"This is a trap. Absolutely without doubt, he took Ty to bait you. We know that Marketta is obsessed with you. It's the simplest explanation."
"So where are they?"
"We tracked them across the city, they're holed up somewhere in the Riverside area."
"Riverside, where they burn witches on sight?"
"Yeah. That's the one."
The rain hammers on the windows, rivulets of water come down the brickwork inside, infiltrating through the cracks. The drizzle has turned into a monsoon.
"And you think we can get Ty back tonight?"
"I do. This Golden Boy was working with a couple of other guys. Not in uniform. This is some kind of 'off the record' thing. If it was an official arrest, they'd have to play by the city law. Take Ty into custody, give him a phone call. This is something else."
"Do you think he'll hurt Ty?"
"If they want to interrogate Ty, it's likely. If Ty gives them enough information, maybe not."
I imagine Ty, terrified, alone, in pain.
Vash breaks the silence.
"Ursula, there's only three of them, and we have Weaver backup teams ready to support. We can do this. Only wild card is Golden Boy."
I think back to his performance at the school. The things he did. Could have been some other type of implant I guess, but it sure felt familiar.
"I'm pretty sure he has the Rhizome. And he's an advanced user to say the least."
"It's unusual for a cis-male to host a Rhizome successfully."
"He's Marketta's son, right? Do we really know that for sure? He could be walking lab grown meat."
"We know almost nothing about him. Almost certainly because she interferes with his digital footprint. But you're saying we should treat him as a magic user?"
"I'd say he's more capable with the Rhizome than anyone."
"Yeah well, we're betting you are better than him."
"Jesus why? I wasn't last time."
"Because you have to be. You got us out of there remember? He didn't beat you, not exactly."
A roll of thunder. I look out the window into the night. There is a red brick wall opposite with a river of water pouring out of a black gutter pipe. I think about one of the songs my mother used to sing. Const Incy, const wincy, const spider.
"I have an angle... maybe."
And I acknowledge her existence for the first time since I saw her at the bottom of the black lake. The spider creature with the torso of a woman. Arachne...
"There's a Dark Shiver, she wants me for a host, but she has power, deep, deep power."
Mel gives me a concerned look.
"If you let her in, do you think you can get her back out?"
If(down_came_the_rain) then {return: washArachneOut}.
"You're glitching again. Ursula...?"
Arachne is whispering to me, a string of syllables, a subconscious language going straight into my spine. And I realise how much I want to surrender to her, the gifts she offers. She can help me control the Rhizome, make it do things nobody has ever done before, make me a spider god, and I shake my head. Try to put my own voice back in the centre of my mind.
I grip Mel's shoulders, and look her right in the eye.
"All the people I have failed this year, if I can just get one of them back, it'll be worth the risk."
She looks right back. She holds my gaze a second. Then she nods, very slightly.
"OK then. I'll call in our ride."
###
We're wading through the underground carpark of this block of flats in the heart of the Riverside. We're thigh deep in brown river water, the Thames has broken its banks again. And it's hard to be quiet when you're wading. The temperatures have dropped tonight, I'm trying not to shiver.
"Do you think he knows we're coming?" I whisper.
"Maybe, if he hacked Ty's Rhizome. He could jump the wireless link to the Coven, not exactly read out minds but could pick up our location data." Mel replies.
Though we aren't actually connected right now, no wireless down here. No WIFI network to piggyback and link up the coven subnet. So, we're hoping Ty has not moved from the last identified location, up above us in the ground floor flat.
Vash wires up a very high-tech piece of explosive gear. Standing on the roof of an old SUV. We get way back, except Mel who stays a little too close for comfort, and when the chunk of the ceiling falls through she is up and through the hole in seconds.
Vash and I scramble up onto the roof of the vehicle and Mel pulls me up by my arm, then she does the same for Vash. Mel twists around lightning fast, jamming her rigid fingers into the neck of a charging man, drops the stick he was holding onto the kitchen floor and collapses, choking. Then there is a bang and a flash of light. I can't see and all I can hear is the ringing in my ears.
When my vision returns, I'm alone on the kitchen floor, I stand up and stagger forward into the main living area of the flat. Vash is on the floor, a dark pool emerging from her head.
Mel and the Goldenboy are moving so fast, it's like a blurred dance. In and out, together and apart, if they're fighting, I can't tell who is winning. Another witch hunter lies motionless on the floor. Ty is strapped to a chair with gaffer tape, unconscious. Face raw with bruises.
Then Mel freezes, and her own webbing starts to wrap around growing around her limbs and tying them to her own body, moving like snakes, writhing around her neck, beginning to choke her. He's hacked her Rhizome, taken control of her implants. How is that possible?
Jesus what a dumbass. Of course, you can just turn your own Rhizome into a server, make an ad hoc local wireless network. Well, if that's what he's done he must have assigned himself an IP address, or whatever the Rhizomatic equivalent is.
I try to move my mind back along the invisible radio waves that he is throwing out, try to make a link with him. But he's ahead of the game, the information is writhing, in constant motion, cryptographically alive. I can't do this. But I know someone who can.
I surrender to Arachne.
Golden Boy stares at me with a glassy eyed grin as he throttles my friend. Mel's head turns purple, I can see all the veins in her neck and face. Her mouth opens wide, uselessly trying to gasp for air, tongue fat, blood vessels bursting in her eyes. He wants to watch me watching her die.
But it isn't me looking out through these eyes anymore.
The voice of the human girl shrinks away to the back of my eternal cave. A body! Some filthy Christian archangel dares to torture one of my devotees! He has woven thick webs around his cave, but I can untangle him like a ball of errant wool.
I untwine the webs holding my brave warrior, let her breathe again. She must rest. Now it is only I and the boy. He looks like Athena come to curse me again. He will suffer now.
Oh, he gives a good fight. But I am the first of all spiders, and you are just a human after all.
How delicious the moment that he realises he has lost.
I send the agony into him, unravelling his mind thread by thread.
I invade him. No human has ever felt such pain. He will remember me to his dying day.
Pray to Arachne!
See him kneel!
But the little girl is back, she wants my body. And her voice is getting louder.
What are these strange words she uses. No! NO! I am ARIADNE. This is MY BODY.
If(down_came_the_rain) then {return: washArachneOut}.
Well, I feel myself shrinking but not before I take a bite out of her soul, and I can use this bite one day, to reclaim my prize forever.
And I can hear the Shiver as it creeps away into the Gap muttering to itself. And there is a hole in me somewhere that will never be filled. And the glitching comes. And I don't know if I will ever stop babbling.
I see the Weaver extraction team cut Ty free and carry him away. My coven is alive, and that is all that matters.
So,I surrender to the Glitch, hoping that it will pass, and I will still be Ursulawhen it does.