City of Ruin - Mark Charan Newton [140]
‘And when it gets here?’ Jeryd enquired.
‘Ah yes, the boys have been working on that. Ramon?’
The sinister-looking bald man leaned down to pick up a small bag. From it he retrieved a small brass tripod, which he then lowered to the rooftop, several feet away.
‘Best move back,’ Abaris warned, arms wide, steering them back another several feet at least. He pulled an ordinary stick from his pocket, and threw it in the direction of the tripod.
The relic remained inert, not reacting.
‘It wasn’t actually meant to do anything because it was too small,’ Bellis whispered to Jeryd. ‘Now, watch this.’
Ramon moved towards the relic, hands held behind his back. As soon as he was within two feet, light stuttered into being, aggregating into the glowing bars of a cage. Light continued to spit and stutter, and Ramon was totally imprisoned within it. Grinning, he made a flamboyant bow so that the light reflected off his bald head.
‘So you see,’ Bellis explained, ‘when your spider arrives, it will be catered for very well indeed.’
‘You lot really are a bunch of wise old geniuses, you realize,’ Jeryd said.
‘It takes one individual of wisdom to notice another,’ Bellis declared.
‘Nah, I’ve done nothing yet,’ Jeryd protested. ‘I won’t consider myself as having achieved a single thing until that monster is locked away.’ He waited as the cage was deactivated, the light collapsing into blackness, and there was a noticeable absence, some void left by the relic’s trickery, even the faint smell of burning. Jeryd was mightily impressed.
‘Let’s give it a go then,’ Bellis said, and the others set up the two devices next to each other on the rooftop. And they waited, shivering, in the cold winds.
Jeryd regarded the cityscape in anticipation, wondering how his own deepest fears would manifest after his experiences with Bellis’s orb.
*
Nanzi felt something deep within, a summoning in her very core. She shuddered, leapt up from her bed, glanced furtively around the room. The black cat peeked up in surprise from the foot of the bed.
‘Is everything all right, my love?’ Voland asked, glancing up from his book as he lay beside her.
‘I don’t feel all that well. I might make a drink and take some fresh air outside.’
‘Would you like me to get it for you?’
‘No, I’ll go.’ She pushed aside the sheets and clambered off the bed. Her spider appendages rooted out her skirt and boots, and within the minute she was heading downstairs. At the front door, she rested her hand on the frame, staring across the street, hoping to find something. The darkened buildings were defined by starlight, while a couple of tramps huddled by a small pit fire.
What was this strange sensation that had seduced her out here? It was like a thirst. All her emotions had condensed. A need for some long-lost lover. A lament for a dead friend. But this was rare – this was calling for her . . . other state. She felt intoxicated by her urges and, within the minute, she began to collapse inwards, then fold out again into her spider form.
With one limb she pulled the door shut, then crawled up along the surface of the wall to the roof of the abattoir. There, she could read the world in a different manner, decipher these gentle vibrations of activity. The city always appeared thronging to her in this form, but some way in the distance she could sense something so alluring, so delicious, so essential that she could not prevent herself from scuttling as quickly as she could across the deserted nightscape.
*
Jeryd watched in slack-jawed awe as hundreds of tiny spiders bled from the city’s architecture.
Out of habit he felt the need to jump on something to avoid them, but there was no way of escape up here. And this time . . . he felt no fear.
Black