Halis prowled the flashing club from the dimly lit edges. Most of the others lining the wall either shot glowing junk into their veins or copulated with an urgency foreign to Halis. He assumed such base animal mounting was linked to their pure mammalian genes. But gave credence to the possibility they were simply an inordinately flawed species. Other mammals might be more appealing.

The interior of the dancefloor pulsed with those who had already polluted their veins and those looking to do so. The most appealing of the lot were the lost souls seeking genuine connections through gyrating hips. All of this in air filled with cheap plastic glitter and flickering near-pornographic images projected over the crowd.

As hunting grounds, it was abysmally easy. Might as well be a buffet.

Depressingly dull, but after the first wealthy neighbor went missing, Silvia insisted he couldn't kill near home. For her sake, because she enjoyed living in this place and walking in daylight, he preyed like a rat confined to the cellars. She deserved a home, and so did the beautiful little boy. For a short while, he would placate her and avoid notice.

Eventually, oh eventually, we won't need to hide. We will crawl from the shadows in renewed numbers and eat their hearts.

The dim flashy lighting of the place fooled human eyes into glossing over the flaws in both environment and clientele. Halis' sharp eyes saw every revolting detail. Broken needles imbedded in the plaster walls, a pool of piss near a garbage can smeared with white sticky goo, the combinations made his stomach churn. At least, the brothel had been clean, and the food unspoiled.

Life was a tradeoff.

Hunting, truly hunting for his prey, was glorious, and Silvia's smile as she looked out at the crators and whipping flurries of sand merited braving the acrid taste of drug-ridden blood.

Yes the hunt is good, the hive voice threaded his mind. It was stronger now, attached to Marim's life. It thrilled inside him to hear the vigor there and he would feed them.

The game of the night, a dark-haired thing, painfully naive in this crowd of wolves and lepers, struggled away from her intoxicated partner. Halis watched her patiently waiting for the correct moment. All night he made sure to meet her gaze, always looking away. Best a girl like that approach him.

As he offered her a tentative smile, something else caught his eye. A shining white in the filth.

Like a beam of moonlight, a female entered. White and pure to her core. He wanted to move closer, to smell her and be sure. She decorated the arm of some middling drug dealer and soon disappeared into the crowd. But not before her eyes, a vivid violet, briefly met his.

She would make a worthwhile hunt. Perhaps even be worth seeding with child.

Yes. She's the one. Born on her, your children will be strong, the voice said.

She'd taste like honey and wine. But not tonight. That would spoil the rarity. Best wait.

Halis grinned at the romantic fool again. This time he didn't look away. Having extricated herself from her lecherous partner, she was nearly at the bar. The sustained gaze was enough to alter the dark haired girl's destination to his side. Yes, I'm harmless.

Her mouth moved, shouting something over the din. Halis couldn't understand and shrugged to emphasize his helplessness. Her smell—too much perfume mingled with a tinge of hope—intensified as she leaned closer. No desperation clung to her, and her eyes were unclouded.

Come, he motioned to her.

She smiled in return, her hand settled into his, and he led her toward a back door. Out in the night, the stench receded, and the deafening pulse of recorded music quieted. Only a dozen people littered the patch of cement. Most blowing puffs of thick, noxious green smoke.

Halis led the girl off to the side. She was a score. Out in the clearer light, she was still attractive. Dark skin and dark eyes went with her long hair. If it hadn't been for the pale angel who'd crossed his vision, he would have considered this one to seed with child.

Seed them all, the voice said. Our numbers are depleted. You can make us strong.

No. This time he didn't care what the hive thought. Having seen the angel, what did he want with the creature of earth?

"I'm Lilah," she said in a husky voice.

"Halis," he said. He already tasted her.

***

The night sky above her spread in every direction, broken by no manmade structure. Sullied by no constraints, just an endless expanse of freedom. Silvia allowed her eyes to drop closed for a moment and let her lips part to permit the grainy wind to coat her tongue.

Her son's warmth against her chest brought a feeling with it that didn't agree with the perfect night. Fear rode her, nibbled at her, and whispered in Darith's voice 'I'm coming.' Her precious Havoc was so small and blameless.

The voice of Halis' people that threaded the web and sang its poison melodies in her mind was silent now. But it was there, waiting, knowing and finally it would judge who was the strongest of its children.

A crackle like a vehicle approaching made her look back over her shoulder, but no one approached. Halis was gone. Again. Always gone.

Her arms tightened around the bundle until Havoc squirmed.

Halis had been a sullen child, and she'd delighted that his smiles were reserved for her. Then, at thirteen, he'd transformed for the first time. Silvia shivered, feeling an echo of her terror, hearing her screams reverberating in her ears.

"Ymel," she whispered. He knew. He'd always known. She'd seen him that day watching, smiling. Pleased with, not afraid of, the giant spider lumbering toward Silvia.

Silvia's eyes closed and she indulged in remembering.

The creature that moments before had been Halis clicked slowly across the room towards her. Numerous black eyes all riveted on her and in none of them shone even a trace of her only friend. Its jaws dripped. Silvia's scream died out as her lungs ran exhausted their air supply. She stumbled back. The beast advanced making a clicking sound with its jaws.

She screamed again. This time her voice formed the solitary word that meant safety. "HALIS!"

Only it was Halis. She turned and ran toward the glass that divided their room from the viewing chamber on the other side. She slammed her fists against the glass, trying to divert Mr. Ymel's attention from the spider to her.

When he did look at her, his smile offered no relief.

"Dearest Silvia," he said, "You must calm down, you know. The spider's a carnivore and partial to human blood for nourishment. Your fear's exciting him."

"Help," she pleaded, flattened against the glass. She spared a glance behind her. The spider wobbled, seeming to have trouble with its new legs but its direction remained toward her. Somewhere at the back of her mind she felt Halis' voice but her fear drown out even this thread of comfort.

"I cannot aid you. That creature would consume me in moments. You, dear girl, if you calm down, he may view as one of his own. But I'm afraid the screams are riling the beast."

Ymel smiled, and Silvia ascertained from the toothy grin and the emotionless voice that Ymel didn't care one way or the other if she was consumed. The hatred and disgust that welled up in response overtook her. She spat on the glass and spun to face the monster.

Her shoulders squared, and her black hair cascaded down her back. She met the spider's eyes. And words slipped past her anger into her mind. Halis spoke in a voice made of congealed blood and the remnants of a thousand screams.

'Silvia, never, never, Silvia.'

As she calmed, she stepped forward and offered the spider her trembling white hand. The words in her mind became solid and clear.

'I'd never hurt you, Silvia. I've always been this, and always loved you. Please smile, Silvia. This is good. I'm strong. They're weak. We're strong.'

Silvia threw her arms around the spider and sobbed against its side. A bony leg curled up to hold her close. Her fingers dug into the rough hide, trying to find evidence of the boy she loved. There was nothing of the slender youth except the tenderness with which it held her.

"You were a catapillar, my love," she whispered. "And now you're my butterfly. What of me? I want to be like you."

Not like him, she thought, casting a glance at the grinning man behind the glass. He's a monster.

Do you not know what you are, my Silvia? You're not what I am, but you are a butterfly. No, you're better- a queen to rule the hive.

The next week Silvia transformed, but it wasn't the same—she chose the form and used her power to achieve it. The form was part of Halis.

After that first transformation, he smiled for everyone. To Silvia, he confided that he'd never felt at home as a boy, and more and more he chose to live as a spider. Ymel tainted all her memories of youth. Halis smiled with the other man's cruelty. She would never be free of him.

But Ymel would not have her son. They would never have Havoc. Never do to him what they did to her, to Halis. She didn't care if Havoc changed or didn't change when puberty hit. Except that he was defenseless until then.

For Havoc's sake, she did not engage in the game Darith played on the dark web connecting them. Until she knew he wouldn't lead Ymel to them, she didn't dare risk Darith locating them. She didn't press the remnants, which Halis called the hive, to test Darith.

Silvia walked to the edge of the garden so she could look out at the vast vacant moonscape. Havoc's mind moved, and she smiled at the simplicity of his infantile needs. Warmth, food, and love.

"Love I have little one. I love you more than life and will feed you to the void before they'll have you." Somehow, in the darkness of the night, Silvia's black eyes glowed outward. Her human form slipped from her, and she curled on the ground, eight legs wound around the child and sang a spider's song.

She waited another hour in the howling cold before retreating into the house. Halis was still absent. He would come home stinking of blood, content and distant.

How can he be so careless? We could be a family but instead he's out there drinking skanks. Could it just be hunger? No. He had never been the animal they wanted to make of him. She felt it every time she touched his mind. This was revenge. This was the hive's will and even she couldn't alter its course for renewal and revenge.

The humans burned their world, their people. He wanted to destroy the perpetrators. Just as it had been the first day he wore his arachnid form, her safety was the only other thing that mattered. His spider queen, now the mother of a new god.