The world split in two. In the back of her mind, Marim knew that giving birth was not supposed to feel like this. There were supposed to be boundaries to the pain. Agony as brilliant as a lightning strike drove through her and when it receded its absence left only a blind black. Her mind tore in two. One-half knew that she was giving her child to the world. The other half charred amid a river of magma.

She screamed that she was dying. Tumbling into the churning nothing, she could not hear her voice. Then she sunk beneath the waves once more. Beneath the waters, her mother smiled and danced with a figure covered in thorns that pierced her. Her mother's blood spread slowly out staining her browned skin. With every movement, her flesh was torn, leaving more of her oozing wet. Yet she kept smiling. As she turned, Marim could see into her mother's eyes. They were black as night, and they were leaking a tar-like substance.

Light flashed against her closed lids. It blinded her mind until she stumbled inside it. She crouched and held still,r hoping to stay within the slender circle of light. The darkness at the periphery scared her. She held her thoughts close, not daring to reach out. The pain of her body rippled dimly, through this mist of beautiful light.

When the light ripped in peices, she crried. "No! Oh no, no!"

A brief vision of the room around her trickled into the crack. Darith sat at her bedside. He was crying. He knew how the web reached to claim her, clung to her, left her no more than a fly beating useless wings after its legs are entangled in the spider's web. Words rose in her, but her voice couldn't find purchase in her throat. She wanted to touch him, to tell him she loved him. Tell him to survive and to forget revenge. But she couldn't move her arms. Her wrists were bound with cords to the bed. Darkness enveloped the room.

Millions of tiny little eyes stared at her. They didn't blink. They all watched her, and their harsh quick tongue struck her ears. At first, they seemed to be rising, and then Marim knew that she was sinking. She could feel the cold slime rising around her ankles.

Leave me be! She screamed at them. There was clacking around her, thousands and sharp little clicks.

Wrenched back to her body by pain, she screamed. Her voice reached her ears. Her eyes caught on her father who stood at the foot of the bed. His features were distant, almost unrecognizable. They all seemed like figures on a screen. There but not real. The torment held them at bay.

This is not how it should be! She screamed,r but her voice made no sound. Her lips did not even part. Then for a long moment the pain in her body, the fatigue, and the ache was enough to blind her to all else.

She heard a child's cry. My baby. Her vision went black, and she choked on a scream. There was nothing in this blackness, but she could hear their legs shuffling her way. The sweat on her lip was cold

"The baby, Annabelle is the key. Keep her safe for me; keep the world safe from her. I know...I know..." She heard her voice echoing in a place far away. The sound separated from her, and she lost interest. What could such a voice accomplish? Nothing. She would sing. So she lifted that far away voice into a wordless song.

The spiders were close now. They would take her away with them. She reached out her hand and felt a single prickly limb. She did not recall that her arms were held down. That was not real. The world back there had no meaning.

"Where are we going?" She asked them. Her voice now rang in both places. The baby no longer cried, but she heard distant whimpers.

The creatures all around her did not respond. She heard their answer. She laughed, light as a child. "Will I die?"

Then the terror reached her, and she whimpered. They were close. She felt their breath on her. She could almost taste the poison of their fangs. It would hurt this death. They held only inches from her. "No, no, no."

Come with us. You will be safe, but you must come now. A harsh voice said. We are so few in body now but you will have good company here.

"But my child. My Annabelle."

Is out of your hands. Follow if you like or stay here with them. They are hungry, and we do not begrudge them a meal.

"I'm tied. I cannot come," Marim said. Her arms pulled against the ties.

Bodies are irrelevant.

Marim pondered this. The creature was only a voice in her head. She wasn't certain about the other ones.

"Goodbye, goodbye." She said once again in a sing-song voice. Her decision made. Maybe somehow she could find her way back to Annabelle and Darith, but not if she died.

***

Ymel slammed a fist into the desk and then with a glance about the room he straightened his jacket. He disconnected his net-glasses and threw them in disgust onto the ground. No news on Silvia and Halis. Or, he should say not good news. He'd really had hopes for this lead.

He even had a video feed of Silvia on the planet. But his agents told him they were gone.

No more waiting. They've been out there too long. If the galactic council gets wind of their existence.... No. It was time to start hiring assassins.

***

Umbu slipped into the house. The door was ajar as if to welcome him. He spurned it wary of such easy entry. He chose instead to pry open a window on the third floor. There he crept inside. He trusted his skin to shield him from view.

Darker than many of his people were, Umbu blended with the unlit interior. His skin was dark as coal. Only paler at his palms and the soles of his feet, both of which he smudged with coal when he worked. Even the whites of his eyes, he hid with a dye made from a rare plant.

Tonight, Umbu had taken extra care. Not often did he get a call to take out a murderer who could well have been in the ranks of his guild. Not often, either, did he get to take on a near-mythical creature.

Umbu always researched his hits. His was a gentleman's guild, not one of those plebian criminal undertakings. This job demanded more research than any before. Every scrap of information was classified, much of what he suspected had been destroyed. He found the information as much with luck as with skill and perseverance. But he found enough to tell him this kill would be one of legend for whoever took down the beast. The last of the spiders of Revia. Buried in one of the largest and most comprehensive libraries was a reference to a species of creatures that could go effortlessly between the form of man and the form of a giant spider.

The notes were adamant that this race was extinct. Irradicated to the last one was the wording used. No samples taken, no genetic preservation or study. This species, called the Drambish, were said to have a taste for human flesh. They could prey on anything but preferred sentient beings. The humans on their home world had fared badly.

When the Drambish branched out, looking for new worlds to prey upon, the neighboring worlds wiped them out not wishing to suffer the same fate. It appeared to Umbu that they had missed one or two.

He was curious to see them, this scholar admitted. Fear also pulsed in his blood. The drumming of his heart approaching either a kill or death was the entire reason for his chosen profession. The notes were incomplete. With such a miniscule amount of information, it was impossible to know who would be the victor in a struggle. Umbu slipped out the door of the room he'd entered. The hallway like the room was dark. He crept forward.

Were they asleep? His readings had implied they were mostly nocturnal, requiring less than four hours of sleep.

His hand caught on something sticky that hung in the air. A shiver travelled from his shoulders down his back. His eyes were abnormally adjusted to the dark. Now that he searched he saw small forms move along the floor and banister. A few dark spots hung in the air. Were they watching him?

He slipped silently into the next room and stood,r letting his eyes adjust to the forms. Before he could fully identify the dark shape in the corner, a light turned on. He'd accustomed himslef to sudden change. It didn't do to be blinded by a light coming on.

The woman who sat in the chair was a far cry from the picture he'd built in his mind. Her black hair stained with blood. Her full breasts thrust up against the lace gown she wore, which was no less sensual because her stomach was ripe with child. She stood with the grace of a snake. Were spiders so graceful? He had never noticed. They certainly were not this beautiful.

Her white dress fell to the floor, covered in pearls and delicate lace. He had never liked the look of pregnant women, not even his wife, though his memories of that time overflowed with fondness. Women with child were swollen and awkward. She was neither. She dressed like a bride in glaring white. Her arms were almost as pale as the dress. Only her hair falling in unconstrained waves was shadowed as he imagined her soul.

"Will you have a drink?" this vision said. The hand she lifted was studded with glittering rings. She moved over to a cabinet before he could find a voice.

"You cannot seduce me. I know what you are."

"And I know what you are." She poured two drinks. Hair obscured her face. "You want me dead because they've told you I must die."

"Your beauty might have stopped me, Silvia, but that you're a Drambish, a killer of mankind."

"Am I? Drambish, hmm." Silvia lifted her face to him and took both drinks up in her hands. "I've never heard that word before. Nor am I a killer."

Umbu said nothing but he took the drink. He did not sip the clear liquid. She sipped at hers. Her mouth parted beautifully. The inside of her glittered like one of the jewels on her fingers. He wanted to protect her, not harm her. The feeling that overcame him made no logical sense but it was as solid as the floor beneath his feet.

"Drink," she said.

He took a sip.

"Now let me tell you your options," Silvia said. "I am telling the truth when I say, I'm not a killer. I respect you and your profession. I acknowledge that there are people who should die. Perhaps, I am one of them. My partner is a killer, and he does deserve to die. You'll not kill him. I wouldn't let you, and in any event, you wouldn't prevail. So you have two options. You can leave here as you arrived, that is alive and secretly, or you can not leave here at all. We'll kill you. Make no mistake, there's no third option. I don't die, and neither does Halis."

A large, but not unnatural, spider crawled up the skirt of her dress and stayed there.

"What if I leave and return, and that time I take you by surprise."

"You could try. You would fail."

Umbu believed her. He did not want her to die. He also knew if he returned without taking out his mark, he would have no life. They would kill him if she did not. One did not take a mark and fail without forfeiting honor or life. Slowly he lifted the laser pistol at his side. His hand did not shake. He knew he would never get to fire it. The single clack behind him told him that Halis had been there all along.

One long hairy leg thrust through his spine and emerged in his stomach. He dropped the gun. His eyes never left her. She sipped her drink as the other's teeth sank into his black throat. When he slumped to the floor, Silvia set down the glass. As his life fled with his blood, he heard her speak.

"No challenge at all. I don't even think he meant to shoot me."

Black as the night and pale as a star, she curled against the spider's hairy hide. They lay together, and her hand of starlight stroked his abdomen.

'You smell of lust and no man wishes to kill that which he desires.' the night whispered to her in a hiss of his voice.

Umbu tried to drag himself to the side, perhaps stanch the blood. His limbs didn't work. A poison in the drink she gave him? Or something from the spider itself? It didn't matter. No choice but to sit there and hear her casual voice and the spider's voice that moved through the blackness of the mind. Unspoken yet heard.

"They have found us my love. We must flee. Where will we go?"

'Nowhere. We'll wait here and catch them all in our web. We'll consume every morsel.'

She moved her hand to her stomach. "And this one? He is too small to defend himself. For his sake, we cannot let them come at us."

'We can forge more. We will forge more.'

Silvia jerked up. Her handsr formed into claws, but she struck at nothing. Umbu felt nothing, not hate and not pity. Lethargy had crept into his thoughts. What did he care what became of them or the universe. He was going to die. After a moment, that didn't bother him either.

'The other one remains behind. You do not worry about her. For Annabelle.'

Silvia laughed then. In her laugh crawled millions of hair eight-legged creatures. "Marim will keep it safe that's a mother's desire."

'And I'll protect you and your child. Nothing will come at you here. I'm not ready to move on.'

"I do not fear for us, you and me. But he'll be defenseless."

'No child of ours will ever be defenseless.'

* If you like the story, please go ahead and hit the fancy little star and let the world and me know you appreciate it :) Thank you all for reading. I'm getting a better response than I hoped! Constructive comments are always welcome or almost any other type of comment you wish to make. Your responses always make my day!