Silk

5.

Daria ran all the way across the street, across the wide parking lot, never more than a few steps behind Keith and her heart banging away like it meant to kill her. She screamed out his name one time, a wasted curse or warning, but the wind was growing stronger, raw and living without flesh or bone, and it had snatched her voice away in its icy fingers. And by the time she caught up with him, it was already too late to stay out of the bad shit going down around the rusty-guts Toyota, had probably been too late all along.

Keith had seized one of the bubbas by the collar of his jacket and was towing him backwards, away from the car. The guy backpedaled and flailed the air with his arms, mad pinwheeling arms, spilled the syrupy dark contents of the cup he was holding and lost his balance anyway, landed on his ass. His face was livid red, competing startled and pissed and embarrassed hues of scarlet, and when he started to get up, Daria kicked him in the ribs and he sat back down.

She looked up and there was Spyder, still sitting on the hood of her car and one of the guys bending down over her. Both her arms were locked firmly about his neck, her tattooed hands shimmering oily in the mercury-vapor light. Her mouth was pressed viciously against his left cheek, grinding; it looked like she was kissing him.

“Keith, wait a goddamn minute…”

But he’d already shoved the second bubba out of the way, grabbed the one leaning over Spyder by one broad shoulder and yanked hard; Spyder let go, and the guy stumbled, almost fell as he spun around to face Keith, clutching his jaw. Blood oozed black and wet from between his fingers, rouged Spyder’s chin and gri

“She bit me!” he squawked, his face going sickly pale in the yellow parking lot glare. “The dyke bit my fuckin’ face!”

“Get out of here, man,” Keith growled, tightening his grip on the bat, testing its familiar weight like he was stepping up to the plate for a fastball.

“Fuck you, buddy. She bit a hole in my face.”

“And I’m go

Daria moved in closer to Keith, nerves sizzling like bad wiring behind old walls, but she kept her eyes on the guy on the ground and the one Keith had pushed aside, the one holding a liquor bottle wrapped conspicuously in a brown paper bag.

“Oh yeah,” she whispered. “This is some mighty nice shit you’ve gotten us in tonight, Keith. Extra special shitty.”

Sudden footsteps, heavy and coming up fast behind them, but she didn’t have to turn around to know they belonged to Mort. A second more and he was standing next to her, wrapping her in his welcome reek of drummer-sweat.

“Tony, the bitch chewed up my face!”

“Don’t worry, Digger,” said the bubba with the liquor bottle, his eyes locked firmly on Keith’s bat. “We’re go

“Last chance, brother,” Keith said, smiling as he spoke, and Daria knew that he’d be disappointed if the guy did back down now, the days of empty black rage that would follow. She braced herself, glad for the weight of the tire iron, gladder for Mort at her side.

“Last chance.”

“Screw you, fucker. The bitch probably gave me fuckin’ AIDS-”

Spyder shrieked, a piercing and guttural cry like night birds or barbarian soldiers, rocked back and drove the heels of both her boots into Digger’s kidneys, pushing him stumbling towards Keith. The redneck howled, fresh pain and surprise, and threw a desperate, sloppy right at Keith’s head; Keith ducked the blow effortlessly, sidestepped and swung his silver bat, co

Bubba Tony took a single, hesitant step in Keith’s direction, and Daria heard the steel-soft click of Mort’s knife, the big folding lockblade he carried for cutting electrical tape and splicing cable. Tony saw the knife and stopped, free hand disappearing into his jacket, returning a second later with a snubby little handgun.

“Screw this,” he said and aimed the.32 at Keith with one unsteady hand. “Screw all this shit.”

The car coughed suddenly awake then, whined and hacking roar from its reluctant engine, and Daria noticed Byron Langly for the first time, crouched behind the steering wheel, bright panic glittering in his eyes as he tried to wrestle the car into first gear. The Celica lurched forward, and Spyder groped frantically for handholds that weren’t there, then pitched sideways into the windshield. Bubba Tony yelped, tried too late to jump clear before he was knocked sprawling to the ground. His bottle smashed loudly against the asphalt and the gun skittered out of reach, spi

Spyder managed to hang on a second or two longer, hands spread flat for traction against smooth metal and smoother glass. Then the car bounced violently over a speed bump and she was tossed clear, rolled like a stuntman in a TV cop show. The Celica squealed and screeched out of the parking lot, fishtailing and burning precious rubber from bald tires, missing the van by inches.

And nothing else for a long moment, then, time like caramel and cooling wax, nothing but Digger sobbing incoherent threats and curses, and the sound of Spyder’s Toyota, the flight of the shrikes, fading into the distance.

“Jesus,” whispered Mort, and Daria realized that she’d been holding her breath, breathed out and inhaled deeply, and the air tasted like car exhaust and spilled whiskey.

The sound that tore itself from Spyder’s mouth dragged Robin immediately back down to the dreams, the creeping things that had followed her back from the peyote, up from the pit of Spyder’s basement. The angry screech of denied retribution, raging shadows and nightshade teeth, and she covered her ears, squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting any more of this, not understanding how everything had gone so wrong so fast.

“Open your door, Byron,” Walter said. “We gotta help her.” And when Byron didn’t move, didn’t say a word, Walter kicked the back of his seat. “I said open the goddamn door!”

Robin was busy trying to make safe pictures in the imperfect darkness behind her eyelids, trying not to believe that one of those Neanderthal fucks was the same Tony Falleta that she’d happily let maul and screw her once upon a time, the same asshole that had tried to rape her the night Spyder and Byron and Walter had taken her home with them. She tried to see herself back inside Dr. Jekyll’s, making fun of the wa

“Byron, open the fucking door!”

The words that Spyder knew that had made sense of all her terrors, whispered like a private talisman in her ear, and the warm tangle of sheets and fuzzy blankets.

“Open the fucking door!”

“Don’t you see it?” and Byron had sounded so small and alone, so far away, that she’d had to open her eyes.

“Can’t you see?”

And she did see it, the blackness unfolding itself from inside Spyder like her body was only a shoddy cocoon, the needle-tipped legs opening, stretching wide as the night, wide as the boundless emptiness that Robin had summoned to poison them all.

And then she saw the gun in Tony’s shaking, coward’s hand, and Byron started the car.

The scream from the parking lot had left a gooseflesh rash on Niki’s arms and Theo was swearing, trying to get the van to start. Keith had left the van idling, but Theo had killed the motor when she’d shifted out of neutral and had forgotten to keep her foot pressed firmly on the clutch.