The Spider Pt. 16

Steven Longstreet stood in the cold darkness, his back to the river. He reached into his coat pocket, and felt the reassuring weight of his pistol. That gave him some comfort, for a moment, anyway.

Wrong pocket.

He reached into his other pocket, and found what he really was looking for, and he pulled his flask out and took a deep drink. The liquor burned on the way down, he didn't notice it.

He was pretty sure that this was his last night on earth, and it was pretty clear that he wasn't going to be dying quietly in his sleep.

I'll be God-damned if I'm going to die sober, he thought to himself.

He wasn't sure when Red Eyes would come to cull him. But he knew that the time had run out. The Detective had only given Steven forty-eight hours to live unless Steven gave him the information about how the Spider could be found. Steven hadn't.

Steven looked at his watch for the millionth time. The forty-eight hours was definitely up. It was time for him to die.

He turned and watched the river for a moment, looked at the lights from the buildings glistening on the water. It was beautiful. It always had been. And long after the fights, and the struggles, and the love and the evil all played themselves out, the river would still be running to the ocean. Same as it always had, same as it always would, rolling past all of it.

Steven heard the crunch of a boot on gravel behind him.

He turned around.

"Hello, Detective," he said. "You're looking... different."

"Yes," the Detective said, stepping into the light.

The Detective had changed in the short time since Steven had seen him last. The Detective looked... longer, stretched out in some way. He was taller than he had seemed at the bar, now looking about seven feet tall. Maybe more. His arms hung well past the sleeves of his slate gray sports coat, the fingers distended, the hands grotesquely long and distorted. His head bobbed on his elongated neck, almost as if it was too heavy for the long and slender neck to support.

The Detective's eyes... that was the more disturbing part. Steven looked into them briefly, shuddered, looked away. If the person standing in front of Steven was still human, or ever had been, the eyes gave no indication of that. All black, no pupil, no iris. Just solid black orbs revealing nothing in hollowed out sockets.

"You are probably referring to my appearance," the Detective went on. "I'm in a bit of a situation... between things, you might say. I probably won't explain it in too much detail, but I'm neither... here nor there, I suppose."

"OK."

"That's not very important, though. I am here to kill you, I imagine. I don't think you are going to tell me what I need to know, are you? Where I can find the Spider?"

"No."

The Detective shrugged, and dropped to one knee.

"That's what I expected," he said, and began dragging one of his long, slender fingers into the pavement at his feet. As he did so, red light began to burst from the ground as the Detective traced a circular shape.

"I don't need to tell you that it's useless to run, do I, Steven?"

Steven sighed, and reached into his pocket.

"No," he said. "I know there's no point to running, but I still might anyway."

The Detective's head snapped up to look at Steven. Something that might once have been a smile broke across the Detective's face.

"That's up to you. It doesn't make any difference. It'll find you, it'll kill you, it'll drain you and it'll eat your very soul. That's what it does. That's all it does."

The Detective stood back from the glowing circle, and Steven watched steam rise from it. He heard a snap, heard a growl, low, inhuman.

Steven took a step backwards, involuntarily, then another. He could feel the river lapping up against his shoes by the time he stopped himself.

The smell. He watched as a clawed hand reached its way out of the hole, then another, and he watched as slowly, the killing machine that was Red Eyes crawled out of it.

The Detective stepped back into shadows.

Red Eyes crawled out of the hole, slowly, in no hurry. It tasted the air with its tongue, it flicked its long tail, about as it took in its surroundings, taking it in, the barbed hook as the end of the tail stabbing as the very night itself.

Steven took one last drink, and threw his flask into the river. He reached into his pocket again, and pulled out his pistol. He pointed it with unsteady hands at the creature.

Red Eyes turned its monstrous head to face Steven, its lips curled open, revealing razor sharp fangs, dripping. The tail slowly came to rise above the creature's head, the barb pointing directly at Steven.

"Fuck," Steven said, and fired his pistol, once, twice, a third time.

Nothing. The creature flicked its tail back and forth, as if annoyed. If any of the bullets had hit Red Eyes, there was no way to tell.

Steven forced himself to put his gun back in his pocket. He needed to save a bullet for himself.

"You died for nothing, Steven," the Detective's voice carried in the wind. "I'll still find her. I'll find her, and when I do, I'll have more power than anything you can imagine."

Red Eyes stepped closer, the barbed tail bobbing, lashing, venom dripping from the end of it.

Steven stepped into the river, up to his knees now. The cold black water swirled around him. He wished it would carry him away.

The night sky split with a deafening sound, Steven put his hands over his ears at the pain. Red Eyes shrieked at the intrusion, spreading its wings.

The Power landed into the river with a splash, she rose from her knee and regarded the creature, her cape fluttering in the wind.

"There you are," she whispered. "Finally."

Red Eyes shrieked again, and raised to its full height.

The night cracked open again as the Power launched faster than sound itself into the creature, landing a stunning blow. Red Eyes flew backwards, into a street lamp. The lamp bent over from the force of the creature hitting it, Red Eyes crumpled into a heap of claw and wing.

But only for a moment. The creature leapt to its feet, and launched itself into the night sky.

The Power flew into the sky after it, faster than Red Eyes. She made her way to the creature. Red Eyes lashed out its barbed tail at the heroine, its cruel barb looking to inject its poison deep into the woman.

The Power caught the tail, however, and spun Red Eyes around in the night sky by it, using the tail to throw the creature down into the pavement below.

Red Eyes landed with a sickening thump, and laid still.

Well, all right, Steven thought to himself.

But the creature struggled to its feet as the Power landed on the ground again. The creature spread its wings, and shrieked in pain.

Steven could see that one of the wings had been broken.

I might make it out of this alive.

Red Eyes turned and looked at Steven, narrowing the blood red pupils deep within its skull as it regarded the man still standing in the river. The animal started to walk towards Steven, limping slightly.

Or maybe not.

Steven took a couple of steps backwards into the river. The creature leapt towards the man, splashing into the water close to him. Red Eyes lashed out its poison tail, Steven jumped at the last possible second as the barbed tip sliced into the water where he had stood only a moment before.

When he got to his feet, he saw the Power had engaged Red Eyes again. She landed another blow to the creature, this time, however, Red Eyes was prepared for her and lowered its bony head into the blow. Steven heard the Power cry out, saw her step back holding her hand.

Red Eyes lashed out with its clawed hands, tearing towards the Power. She was too fast for it, and flew out of the creature's range, flying back in to deliver another blow at the creature's less armored midsection. Red Eyes doubled over in pain, shrieking its inhuman cry into the night.

But this time the creature was fast enough, and caught the heroine around the waist. She struggled to fly free, but was not strong enough.

Steven stepped further backwards into the cold water. He pulled his pistol out of his pocket again, and pointed it towards the struggling heroine and the monster. He wasn't sure if he could risk a shot and maybe hit the Power.

Red Eyes tightened its claws into the heroine, she grunted at the pain. She threw a flurry of blows into the creature's face, smashing into its jaw, snapping its head back and forth. The creature fell to a knee in the cold, black water of the river.

Still the Power rained blows down onto Red Eyes. She stood tall and strong in the water, feeling the animal's grip on her weakening. Red Eyes screamed in pain, blood running from its jaw as the heroine continued to beat it.

Steven sighed. He lowered his weapon. He thought about his bed, and the Spider, and maybe she would join him in it again once this was all over. Maybe I'll make it back there after all.

"We still have some business, Steven," a cold voice said from behind him.

Steven spun around in the river, firing his gun wildly.

The Power landed one last blow into Red Eyes, and the creature fell to the shallow water, broken, defeated.

The heroine heard the shot, and turned around, breathing hard. She saw the Detective standing in the water, one of his inhuman hands wrapped around Steven's throat, lifting the man from the water, the other hand tossing the pistol into the river.

"Steven!" the heroine yelled out.

Red Eyes lashed out its tail one last time. The creature caught the heroine with its poisoned barb, puncturing the heroine's flesh, deep into her just below her rib cage. She screamed at the pain, landing a flurry of blows onto the defeated creature, pulling the poisoned stinger from her body.

She could feel the venom coursing through her.

The Power threw one last blow at Red Eyes, smashing the creature's jaw and teeth. She watched as its lifeless body collapsed into the cool and shallow water, looked on as the last hateful red flickered out forever in the animal's eyes.

The Power fell to her knees in the water. She vomited, her chest heaving as she struggled to catch her breath. She pulled her hand away from the wound the creature's barbed tail had made, saw her hand slick with her blood.

"You are going to die," the Detective said, stepping out of the shallows. The Power watched the inhuman man as he dragged Steven's lifeless body onto the beach, Steven's lifeless eyes looking for one last time at the City he loved, keeping it forever in his gaze.

"You should have just told me," the Detective said to the lifeless man as he lowered Steven to the ground, not ungently.

The Detective stepped towards the Power. She struggled to get up from her knees, found she could not. She attempted to speak, and found that her tongue was swollen in her mouth, unable to make a sound. Her breathing was fast and shallow, her eyes growing dim.

"Steven was lucky, though," the Detective went on. "He was very fortunate that I killed him, and not Red Eyes. I can only kill him like a man would, if that's what I am anymore. But I can't eat his soul, so wherever that is, it's safe."

The Detective dropped down to a knee, and started drawing his flaming red lines into the paved ground.

"But you will die in great pain. Ordinarily, a creature like Red Eyes would leave you as food for its offspring, your paralysis is already almost complete. You would sit with your eyes open in horror as you were consumed slowly, bite by bite. I've seen it. It's horrifying."

The Power collapsed into the water, breathing heavily, raggedly, her blood draining off in the river, towards the sea. The Detective took a couple of long steps towards the heroine as she lay gasping for breath in the shallows.

She felt her hair being gathered up by long fingers, felt herself being dragged out of the river, towards the burning hole the Detective had written into the pavement.

"I'm going to take you to my new home and watch you die," the Detective told the heroine as he dragged her. "That will amuse me, and make me forget about you killing my pet somewhat. It wasn't easy for me to get Red Eyes, and I'm going to miss it."

The Detective dragged the heroine over to the burning hole, and dropped her roughly next to it. She looked into the hole with unblinking eyes.

What she saw in the burning hole was a gateway into madness. The Power laid next to the gateway, struggling to breathe, struggling to make her eyelids blink to clear away the tears. Tremors wracked her body as her synapses fired commands to her arms and legs that could no longer be executed properly.

As she looked into the hole, it seemed that she was looking down into a twisted world of pain and horror, from a great height, high above black clouds. The world smelled of shit and fear, bursts of red lightning split the black clouds as torrents of stinking rain swirled around in tornadic circles. The Power laid next to the gateway, her breath shallow, terrified of what lay below her in a world not made for human beings.

The Detective put his foot on the Power's back. Her eyes grew wide, and pleading. With the last of her strength, she turned her eyes to meet his black and inhuman orbs.

Please don't do this, her eyes tried to say, since her lips and voice were no longer under her control.

He turned and looked at his dead Red Eyes, for a moment, with what might have been some remnant of remorse or affection. The Detective shook his head at the loss.

He shoved the Power into the gateway with his foot.

The Detective looked around the quiet riverbank, looked at Steven's lifeless body, at the crumpled mass that was Red Eyes. The Detective stepped into the hole, closed it behind him.

The night fell quiet again, the moon shining down for one last time on Steven Longstreet, who carried the secrets of the City into the next world with him.