“Pertos ! ”
The incantation failed. “Pertos ! Pertos !” No matter how often he invoked the name, his condition remained the same. The spiders came on. The white-haired, ancient puppet master did not appear to offer the idiot his help.
To his left, across the wide corridor, a booktape store offered the only possible route of escape. He ran there, flung open the glass door and stepped inside. There was a glass latch, which he fixed in place. Now, at least, there was a barrier between himself and the spiders.
The two lines of spiders converged, crawled over each other. Black bodies fell, were torn apart by the larger brown species. Mating dances were danced. Death rituals were observed. Soon a common mass of a hundred and forty brown spiders milled about before the booktape store.
Sebastian had expected them to leave. (he, rather, he had desperately hoped they would leave and forget about him. Instead, they tried to crawl up the smooth glass door, fell down, tried again. They swarmed up the walls of the store, filled the windowsills, looked in at him.
He was safe for the moment.
He was certain, though, that they would find a way through the glass before much time passed . . .
Teams of puppets worked toward each other down the corridor, moving behind the spiders with insecticide, sealing off the way. They wore cloths across their noses and mouths. The spiders retreated before them and were soon forced to congregate before the store where Sebastian cowered.
The prince cornered Belina in a side duct of the ventilation system while she was on her way to the booktape store. He had taken her by surprise, flung her against the thin metal wall, his arm across her throat as if he would crush her windpipe. At first, she thought he had finally gotten up the nerve to kill her. Instead, it turned out that he was aroused and that he wanted her but was afraid she would say no.
“Now isn’t the time,” she said.
Now is the perfect time, and you know it!” he countered. His face was flushed, his breathing harsh. His free hand roamed across her small body as if it were a separate entity with designs of its own aside from his. It touched her round breasts, squeezed them. It slid across her flat stomach, dug fingers into her nicely padded hips, cupped one of her firm buttocks.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
“You do. Now, with him out there, trapped in the store. Just before we get him. It’ll be best now, better than ever”
She knew what he meant, of course. There was definitely something sensual about the chase and the kill. When they had murdered that gypsy, she had felt the same thing. When she had watched the prince and the angel lower the van onto the struggling driver, when she had seen the blades bite into him, she had responded to the blood and the screams. Afterwards, she had gone away with Wissa. They had smeared each other with blood and made love. Later, when Wissa was exhausted, Belina had gone to the prince and to the angel. In each case, sex had never been so full, so satisfying. It was all sharp edges and long slides, rising and rising and never falling, ballooning full of helium.
“There’s no time,” she argued, trying to push away from him.
He slapped her. His fingers left red welts across her smooth, freckled cheek. The moment he saw those, he realized what a horrible mistake he had made. Stepping away from her, he tried to find something to say that would appease her. But he knew there was nothing she would listen to.
She said nothing at all. She gave him one, long searching look which turned his blood cold, then stalked off on her way to the booktape store and the final chapter in Sebastian’s story.
Sebastian realized that he could not remain in the store indefinitely. Before long, he would grow both hungry and thirsty. There was neither food nor water to be had here. Yet he barricaded the front of the store as if he intended to endure a long seige. He moved display racks before the glass door. He took crates of booktape cartridges from the storeroom and lined them from one wall to the other. The spiders would climb them, but they would be delayed a bit in the process.