The Puppeteer King by Chris Ward

Author:Chris Ward
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AMMFA Publishing

23

Bad days brewing

The thundering knock pulled Peter up out of his sleep like a corpse being dragged out of a grave. He’d drunk too much wine again, and the alcohol still had a hold of him, its greasy fingers pressing firmly into his skull, leaving his vision blurry. He thumped his head on a doorframe as he staggered towards the door, hands reaching blindly out for the light switch.

It had to be the police again. He should have known he hadn’t seen the last of them. He pulled the door wide and started to beckon the caller in.

Slav the Giant pushed through the door into the room. He tossed something on the floor and kicked it in Peter’s direction.

Peter had no time to be either afraid or confused. His barely sober eyes read the situation as it was without prejudice: an enormous blood-soaked Russian was standing in front of him. A furry black stick lay on the ground in between.

‘We caught the spider,’ Slav said, his voice a huge, Russian-accented boom. ‘I thought you might like to know.’

Peter was slowly coming to his senses. They had announced their mission to him at the last union meeting, but he had neither approved nor disapproved of it. With the police watching him he hadn’t wanted to be involved, but nor had he felt it necessary to refuse their right to stand up against these things that were invading their territory. Slav, though, looked like he’d just come back from war.

‘Was anyone hurt?’ Peter said, feeling stupid the moment the words were off his tongue.

‘Everyone,’ Slav said. ‘Dave Balls is dead. Edgar has taken Laurent to hospital. He might die too.’

Peter felt his knees go weak. ‘Dave? Laurent?’ he couldn’t think of anything to say other than parrot the names like a dumb kid learning poetry by rote.

‘The spider escaped. We took just this part of it. Pick it up.’

‘I don’t know that—’

‘Pick it up!’

Slav’s fists clenched. His arms were scored by deep lacerations like a gladiator who had been whipped, but his muscles still bulged with menace. His burning red eyes bled hatred.

Peter knelt down and picked up the furry stick. A shudder ran up his arm as he turned it over, realizing what it was.

Part of the spider’s leg.

‘One man dead and another who might yet die, and all we get is this,’ Slav said. ‘Look at it. Tell me what it is.’

The fur felt strangely synthetic, like plastic carpeting, but when he turned it over he gasped and almost dropped it. He probably would have had his fear of Slav not been even greater.

A metal rod stuck out of a glistening compressive substance, which had been wrapped in the synthetic fur. When he touched it his finger came away with a brown-red stain on the tip.

It was like congealed blood, but it couldn’t be.

‘We thought it was a robot the way it was acting. Something remote controlled. We figured if we smashed it up we were just breaking some rich bastard’s toy.

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