The Best Horror of the Year – Volume One

"So the only way to keep you sweet is by getting PA pissed? Where's the incentive? I'd rather cross you than her. No offence."

None taken. Nevertheless, what you are failing to recognise is that 'getting PA pissed,' as you so delicately put it, is exactly the end result I wish to achieve. It is time someone taught our so-called mayor a lesson. Pallas Athene may think she's respectable now she wears that fancy shield, but I remember when she was a snot-nosed brat burning kittens with a magnifying glass. No wonder she thought it was a step up the career ladder when she started turning tricks in the back alley of the Hyperion Casino! How she became a public servant I shall never know! All I can say is, behind that porcelain skin and regal gaze lurks the mind of a monster!

Arachne shivered, composed herself.

All of which means that I understand completely your reluctance to set yourself up in opposition to a woman even the Titans cross the street to avoid. So let me put this simply…

Arachne leaned close. The rags she wore fell away, exposing flesh like over-ripe Stilton. Instead of breasts, Arachne had a pair of twitching spi

You will use your dimensional talents to release me from my prison. In return, I will give you my protection. From your point of view, it is a calculated risk. In making your calculation, I urge you to consider the alternative.

Arachne stroked her spi

I felt a billion tiny spider eggs hose into my skull. I felt the eggs hatch. I felt Arachne's babies weave themselves into a living facsimile of my brain, each spiderling a synapse in the gestalt spider-mind. And every single thought the spider-mind had was a hot spear of pain. Then the spiderlings had babies, and the babies had more babies, and my brain swelled up until it was all that was left of me, and it was all made of spiders. But somewhere inside it was still me, and I was just one vast chattering web of pain.

Arachne pressed her spi

So, said Arachne, what is it to be? Will you risk the wrath of Pallas Athene? Or will you consign yourself to being a living host for the insane children of the spider woman?

"Do I get a third option?"

Arachne gathered up her rags and stalked into the shadows.

You have ten minutes to decide.

I wished I hadn't given my coat to the girl. That coat's got teeth. As soon as Arachne's silk hit the hem, the coat would have turned it to confetti. Still, someone had to cover her up.

But thinking about the coat gave me an idea.

I closed my eyes and tried an inter-brane trance. I'm not usually good at psychic co

At first all I could hear was the baying of the boundary wolves, forcing me back. I tried just ru

But even though my body was trapped, some piece of my mind must have slipped through. Because suddenly I could hear a familiar sound. It started faint, in the distance, then it got loud and close.

The gurgle of a coffee pot. My coffee pot.

I tried opening my eyes. But I didn't have any.

I was a coat.

I couldn't see, but I could smell…

… hot java, brewed just how I like it.

And I could touch…

… warm, soft, skin laced through with thousands of tiny ribbed carriageways. I felt a human pulse beating under pliable flesh, felt myself ride across intimate curves and bury myself in tantalising creases, felt the smooth slithering of me over a living, naked skin, which was her skin, of course: the skin of the resurrected girl.

I'm a coat, I thought.

And I was.

I let the sensations rule me. Inter-brane trances are fragile. You just have to relax. The more you immerse yourself, the stronger the link becomes. So I clung to the girl. It wasn't so bad.

And I could hear…

… their voices, Byron's and the girl's. The girl's name was Nancy. They were deep in discussion. I let my velvet lining slide over Nancy 's scarred and sensual collarbone and listened in…

"I was born on the east side," Nancy said. "I don't go back there much now. But this job came up and I knew the neighbourhood. It doesn't scare me down there, so I went."

"So what do you actually do?" said Byron.

"I work for Godiva Couriers. It's regular courier work, only I go on horseback and don't wear any clothes. I've got a licence."

"Oh. I see. Isn't that… dangerous?"

"I have several swords."

"Where do you hide them?"

"That would be telling."

"Oh. So, what happened then? When you made this delivery."

I felt Nancy shiver beneath me. "Well, I got a call to collect a package from this address on Crucifix Lane. Documents or something. The package was going all the way up to the mountain and the client wanted to make an impression. That's usually why people want to use Godiva."

"You sure do make an impression," mumbled Byron.

"Why, thank you. Anyway, I got to the address, railed my horse and knocked on the door. Nobody answered, so I pushed it open and went inside. Inside… it was odd. The building had, I don't know, maybe twelve floors. Or rather, it used to. Someone had gutted it, taken out all the floors so it was just one big space, floor to ceiling. Just a shell. It was wild, like walking into a giant's house. It was dark so I couldn't see if anyone was in there with me. So I called out. And that's when… "

"When what?"

"When something came out of the darkness and sliced me into a thousand pieces."

"Something? Or someone?"

"I don't know. But whatever it was, it was big and it had pink eyes… "

Nancy 's voice grew faint. Suddenly I couldn't feel her under me any more. I was flapping like laundry on the line. Only the line was a silk thread, reeling me in. It dragged me back between the strings, back through the boundary where the cosmic wolves howl, back to where I was hanging upside-down from a ceiling made of rats.

I had time for one thought: that golem makes a fair detective. Then I hit my body like a slam-dunk and passed out.

When I came to, Arachne was doing the spi

"All right," I said. "I'll do it. I'll get you out of here. But on one condition."

Another bargain? Is this to be our relationship, gumshoe? An ever-escalating sequence of deals and debts? Where will it end?

"It ends here and now. This is the last deal I'll ever make with you. Take it or leave it."

Arachne closed her rags over her spi

What is it you want?

"The girl."

The spider woman changed. Suddenly she wasn't a crone any more. She straightened up and smoothed out. Got beautiful. Her rags became a tiny red dress so tight it showed her pores. She looked like a loaded gun in a crimson holster.