The sides of the meeting room curved, turning the room into a bullet shaped oblong of blue steel. Nothing broke the sleek metallic curve but for a table with three chairs on one side and a lone seat on the other. The furniture was across the room in front of the single flat wall. The legs of the chairs and table had been built at a slant so they sat evenly on the curved floor. Two of the three chairs and the far side of the table were filled with two elderly gentlemen.

The Agency's owners. One a gray haired scientist with thick spectacles and large sausage-like fingers. The other a tawny skinned gentleman, head shaved and shined till it formed a reflective surface. The third chair, Mr. Red's chair was empty.

Allison walked down the center of the floor, her metal tipped heels singing as they brushed the floor. She strode directly behind the lonely chair facing the men and set her hands on its back. She leaned a slight portion of her weight against the chair back, nothing more than an indication she'd stopped.

Do the other girls ever sit down? Or is the seat simply to demonstrate the inequality between the seated men and the agents who faced them across the table?

"Have a seat," said the gray haired man, Johnny, as he liked to be called. Though Allison did a little research and found his birth name, she'd never say it aloud.

"If you command, I'll kneel," Allison replied, making no move toward the chair.

"As it has ever been," Johnny said.

The shiny headed bald man, Lord Wasem, rarely spoke, and he didn't now. His steel nailed hands rose to the table top and a cascade of clicks rang into the room as his fingers drummed on the tabletop.

"Tradition is both a garland and a chain. In either event it demonstrates our role." Allison could ask why she was there but assumed they wanted to retain the reigns of the conversation. Her silence demonstrated her docility. See, the unspoken words said, I expect nothing from you, demand nothing. I only obey.

There were two things they could want from her- either to hand her another role, an assignment of some sort or they wanted a report on the new girl.

"You are getting on well with Glory?" Lord Wasem said.

Not even a question, then they did want to feel powerful, to know she would answer without being asked. This was usually a game they played with inexperienced operatives. They already know they own me.

"Glory is strong. She has a streak for empathy that Red will stamp out but she is settling in admirably."

"Yes Red can handle her now," Lord Wasem said.

An assignment then, since the comment implied an end to her brief mentorship. To bad, talking to Glory made her feel almost human, gave her something she was allowed to care about.

"Red is a magician. A sorcerer of sorts." Johnny said.

They were dwelling on Red, and he was absent. I'm being tested. Allison's heart thudded and she forced it to slow lest the slight movement of her chest give her away. Red would notice, these two might not have the skill but wisdom dictated not testing their abilities.

"If you are the art, he's the craftsman," Johnny leaned forward, his this glasses making his eyes huge and bug like.

"But I'm not art, merely the paintbrush. The work my hands do on your behalf, that is the art." Allison replied.

"Which places us as wealthy patrons of the arts," Johnny said.

Lord Wasem's fingernails pounded on the table.

"Or the talent, the inspiration of the artist," Allison said.

"We have a minor masterpiece that craved your brushstrokes." Johnny released a file from his net implant to hers.

Lord Wasem shoved a file across to her.

Allison opened the physical folder. A face stared out at her. Allison stared back as she read through the file in her implant. Skin a color she'd never seen in nature, a color like smoke, a deep velvety gray. Despite being attractive something lurked in the gaze that made her hope the assignment wouldn't involve sex.

"Halis Black," she read aloud after a once over of the entire file. A kill job? She read the information again but nothing new appeared. No second page. No secondary assignment. "Track his movements. Report back with an emphasis on who he sleeps with and what happens to them. After reporting back kill him."

She didn't phrase it as a question but everyone knew it was. She waited for the interjection, the complication. They hadn't wasted her skills on a simple kill job for decades.

"The body must not be found," Lord Wasem said.

I can read the file. Allison smiled. "Disposed of discretely. Destroyed."

"Go. Pack. You leave tomorrow," Johnny said.

Allison picked up the picture and holding it between two fingers, she walked back across the room.

***

A scream ripped across the daisy- strewn night. Marim's red hair splashed like blood across the pillow, shredded petals from Darith's daily gift of daisies dotted the bed. Her eyes stared, filled with a vague blind terror. Her nostrils flared. She smelled them on the night air. She felt his fingers but more Silvia's distant pain ravaged her. It was so like another pain she dimly remembered. Her fingers clenched on the sheets of her slender hard pallet.

After the first single shout of fear, she was silent amidst the voices that crowded in around her. They held her snug away from the pain and darkness. She clenched her legs closed as if she could trap it inside her. The being that came belonged to another, housed in another's womb.

Another born, good. We will fill the earth again, the voice in her head said. It was like a chain against her, binding her to Silvia's torment and weighing her down in the blackness. Not just a child, a god. He will teach humanity to kneel.

Silvia's hair splashed out like a nighthawks talons, and it struck a pillow, somewhere worlds away. There was sweat between her breasts and it trickled down along the line of a rib. The beast moved. Marim laughed a laugh that was more like tears than laughter.

He comes, the destroyer, the redeemer, the voice chanted.

Silvia swore. Her hand struck out and somehow over light-years of space Marim recoiled from the sharp tare of a nail on her cheek.

"It's nothing," Silvia said between barred teeth.

Marim's thighs hurt from cramping them together.

Silvia cried out now. Marim was silent. Her mouth drawn together.

Black and red mingled together. Breathing crecendoed harsh and fast. A whimper. Marim's head fell back against the pillow, sending out a puff of daisy petals. Silvia strained her head upwards, her eyes wide and conscious—hateful. A tear slipped from Marim's eye and rolled unnoted down to the pillow and settled near a lock of sweat tinged hair.

A laugh like a sigh, tired and joyful, emerged from Silvia.

"A boy," Marim whispered.

"Havoc," they said together. And the voice that belonged to neither echoed the name with a million other voices in one.

***

Berrick forced his eyes to the staircase at the sound of approaching footsteps. They led Marim by the arms. The two men were as stiff as their uniforms. As if they too had undergone the starching process. They were not men at all but hands and bodies that led Marim away.

Her hair, loose and untended around her shoulders, was blood red. Somewhere deep inside she was bleeding, and it manifested itself in her hair. For everywhere else she was blank and cool. Her eyes, a flat brown once more, glazed over. Her face, despite the scratches she had deposited on it in the night, was slack in the daylight. She wore her night dress, now torn from one shoulder. The lace hung free where she had shredded it with her nails. It no longer looked the part of a wedding gown. What was left of her pregnancy weight was covered in the dress leaving her the appearance of the slip of a girl she'd been not too long ago.

"She's stranded, halfway between here and there," Darith commented.

As usual Berrick could not tell what lurked behind the boy's dark tones. Nor could he see his face. Neither man looked away from the girl being led across the entrance hall toward the door. One look, one word from her and Berrick would rip her from the hands of those neat, pompous men.

Just look up, baby, some sign your in there.

"How can they take her?" Count Cortanis said. He did not understand.

"Two months is not enough to condemn her to that place," the countess added. "She has a chance yet to recover. She is so young and well-bred women do have troubles with childbirth. You must give her more time."

"Call this to a halt, Darith," the count said.

"I granted them the right," Darith said. "Why would I call anything to a halt?"

"She's your wife, how could you?" the countess said. "Have you no concern for the family name?"

"She'll be safer there. We can do nothing for her here," Berrick said.

"I'll never understand..." the count began.

"You don't need to," Darith cut him off. "I'm aware of your limits, Father. Aware how delicately you treated your own wife. Your opinions mean nothing."

Berrick tuned the rest out as the men led Marim past him.

Marim stared passively straight ahead as she passed them. She smelled of daisies. Darith brought them to her room. Every day, Marim sat by them and every night, before ripping at her flesh, she tore the flowers to shreds. Berrick cleaned the mess in the light of morning. The first time Berrick mentioned the mental facility the words tasted like acid.

From the start, Darith maintained that Marim was never coming back. The traumatized boy talked about not being able to feel her inside his mind. Berrick tried very hard early on to disbelieve Darith's stark predictions on Marim's account but nothing looked out of her eyes, and she would do herself real harm eventually. After the initial month of her raving, Berrick bode his time with Darith until they could legally send Marim away.

The starched men led her from the house. Count Cortanis and his bitter-faced wife followed to see the girl loaded in the car. The countess gave the healthcare workers instruction on how to leave the property without being noticed.

"Look at them, one might assume that genuine feelings motivated them. But it's just the shame of their daughter in-law being institutionalized. Never admit weakness. Anything but that."

"They aren't perfect, Darith. No parent is."

"You don't know them at all do you? You've known my father for twenty years and you don't know a damn thing that makes him tick."

Darith held the spider-child in his arms. The baby was pink-faced and plump as any human infant.

The baby squalled. Berrick saw the creature and knew the spider by its already black eyes. For two months, he had awaited a moment alone with the evil beast. But even if he had it would he have the bravery to do what needed to be done? Monster or not, it was his grandchild. How could he judge the Cortanis'?

"You meant to murder her. You still do," Darith said. His hold tightened on the child, and he pulled back.

"Yes." Berrick hadn't realized till then that he was reaching to take Annabelle. He lowered his arms. Today was not the day. The more time past, the more his attempts felt like a shallow fraud. One night, he had stood over her crib when Darith and wet nurse were absent. Pillow clutched in his hands. And what had he done? Nothing.

"I would've stopped you."

Berrick looked at the wheeled chair that Darith sat in. "It doesn't matter now."

"So now you will go after Silvia and Halis and try to srlay them."

"Yes."

"And you think you will succeed?" Darith smirked.

"No. Do you think you would have succeeded in stopping me?"

"I know I would have," Darith said. Then his arms extricated themselves from the baby's body. He spoke a word that filled the air with silent noise. His long fingers moved on the air as if he scooped sand. Annabelle lifted from his lap and hung suspended. Then Darith's hands moved to the side of his chair. He levered himself up. Another word exploded from his lips. Had the sound blown in another direction perhaps the house would have fallen around their ears. Instead, Darith stood and moved his arms to take the spider. "And when you fail with the spiders who hurt Marim, I'll follow you and see that they meet a messy end."

Darith sat back in the chair. His face was pale and drawn, and his hands shook.

Berrick had seen magic like this before. Because he knew Silvia, he did not question Darith's abilities. "Why not go now?"

"I'm not impatient. And I have Annabelle to look after." Darith glanced at the baby. "She'll probably be one of them. But just think, perhaps instead she'll be something more. Forged like a sword there'll be no weapon of greater power."
"She isn't your child."

"She is." Darith looked up into Berrick's eyes. His gaze was hard, not starched but genuine inflexible strength. "There will be another child out there, and that child will be mine in the way you mean. But it'll also be Marim's in the way that Annabelle's mine. There are two children and four parents, and each belongs to each. We are all caught in the web together. You cannot remove any one without tearing the web into pieces."

"Makes no sense," Berrick snarled.

"Go chase them. That's your part in this— a bloodhound bound for failure." Darith waved a hand, smirk plastered to his face.

Berrick turned and strode out the door, Darith's laughter on his back. The car that held his daughter headed down the long driveway.

The countess wept though she had never liked Marim. Berrick hated siding with the sullen boy but the only worry that woman had was for her image. The count placed his hand on Berrick's shoulder and said nothing. There was nothing to say. Words were dry and empty. Only vengeance did not dry up and melt away on Berrick's tongue. He'd locate the spider, and he would destroy them. If he was not irradicated in the process, he would return and kill the one spider he left behind.

"I'm going off-world."

"Must you talk of this now?" the countess cried.

Berrick clenched his fists. Her child was safe and sane inside her home. He'd ignored her judgements once before, pretending he didn't know she'd told Marim that Polly asked for her fate. How had no one killed this nasty woman by now?

"You'll have to resign," the count said.

"I've put the paperwork in," Berrick replied. "I should have resigned four years ago."

"Do you recall how happy you were when the position vacated and we got you an interview? Odd looking back. So much hope back then, so much belief and faith."

"I need to believe in something again. Can't live this way. I have to fight or I'll wake up one day and be just like the rigid bastards who took my family."

"I try to be a good man, Berrick, but you were always better at it than me. I won't ever break free but I do wish you luck in it."

"Thank you."

"I hope you find what you are looking for."

"I will." There was no other option.