Circe was on the other side, rattling the knob, shoving at a door she couldn’t open. I dug my fists into Ripley’s scarred belly and he grunted and dropped the gun and it was lost in a pit of shadow that was much too far from the webbed window.
No light crawled there. But a Spider did.
He did more than crawl. He came for me, and he came hard. I ducked two sweeping hooks, then caught another elbow. The room went black as the first midnight flash of a strobe light. A lost second and I was back with him and the fist he sank into my ribs was like a chisel on ice. He pounded with it, again and again, chipping away until I went down hard, flat on my back.
Cold cold pain froze my ribs but my anger burned it off when I felt the K-bar pinned beneath me on the floor.
I snatched it up and went for Spider Ripley again.
Pain knifed my ribs and brought me up short.
I only managed to slash Ripley’s chest.
He fell back against the wall, caught in the spider web of sickly light from the lone window, and that was when I saw it.
Not his torn shirt, or the blood pulsing from a fresh slash beneath it, or the branded ankh on his chest.
No. The thing I saw eclipsed Ripley’s ankh.
It hung on a crude rawhide necklace that snared the big man’s neck.
It was a silver crucifix.
In dead light born of a brewing storm, Spider Ripley’s blood pulsed over polished metal.
I stared at him, and he stared at me.
Hate and embarrassment burned in his eyes. Then the doorknob rattled again.
It was Circe. She’d had enough. Just as Spider was about to launch another attack, a shot went off and a hole appeared near the doorknob. Ripley jumped back and Janice Ravenwood screamed from the kitchen, but that didn’t stop Circe. She fired another shot, and the bullet tore through the door and broke the window, sending a half-dozen spiders scurrying in their webs.
I still didn’t know how Ripley had entered the storeroom. 1 hadn’t found another door, and I didn’t have time to look for one. In the kitchen, Circe yelled at Janice, telling her to get out of the way or else she was going to end up dead, and then another bullet pierced the door and Spider ducked low.
“Ripley!” Circe screamed. “If you’re not dead, open the fucking door!”
Spider didn’t answer. He didn’t even raise his head.
And I didn’t waste any time. I jumped through the window. My ribs screamed as I dove into a puddle of rainwater that was much too shallow, but I came up fast and started running.
Bullets splintered wood and hissed past me into the forest. I didn’t look back at all.
3
I had a lot of questions.
I needed some answers.
I didn’t know how quickly I could get them.
But I knew where to start looking.
I spotted the mailbox right off. The huge rubber tarantula spiked to the top was a dead giveaway. Given life by a steady stream of pelting raindrops, the tarantula’s rubber legs danced over dull gray metal as if the impaled bug were trying to scramble free and escape into the primeval forest beyond.
Spider Ripley’s place was set back from Surf Glenn Lane. A gravel road snaked into a stand of dying trees, but I didn’t turn off. I stuck to the main road, slowing the Toyota to a crawl, studying the house through a net of twisted branches bristling with rusty red needles as I passed by.
Spider Ripley certainly wasn’t an average man. There was nothing average about his house, either. Ripley lived in a pyramid. Oh, not the kind built by ancient Egyptians, whose gods he had worshipped in his younger days. Spider’s pyramid looked like it had been designed by a misguided granola-eating architect with a revolutionary selling point -your home now, your crypt later. That was the only explanation I could come up with, unless the guy had simply tired of building geodesic domes. Either way, whoever was responsible for the monstrosity that loomed before me definitely had more money than sense, which left him ahead of Spider Ripley in at least one department.
Like the House of Usher, the pyramid had definitely seen better days. I was willing to bet that it dated to the seventies, the golden age of neo-hippie architecture. Three stories high, it was covered with redwood shingles. Of the two walls I could see, one was going green with moss and the other looked like a sick tree that was ready to shed its bark. The few windows shone as black as Ray-Ban lenses, narrow horizontal slits that could easily accommodate the barrel of a sniper’s rifle.
No cars were parked out front. What was behind the pyramid, I didn’t know. A miniature sphinx wouldn’t have surprised me. But as long as there wasn’t a car parked back there, I’d be happy.
I followed the main road, and the pyramid disappeared behind me as the forest thickened. Under other circumstances Ripley’s place might have made me laugh. As it was, my appreciation of the ironic was running at a low ebb.
My thoughts returned to my fight with Ripley. Not just because my ribs ached. Actually, I didn’t remember much about the fight at all. What I remembered was the way Spider’s eyes shone with hatred and embarrassment when I saw the silver crucifix hanging around his neck.
It was a strange reaction. Funny. Pathetic. Revealing.
At least I hoped it was revealing. Just as I hoped Spider’s crucifix meant what I thought it did.
Otherwise, my coming here was a waste of time.
The windshield wipers beat a steady rhythm. Surf Glenn Lane curved toward the coastline. A quarter mile from Spider’s place, I spotted a weathered LOT FOR SALE sign and a dirt road that descended into the trees.
I turned off. The lot was hidden from the road. Overgrown with ferns, it didn’t exactly look like a real estate agent’s hot property. Even if it was, I doubted that a prospective buyer would be scouting undeveloped acreage in the rain. The odds were good that the truck would be safe.
I parked and armed myself, concealing one of the pistols and my K-bar just as I had earlier in Cliffside.
As I walked up the road, I wondered what secrets Spider Ripley’s pyramid held.
If I was lucky, I already knew.
There wasn’t any traffic on Surf Glenn Lane. Still, I stayed close to the treeline. The rain was steady but gentle, and the trees were thick enough to keep me from getting too wet.
I started down the gravel road that led to Spider’s pyramid. Closer in, the place seemed less amusing. I didn’t like those opaque windows. Anything could be inside. Or anyone.
There was only one way to find out. Two sides of the pyramid were visible from the main road-one of them being the main entrance, which faced the gravel driveway-so I went around the back.
No miniature sphinx. Just a little garden choked with weeds, several pink flamingos, and a pair of copulating ceramic gnomes.
I picked up the male, and I had to laugh. His equipment was way past elfin. The little guy was hung like a troll.
But copulating ceramic gnomes weren’t anything to get excited about. The good news was that no cars were parked in Spider’s garden, and that made me happy. It wasn’t incontrovertible evidence that no one was home, but I took it as a pretty solid indication of same.
I spotted another door-sliding glass and black as midnight. Completely opaque. The only thing I saw as I approached it was my own reflection waiting for me on the glass.
It was a stone cold fact that I’d seen better days, but I didn’t let my appearance slow me down.
I heaved the gnome through the glass and followed it inside.
Dark as a pit in there, and cool.
I took a deep breath.