Chapter Ten

Camp

       Taryn woke to the sound of screams and the crackle of automatic rifles. Hurling the cover off her upper body she grabbed her spears and her shield and rushed out of her tent into bedlam.

       Thousands of spiders were swarming the outer tents and biting the soldiers who were trying to fire guns at the oncoming horde and smack off the ones on their person at the same time. By the fire the prisoner was in the middle of changing back into his spider form, balked by the pistol clapped to his forehead by a snarling Bengal. Near the outer perimeter of the camp, she clearly saw Sylvie firing her brace of pistols as fast as she could reload them, every shot blowing away entire spiders with no trouble at all. It would not last, for their numbers would overwhelm even Sylvie, Taryn knew.

       Taryn glanced at the spiders, then made her choice. Her hooves drummed as she overran the tarantulas and headed for the campfire. The man saw her and struggled to turn towards her, ignoring Bengal who pulled the trigger on his pistol as the man moved. The round impacted...and fell away. The creature took no more notice than if Bengal had thrown a marshmallow at it.

       Taryn’s spear glowed white-hot as she crossed the distance. The spell began to break, the man’s form being lost in the emerging spider. Then Taryn’s spear took him in the head, and the spear went through the brain, down the body, and pierced out the back abdomen.

       The spider gave one hissing shriek and curled up, dead. The body fell to the sand and shrank, becoming human once more.

       Taryn left the body to transform and held her hand up into the air. Chanting to the Great Spirit, she felt a wave of fire burst from her palm and rush along the ground, crisping spiders that stood facing her with their evil eyes.

       At once the remaining spiders turned and fled from her. They left the people alone and streamed out into the night, disappearing into the inky blackness. The clouds broke and the moon and stars shone bright in the sky above, illuminating the battlefield now that the darkness had passed.

       “Sound...off.” Bengal gasped, his voice harsh with the smoke and battle.

       One by one people called in to report, but not as many as should have. Human bodies lay stretched out in the cold sand of the desert, overcome by spider poison.

       “We must save as many as we can!” Taryn said, rushing to the nearest body and pulling out her herbs. “Let’s go!”

       Crushing the herbs to a paste she smeared some on the lips of each soldier, drawing out the poisons from the body magically. Many were bitten over their entire bodies. Few had less than a dozen bite wounds, and the poisons were working swift. Despite all that Taryn could do, she found that some were beyond her aid by the time she came to them. In the cold light of the dawn a dozen of Bengal’s soldiers lay dead. Near the soldiers, still on the verge of death, lay Little Cloud, her sister Melissa close beside her, watching impassively for any sign of life from the still face.

       Taryn looked regretfully at Little Cloud’s face. She had not been a soldier, and of no real threat to the spiders, yet they had gone after her just the same. According to Sylvie, Little Cloud had ignored the spiders on her own body to go after those on Melissa’s, determined to sweep them off regardless of the cost to herself. She had taken so much of the poison that it was amazing to Taryn that she still lived at all. But the necrotic effects were already showing on her once beautiful face, the flesh rotting even as they watched.

       “Medevac helicopters are already on their way.” Bengal said softly. “But without your herbs, I fear she will not survive.”

       He turned away and looked sadly at his fallen soldiers. The others were already placing their rifles into the ground with their bayonets, the helmets and boots of the fallen making a memorial in the blood-soaked ground of the desert.

       “Just like Iraq and Afghanistan.” Bengal shook his head. “God, I’d hoped I’d never see anything like it again.”

       Taryn wasn’t sure what to say. Instead, she turned her attention to her dreams and warnings that had led them here.

       “It seems I am going to have to meet my family here.” she said with a sigh, feeling the old rage building up in her again. She firmly pushed it back down. “I don’t want to forget what the warning said. Stetson is right, I’ve got to try and push on.” She looked out to where the trailer sat, the mural painted on its side stark in the desert sunrise.

       “Do you think that Dr. Merrik has already tracked down my family tree?”

       “If not the good Doctor, then certainly headquarters has found out something.” Bengal said, looking at the trailer as well.

       “Then let’s find out.” Taryn said determinedly as the thumping sounds of rotor blades began to fill the morning air.

Trailer

       Inside the trailer it was cool and comfortable, the fans circulating cold air from the AC unit on the roof. Around the TV’s and console the others were clustered watching as the call went through to Red Leaf.

       Sara answered right away.

       “Hey Taryn!” She chirped, looking healthier than Taryn had seen her since they were first transformed. “What can we do for you?”

       Taryn grinned, happy to see Sara looking relaxed and carefree.

       “We are looking to see what the teeth came back with.” She said.

       “Right! I sent the teeth to the lab in Portsmouth, but they hadn’t gotten back to me this morning. I’ll put in another call to see if they can’t hurry the results. But that’s only going to give us a profile of your DNA. We still have to run it through the Ancestory database in order to find matches.” Sara said seriously.

       “What about records?”

       “There’s been a report from the FBI regarding your family. Um. Let me see. Um. Most of your mother’s side of the family is deceased, except for a cousin living in Nashville and a third cousin in Kentucky. I’m not seeing…nope. Nothing more really there. Father’s side…”

       She paused, scanning her screen.

       “Your father is alive, but currently in deep debts to the local mob in Las Vegas. Says here he’s working part time as a tour operator to cover his gambling losses. Has one sister in Arizona. Um. Other note here. What is... Eep!”

       Sara’s eyebrows shot up as she kept reading in astonishment.

       “Um. I, uh. Taryn?” She looked up to the pickup so her nervous eyes were seemingly locked on Taryn’s.

       “Do…do you want me to go on, or keep this private?” She asked, nervously.

       Taryn shook her head.

       “I don’t recognize him as a father.” Taryn said firmly, “so it does not matter to me.”

       Sara nodded slowly, as if unsure how to proceed. Taking a deep breath she plunged into it.

       “Your father has, according to the FBI, no less than four wives at the moment. None of whom really know about the other. Two are women working in Las Vegas, but at different hotels. The other two are with the local tribes in Arizona right now. It seems he shuttles back and forth regularly to visit them. Three of them have kids off of him, about seven. One of the tribal women have two daughters, the one working at the Plaza has a son and a daughter, and the last one is a laundress at the Pirate Cove hotel, and has three sons.”

       “Holy Mary, mother of God!” Bengal said in wonder, shaking his head. “How the hell can he juggle so many that they don’t know about each other?”

       “By being a lying bastard.” Taryn said evenly, “and being ready to cut his losses and run when things start to go south for him. What do we know about the children, Sara? I’m thinking they are probably the key here.”

       “Quite a bit actually.” Sara said. “The report’s comprehensive in the extreme. It says here that the three boys are under the age of seven right now, and are being put through the public school where they are getting run of the mill grades. Nothing stellar there, and they are still way too young to get mixed up in anything.”

       “Right.” Taryn nodded, trying hard not think about the fact that they were still her half siblings.

       “What about the others?”

       “Well, the ones in the Plaza are about six and twelve, respectively.” Sara said, scanning their records. “It seems he married both women about the same time and the kids are pretty close in age as well. The other two are older. One’s seventeen, and the other is nineteen.” She trailed off, looking guiltily at the camera when a bit off exclamation came through the speakers.

       Taryn looked at her mom, who was standing by the table looking furious.

       Taryn felt the same way, realizing that the bastard had been sleeping around and making kids with other women the same time he was with her mom. The thought was abhorrent!

       “Well?” Taryn managed to say, though it came out a bit strangled.

       “Yeah. Um. Both are employed by the park service right now, the older one followed in her mother’s footsteps to become more of tribal leader. The other has big red flags on her records. Apparently, she has become somewhat of an ecoterrorist. Attacked a testing lab because they thought that it was involved with animal testing. Turned out to be run by computers and simulations, not animals in cages. She tried to launch an attack into a pet store, claiming they were dealing in illegal pet trade, but they proved to be legitimate and her group pretty much left her hanging. That’s were the record stops, by the way. Everything after that is marked “Classified, Highly Sensitive” and is redacted.”

       Taryn stopped listening in shock. She realized she knew exactly who her step-family was!

       “Melissa and Little Cloud.” her whisper carried through to the pickup.

       “That’s...right! How did you know?” Sara asked in surprise, looking at Taryn. She fell silent as she saw the faces on the other side. It was up to Sylvie to look straight at Taryn and say, in a surprisingly steady voice, “They were the two who were helping us when we were attacked this morning by the spiders. They are being airlifted to the nearest hospital now.”

       “Airlifted?” Sara asked, alarmed.

       “Yes. They are both hurt, Little Cloud the worst.”

       “All right. I’ll put in a call for the local field office to keep an eye on them.” Sara said, looking for approval. Wolfe came up to the screen and shook his head.

       “Thank you, but I am afraid it will take more than your efforts to cut through the bureaucratic red tape that will stand in our way. I do have some contacts in the area that we can use, however. I will make some calls.”

       He stepped away from the console already pulling out his cellphone.

       Meanwhile Taryn looked straight at her mom in surprise and shock.

       “All this time…: she said slowly, unable to complete the thought.

       Her mother shook her head.

       “Taryn, you weren’t to know. I didn’t, and I was married to him.”

       She smiled. “Don’t judge them on their father, okay? They probably don’t know about his infidelity and would probably take it the wrong way if you talked to them about it.”

       Taryn hesitated, thinking furiously. She realized that her mother had a point, it was likely that the other two did not know about their father, if they still saw him at all. But how would she be able to find out?

       ‘What does it matter?’ She asked herself irritably. Whether or not they have a perfect relationship with their father has nothing to do with the war we are fighting except as potential targets.

       Taryn sighed. She realized now that her thought would no doubt be prophetic: the war had just gotten even more complicated.