Spider's Game ((Book One) #Wattys2016 Winner!)

Chapter 16-Berrick vs the Drambish

Like the shadow of a moonbeam Silvia slid from the house. Berrick adjusted himself in his hiding place. Even compensating for her improved hearing and vision, she wouldn't notice him. Allison had fully vetted this spot to spy on the spiders. It was only luck that made the location she'd chosen a perfect layout for a sniper shot. He leveled the gun at her, setting her in his sights.

Words on paper told Berrick what she was. A contamination. A nearly unstoppable disease, created in an attempt to build a super soldier. No survivors. That was the high council's decision, genocide was the only option and because the Drambish gene was a contagion passed by prolonged close proximity or sexual contact. It came down not to no Drambish survivors but a flat no survivors.

That sacrifice, all those lives would be for nothing if Silvia, with her swaying hips and pouty mouth wasn't eradicated. Berrick's arm shook.

We created them. Shot this into their veins.

Surprise was the only way to kill the sorceress. Halis he might be able to take by force but Silvia had to be first. He'd waited for her to emerge but now that she had, his finger stalled on the trigger.

Silvia pushed a floating stroller in front of her, dressed like a wicked queen from one of Marim's storybooks. Berrick followed her, every moment his mind commanding his finger to move. She rushed down the drive—deep red hair trailing after her like a stream of blood diluting in black ink.

Pull the damn trigger.

Berrick lowered the gun. She was too far away now. The chance gone. Whether it was wise, he would have to go after Halis first. The spiders were preparing to leave the colony, he might not get another chance with them apart.

His back pressed into the tree behind him and Berrick watched the smear of Silvia's form disappear into the distance. He needed her far enough away that if Halis used the odd connection the Drambish shared Silvia could not make it back in time to save her lover.

Berrick's understanding of the Drambish mental interconnectedness was minimal. Hell, the documents hardly seemed to understand themselves. Just a mess of suppositions of powers the Drambish might have. But something connected them. Marim had rambled about it and Darith had tried to explain.

Get in. Kill Halis. Get out before the black widow returns. That was the plan.

I should have shot her. Why didn't I?

Berrick lifted his gaze to the thick black clouds that blotted the sun. "I love you Marim."

All the windows in the house were dark and the street lights barely penetrated the trees as Berrick crept toward the house. At any moment he expected Halis to burst from the house. Turn to him and charge. Berrick adjusted his grip on the gun, Twisting his hands around the comforting density.

He exited the trees and bent his knees half crawling forward. Smoke funneled into the sky. From a fireplace? Berrick wondered. There was a significant amount.

The long grassy slope from his cover to the house provided almost no cover and his gaze never left the windows. At one point he thought he saw a ghost of white cross the windows. He dropped to the ground. But nothing emerged and he rose from the dirt and covered the last of the distance to the house.

The air was heavy with smoke and Berrick looked to the sky. A thick column of smoke peeled from the back of the house. Not coming from inside at all.

"I'll probably be joining you, Polly," he whispered.

Gods, how he wanted to see Polly, to see Dafyd. He closed his eyes and tried to picture them. Tried to conjure that part of his life, Polly in her rocking chair holding a cup of steaming tea. Marim laying in front of the fire reading a book to her brother, who rather than sitting still clambered all over her back. All of it was distant and unreal as a dream.

He looked at the dark house and the rolling smoke, the weight of booze in his pocket called to him. This was life. He couldn't touch those that had taken Polly and Peter. But the man who'd taken Marim and broken her was back there.

Berrick slid along the wall, stopping and listening after each step. He heard only the crackle of flame. At the corner, he listened longer trying to distinguish footsteps under the sound of the bonfire. When he thought he knew the general location of Halis he stepped around the edge.

Thick and heavy, black flecks of ash colored the garden in gray and little bursts of orange. At the epicenter, a fire bloomed sending cascading black clouds upwards. Halis stood near it, tossing a chair into the flame, then watching it catch.

No playing hero. No warnings. Berrick lifted the gun and leveled it. If some invisible force had stayed is hand with Silvia he'd be sure he didn't give it time to intervene for Halis.

Halis turned. Black eyes locking on Berrick.

Berrick squeezed his finger.

The gun recoiled against Berrick's shoulder.

A burst of red shot from the left side of Halis' chest. The scream that ripped from Halis began as a throaty human wail but transformed with him into a shrill screech.

Before Berrick could fire again, tiny spiders burst from the cracks of the house, from the trees and bushes, ran onto the path at Berrick's feet. The swarm of black drove him back a step before his resolve hardened. Only one spider mattered.

Dripping blood, the giant black Drambish had stopped screaming. The noise it made now was more of a hiss. It launched itself into the air.

Berrick fired.

A shower of hot, sticky liquid shot into Berrick's face. Blinded, Berrick could only feel the spider's weight as it landed on him. Pain shot up his side as something pierced into him.

Thousands of pinpoints of pain covered him as the smaller spiders swarmed over his legs, arms and torso.

Fumbling at his belt, Berrick searched for another weapon. His fingers crawling with arachnids as he crushed their small bodies in his search.

Halis reared up. Crimson coated his widened maw, but the liquid that dripped from his fangs was not blood. A drop fell to Berrick's shoulder, burning like acid.

Berrick pulled a second smaller firearm from his belt. His eyelids batted against the red film blinding him.

The spider dove down, black eyes hungry.