House of Skin

LAIR OF THE SPIDER

It was late and Spider was still in bed.

Like a mountain moonflower, he rarely bloomed before darkness. There was nothing supernatural about this, he simply hated daylight. He hated the noise and the confusion and the crowds and most particularly, the people themselves. Staring at him. Always staring at him.

It was like he was freak or something.

The night was better. There were plenty of shadows to hide in, plenty of dark cubbyholes to lose yourself in. His particular eccentricities were well masked by the gloom. And in the seamy night world of San Francisco, he fit right in.

He pulled himself out of bed and went to the window. The moon was rising in the sky.

Out there, somewhere, he knew, the police were probably scurrying about like worrisome ants, trying to restore law and order. There was a killer in their midst, they probably thought. And they were right, or nearly so. But they didn’t understand anything but the feeble evidence their near-sighted eyes gave them. And it was precious little of the big picture. They knew a murder had been committed, a young woman had been butchered, her life taken. But they didn’t know why. They and their attendant psychiatrists probably thought the motive was lust or dementia. But it was neither. The reasons were far beyond what their limited mentalities could grasp.

It brought Spider no end of amusement to think of them and the reasons they pinned on the crime. They were idiots as all lawmakers and freedom takers were. They saw nothing but the most obvious.

Spider checked the time. Before long he had to meet Eddy and begin the night’s work. It was time to get ready. He pulled out his battered leather case of knives and examined them one by one. He sharpened their blades and polished them with oil and a soft cloth. You could always tell the level of a craftsman by how he cared for his tools. And Spider’s were gleaming.

He dressed before a full-length mirror, choosing the proper leathers and denims. It was important to look your best. When he took another life this night, he wanted said victim to realize that he or she wasn’t merely dealing with some drug-crazed maniac. He wanted them to know they were being killed by a professional, a specialist. He wanted them to die knowing their great sacrifice was appreciated. That they were not some mere victim of blood-lust, but part of a greater good, a key to a door. It was the least he could do.

It meant a lot to him that they died knowing these things.

For he was a specialist, as was Eddy. Two experts plying a trade in the grand tradition of their criminal forbears.

He brushed his long hair and greased it just so, knotting it into seven braids. Seven, because he thought even numbers brought bad luck. He intertwined beads into the braids, using a system of color separation he’d read of in a book on necromancy.

When he was done, he was quite pleased. He was dressed to kill and wasn’t that somehow fitting?

He went into his little kitchen and opened the refrigerator. There were few things inside. A couple bottles of imported German beer. Some celery and other assorted vegetables, tainted brown and rotting for the most part. Some herbs and flowers carefully wrapped in cellophane and a few bottles of murky liquid, all of which, he discovered in his studies, were useful in resurrecting the dead. He hadn’t gotten around to trying them out yet. Next to a jar of graveyard dirt, there was something wrapped in bloodied tissues. He took this out and examined it. It was the left kidney of the woman they’d dispatched the night before.

He dropped it in a pan along with some lemon butter and pearl onions and fried it up. It wasn’t bad, mind you, a tad bitter, but not terrible by any means. Not quite as sweet or succulent as he’d hoped for. But taste wasn’t the thing here. Jack the Ripper had claimed in a note he’d done the same thing and it was Spider’s belief that the Ripper had gotten into the Territories, so it was worth a shot.

When he was through eating, he washed up his dishes and drank one of the beers. Then he started putting on his make-up. Nothing extravagant, of course, no reason to stand out when you were a night-stalker. Just an even base of clown white and some dark grease on the lips and around the eyes. It gave him the unpleasant look of a wraith.

He liked it.

He gathered up his bag of instruments and some black raincoats for Eddy and he to wear during the messy parts. He left his flat and started down the street, whistling a tune. It was good for a man to have work, he thought, a purpose in life. His father had said that to him once and, dammit, if the old pedophilic cross-dresser wasn’t right after all.

Spider wasn’t without his worries. He was concerned about the police. If they were to catch on to who was offing the citizens of their fair city, all hell would break lose. They’d lock Eddy and he away for eternity, as they had with other visionaries. And the thought of that made him feel ill. He couldn’t let it happen. They had to unlock the seal of the Territories long before then and slip into that more insightful realm.

He didn’t care to dwell on such things.

For tonight, the city belonged to the night-stalkers. Tonight they would strip, cut, and bleed another and somewhere, he hoped, the Madonnas were watching over them, readying them for membership in the most exclusive club in all of reality… or out of it.

He walked on, whistling a merry tune.