediately felt the disturbing sensation of webbing brush across his face. His hand shot up, wiping at what he figured were stray strands of spiderweb, but his entire hand became enmeshed in a curtain of webbing.

His brain barely had the time to register the oddness of the
situation as disgust and near panic set in. He attempted to pull the sticky threads from his hands and clothes.

Cameron hated spiderwebs, and even more so the things that spun them. He guessed that it had something to do with some long-hidden childhood trauma. Maybe he’d been bitten by a spider, or one on the ceiling of his room had scared him as a baby; he couldn’t remember.

All he knew was that spiders gave him the creeps, and that was pretty much that.

Cameron half expected the train occupants to be busting a gut over his squeamish reaction, but the train remained eerily silent. Not a single person in the train car looked in his direction.

In fact, they all appeared to be asleep.

It was more reflex than anything else, and he hoped that he wouldn’t regret the act, but a sword ignited in his hand, illuminating more than the dim emergency lights could.

What he saw made him want to gag.

There was no doubt that the passengers were dead.

Their bodies were wrapped from head to toe in the thick webbing. What little of them that Cameron could see appeared withered—dried—as if mummified.

He had to restrain the part of him that wanted to run from the train in total panic. Blade out before him to light his way, Cameron slowly advanced down the aisle to investigate. The bodies were anchored to the plastic benches and metal poles with thick strands of webbing that covered the ceilings, walls, and floor.

But the answer to the most obvious and frightening question still eluded Cameron.

Where are the spiders?

The divine light of the sword cut through every deep, dark patch of the train, but there wasn’t an arachnid to be found. Cameron eyed the ceiling vents, thinking that maybe they had gotten in and then climbed back out from there, but he just wasn’t sure. Moving toward the opposite end of the car to cross into the next train car, he saw a similar scenario. A cold chill ran down his spine.

He’d hoped he wasn’t too late to save these people, but much to his disappointment, he was. A spark of anger surged as he walked forward to the adjoining subway car. This was what he’d been trying to explain to Vilma. How many of these passengers would still be alive if he’d come here when he’d first seen—

An older woman sitting on a bench moved.

Cameron froze, staring. He wanted to be sure that he’d seen what he thought he’d seen. Again the body moved, rocking ever so slightly from side to side.

Maybe they weren’t all dead, Cameron considered, heading toward the woman. Despite his unease he wished away his blade, not wanting to burn the woman, and prepared to rip open her cocoon.

“Ma’am,” he said, sinking his fingers into the thick, sticky fibers. “Can you hear me? I’m going to try to help you.”

Cameron suppressed his revulsion as he grabbed the webbing with both hands and tore it away from the woman’s body. He watched for signs of movement again.

“Hello?” he said. He wiped his hands on the legs of his jeans and tentatively reached out to touch her arm.

Cameron gasped as her skin gave way beneath his fingertips. The woman’s arm crumbled like ancient paper. He yanked back his hand. How was it that he’d seen her move? His mind raced with questions. There was no way that she could have been alive at all.

And then he saw it again, a movement beneath the woman’s lime-green blouse.

The angelic nature inside Cameron stirred to life.

His sword reappeared in his hand as the first of the spiders emerged from beneath the blouse. It was big, about the size of city rat, and unlike any other spider he’d ever seen. Its body was covered in thick, black hair, and a hooked claw came at the end of each of its eight limbs.

The most nightmarish thing about the spider was that it had a humanoid face: eyes, nose, and mouth.

It was the mouth that freaked him out the most, for it was open, showing off rows of razor-sharp teeth. And it screamed.

Those screams were answered by other screams, and from the periphery of his vision, Cameron saw that all the bodies around him were moving.

Or at least the creatures inside them were.

While Cameron was momentarily distracted, the spider closest to him sprang at him with a hiss. The stink of its breath made Cameron recall the aroma that he’d experienced in the tunnel when he’d first arrived.

Cameron’s blade sliced through the spider, cutting it in half before it could land upon him. Crawling out from their cocoons of desiccated flesh, the other spiders saw what Cameron had done and began to scream.

Sword at the ready, Cameron waited for the next attack. But it didn’t come. The spiders in the subway car just screamed and screamed.

Mournful wails from the cars beyond joined in, and Cameron grew more nervous.
Why aren’t they attacking? Maybe they are more afraid of me than I am of them?
he thought. He stood poised, sword at the ready, waiting for a sign.

Then he shuddered. Maybe they’re calling for reinforcements.

Cameron would have liked to slap the part of his brain that had come up with that idea, but he was too busy swearing beneath his breath and trying to keep his balance as the subway car began to shake.

The spiders’ shrieks were louder now, and that nasty thought about reinforcements was starting to look true. Something incredibly heavy was moving across the roof of the car, the impressions of its tremendous weight bending the ceiling panels above his head.

In their escalating excitement, some of the arachnids sprang from the bodies from which they had fed, seemingly no longer afraid of him. The sword of fire sizzled as it sliced through the grotesque creatures, but three managed to avoid his blade and clung to his body, tearing and biting at his shirt eager to get at his soft flesh beneath.

Cameron dropped to the floor in a roll, attempting to crush the spider on his back, while ripping off the one that was crawling toward his face. He kicked off the one eating its way through the leg of his jeans. Cameron was on his feet again in an instant, first stabbing one of the spiders and then slicing off the front limbs of another, and dismembering the third, which was trying to scuttle away beneath the plastic seats.

He was ready for just about anything, awaiting the next wave of attack, when he heard the sound of tearing metal above his head. The Nephilim warrior jumped backward with the help of his wings as the ceiling of the train car was torn away. Giant, clawed, and hair-covered limbs reached down to snatch at him.

Cameron couldn’t believe his eyes. The spiders that he’d been fighting were the largest he had ever seen, but this was the super-size equivalent. And now that he’d seen it, he knew he’d never stop having nightmares about it.

The mammoth spider shoved its front portion down into the subway car, its too human face searching for him.

“Where, oh where, have you gone, angel-meat?” it asked in
a distinctly female voice. The other, smaller spiders scrabbled from the bodies of their victims to climb up the limbs of the giant’s body.

“I’m right here,” Cameron found himself responding, waving the sword of fire to attract the monster’s attention. If he could get it into the train, the close quarters would work in his favor. “Why don’t you come and say hi.”

The thing looked at him with venomous hate, and almost lunged for him, before drawing back.

“Tricky, tricky, angel-meat,” the giant spider spoke.

“Come on. I’ll show you how tricky I can be,” Cameron taunted.

“Uttu can be tricky as well,” the monster said with a horrible chuckle, and then suddenly withdrew from the hole in the train’s ceiling.

Cameron swore beneath his breath, charging across the car and spreading his wings to fly up through the ceiling in pursuit of Uttu, the giant spider. Thick strands of webbing suddenly shot through the hole, wrapping around his body as if they were somehow alive. The more he fought, the tighter they seemed to bind him, and even when Cameron managed to cut himself away from the cords that held him, more of the sticky stuff whipped after him.

“Tricky, tricky,” he heard Uttu say from somewhere above. Then it started to laugh, along with its children. It was one of the most horrible sounds Cameron had ever heard.

The webbing grew tighter around his torso, and Cameron could feel a tug from above as the giant spider tried to extract him from the subway car. He was about to summon another blade of fire, when he remembered that the point of his mission was to kill whatever beast was threatening the subway.

He wasn’t about to kill much of anything hiding down with the corpses.

Cameron let himself be drawn up through the opening, Uttu waiting to pounce just as he emerged from the subway car. But Cameron was ready, reigniting his sword of fire to cut away the webbing that bound his hands. As he flexed the muscles in his back, causing his wings to explode, he tore the rest of the fibers away.

The huge spider wasn’t expecting that, and screamed in anger as it spun more webbing to capture him. Cameron had to move quickly, flying above the sticky cords that sought him out as he glided toward his adversary.

His skin crawled with the sight of Uttu’s back, covered with the writhing bodies of its screaming babies, and he lashed out, the divine blade cutting a burning swath across the creature’s crowded back.

Raging in pain and anger, the giant spider spun around, directing another barrage of webbing from its mouth in an attempt to pull him from the air.

Cameron angled his body so that the sticky spew missed him and connected to the tunnel wall. Sensing an opportunity,
the Nephilim reached out with his fiery weapon and ignited the spider monster’s webbing with the tip of his sword.

Just as he’d suspected, the heavenly flame began to consume the demonic fibers, racing down their length toward where they had originated.

To the still open mouth of Uttu.

There was a flash of divine fire, followed by the most horrific of screams, and Cameron could not help but feel satisfaction. Uttu’s head was engulfed in yellow flames as the giant spider raced atop the subway cars, spreading the fire.

Cameron flew above Uttu and then dropped down to deliver what he expected to be a killing blow, but just as he drew back his blade, the spider showed that it still had some fight left.

One of its clawed limbs lashed out with blinding speed, trying to slash his taut stomach.

While avoiding the flailing limb, his wing struck the stone ceiling of the subway tunnel, causing him to fly off balance and drop to the train tracks.

He landed in a tumble then and sprang up, ready for Uttu to attack, but only a few of the babies skittered across the gravel. Cameron quickly dispatched them.

But the queen spider was nowhere to be found.

“Crap,” Cameron spat, leaping into the air and onto the subway car. In the distance he saw the giant spider attempting to escape, its head still burning with divine fire as the
monster ran along the wall, and then upside down on the arched tunnel ceiling.

Cameron began to run, burning blade in hand, eager to vanquish this latest demonic threat. Taking to the air, he continued his pursuit, eyes fixed on Uttu’s monstrous shape, until he noticed that the lighting seemed a bit brighter as the tunnel angled to the right.

His heart began to hammer painfully inside his chest as he flapped his wings in an attempt to catch up to the monster and verify his suspicion.

The monster was heading for the crowded subway station platform.

*   *   *

Mallus could sense the coming of the spider before it entered the station.

Along with something else of a more heavenly nature.

Not a day had gone by when Mallus hadn’t thought of the Golden City, the offenses that he’d effected against it, and the Almighty.

All in the name of envy.

He had been first lieutenant to Lucifer Morningstar, and had believed in his commander’s mission with every fiber of his being, for the angels of Heaven had been cast aside in favor of the Almighty’s newest creations.

How humanity had repulsed Mallus then.

But that was before the fall, before the Lord of Lords cast
Lucifer and all who had fought with him in the Great War down to the earth to live amongst the very creatures who had stolen God’s affections from them.

It was the most heinous of punishments, but one that had taught Mallus the most unexpected of lessons.

Mallus shook himself from his musings as shrieks of mortal terror filled the station.

The subway patrons were in total panic as they tried to escape the loathsome beast dropping down onto the platform. Smaller versions of the spider swarmed from its back, attacking the people, whose only crime was wanting to go home after work.

Mallus knew not to become involved. A very long time ago he’d sworn to himself that his interactions with humanity would be limited, that he would not allow himself to become involved in their day-to-day existences.

Their inevitable fate would be sad enough without his forming any unnecessary emotional attachments.

He moved with the screaming patrons, heading toward the staircase that led up to the street. He was halfway across the platform when he paused, watching the spider as it flailed amongst the humans, its head burning with holy fire.