A brief conversation

The bell rang when the door opened. A bell-ring for when doors open? Who still did that? Adam stopped in place, staring at the bell.

The owner of the store lowered his book to look at him. “Can I help?”

“Where is spider-man?”

“Which one?”

After a brief conversation with the vendor about the various incarnations of spider-man, Adam took the next issue and bade him a farewell.

He walked down the street from the store reading the comics. The wind was cold, but the sky was clear. His mind was full of worries.

Next, he stopped to buy a cellphone.

While he dealt with a long-winded shop assistant about the several unnecessary functions of his phone and the several plans of payment that he was not sure served any purpose, the spider spoke to him.

It asked if it should kill a certain person.

Who?

No idea, but someone dangerous.

The spider felt his disappointment at its lack of knowledge and asked forgiveness for its ignorance.

He asked the spider to do so if said danger approached Mary.

He drove to the hospital while bickering with the spider.

He half-expected Mary’s projection to greet him at the entrance, but she did not appear.

As he walked to her room, he wondered if Evelynn was still around. He felt he had the answer when he saw Delilah before Mary’s room.

Adam was surprised to find her speaking with Joseph. He hastened his pace.

Joseph turned toward him with a smile, and Adam stopped short. A dreadful realization wormed itself in his mind as he noticed the multitude of threads wound around Joseph.

He could kill him.

The same threads were laid around the walls, hanging from the ceiling. They waited for commands.

From these threads he felt a nameless fear. His skin prickled as though a knife threatened to cut him.

Yet, Joseph was ignorant of them.

The spider was pleased by his reaction and considered its job well done.

Then all Adam’s calm was lost and he had no idea how he managed to keep a straight face as he saw a man walk out of Mary’s room. He rounded out with ease, uncaring. When he noticed Adam looking at him, he smiled like sycophant.

“Hello again, Adam,” said Christopher.

“You know each other?” Joseph asked, looking between the two.

“Yes,” Christopher answered. “He was one of the first people I contacted about this.”

Delilah raised an eyebrow at this.

Adam was desperately asking the spider about him, but it appeared to have become dumb because it repeatedly said there was no one there at all.

“I met your family by chance as I returned here to talk with some of the staff again. Isn’t it incredible that no one noticed anything?” Christopher continued.

The spider, tired of being wrongly accused decided to go to him.

It skittered along the ceiling in their direction while Adam practically shouted at it mentally to keep away.

The spider stopped short of them, and Adam could feel its sheer surprise.

Someone had passed the web unseen! Blasphemy!

Christopher frowned and turned around. The spider crawled through the gap between door and ceiling into another room before being seen. Adam internally sighed.

“Did you hear that?” Christopher asked, turning back around.

“What?”

“A…forget it. Like I was saying, I wanted to ask a few questions of the staff here, then I met with your…sister and brother, I guess.”

The spider continued to swear as it climbed the walls back to the ceiling from where it could see anyone enter. It vowed that Christopher had never passed by its web. He must have entered from elsewhere.

“Why were you in my wife’s room?”

“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to be rude. I just wanted to see the room itself. The door of this room was broken during the attack, and no one seems to know why.”

Adam observed the door, already knowing he was correct. He broke the door, after all. “Where is your partner?”

How did he know how to evade the spider? Did he know it was there?

The spider said he knew something was there; otherwise he would not have taken measures against it. Still, he probably didn’t know it was a homely spider.

Did he know Adam was the cause?

The spider and the web had no scent. Likewise, Adam left no scent. He should not know.

“He is waiting outside. Just as a precaution.” Christopher smiled, affably. “In any case, I only came to take a look around. It was a surprise to find your family here.” He nodded toward them, giving Joseph a longer look.

Adam found it a little strange. He studied Joseph, and caught the scent. It was faint, almost unnoticeable. He smelled of dreams, and of red light.

Christopher left them with a wave. The spider followed him as he left the hospital. According to the spider, he disappeared near the bathroom.

“So,” Adam began, turning toward Delilah, “what brings you here?”

“I was waiting for you.” Delilah shrugged. “I figured you’d come here.”

“Me too,” Joseph said, glancing at Delilah. “But what I want with you can wait.” He walked down the corridor.

After he left, Delilah frowned. “I didn’t know the two of you were on speaking terms.”

“This is the second time I remember speaking to him.”

“And yet he came all the way here to meet you.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter,” she said with a small grumble that suggested it did matter. “I came to see my mother, and figured you would be here.”

The spider saw Christopher was on the floor below. He was performing a spell to scour the building.

So he could use spells. Would it find the spider?

No of course not. The spider laughed at the notion. There was no way this simplistic spell would find it.

Still, that Joseph could cast spells made Adam slightly unnerved. What was he? What were they all?

“She’s still unconscious?”

“As is your wife.” She pointed toward Mary’s room.

Adam entered the room. She was still sleeping, peacefully. “Hasn’t she been sleeping for too long?”

“She did wake up. Both her and mom.” Adam looked at her. She paused, struggling to continue. “They both started screaming when they woke. The doctors gave them a sedative. Made them sleep again.”

Adam widened his eyes at her.

“Yeah,” she said. “Weird.”

What did that mean? He was getting hopelessly confused. “Has anything happened in the house?”

“No? Well, John has locked himself in his room. He hasn’t taken all the stress well. He doesn’t even speak with Alexandra. Terry has been trying to talk to him.”

“Terry?”

She scowled. “My husband.”

“Oh, sorry.”

She rolled her eyes at him. Then, she grew somber. “John kept screaming your name,” she said. “Said you did something…killed him or something like that. I’m not sure.” She looked at him with a raised eyebrow, somewhat expectantly.

Adam shook his head. “I have no idea what he is talking about.”

She sighed in a way that suggested she expected nothing different. “Well, I came here just to talk about this and see mom, really. Goodbye. I hope Mary gets well soon.”

He gave her his farewells and stood by Mary.

She lay there, peacefully. He called to her. She did not appear.

§

What had happened with Evelynn and Mary seemed similar. Evelynn had been affected much more harshly, but the two were in the same situation when it happened. However, Adam was there too. Why was he fine? Considering how Mary responded after Evelynn, would he, too, suffer the same fate, but after a considerable amount of time?

Adam went to meet Joseph in the cafeteria, feeling unnerved that Mary hadn’t appeared.

Joseph was still covered in spider web.

Adam sat with him. “What do you want?”

He smiled insultingly. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to be this upset. Delilah left?”

“Yes.”

“Great.” He clapped his hands, happily. “You took Oliver’s journal from my mother’s room.”

Adam grunted, nonplussed. “So what?”

“Nothing, nothing. It’s just…I don’t think that journal can save you from your predicament,” Joseph continued with an air of arrogance that looked quite funny considering the many webs enveloping him.

Adam mulled over his words. What predicament? Mary’s collapse, perhaps. Did he have anything to do with that? And now Mary’s projection was not appearing. Did he also have anything to do with that?

The spider asked if he would like Joseph to die, noticing Adam’s growing animosity.

But no, that would be too suspicious, and he had information Adam wanted to know.

Why not threaten him then?

“There is no use playing the fool,” Joseph continued. “I know you’ve read the rites, and practiced this strange magic.” He laughed, a mirthless, bitter laugh. “Father…I have no idea what he was, or did. I thought he was crazy when I first read the notes. Then, they appeared in my dreams. Have you seen them already?”

Had he?

“I don’t know for how long you have been using this power,” Joseph continued without waiting for an answer, “but I have read my father’s work for the last five years. I know things you have no idea of. The possibilities that I glimpsed were endless.” He gestured airily at the table. “This squabble for money…is of no interest to me anymore. It pales in comparison to my study.”

“Good luck to you in your study then.”

He smiled faintly. “But, I still like money, of course. And since I can take it all for me, why not do it?”

“Ah, finally some progress,” Adam said. “Now I know what you came for.”

“I don’t want to murder you,” he continued, ignoring the jibe. “You are not like Evelynn, and her children. You have nothing to do with this.”

“Thank you for your mercy.”

“Here’s what I want you to do. Give up on any claims to father’s money, and I will wake up your wife.”

Adam paused, thinking about it. In the first place why had Mary collapsed? She and Evelynn were in a dream, and something invaded, but he was there too, and felt nothing but a mild tiredness.

“What did you do to the two of them?”

Joseph smiled widely, as if pleased to have Adam in his grasp. “It’s a small trap, really. They are both trapped within a nightmare at the moment. Only I can release them.”

“How did that happen?”

“I don’t have to answer that.” Joseph scowled. “Have you not heard me? Withdraw your right to the inheritance and I’ll save your wife.”

“You made a hostage of my wife, I see. Will you make the same deal with Delilah, John and the others?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you!” Joseph bristled, then calmed down and continued. “Are you worried for them? You and Delilah have gotten quite close, I see. Don’t you only know each other for one week?”

Adam frowned. “I don’t think so?”

“So you knew them before? Anyways, don’t try to be a hero, Adam. These people don’t deserve it. And no, I’m not planning any deal with them. It’d be far too risky, and besides,” he shrugged, “I want revenge.” He smiled, grimly.

The spider asked if now was a good time to kill him. He was annoying.

Adam told it no.

It grumbled.

Adam himself was feeling pretty calm in this conversation. “Revenge for what?”

“That’s not your concern!”

Adam started at his intensity.

Joseph realized, and calmed himself. “You only need to know that you should not get in my way. I want to kill Evelynn and her children. But you have nothing to do with this, and I’d not like to get involved with you.”

“How do you know that after Mary wakes up, I won’t renege on my end of the deal?”

He smiled. “Because I can do the same thing again.”

The spider asked if it could just hurt him a little. Just a little.

Adam was surprised it could do that. He thought about if briefly. Why not?

“Look, Adam you have no choi— Aaargh!” Joseph stared at his forearm, in alarm, then in monumental fear. Streaks of black jumped out of his skin, pulsing and twisting, web-like cracks that spread through his arm with alarming speed.

Then from the center of that, pieces of him began to fall. His blackened flash dropped like clumps of dry dirt. Rotten.

Joseph stared at his forearm perplexed, mouth open in shock.

Adam was equally shocked, and rapidly warned the spider not to kill him.

Thankfully, there were very few people besides them, and his scream went unnoticed.

The smell of dreams overflowed from the open wound. It filled the air like smoke.

The streaks retreated and faded into a red, fresh wound. It bubbled and sizzled with blood. Joseph shook, teeth clenched as he stared at the open wound, and, finally, at Adam. “What have you done to me?”

“You don’t know?” Adam asked, calmly. “It’s a threat: if you don’t want to become a clump of dirt, answer my questions.”

Adam wondered if the spider could make him into a clump of dirt.

The spider wanted to know if he wanted him to rot right now.

No, he only wanted to know if it was possible and how long it took.

Less than a minute. He was just a human.

Joseph stared at him, perplexed, then stared at his wound. He came to a surprisingly swift decision. “What do you want?!”

Adam furrowed his brows in distaste. The man had been so arrogant before, now he was acting like a baby. “Can you kindly release my wife and Evelynn?”

Joseph tensed. “It’s…complicated.”

Adam scowled. The spider understood.

Joseph shivered. He raised his other arm before his face. A red line bloomed an ran down the table. “Please, stop, you don’t understand,” he hissed.

“What do I not understand?” Adam asked.

Joseph swallowed, clenching his hand over the table. “I, please let me explain. I swear I won’t lie to you, but it’s more complicated than it appears.”

“Fine,” Adam ceded. “Explain yourself.”

“All right, I…I made a deal with him. He made a trap for me. I only put it together.”

“He?”

“The Withering Sun,” Joseph continued, shivering at the name. “He came to me in my dreams after I began to learn the rites, and…taught me. A few months ago he requested payment, and I promised to give it to him.”

He stared at Adam as if expecting him to say something. Adam said nothing. He continued. “He told me to make a trap. It was a complex ritual, like no other I’ve done. He said it would consume anyone who tried to pry open the door to dreams and bring them to him. That was Evelynn, and your wife.”

Adam stared at him, contemplating his words. Something came to him in his dream? What world he was in that dream things threatened his life. Nevertheless, he understood Joseph’s predicament. “You can’t release them.”

“I can beg him to release your wife,” Joseph said, palling slightly. “He will listen to me. I can dismantle the trap. He won’t like that, so he will listen to me.”

Adam rubbed his chin. “Where is this ‘trap,’ of yours?”

“At the mansion.”

So it was back when they invaded Evelynn’s dream. “Why would you try this trap at the mansion? No, why would he give you this trap in particular? Yes, I see, you spoke with him about your family, did you not? You told him you learned the rites from reading Oliver’s books and notes.”

“Yes,” Joseph said, calmer now. He was cleaning his wounds with his shirt. “I don’t know what kind of curse you’ve put on me, but I am the only one who can speak with the Withering Sun.”

“Or so you hope.”

Joseph fell silent, sweat budding at his forehead. Adam took that as a sign of his uncertainty. Joseph didn’t know if the Withering Sun could be contact by someone else, or if Adam could strike a deal with him. Whoever he was.

Adam recalled Mary as he last saw her, a disembodied voice floating around. She didn’t seem particularly worried about her situation. In fact, she seemed pretty sure their greatest worry was not attracting attention to themselves from what appeared to be law enforcement of the supernatural variety. As for this Withering sun, he seemed interested in people who were involved in rites.

“What do you think of the investigator?” Adam asked.

“What about him?” Joseph asked back, frowning.

“He was looking for whoever caused the commotion in here.”

“What does that have to do with us?”

Adam frowned. Was Joseph ignorant of what that investigator was, even though it was eminently obvious to him? Then again, why was it obvious to him? Was it the way he carried himself? Was it his partner sniffing around the hospital in questionable moments?

“Do you know who caused the commotion here?”

“I thought it might be you, or one of Evelynn’s children.”

So he didn’t know even that much.

Joseph flinched, probably because of the disappointment showing on Adam’s face. “Before you suggested you could put her in this nightmare whenever you wanted. You were bluffing. If you could you’d have put all of them to sleep already. You can only put those who are involved in a rite. But you have no actual awareness of whether it worked or not. You can only assume based on the results.”

Joseph said nothing, though his face grew pale.

“And you can’t actually wake my wife, at the moment. So, all I can get from you is a promise that you will try.”

“The Withering—

“Stop! I don’t care about that. I only want my wife up and well. You have twelve hours and counting. Or I’ll kill you. And unlike you I can make good on my deal.”

The spider said to him that as long as he left the hospital, Joseph would be free of its influence. Adam already knew that, of course, it was a bluff.

The spider thought it funny.

“Wait, please. I need more time.”

“To discover what it is that I did to you?”

“No! That is not it. I can’t speak with him whenever I want. At least…give me at least until tomorrow night.”

“Very well. Don’t delay more than that.”

Joseph relaxed. Somehow, Adam did not like that.

A small web-like black tendril slithered up Joseph’s hand, the length of his forearm. He flinched at it and looked at Adam. Along the path of the tendril his skin fell away and a red line bloomed like he was sliced by a knife. Blood drenched his clothing, and he pressed on the wound.

“I don’t like being threatened, Joseph. Release my wife, and I’ll spare you. Don’t make me kill you.”