Jory Strong: Spider-Touched

“It almost seems a shame to run her with the criminals.”

“I know what you mean. We’ll allow her two knives in the maze and give Abijah permission to play with her all night if the convicts don’t kill her first.” Anton took a step closer. “There’s something about her… Is she a shapeshifter, Abijah?”

“No.”

“One of the human gifted?”

Abijah’s hand slid down Araña’s arm in a frightening caress. It stopped at her wrist, and the shiny tip of a curved nail scraped over her veins before digging in deeply enough to draw blood.

He leaned down. The forked tongue darted out to lap at her blood before he released her. “She is mortal, but not one of the human gifted.”

“Interesting. Her use of witchcraft must be learned instead of inherited. Too bad, but it might not matter. Given your physical reaction to her, are you capable of breeding offspring on her, Abijah?”

The demon refused to answer, forcing Anton to ask the question a second time, and then a third before an answer was unwillingly torn from him. “Yes.”

Araña couldn’t suppress a shiver of terror. She’d longed to know the feel of skin against skin, to have a lover. But not this one. Not a demon that sent the spider-shaped mark to cower on the sole of her foot.

Farold said, “Why not add a caveat that Abijah can’t intentionally kill her unless she’s escaping the maze? If she survives his attention, that’ll make her next run a profitable one.”

“You prove yourself a worthy assistant yet again.”

Anton spoke in the flowing, frightening language, and at the end of it, the demon disappeared. “Done. Abijah has his instructions.”

“I’ll send the information along to the oddsmakers so they can factor it into their calculations.”

“Do that. It should make for an interesting night.” Anton focused on Araña’s hand. “Let me see the brand.”

She complied.

“Do you recognize it?” Farold asked.

“Yes. It’s one the fundamentalists favor. It’s not used much here, but in the San Joaquin, especially in some of the more isolated communities near Stockton, there are several groups who routinely use it to mark individuals they view as tainted by evil. The brand literally means touched by Satan , or alternatively, one of Satan’s own . A witch practicing the black arts necessary to kill by touch alone would certainly fall into that category.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t burn her at the stake.”

“I imagine her looks saved her from that fate, and perhaps the fact she’s learned rather than gifted. More than one pious man has been led astray by a beautiful face and form, and thought they’d be able to redeem and reclaim the soul inside it.”

Farold’s eyebrows drew together. “But once she’s branded? How would it be possible?”

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Once she’d been judged redeemed, a second brand would be laid over the first, attesting to the restored purity of her soul.” Anton chuckled. “Very primitive views considering the revelations that have come since The Last War.”

“True.”

“I believe I’ve seen enough here, Farold.”

Murmurs rose in the cage next to Araña’s as soon as the two men left the room. Only now they were the sounds of men speaking in frightened turns about the demon, negotiating to work together in an attempt to survive and escape the maze.

Araña sank to the ground where she was. Fear and adrenaline washed away to leave a deep numbness.

Once again she pulled her knees to her chest to serve as a pillow. She wrapped her arms around them and let the curtain of hair hide her face.

Blood from her wrist soaked into her pants. Her side throbbed with pain, as did the places she’d been kicked and hit.

Thoughts of all she might be forced to endure in the maze overlaid the images of Matthew and Erik lying dead. The combination threatened to paralyze her, to provide an opening for despondency to envelope her in an icy haze.

It pulled at her, nearly succeeded in sucking her under and holding her there. But pride wouldn’t let her remain in the deadly embrace.

Matthew’s last words shamed her for allowing even a hint of hopelessness to invade her. Live for all of us, he’d said. And she would.

She would live for them. And she would avenge their deaths by killing the two guardsmen who’d brought her to the maze.

Slowly she became aware of her surroundings again. The words one of the prisoners was speaking sank in, and Araña turned her head slightly, just enough to peek through the black of her hair and read the tattoos on the man’s face.

Wife abuser. But he’d frequented one of the gambling clubs where his money was welcome despite the violence he’d been found guilty of. He’d watched men and beasts run through the maze, and though he’d never seen anyone escape it, he still had answers when the other convicts asked him questions about pitfalls and design, dead ends and traps.

Those answers chased the last of Araña’s emotional paralysis away. Hope blossomed and surged through her veins.

There were places like the maze in other cities. She’d heard them talked about in boat towns and outlaw settlements, wherever men and women gathered to brag and swap stories over beer and moonshine and homemade wine.

The names of the cities were often volunteered, but when a man ran a maze and survived it, he didn’t usually speak of its location or of the offenses leading to his imprisonment—and no one asked. That was unspoken custom among them because desperation could turn a former drinking buddy into a bounty hunter.

How many times had she heard the tale of Gallo’s escape from a maze? How many times had he bought her meals and filled Erik’s and Matthew’s cups with beer while she captured his stories on paper with her pens and pencils?

She’d run Gallo’s maze a hundred times in her imagination as she’d turned those oral stories into pictures. He’d never revealed the city, but as she listened to what the wife abuser said, familiar landmarks rose from her memory with perfect clarity.

She saw Gallo’s run through the maze. Saw the statues he’d passed, the walls streaked with blood where desperate men tried to claw their way up concrete surfaces studded with shards of glass. She saw the traps he’d discovered, the doorway to freedom he’d found, and she knew she had a chance of escaping death. This maze was the one Gallo had survived.

MOISTURE dampened Rebekka’s palms as she reached the edge of the red zone. In front of her was the section of town set aside for gifted humans, though in this part most of it was weed-filled open space or row after row of destroyed houses covered with clinging vines.

There was no wall. No rigid boundary. But sigils marked it and wards were set in place to repel the predators that thrived in the red zone during the night.

She paused and turned to her companion. “You don’t have to cross with me. The occult shop is only a short distance away. I’ll be okay.”

Levi shook his head, causing the sunlight to reflect off the thick mane of his hair. He lifted his lip in a silent snarl. Tawny eyes flashed, revealing the lion trapped in a human body. “I can handle it.”

She nodded, knowing he wouldn’t be deterred and feeling guilty for wanting his protection despite how uncomfortable it would be for him to cross the wards and remain in the territory of the gifted.

In a rational world, gifted humans and shapeshifters would view each other as allies, but the world wasn’t any more rational now than it had been before The Last War. There was too much history between the gifted and the Were. Too much bloodshed. Too much suspicion and distrust, especially when it came to witches.