Kate Serine: Along Came a Spider

“What the hell is he doing here?” Nate mumbled.

I groaned, then offered my medic a tight smile and nod. “Thanks, Barry. That should do it.” Then, steeling myself, I hopped down from the back of the ambulance to go greet our visitor.

“There’s nothing for you here, Spalding,” I spat, my lack of enthusiasm at seeing the Ordinary punctuated by the throbbing in my wrist.

Ian Spalding offered me a patronizing grin as he slammed the door of his black Lincoln. “Well, if it isn’t Trish Muffet,” he drawled. “It’s been a long time.”

“Not long enough,” I snapped. “I thought we had an agreement.”

He gave me another smile, this one the style of smirk unique to those so completely confident of victory, it costs them nothing to be cordial. “The Agency stands by that agreement,” he assured me, inclining his head a little. “However, I’m afraid you’re the one overstepping bounds this time.”

I traded a glance with Nate. “What do you mean? These vampires are Tales, not Ordinaries.”

Ian raised his dark brows. “You sure about that?”

Well, no, actually I wasn’t. I’d told Red I sensed something strange about them when I’d read the dead man, and then seeing the vamps in person had confirmed my suspicions that something was decidedly off. In fact, the last time I’d seen a Tale signature like theirs, it had belonged to a little Ordinary boy who’d been raised from the dead by Sebille Fenwick’s flunkies. But there was no way in hell I was going to tell Ian Spalding that.

Ian was a member of a shadowy US government organization that helped police the unexplained of the Ordinary world. When tales of alien encounters really picked up in the fifties, these guys became known in modern folklore as Men in Black. But they referred to themselves simply as the Agency. And they’d existed well before any aliens—real or Tale—had entered the scene.

From what I understood, we’d had our first encounter with the Agency about five years before I came over, but thanks to Al Addin’s powers of persuasion—and a deal to keep them informed of anything we came across that wasn’t ours—they eventually agreed to leave us alone as long as we stayed out of trouble. Unfortunately, the werewolf murders perpetrated by Sebille Fenwick two years earlier had spilled out into their jurisdiction when an Ordinary named Molly O’Grady had become one of the victims. Al had had to do a lot of smooth talking to set things to rights again.

“As soon as I’m finished with the bodies, I’ll be happy to turn them over to you to experiment on,” I told Ian, not bothering to hide the disgust in my voice. “You guys are good at that from what I understand.”

His mouth quirked up in one corner, but there was a hint of barely disguised anger this time. “Oh, I don’t know. . . . I think we’ve managed to exhibit an admirable amount of self-control, especially where a few potential specimens are concerned.”

“Self-control?” I hissed, getting up in his grill. “Seducing me to try to get a peek at my ability was your definition of self-control?”

He shrugged. “Hey, we could’ve just thrown you into a lab, hooked you up to a bunch of machines, done a little slice-and-dice number on your brain. But instead we opted for a more entertaining approach.”

“You arrogant, self-righteous—” I lunged forward, my uninjured hand balled into a fist, ready to knock that smug expression from his face.

Nate snatched me up around the waist and swung me away before I could get in a good swing, and plopped me back down on my feet at a safe distance from Ian. “He’s not worth the paperwork, Trish.”

Ian held up his hand in truce. “I didn’t come here to rehash what happened between us, Muffet. I just want the vampires.”

“You can shove them up your ass,” I hissed. “You’re not getting them.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice,” Ian said with an indifferent shrug. “They’re part of an open investigation.”

“What investigation?” Nate asked, the shadows around his face growing darker.

Ian glanced at Nate, noticeably uncomfortable with the Reaper questioning him directly. “Seems there’s a vigilante going around knocking off vamps. Shows up out of nowhere, takes them out, then disappears before we can arrive at the scene. We’ve nicknamed him the Spider.” Here Ian turned his attention back to me, pegging me with a pointed look, which I pretended to ignore. “You know a thing or two about spiders, don’t you, Trish? Care to tell me what you know about our guy?”

My blood went cold, sending a chill through me, but I just lifted my chin a notch. “Piss off, Ian. I’m not telling you jack shit. If it’s your investigation, get approval from Al, and then you can have the bodies. Until then, you can go fu—”

“Oh, would you look at that!” Ian interrupted, producing a folded document from his pocket. “What is this?” He made a show of looking it over. “Could it be an acquisition form signed by the Director of the FMA?”

Nate snatched it from Ian’s hand and opened it up so I could read it with him. “It looks legit,” he muttered. “We’re going to have to hand them over.”

I shook my head. “I’m calling Al.” I stomped a few paces away and dialed Al’s emergency number. He picked up on the second ring. Before he could even speak, I barked, “What the hell are you thinking?”

“Hello to you, too,” he drawled.

“I’m not handing them over,” I said, speaking low into the phone. “I need to get a look at these vampires, Al. There’s something odd about them.”

“Apparently, you’re not the only one who has noticed that fact,” he pointed out. “I’m sorry, Trish. There’s nothing I could do this time. They’ve got us by the balls right now. If they expose us—”

“Who’d believe them?” I practically shrieked. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then said in a calmer tone, “We’re fictional characters made real, Al. Let them tell whoever they want—no one would believe them.”

“People believe anything if they hear it often enough,” Al replied. “And the Agency has the power to make it really bad for us if we don’t cooperate, Trish. You still have the victim. Give them the other bodies.”

I huffed, not believing that the man I’d looked up to and admired for his fearless self-sacrifice and unwavering principles was giving in so easily. “Al—”

“That’s an order, Trish.”

I hung up without another word and pocketed my phone, then paced a few furious steps one direction and then another before getting it together. I strode over to Alex and said through clenched teeth, “Tell the team to pack it in.”

His brows shot up. “What?”

“Just do it,” I snapped. “Right now. Tell everyone to drop what they’re doing and get in the vans.”

He frowned at me in confusion, but said, “You got it.”

I marched back over to where Nate and Ian still waited. “Go ahead and take off, Nate,” I told him. “Go be with Tess.”

Then I cast an acerbic glance toward Ian, biting back the furious words racing through my head as I brushed by him, knocking into his shoulder as I passed.

“So does this mean we’re squared away?” Ian called after me.

I merely lifted my good hand and offered him a very pointed reply.

I flipped on the light in the foyer of my apartment and tossed my keys onto the credenza as I locked and bolted the door behind me. The familiar sounds of homecoming were answered by the nearly silent padding of paws. Within seconds, I felt the comforting bump of a feline head rubbing against my calf and heard the low buzzing purr of greeting.