Jory Strong: Spider-Touched

She glanced surreptitiously at it, keeping her head ducked.

“You two keep walking while I pay for the slip,” Matthew said. “By the time they identify any of us—if it’s even possible—we’ll be long gone from Oakland.”

“Let me pay the fee,” Araña said, misgiving filling her, the framed “Wanted” pictures on the wall of Erik and Matthew’s bedroom crowding her mind, tightening the knots in her stomach.

Matthew shook his head. “If the camera is there for any reason other than scaring people into good behavior, then there will be others. For all we know the dock attendant wore one and took our pictures when he pulled us in. The technology existed well before The Last War. We’re safe enough. It’s been a long time since Erik and I were here.”

Araña had no choice but to follow Matthew’s dictates. No reason to dispute his logic. She and Erik kept going as he detoured to pay for the slip. They stopped only when they were beyond the lamppost and the camera.

She longed to take Erik’s hand in hers—the contact too brief when she helped him from the boat. She ached to turn into him, to wrap her arms around him and let the hot wash of tears escape to wet his neck as she told him how much he meant to her, how much she loved him. How he was father and older brother, best friend and confidant, irreplaceable and unequal in her life—even though she loved Matthew, too.

But she didn’t dare press her skin to his. The demon mark had killed for the first time when she was five and a stranger had grabbed her. It had killed again when she was sixteen and thought she was in love. She wouldn’t risk losing Erik that way, even though she ached to be held close and feel the brush of his lips and the soothing stroke of his hand, the rub of his cheek against hers in comfort offered and received.

Be strong, she told herself. Here in this city, that’s what Erik and Matthew needed from her.

As they left the dock area, Araña’s hands settled near the hilts of the knives she wore in inconspicuous sheaths sewn into the dark fabric of her pants. A gun would have made her feel safer, but they’d left them locked on the boat with the longer knives.

Along the coast and canals, in the settlements without enough wealth to pay for more than a few policemen, an open display of weapons was viewed as a wise precaution for avoiding trouble. The larger cities were different.

There they were viewed as a threat to society. People remembered that after the plague ran its course and the supernaturals revealed their presence, anarchy reigned for long years and the streets filled with violence and fear.

Eventually the armed services and guardsmen brought order and harsher gun laws. There was no way to ban them, not when any abandoned and unclaimed building was fair game for salvage. But obtaining ammunition was difficult and expensive, and the penalty for using a gun without just cause was death.

Araña’s hands curled around the hilts of her knives in an unconscious search for security as Erik’s breath grew labored with each step, until finally he said, “We can separate. It’s still early enough for the buses to run. I can take one and wait for the two of you just inside the area set aside for the gifted.”

“No,” Matthew said. “You and I stay together. Araña can—”

“No.” Her stomach clenched on the thought of not being with them. “I don’t want to be separated from you and Erik.”

“Then we stay together,” Matthew said, one hand leaving its position near his knife to curl around Erik’s arm in unprotested assistance. “We’ll turn up ahead.”

Already the bustle of the docks had faded and the reclamation of buildings slowed. Restored houses with iron bars and fortified doors stood next to burned-out buildings and rubble. If there were children present, they played inside or elsewhere.

They turned at the corner, their progress slowing with each block until Araña feared Matthew would need to carry Erik the remaining distance to the bus stop. Relief filled her when they got to a street where gaily dressed people hurried to their destinations and cars carrying the rich drove by.

Araña glanced upward. Despite the slowness of their progress, the sun slid relentlessly through the sky. They’d have to find shelter, either with the healer or at an inn. She didn’t think there would be enough time to get back to the boat by nightfall.

An old woman hunched with age waited at the bus stop, her hand on the arm of a pregnant girl no older than sixteen or seventeen. Both were dressed in black and adorned with amulets.

Witches, Araña thought, the vision rising up to encase her in nightmare ice when the old woman’s face lifted and Araña saw in reality what she’d seen ten years earlier in her vision. Sightless, cataract-covered eyes seemed to stare directly at her, finding the taint on her soul before shifting to where the spidery demon mark hid beneath her clothes.

Matthew’s hand gripped the hilt of his knife when the milky-white gaze moved unerringly to his face then Erik’s. Erik touched Matthew’s arm lightly and spoke to the witch. “Do you know where we can find a healer?”

“Your stop is the last one. It’s close to the red zone.”

The sound of a diesel engine drew Araña’s attention away from the witch. She’d taken the lookout position automatically while Matthew and Erik stood so it would be difficult for cars traveling along the road to see their faces. With a subtle hand signal she told them the vehicle approaching carried guardsmen.

She forced herself to appear relaxed as the brown and gray jeep with the machine gun mounted at the back slowed to a crawl near the bus stop. All three of the guardsmen were young, not much older than her.

Their body language marked them as the rich, younger sons of the elite, as did the way they undressed her with their eyes. Wolf whistles and lewd comments assaulted her as they passed. A block beyond the bus stop they did a U-turn and slowed again, but this time they kept going after they passed.

The bus came into view. It was old, something cobbled together from salvaged parts, but it was a welcome sight.

A jeep carrying guardsmen passed the bus stop coming from the other direction. An older, grizzled man drove while two others sat in the back, arms resting on rifles as their eyes scanned the streets. Their attention lingered on Matthew and Erik, or on the witches—she couldn’t tell which before they sped away.

Her eyes met Matthew’s. A small tilt of his head was enough to convey his intention to get on the bus as it came to a groaning stop.

Matthew and Erik climbed onto it first. Erik kept moving while Matthew stopped to exchange words with the driver about the fees. He paid for the three of them then followed Erik to the back.

The witches climbed on board next, also paying in cash. They took seats toward the front. Araña scanned the road one last time for trouble before boarding.

“You fear your gift,” the old witch whispered as she passed. “It’s a thing of great power. Come to me and I’ll teach you how to use it.”

Araña kept going, refusing to acknowledge either the gift or the offer. The bus lurched forward and picked up speed. She hurried past a mother younger than she was, who already had two children.

Erik and Matthew sat near the rear exit. Araña took a seat across the aisle from them so she could look out the window on the driver’s side.

They rode in silence. Each of them tense, lost in private thoughts.

Blocks later the bus slowed to a stop. The woman with the children stood and hefted the toddler to her hip before disembarking. The infant in a sling on her chest woke and began crying as the bus pulled away.

Outside, each new neighborhood looked poorer than the last. By the way the houses were positioned, new ones built alongside salvaged ones, Araña guessed the families claiming them were related or joined together for their common safety.