The Weaver's Web, Book 2: Chapter 13

“You think you can hurt me?” Alabaster laughed. “Don’t you know who I am?”

I said nothing for a moment. My bugs were locating all their cell phones. Alabaster had one in his back pocket, and I prepared myself. The other gang members wouldn’t call in help. Not yet. Their phones were put away, in favor of bats and guns.

A smart group would have called this in immediately. The PRT would actually prioritize notifying their superiors over pulling out guns.

But my research showed that Alabaster was a thug. None of the stories or information on PHO, from Shiela, or the detective, had Alabaster working as a leader. He was the thug, the leg breaker, someone who could impress others with his invulnerability.

And that made him actually ideal. Because those who never thought they might be vulnerable tended to react poorly to finding out they were anything but.

“Alabaster. The E88’s thug, not someone who trusted with higher duties…” I chuckled, a few more of my shadowy forms rising up over the sides of the buildings surrounding the little group, looking down at them. “Someone who is far from invulnerable…”

“The fuck are you on?” Alabaster said. “Nothing can hurt me.”

“I wonder if that’s what those who antagonized the Gray Boy thought. Nothing can hurt them, after all.” I paused. “That’s what you are, Alabaster, a man trapped in a knockoff loop. And that leaves me so very many ways to become… creative.” More rats were pouring out of the grates, and some of the gang members were jumping on cars, holding their guns like holy talismans.

Mr. Lake was holding onto Greg, backing away slowly, not drawing attention to himself.

Smart man.

My spiders were still working. One spider could weave a web in a few minutes but it wouldn’t be enough to more than annoy a human. A hundred spiders would be able to weave a strand that only a strong man could break.

What would… 50,000 spiders be able to do? I had seeded them all over the Bay, but even normally, in many places there were over 100 spiders per square meter. And I had been gathering them as I’d come, using flying bugs to pick them up and keep up with me, not even counting the several spider hives I’d left in the area during my work as The Exterminator.

Many of them would die as I forced them to put out more web than they normally could. I would replace them. Later.

Even so, a normal man might be able to escape. As the webs were prepared, I summoned my glow bugs at the far end of the clearing, the little alleyway where the cars had some in.

The sound that surrounded them was of breathing. Deep breathing, as I sent roaches in to chew the wires of the building lights, all but a few, plunging the clearing into a dim twilight.

Alabaster wasn’t afraid, not yet, but even his slow mind was working through what I’d meant when I’d talked about Gray Boy.

“But since you are unafraid, perhaps you could speak to one of my… true forms.”

“True forms? What the fuck is that?” a gang-member said.

The low buzz grew louder, mixed in with the breathing sound from the walls. I had mixed them so that only a very smart and observant individual would be able to pick out the origin. Although to be fair, I expected that it was becoming known that one of my powers involved controlling vermin.

I kept some spiders around Mr. Lake and Greg, invisible in the dim light, but herding the swarms of rats away from them.

And then I revealed “myself”.

The first sign were huge centipedes, easily six feet long, glowing eyes in their front running around, the rats dodging away from them, save for a few smaller victims, who vanished, squealing, under them. A gang member screamed and opened fire, but it did nothing.

In the daytime, my ‘centipedes’ would be revealed to be spiderwebs shaped in their form, insects under them providing the movement.

But it was not the daytime.

“Oh, you don’t think bullets can harm me… Still. Why don’t you try…”

And then the rest of my glow bugs started alternately revealing and hiding themselves behind my other swarms. In the alleyway, itstarted to form. Bugs flying in a rigid pattern, the glow bugs directing the eyes of my victims to see the hint of great legs, terrifying fangs, and eight, gleaming eyes.

I had not based this on any real spider.

My image was that of Ungoliant.

“So you’re a fucking showman,” Alabaster said. I positioned myself on the fire ladder of the building I had been on, out of his sight. Some things, you had to do in person. My spiders had finished the first of their ropes, and now it was time to use them.

Suddenly, the great spider chittered once and cast out a great limb. Hidden in it was the rope I’d made. It was smooth, slick, save for the end, which was coated in the stickiest spider-glue you could find, with subsidiary strands attached to it and flying bugs holding it in their grip, little areas free of the glue.

And suddenly, the smallest and scrawniest member, the one who had been reluctant to attack Greg, was “grabbed,” a cloud of darkness surrounding him as the rope was draped over him. He screamed and started flailing, only leading to more of his body being ensnared.

One web, a man could break.

Ten webs, a man could break.

But a thousand? Especially backed up by a rope that while only a little thicker than packing thread, was as strong as some hawsers?

Hopefully, part II would work, or I would have to improvise, I held out my hands, and my end of the line fell into them, also glued, so my gloves would have purchase. It ran up the ladder, and then down to a pipe, the two curving points giving me leverage and pulling the force in just the way I needed it to go.

I was stronger than I had been, but for this, I needed… A lever. With that, I jumped off the ladder, my weight suddenly pulling the rope taught… and my victim was pulled off his feet and screaming and thrashing, into Ungoliant’s “jaws” where he vanished.

“OH JESUS, PLEASE HELP!!” his screams were cut off as more bugs landed on him, hundreds of spiders getting to work, wrapping him up.

“Oh, little man… You call upon that Name?” I whispered to him, almost like there was someone next to his ear, and he went rigid.

I wonder if he realized that I was being nice. He had been reluctant to beat Greg. There might be someone salvageable within that body. I would just have to encourage him.

“I thought the E88 was better than that…” I said to the group in the clearing. “Screaming for Jesus? Why, he was a Jew.”

“No he wasn’t!” The compatriot from Winslow said. “Jesus was a pure Aryan.”

I chuckled, and meanwhile, my bugs on the cellphone I kept for information gathering purposes had found out all I needed to know.

“Really, Tim? Is that what they said in Winslow?”

“Um, I don’t go to Winslow!”

“You have a car that you showed off before you lost your license.” It was amazing what you could find on the net. And what some people would assume were parahuman powers.

He went dead pale.

“He’s fucking with you.” Alabaster walked up. “Wanna try that shit on me?”

“Quiet Alabaster, Important people are talking.” If he could turn red, I expect he would have.

But now… I dropped some bugs next to Mr. Lake’s ear.

“Mr. Lake. Do not speak. In a moment, you will be unseen. You and Greg should run down the walkway to the North. At the end of it is a subcompact car. The keys are on the seat. I cannot vouch for the battery, but if it works, drive. There is no need to contact the police. I do not want to see you more involved.”

“Gregory,” now my voice became a little deeper. “Do not speak. We will speak later. Mr. Lake had no choice. You brought this upon yourself and, as such, are in my debt.”

My bugs couldn’t understand speech, not yet, but they could hear vibrations and… had Greg just whimpered?”

Well good. Maybe it’d make talking sense into him easier. Then I sent a cloud of bugs to obscure them and Mr. Lake took off, pulling a petrified Greg with him.

At the same time I was talking to my victim, even as I put more elbow grease into pulling him down the alleyway, puffing away with the exertion.

I needed more exercise.

“I am not one to give second chances. Not often. It… diminishes the food supply.”

He whimpered.

“But you are, in the larger scheme of things, unimportant. You will go to the police. You will confess your sins, all of them. You will have no more congress with the E88. You are free to speak of our conversation…” I started cutting his cocoon free. “But now…”

Suddenly, he looked up, saw what looked like a serpent, glimmering balefire in its eyes, as it’s mouth opened, barely visible in the darkness.

“Run, or I’ll reconsider my appetite!”

There was little of intelligence in his shriek as he tore the webbing from his body, in truth assisted by my spiders, and staggered to his feet, his screams of terror echoing back to the little group. He hit a trashcan fell, smacked his face, got up, heedless of the blood running down his chin, then screamed again as he hit the street, just in time to confront a pack of squeaking, terrified rats I’d prepared. His screams got even more hysterical as he kept going.

I called 911.

“911 is this an emergency?”

“This is Orb Weaver. There is an E88 member running down Tarsus Street. You shouldn’t miss him, especially if Car 17 is on its normal patrol route. He’s had a change of heart and is willing to confess his sins, but this confession is no doubt better heard by the police than his priest.”

“Um… right. I’ll send the car.”

“Very good.”

In the clearing, one E88 soldier tried to start his car and when it failed, courtesy of my bugs, he started backing away, then turned and dashed for the little gap between two buildings.

Others followed, ignoring Alabaster’s vulgar shouts.

“Fuckers! I’m going to fucking kill you!” Alabaster shouted as my laughter rose up.

“A pity, isn’t it, when you find you’re not the most terrible thing in the night,” I told him. “Now, let us continue our conversation…”