She leaned over the hatch and sniffed.

"Gass dissipation is likely safe at this point. I'll cover you."

As he steadied his boot on the first rail, Tasìa thought he needed a little advice.

"I would advise going in with a sidearm at ready. I have Heloïste's Desert Eagle if you feel you need it."

León squinted with deliberative emphasis before he shook his head.

"No thanks. My balance is not the best in the world. I'll set my carbine in position when my feet hit solid concrete. Though, your concern for my well-being, Ms. del Alma-Gris, is appreciated."

His tone of voice in answering her lacked the condescension common in weak men. In spite of her reservations over the murdered quartet, she was finding herself liking the fellow Paraguayan.

She placed two extra magazines for the .32 in her belt inseam for easy reach.

"I won't lie to you, León. I find spiders to be the ickiest thing imaginable. I might keep my cool, I usually do, but I have never come up against a spider large enough to eat a cat before."

"They creep me out, too. Trust me, once you see them, the only thing you'll want to do is curb stomp and grind them down like cockroaches."

He swung his torso around in position, gripped the bars in both hands, then he bunny hopped his tightly aligned feet down each rail in a quick descent.

She took her .32 out as he did so, and she crawled in a crouch along the top two rails. Tasìa leaned out with her free hand grabbing a rail to twist her body around and free up her gun bearing hand.

When she scanned the floor below, Tasìa yelled to him. Spiders were leaping into position.

A mere second after León planted his feet on the floor, they were covered in a thick spittle of webbing. Another web caught his hand and stuck it to the side of the ladder.

León yelped.

"They've never pulled shit this clever before."

Tasìa shot the closest spider twice. She took another shot at one directly behind the first one. It's abdomen burst in a dark, green bile.

Such an unnatural, acrid color, she noted.

The scent was oddly chemical, reminiscent of her treatment.

At two and a half feet long, there was nothing natural about their size either.

She then caught sight of the source of their gloom shaded shadows. A whole horde of the black spiders covered a spiraled set of trellised girders.

The girders formed the base platform for the Muskovite. Likely, the creatures drew energy from it.

Not good.

Tasìa slid down the rail upside down using the bend of her knees to grip the ladder.

She took out four more spiders as they approached León. They had as good a line of sight on her as she had on them.

She also was not able to get a good look at what may lie behind her.

Tasìa had already fired seven shots. Two more remained in the magazine, and one in the chamber.

She could not risk staying still for very long.

Given the chance, they would web her.

Tasìa flipped over, landing upright, behind León. Using his immobile body to guard her flank, she checked out what lay behind her.

Four spiders on that side now tried to get a fix on her. Two on the floor, two on the wall.

Her one advantage was their humongous abdomens provided ample surface target.

Not stopping when she took out three with a quick, steady arc, she dropped her gun by the ladder as she began to tumble, roll, and position herself in front of the last spider.

With a steel-toed work boot, Tasìa aimed for its head to avoid bile splatter. Its carapace smashed in with a most satisfying crunch.

The immediate area cleared, she slid over to León.

"Wigged out a bit, yet, León," she asked teasingly as she placed the Desert Eagle in his free hand.

"Ready to shit my pants. The General was not kidding about you. Lovely shooting."

"Cover me, and I'll get you out."

As she cut at the silk web along his boot, Tasìa smiled to herself. A little appreciation went a long way.

The roar of the hand cannon made Tasìa jump.

He popped off two shots where a couple of spiders entered from an adjoining room.

Tasìa eyeballed the scope of the opening for her next move. She could see into an antechamber from where a double set of doors was once fastened.

Now, a large hole had been punched through the plaster.

León noticed she was staring at it.

"That is indeed where team Heloïste decided to punch a hole. Right into an Unnatural Zone."

Tasìa removed a grenade from León's bandolier and she tossed it directly in front of the hole.

"Why would they do something so stupid?"

As she freed his hand from the webbing, he only answered with a clenched jaw. His teeth ground together in a rattle so loud she could hear it.

She glanced at the spider horde that moved slowly in the shadowy glow.

"What are you not telling me, León?"

"My suspicions would make me sound crazy."

She nodded back to the creatures surrounding the Muskovite.

"It's them, isn't it?"

León nodded as he glared at the horde.

She shook her head.

"We have dream visitations, we have Unnatural Zones where you can find montículo de hadas, León. Fucking fairy mounds, León. Have you seen them?"

"Of course, they are just hallucinations," he said. "There is one through there. A glade of giant mushrooms. They are real. The rest is hallucination.

"I sometimes hear the music of a Piper. Demona said it was a satyr. She wrote erotic poems to it."

As they carefully regarded the spider horde, Tasìa wiped her mouth before commenting.

"The Cull Spores were designed to drive us insane. Of course, it plays upon deep-seated fantasy. It must have gotten to her."

He bit his lip with his eyes cast low. A visible knot formed in his throat. Tasìa understood she was talking about an uncomfortable subject for him.

She could read from his body language that he did not want to kill the other spooks. General Kutuzova ordered it.

León confirmed her words.

"It shows you what it feels you want to see, to hear, to touch. It understood Heloïste's well developed and quite sophisticated eros and it turned it against her.

"If a woman with a two hundred IQ and a mind like a steel trap can be turned, anybody can."

With that remark, Tasìa glanced at the platform and she noticed the spiders set on top of the platform above the satellite formed concentric circles and did so seemingly in a bow of their chitinous heads.

Tasìa looked closer and there she was. A creature straight out of the mythology of her father's religion.

Tasìa whispered, "the Infernal Madré! The Idolatress of the Bleeding City."

A diminutive woman, shorter than Tasìa, stood in the center of the spiders on the platform. She wore a dress of severely mannered webbing. Her hair raven; her skin radiant alabaster. Eyes of silver, and ears long and lifted like an elf. She looked straight into Tasìa's eyes.

"There will come a day," spoke the Infernal Madré, "you will beg to be my possession, Tasìa del Alma-Gris. Sigrid Rosa."

"Listen to me, Tasìa," yelled León.

Fright set in a tight knot in her belly as she realized that he was yelling to break the enchantment cast upon her.

It would have worked.

"Do you see her," Tasìa asked.

"But, of course," León answered. "Watch this."

As he pointed his gun towards the satellite, he took great care in his aim. His shot centered on The Infernal Madré's chest.

The shots chipped the concrete above the platform. It made no impression on the small woman.

"She is no more real than any of the other hallucinations."

Tasìa glanced back up to the platform. This one was different from the other phantoms - the spiders reacted to her presence, and treated her as their queen.

What deep manipulation of the pheromones of those creatures must be occurring for the Cull Spores to accomplish that?

Who was even behind that kind of technology?

"Listen to me, del Alma-Gris. You are drifting again. Do you see a switch beside the bay door over there?

She looked to where he pointed.

"Yes," she said, snapping out of the stupor.

"It's on a mechanical rig. Wind it up several times, and it will eventually catch. Open it high enough, and you can crawl through it.

"Watch your feet when you fall into the corridor. There is an off-load bay there on the other side. Go down that corridor, and there will be a ladder on your first left-side exit. It leads to a hatch door. You can pick it, I imagine."

"Of course."

"I'll cover you if they try to interfere with you cranking that door open. But, please make it quick. I dearly want to get away from that Spider Queen thing."

"It's the Infernal Madré," Tasìa answered.

"I don't know anything about that, but I will take your word on it."

The Black Eyed Ones, the Wise One, the Hermicubus, and now the Mother of Demons, herself!

As she cranked the gear handle, Tasìa gazed back at it. It still smiled as if it knew her personally.

It was very much in accord with her frightened imagination as a child listening to the old occult and gnostic texts the elders of her father's church, the New Creation, read from.

Members like her father were often called simply, Nuevementas, the Anewed.

Just as in her childhood fears, the Infernal Madré whispered into Tasìa's mind once more; the words she spoke in the old texts.

I will make the minds of all men but a necrotic thing. From the whole, a being undead.

Two shots from the hand cannon bounced above Tasìa's head.

"Get out of here, del Alma-Gris," yelled León.

She realized she had hesitated while listening to the phantom, now the bay door was coming back down.

She bent her torso to her legs, and side rolled through the closing space.

She flipped around on to the other side.