The Incursion

Episode 4

The noble said it, and the hand on my arm tightened, dragging me into the pack. Then—everything behind me went to hell.

A flash of steel cut out of the fog, straight for the guard's neck. He was fast. Twisted aside—the blade skimmed past, shaving half his collar off. He never got his gun out. Second knife already there, buried in his forearm. The guard grunted, let go of me, stumbled back two steps, one hand clamped over his arm, cursing.

The other three guards drew in unison, muzzles trained on the fog. A shape flickered through it—gone. The blond kid. The kid thin as a nail. The kid I'd yanked back from that crack in the cellar. He moved like a hunter who'd trained for this his whole life—using the fog for cover, dropping one guard with a single cut, already turning on the next.

But there were too many of them. His knife was fast—not faster than three sides closing in. He'd barely dropped the second man when they hit him. A rifle butt slammed into his side. He staggered. Before he could find his feet, another guard was on him—boot into the back of his knee, driving him face-down into the sand.

"Where'd this stray come from?" The noble's voice had gone cold. He looked down at the boy pinned in the dirt. "Take him too."

The kid fought once, twice, lifted his head. His eyes found me through the gap between the guards' legs. His lips moved—no sound. But I read it.

Run.

I didn't run. I stood there, watching the three guards close in on me, and clenched my fists.

Nobody noticed. Something came down out of the fog, silent, and landed on the head of the last guard in line. No one saw where it came from. The guard felt something up there, waved at it carelessly—then a furry thing latched onto his head, its body plastered across his face. Eight legs wrapped around both sides of his skull, holding tight—like a pot clapped over it.

RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT. A wild burst of fire finally got everyone's attention. The guard was clawing at the thing on his head with one hand—the other, trigger finger locked and running.

A moment later, from the trees and the eaves, threads too thin to see came lowering down, each one carrying a mutant wolf spider. The big ones were the size of puppies. The smallest, cats. They dropped from branches, roofs, walls—leaping at faces from above. One hit per face, every time.

The first man hit—something stabbed into the back of his neck. His scream died in his throat. Then his skin started to cave. From the cheeks down—sockets sinking, cheekbones jutting, flesh vanishing inch by inch, like it was being sucked dry through a straw. A dozen seconds. A living man, turned into a dried corpse in clothes, toppling straight back.

Crack. Like dry wood hitting the ground.

The second. The third. All around in the fog, silk snapping. Crack. Crack. Crack. Like rain. The spiders worked the same every time—grab the head, stab, drain, drop. The corpses fell one after another, fast as a scythe through wheat.

Guns went up. The guards fired wild at the sky, bullets into the fog. Some ran. Some shot. Some got pulled down. The noble finally lost his cool. He wasn't looking at me anymore—screaming for the guards to protect him. The rest of them grabbed him and dragged him into the fog.

The fog closed back in. Silence. Only the threads overhead, swaying.

I watched the way they'd gone, started to breathe easy—

"Watch out!"

A shout behind me. I whipped around.

On the tree behind me—one more, still hanging. Bigger than all the rest. The size of a full-grown dog. Pitch black. Eight legs spread wider than half a man. And in the exact center of its head—a crimson eye. None of the others had that. And its abdomen: the pattern of a human face. Clear features. Rising and falling with its breath, like the face was smiling. Wrong.

It was looking at me. That crimson eye, locked on. Then it let go of the silk.

It came off the tree like a thrown stone, straight at my face. I threw my arm up on instinct—hit something soft, furry, heavy—knocked it wide. It slammed into the ground and rolled belly-up.

Eight legs flailing in the air. I stepped back—hadn't found my footing when a blade flashed past me. The blond kid. He'd gotten back up somewhere along the way—half his face blood, eyes blazing. He dove in. Knife went in to the hilt, pinning the spider to the ground.

The spider screamed. It didn't sound like an insect. It sounded like a child—a baby with its throat squeezed, that terrified, piercing wail.

The scream drilled into my ears. Then—frames. Blowing open in my head, one by one, like a montage on fast-forward. I didn't know what the images were. But I knew what they were saying. They were saying: that eye. The crimson eye. It could save me.

It could lead me out of this fog. It could keep me alive.

The thought flooded in, clearer than any memory I owned. I didn't know why. I believed it.

The spider wasn't dead. Pinned down, fighting, its screams getting weaker, one after another. The crimson eye stared at me, fixed, going dim.

A voice in my head: once it dies, the eye goes grey. Useless. Take it while it's still alive. Fast.

I walked to the spider. Belly-up, pinned, that crimson eye watching me, brightening and dimming with every breath. I put a foot on it. Pulled the knife free. Then I worked the tip into the gap between the eyeball and the socket, found the nerve that connected them.

The motion came out perfectly practiced. Like I'd done it a thousand times. Ten thousand. My mind went blank—my hand, terrifyingly steady. It knew where to cut. How much pressure. What angle to work.

Pop.

A soft sound. The egg-shaped eye came free of the socket and dropped into my palm. Warm. Heavy. Pulsing like a living heart.

The spider finally stopped. A last twitch of the remaining legs, then stiff. The face on its abdomen went slack, deflating—that wrong smile frozen at the last second.

I looked down at the eye in my palm. Crimson. Bright. Still faintly warm and wet.

Then I did something I didn't even register myself doing—I drew the knife tip across the back of my left hand, a small cut, and pressed the eye to it.

It stuck like it was alive. Then it started to move, burrowing into the flesh, bit by bit. I could feel it traveling under my skin. It didn't hurt. Just strange—like something searching for a place inside me. When it found it, it stopped. Quiet.

A dozen seconds. My hand was smooth as before. No wound. No eye. Like none of it had happened. Only the weight under the skin—a heavy, pulsing warmth.

I looked up. Crowley was standing where he'd been, mouth hanging open. He looked like he wanted to say something—hesitated—closed his mouth again, like he didn't have the words.

I didn't explain. I handed him the knife. He took it without thinking. Then I turned and walked into the fog.

A beat of silence behind me. Then footsteps—light, keeping a steady distance, following.