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“But you do. You’re at least part of why we came here.” Rose took a step and pushed back the sleeve of her red coat, offering her bare arm to me. “You see, you’re our creator, the Cucitrice.”
Whatever fear I’d had about them dissolved to be replaced by another fear—that I was no longer myself.
A familiar symbol in black was inscribed on Rose’s arm. The Cucitrice had stitched her and Samuel also, for he’d drawn up the sleeve of his leather jacket to show the mark. Both of them were Stitched—soldiers in this invisible war against the nightmare creatures.
I reached out.
When I touched a line of Rose’s stitching, I held my breath, waiting, waiting, and yes, a bright red and black surged forth, illuminated the stitching, filling it with a fire that faded when I took a half step back.
“My god. I...I’m not really her. I’m a lesser version of her. I guess? I only have some of her memories. I’m sorry, but she is dead.”
Slowly, Samuel shook his head. “You seem to be her.”
Shit. Don’t say that. No way. I...amme.
With a nod, Rose agreed. “We first detoured off the highway because we felt the presence of a large nightmare creature, but it vanished before we could find the site.”
“A Jorogumo,” Val said.
The twins studied Val.
“Is he...safe?” Rose asked.
“He has a certain strangeness about him,” added Samuel.
That wasn’t a surprise. Val was only halfway to being one of them. “I’m sure he is.”
“Okay.” Rose snapped out of her inspection of Val. “Yes, a spider girl? That would do it. You destroyed it?” She blinked then yawned.
The darkness plaguing her eye sockets spoke of fatigue, or a lack of sleep, or stress and reminded me of the cost of being one of the Stitched. They were doomed to forever chase the creatures and exterminate all they found.
“We did. Val and I did.”
“Good. And now...” Rose rolled her shoulders and slid her handgun from the holster. A Smith & Wesson, I thought it might be. “You’re here to kill the nest?”
“Nest?” I looked to Val. “What nest? What is a nest?”
“Ahh, it’s just a word Rose and I made up when we sense a fair few of the buggers. Shall we?” Sam half bowed and courteously turned to indicate the front door of the house, as if they were to join him for a banquet.
Irish, that was the accent. It was a light one but still came through. I wondered if this pair had come to the US as young children. I also wondered when they’d last eaten or slept, and what the fuck a nest would be.
“Is there something terrible in there? And why the guns? They don’t work.”
“Oh but they do! Rose and I figured out how. You just have to make sure you have the muzzle jammed up against their heads or whatever looks like a head.” Samuel drew his Glock and proceeded to demonstrate on a pretend creature in mid-air. “See. Like this. Then you pull the triggerPow!And pray. So long as you’re close then fifty, fifty it works. ’Course those’re bad odds when their fangs or whatever are about to tear your limbs off, but we have a secret.” He winked.
“It’susthat’s the deciding factor. Us touching the weapon. Sometimes you maybe get enough atoms in the air? From breath we expel? And it lights the way so the bullet has a path of a few of our atoms? Just, that’s what we figured might be doing it. So what we do for extra assurance is we dip the bullets in blood serum before each fight. Rose is an ex-lab tech. She clots a sample of our blood and filters it in a rough way, then uses the left-over serum.”
“Blood? Really?” How bizarre.
“Serum,” Rose interjected. “It doesn’t gum up the guns as quickly as fresh blood. You can spit down the barrel in an emergency.
Samuel leaned in. “Or pee on it, but that’s a really desperate measure, considering.”
Okay, this was unexpected. Or I could just get Val to jack off over the bullets? That would be something to see. Annnd this wassuchan off conversation.
“Not sure I’ll be doing that,” I added, warily. “Peeing, spitting, or extracting my blood. Really doubt it.”
“No? Suit yourself.” Rose shrugged. “Anyway. Let’s go. Samuel?” She pulled her long knife from the sheath. She and Samuel headed for the door, skipped up the porch steps, and Rose had booted open the door before I managed to sputter more than a few words like:
