Silk

“We’re in enough trouble already without breaking into Spyder’s house.”

“It wouldn’t be breaking in,” Byron said. “Robin has a key. You know she has a key, Walter,” and without asking permission, he grabbed for her purse, chrome cut and bolted into a tiny coffin with a handle and latch and a purple velvet ankh on the lid; she let him take it, let him in.

“We have to protect the dream catcher,” Byron said as he dug through the junk in her purse, dumping everything out on the table, and there was her key ring, more goth kitsch, a plastic spine and pelvis.

“I’m sorry,” Walter said and left his mouth open like there was more, but he couldn’t find the words.

“She used your hair, too,” Robin said, but now she was looking at the storm again, frantic blur, falling ice white sky, but not at Walter or the mess of her things Byron had spilled on the table. If they didn’t leave soon, they’d be spending the night in the diner or walking.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, no more meaning than the first time, a little more regret, and she could hear the bright jingle of her keys, Byron holding them up for Walter like something he’d be helpless to refuse.

“I’m going back,” he said. “Maybe I can explain-”

“Then to hell with you,” and Byron picked up one of the glasses of ice water the waitress had set down in front of them, obligatory courtesy, never mind the weather, and dashed it in Walter’s face. Walter gasped at the cold, the surprise, and Robin still looked at the snow, the softening shadows between the cars, perfect shadow canvas.

“I’m sorry,” Walter said, last time, third time the charm, and slid out of the booth, a dripping pocket-wrinkled dollar dropped on the table for his coffee. “Please be careful,” he said. “Please.”

“Fuck off,” Byron hissed, and then Walter was gone, the diner door jangling shut like a phantom cow, and they sat very alone in the booth, each waiting for the other to speak, waiting for whatever came next.

4.

“Before the World, there was a war in Heaven,” and then Spyder had stopped, had gripped Robin’s hand tighter and looked into all their eyes at once. Three pairs to her one, bright six to her pale two.

They’d all come back to her, after staying away for days and days, back to the house, with their nightmares and the lanky things they thought they saw during the day tagging along behind. Robin and Byron had sobbed out every detail, had told her all the things about the basement that at first they’d kept back, the burning things that Preacher Man had said. Walter had sat apart from them at the kitchen table, looking nervously from window to nightblack window. And Spyder, quietly watching them and listening and watching too the secret, jagged places inside herself.

She hadn’t told them the truth, or what she’d suspected might be the truth. Instead, she had held her lover’s hand hard so Robin’s fingertips had gone white, and she’d given them a lie so perfect and pretty she’d have died to make it true. Had prayed to the darkness in her head that the words would be enough to save them, to bring them all the way back to her.

The way she’d always kept herself alive.

“And after the angels had fallen,” she’d said, “there were a few who hid themselves where the World would be. And they were made into the World, stitched into the fabric so tight that it took them a million or a billion years to find their way out again. They slipped out without God seeing them, when volcanoes erupted or the rocks wore away into canyons or when caverns fell in and made sinkholes.

“But they knew that God was still looking for them, because they’d stolen things from Heaven, things they didn’t think could ever be trusted to Him again. And they’d hidden them deep inside the earth during their captivity, had found-”

“This is total bullshit,” Walter had whispered, watching the bushes that pressed themselves against screen and glass, switching twigs and restless green leaves.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” and Robin had whirled around at him, spitting the words out between teeth clenched and lips snarled back, rabid, furious warning that she had to hear what was being said and she might hurt him if he pissed Spyder off and she quit talking.

But Spyder had only pulled her closer, Robin and the kitchen chair scrunk across the old linoleum, fresh scuff marks on the checkerboard squares, and she’d pressed Robin’s tear-slicked face against her chest, hadn’t even looked at Walter.

“They’d stolen important things,” she said. “Very important things. Treasures.

“They thought they’d put them places that even He would never find them. But they were wrong, and He sent His lieutenants and angel captains down to bring them back. And to kill the thieves.”

Outside, something had padded quickly by, hurried feet below the window’s sill, and Walter had jumped, wiped sweat from his forehead. “Goddamn dogs,” he’d said. “Doesn’t anyone around here keep their fucking dog on a leash?”

Spyder had looked up at the window for a moment, and then she’d continued.

“Some of the exiled angels, although they weren’t really angels anymore because God had taken away their wings and made them all mortal, mortal enough that they’d grow old and finally die someday, some of them got away and took a few of the treasures with them, spent thousands and thousands of years ru

“That’s just the stuff I told you,” Walter said, almost as much contempt now as fear, cheated, lost emotion like whiskey stink on his voice. “The stuff from that fucking book that Robin told me to read. You’re not even making this up yourself.”

And Byron had lunged at him, reached across the table, knocking over everything, ketchup bottle and hot pepper sauce and a dusty dry vase of dead roses. Had seized Walter by the collar of his Misfits T-shirt and slammed him down hard against the metal tabletop, held his head pressed down with both hands while the red bottle of ketchup rolled over the edge and broke on the floor.

“It doesn’t matter,” Byron said, loud and male and not sounding much like anyone he’d ever been before. Each syllable a lead weight from his lips. “It doesn’t fucking matter where she knows it from,” and then he’d smacked Walter’s head against the table again.

“Byron, turn him loose, now,” and when she’d said that, Byron had looked at Spyder like he’d forgotten precisely who she was.

“Make him shut up,” he said.

“He’s not go

And he had, had slowly let Walter stand up, Walter almost a foot taller than Byron, but the blood ru

“Don’t stop,” Robin whispered, desperation like dirty oil, and “Please don’t stop, Spyder.”

She’d waited only as long as it took for Byron to sink back into his own chair, only as long as she dared.

“Please…” Robin said.

“The only part of the treasure left was a stone,” and a pause then, maybe a sort of challenge to Walter, but he’d been watching the windows again, his own blood in his hands.

“A beautiful blue-gray stone full of God’s most beautiful and terrible secrets. And they knew that they’d been wrong, that there was no way for them to hide themselves or the stone much longer. Instead, they found a way to take it apart and put it back together again inside themselves. But they knew that still wasn’t enough, so they found men and women and fucked them, seduced them or just raped them, and that passed the things in the stone into i