The Spider Goddess Read online

  ‘You said there is much you can know about a person. But he’s not a person.’

  ‘No? Well, he is more than that, yes. But then, so are you, Pandora.’

  On Thursday Skye DeVille did not come in at all. This was by no means normal, but selfishly, I was relieved. Perhaps she’d delegated her work to Pepper for a couple of days while she recovered from her flu. (Or her attack of insanity.) Maybe she’d got her cold medications mixed up. In any event, the office was more peaceful for her absence.

  At the end of the day, as I was packing up, Morticia came over to gossip. She was clearly buzzing with excitement about something. She obviously couldn’t wait until we left so she’d taken the unusual step of coming to my desk first.

  ‘Did you read the news today?’ she asked.

  I picked up my coat and slid it over my arm. ‘No,’ I said, and neglected to mention that I’d spent the previous evening chatting with an ancient Greek vampire who had stepped out of a casket. Such things tended to make fashion industry news seem a bit dull.

  ‘It’s all over the websites,’ she went on.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked, prepared for news of some celebrity coupling, reproduction or split, or the latest goss on some fashion collection. Morticia followed that sort of thing so I didn’t have to, I figured.

  She leaned against my cubicle, all striped leggings and long limbs. ‘Apparently last night another designer went missing,’ she told me.

  ‘Another designer?’ That was interesting.

  She nodded and her eyebrows were fixed high on her forehead. ‘Victor Mal.’

  I gasped. ‘No! I only talked to him yesterday.’ We hadn’t exactly bonded, but it was a real shock to imagine that something could have happened to him, and so quickly. I shook my head. ‘He didn’t seem like he was planning to go anywhere. In fact, he had seemed pretty intent on remaining “The King of Knitwear” in New York. There’s no way he would have taken off by choice.’

  Morticia threw her arms in the air. ‘I know. It’s crazy.’

  ‘It must be foul play,’ I said. ‘Do they still suspect Helmsworth?’ I’d never met the man, but he would have to be pretty insane to organise something like this, and not think the finger would be pointed at him. Kidnapping people? All knitwear designers? Did he have a bone to pick with all of them?

  Morticia shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  I had a very bad feeling about the whole thing, and this latest news was unsettling, to say the least. I tried to imagine the events that might have taken place since I’d seen Victor. Had he packed up his things and left? But why? Had he been abducted? I turned off my computer and grabbed my satchel, and Morticia and I walked towards the door. Pepper was hunched over at her desk. She was probably doing the job of two.

  ‘Goodnight,’ Morticia said to the remaining staff in the office. There were a few mumbled responses. Don’t fraternise with the freaks, I could almost hear them think.

  ‘Hey, did Skye phone in sick or something?’ I asked quietly as Morticia and I reached the staircase.

  ‘Pepper told her to take some time off, I guess,’ she said, uncertain. ‘She wasn’t looking really well.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed. ‘She really wasn’t.’

  With our coats bundled around us we walked to the subway entrance at Spring Street, and parted ways. I had something I wanted to do before I made my way home to Spektor. I was pretty sure SoHo Exotic Pets would be open late on a Thursday.

  I was right.

  A bell chimed when I walked in. The shop was empty of customers, but crowded with vivariums, aquariums and fusty animal smells. In other words, nothing much had changed. I wondered how they stayed afloat.

  The bespectacled shop assistant rounded an aisle of shelves to greet me. ‘Exotic Pets, how may I help you?’ She adjusted her frames.

  ‘It’s me again,’ I said, just as she appeared to recognise me.

  ‘We hoped you might come back.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘How is your spider? Did you find out what breed it was?’ she asked.

  I squinted at her. ‘The spider I came in with wasn’t mine . . . like I said. And I wouldn’t know how it is because I left it with you.’

  ‘Left it with us?’ She looked surprised but then smiled. ‘You’re kidding, of course. It was quite a lovely looking tarantula. Unusual, but —’

  ‘Wait,’ I said, stopping her. ‘Are you telling me you don’t have that tarantula here? Did someone claim it?’

  ‘Of course we don’t have your tarantula.’

  It was never my tarantula, I wanted to say, but dropped it. ‘But I left the spider with you, remember?’

  ‘Jason!’ she called out in a shrill voice, and took a cagey step back from me.

  The male shopkeeper soon appeared from the back wearing the same sweater I’d seen him in last time. It didn’t look like it had been washed in the interim. There was a big dirt patch on one shoulder, which he dusted off casually as he approached. ‘Oh hello again. Did you find out what kind of tarantula you have? The Thai Black, right? Maybe a new hybrid?’ he asked.

  My brows pulled together. I looked at their faces. They honestly believed I’d taken the spider with me. I could hear it in their tone, see it in their eyes. I didn’t understand. How could they think that, when I’d left it right on the desk with them and run out in such a dramatic fashion?

  ‘Jason, this lady seems to think she left her pet with us,’ the female shopkeeper said quietly. She sounded a little nervous that I might be crazy. She’d backed away from me another step.

  ‘What? Hey,’ he began, ‘I don’t know what your game is, but —’

  They honestly think I kept it.

  ‘I was only kidding,’ I squeaked. ‘Sorry . . . I, um, wanted to thank you for your help the other day. I was hoping you knew what sort it was. Never mind.’ I laughed nervously. ‘And I have these crickets.’ I removed them from my satchel. I had no need of them anymore, and I couldn’t exactly set them free on the streets of Spektor. I could hear them scratching around in the little box. ‘Please take them. Anyway . . . um, bye.’ I turned on my heel and walked out. If they hadn’t thought I was strange after my last departure from their shop, they certainly did now.

  I walked to the Spring Street subway station, deeply puzzled. They sincerely believed that I had left with that tarantula. Why? I’d been in such a fluster to leave, perhaps someone else had been there to snatch it? Was that possible? Who would do that? It seemed unlikely, to say the least. And yet I could not believe those two were lying. It just didn’t add up.

  I hopped down the subway station stairs and put my ticket in the turnstile. The first train arrived only seconds after I’d stepped on to the platform, and I pushed my way inside the car. As usual, there were a lot of after-work commuters.

  My belly twinged strangely and I looked up.

  There.

  The train pulled away just as I caught sight of a woman staring at me. She stood on the platform with her dark hair blowing sideways in the breeze brought by the train’s movement. She was exceptionally tall. Her face was delicate, classical. Her eyes were dark and intense, and she was looking right at me.

  The tall lady.

  A shocked ‘Oh’ escaped my mouth.

  She’d followed me from the pet shop the day I’d dropped the tarantula off. Or the day I thought I’d dropped the tarantula off. And here she was again, staring at me.

  I had that awful, cold feeling in my belly.

  And then the vision of her disappeared, replaced by a fast-moving slab of concrete as we hurtled through the tunnel and sped away from Spring Street. I stayed riveted to the glass window, still picturing the tall woman who made my stomach freeze like ice. I steadied myself on the rail and, at the next stop, took an available seat. I looked around me from time to time, in slight panic. I had a feeling that the tall woman was following me, and might appear at any moment on one of the platforms just beyond the glass. Crazy, I know. Eventually I mana
ged to settle in to my latest book.

  I was two stops away from my destination at 103rd Street when I felt the familiar coldness in my belly return.

  Thanatos. Death.

  I looked up with a start, and searched the crowd for signs of the tall lady. She’s following me! Was she here on the subway car? I couldn’t spot her. I struggled to concentrate on the feeling, as Celia had been teaching me to do, and I noticed the sensation was different, although barely perceptible. Under the sense of alarm and danger and death, there was another familiar feeling. Just as I was beginning to think it must be a ghost reaching out to me from the subway tunnel or trapped amongst the travelling cars, I realised that I knew exactly who it was.

  Athanasia.

  Oh fiddle. The nastiest supermodel I’d ever met was on the same train as me? (Okay, so she was also the only supermodel I’d ever met.) If she wasn’t following me it was an awful coincidence that she was on the 6 line at the same time. She’d probably heard that Deus knew about her latest exploits, thanks to me, and she probably had a thing or two to say about that.

  Please let it not be her . . . Please . . .

  Sure enough, as the subway car rattled and shifted along the tracks, the door at the end of the car opened and in she walked, followed closely by Blonde, Brunette and Redhead. The inseparable four laughed and chatted amongst themselves with a kind of fake nonchalance that begged you to look while they pretended not to care. Each wore designer clothes that were completely inappropriate for the winter climate, with pale, toned arms and legs exposed to the elements. It made the contrast with the rugged-up mortal passengers around them even greater. Blonde was in a fashionably ripped shirt and fetching leather miniskirt with spike-heeled boots. Redhead wore a skin-tight stretchy tube dress that showed off her enviable figure, and Brunette was wearing fish-nets and a lycra suggestion of a skirt under a silk top that dropped suggestively off one shoulder. Athanasia was wearing tight jeans and a sleeveless leather vest that nipped in at her waist. She had strings of jewellery around her pale neck. The four of them looked like they might be in a band. Or at least in the band’s rock video.

  New Yorkers tend not to look at each other on the subway. It’s an unwritten rule in Manhattan that you don’t ever catch the eye of a stranger on public transport. Only crazy people did that. Yet, quite unwisely, several men had decided to break that rule. They looked up from their phones, or their newspapers, or their daydreaming, and ogled the fearsome four. These vampires probably didn’t need to try very hard to pick up a snack after dark.

  Blonde swung from one of the subway poles like it was another kind of pole, then let out a cruel laugh and sneered at an old woman who’d clearly found her display unladylike.

  I shook my head, but said nothing. I really didn’t need to be dealing with Athanasia’s nonsense right now. She was certainly aware of my presence on the car and had probably even sought me out. I travelled this train route nearly every day after work, but today I was later than usual. Perhaps when I hadn’t shown up as scheduled in Spektor, she’d decided to come and pester me? I wondered exactly what she planned to do. I had my pockets filled with rice, as was my custom, and I doubted they had outgrown their fetish for counting. I’d be fine on the subway car. (Wouldn’t I? They didn’t want a bloodbath on public transport, I hoped.) It was when I got off that I would have a real problem on my hands.

  Too quickly the car slowed and the tiled platform of 103rd Street came into view. It wouldn’t pay to stay on board till we were in the Bronx. I’d have to lose these four somewhere in the station or in Spanish Harlem, otherwise the walk through Central Park could be dangerous. Feeling wary, I got up from my seat and made my way to the doors. In a flash the quartet were on me.

  ‘Hello little morchilla,’ Redhead whispered. Her breath on my face was less than pleasant. ‘Nice hair.’

  ‘Yeah, nice do,’ Brunette pitched in. ‘Very country.’

  ‘Can we save this for another time?’ I said under my breath.

  It was Athanasia who answered me. ‘Looks like you need an escort. You can never be too careful in Central Park at night.’

  I said nothing more.

  The doors opened and I stepped on to the tiled platform and headed for my exit. The four fashionable creatures were on my heels, followed by a couple of mortals. At the base of the stairs I hurried ahead of them, not quite in a run, but pretending I had somewhere to be in a hurry, which come to think of it, I did. I flew up the steps two by two, my legs burning from the exertion. Thank goodness for sensible shoes, I thought. And for silly Fledgling obsessive compulsive urges. I spilled some rice grains just before I rushed out of the station, and then hit the open air of the crowded street. About a block away I turned down a buzzing main street and caught my breath. The street was filled with open shops and takeaway places, and I ducked into the nearest one I could find. It was a tiny pizza joint and didn’t look very flash, or fresh.

  I rested my satchel at my feet and urged my heart to slow.

  The strong aroma of pizzas baking surrounded me. A light flickered overhead. After I’d loitered for a minute or two, a large, moustachioed man behind the counter gave me an impatient look. He wore a streaked white bib and he had a strong mixed Mediterranean accent. ‘Lady, you here to sightsee or what?’

  With a quick apology, I put in an order.

  I waited against the wall by the corner of the grease-slicked counter, as far away from the window as possible. My heart was still pounding too fast.

  Unfortunately it acted like a beacon, and after a few minutes the four Sanguine appeared outside the glass door, chatting and carrying on as if they hadn’t just been counting rice grains on a grungy subway staircase. They were just four unnaturally good-looking underdressed young women having a little street party in Spanish Harlem. The party, I was afraid, involved me. There was no way around it.

  Eventually the food I had no interest in eating arrived in a greasy box and I paid the hirsute man behind the counter without enthusiasm. I stepped outside with the box under my arm.

  ‘Ewww, that place stinks,’ Brunette said as I strode past.

  ‘Pizza makes you fat, little morchilla,’ Redhead taunted.

  ‘I have bigger problems than you bunch right now,’ I muttered and continued walking towards Central Park.

  Athanasia sidled up close. ‘Then stop meddling in my business, bitch,’ she spat.

  Always with the classy language. Always.

  I stopped and looked at her. My eyes went to her neck. ‘Wait, is that . . . Are you wearing the jewellery from Monday’s photo shoot? Oh, you are kidding me.’

  The jewellery around Athanasia’s neck was brightly coloured strands of enamel. Precisely what the model had been wearing at the knitwear shoot. Precisely what Skye had accused me of stealing. I saw the little linked C shape of the branding.

  ‘It’s Chanel.’ Athanasia placed her fingers on the strands, caressing her designer haul.

  ‘It doesn’t belong to you,’ I said with a disapproving glare. I turned and continued to walk, my jaw set. ‘I don’t have time for this.’

  ‘It does belong to me if I say it does,’ Athanasia said, her unreasonably long legs easily keeping up with my stride.

  We had finally reached the entrance to Central Park, but there was still an expanse of green grass and shadows to traverse before I made it to Spektor and to the safety of Celia’s Sanguine-free penthouse. I couldn’t wait to get into the lift. The lift . . .? In a flash I remembered Athanasia reaching out to stop the lift door from closing the other day. She’d had a tattoo on her wrist. It had looked like drawn-on jewels. It wasn’t there now, I noticed. It had been a temporary tattoo.

  ‘I see your tattoo wore off,’ I said bitterly. ‘Thief.’

  The undead supermodel just laughed at me. ‘Oh, you are so naive. It’s really quite touching.’ She matched my pace as we passed benches in Central Park.

  ‘Why are you stealing from my boss’s office?’ I demanded. I thought
of how Skye had accused me, how I’d had my bag upturned in front of everyone in the office. ‘On second thought, never mind. I don’t care.’

  Athanasia laughed again. ‘It’s no fun when someone screws up your career, is it?’

  I resisted rolling my eyes. ‘Athanasia, it’s not my fault that you got mixed up with the Blood Countess. That was always going to go wrong. Just leave me alone.’ I walked ahead as fast as my legs could take me without breaking into a run.

  Athanasia growled at me. Actually growled. She pushed my shoulder with a violent jab and I stumbled forward.

  Oh dear. Here we go . . .

  In seconds she pounced, knocking me sideways, and we tumbled on to the grass. My satchel went flying, and the takeaway box flipped upside down and opened up beside us. She straddled me, the stolen necklaces tangling in my hair. Her undead friends gathered around chanting, ‘Feed, feed, feed!’

  ‘Hungry?’ I managed. ‘Have some garlic bread.’

  In one swift motion I planted the hot slab of garlic bread on her face. It stuck like a cream pie on a clown.

  ‘Ahhhgh!’ Athanasia screamed and reeled back, swaying on her knees.

  I slipped out from under her and scurried back across the grass towards my satchel. I watched in amazement as the long, flat greasy bread clung to the left-hand side of her face. It just stuck there, peeling downwards in slow motion. Athanasia seemed frozen in disbelief. She knelt with her hands in the air, as if ready for some dark prayer. Finally she gripped the corners of the bread with the tips of her fingers and, with a pained howl, flung the bread on to the grass.

  ‘You . . . You bitch!’ she cried shakily. Still she didn’t move. She gasped again and again, horrified into speechlessness. Her mouth hung agape, and her manicured fingers flitted helplessly around her damaged face. Her skin didn’t smoke exactly, but it did seem to be, well . . . melting. Boils began to appear. ‘Look . . . look at what you did!’ she screamed. ‘Look!’

  Her eyes filled with something dark, something that began to roll down her cheeks as she screamed and moaned. Tears. Tears of blood.