The Spider’s Design: Monday
When he’d summoned the spirit, William had initially been taken aback by her size. Not exactly the most threatening thing. After she’d started to move though, he’d changed his tune. A blur of black, white and blue, quick enough to give lightning a run for its money. By morning, the factory interior has transformed. Machines are repurposed enough to be used alongside the legion of too-willing spiders, drawing out more thread than ought to be natural. Triplines of web at all the entrances ensure that any other homeless chumps stumbling into their laid are detected and removed.
He asked to do it without killing them. Not that he’d been micromanaging her to see it’s being done. The asking makes him feel better enough about himself not to care.
William has his own workshop, nothing so magical. It predated the summoning, growing out naturally like a culture of microorganisms from the industrial sink to encompass a hand-cranked sewing machine and a table where he can hand-load bullets for his revolver. Some of the materials stolen, others bought with the fruit of his rackets.
Busts line one of the old shelves, each wearing a different mold and wig. Ghostly remembrances of people who never existed. A pretender for every occasion.
With his hands, William smooths the last rubber patch onto his scalp, using the dusty mirror he’d hung above the sink to gauge how it looks. Not part of a mask, just something to hide the surgical scars on his bald head. A wooden box of women’s cosmetics sits open beside him, and he adds layers and color to conceal the border.
“Well. How do I look, then? Presentable enough?” taking a step back from the sink, William turns to seek Assassin’s professional opinion. Fingers trailing strands of silk, she glances up from her work for only a moment.
“Flattering. Master’s disguise-work is impressive, for the measure of its mundanity. Is my Master trained by an order?”
“What, like an assassin order?” slinking through the trails of spiders in a shuddering tiptoe, William leans against a cold industrial wall. The London chill sinks through the layers of concrete and iron, seeping into his back. He grimaces and reaches instinctively for his coat. Only a spare undershirt at the moment, one he doesn’t mind staining with the byproducts of his workshop.
Assassin’s eyes close. The expression hidden behind her mask is a mystery, but William gets an air of superiority from her. “Dismissive. You are no Hashashin.” Her head leans back, and she snips the last trailing threads, flicking her fingers with a sense of finality. “Yet, even the pretenders to the name each possess a fragment of the complete skillset. Clarifying. Are you a trained killer, Master?”
Looking aside at the lanternlight on the docks through the distant windows, William sniffs at the stale factory air. Smells less like mold. Assassin has been busier than he noticed. “I wouldn’t call it trained,” with a stained handkerchief, he wipes his hands clean of his craft. “Not a guv’ment dog or nothing like that, leastwise. Learned it from… theater. Guess you could call me something of an actor.” Wearing a dry grin, he chuckles to himself.
“Curiously. And the weapons?”
With a casual flick of his own, William discards the handkerchief onto a table and strides back to his workshop. Everything in reach, fast and efficient. Just the way he likes it. He reaches over and grabs one off his preferred wigs along the way. Just pain brown hair, unremarkable. There’s a time and a place for presentation. “Nothing special. People try to kill you long enough, you learn how to kill them first. Or you get dead,” he dances through the question with vague truths, picking up the revolver to load it. Five shots, made by someone named Adam. A Brit. At least he was good for one thing. A single chamber is left open, lined up with the barrel. Just in case. The killing tool clinks when he sets it back down.
The questions trail off. William assumes she’s busy. He steps up to his sewing machine and pulls off the black, buttoned suit. Swinging it on, he tests the stretch of the material around the shoulders. All he needs is the badge. Not something he knows how to forge himself. Need to find a counterfeiter for that. Once he has it, a lot off doors are going to be open.
“Disdainful! What are you wearing?”
Assassin’s voice is so close behind William it sends a jolt up his spine. His body responds before he can think through it, whipping around with his fist balled. Her delicate-looking hand stops him like an infielder effortlessly catching a meteoric hit. Clearing his throat, William softly pulls his hand back and rubs the knuckles. “Sorry… just a reflex.”
“Pleased. Reflex a vital quality. However, we must improve Master’s form,” no signs of a crack in the spirit’s impeccable mask of control. There’s a lengthy fabric outfit draped over her other arm, which she holds up in front of her. A replica of her robes, though larger and with shoulder with designed for a broader build. The curls of the seams walk the balance between decorative and practical, leaving room for maneuvering. Accompanying the hood is a cowl to cover the face, and guarantee anonymity. “Prideful. The robes of the Hashashin. It would be disgraceful for my Master to lack proper attire when we do our work. Not… this…” Her eyes flinch over his admittedly imperfect hemming. “Shudder…” she narrates a shiver that doesn’t actually travel down her back. Sarcastic thing. “Leave the stitchwork to me, Master.”
“Sometimes the imperfections lend believability to a disguise,” William claims defensively, looking down and adjusting his collar to hide one of the worse offenses. Maybe she’s right. The Brits are more uptight about this shit. “Wh…” he coughs into the back of his hand, and when he opens his eyes she’s somehow extricated the police jacket from him and tossed it into the hobo fire. Throwing aside his hands in defeat, he relents, “Fine. If you want to do the sewing, I won’t tell you how to do your job.”
Accepting the robes with due reverence, William examines them without letting them drag on the filthy floor. “Instructing,” she announces, so that he knows to pay attention. “While you remain still, this fabric will assume the appearance of its surroundings. It is no substitute for Presence Concealment, but I will feel better knowing you have it.”
Folding it carefully over his arm, William casts his gaze around the factory floor. “I’ll find somewhere clean to keep it until we go to Oxford. Right now, going out like this is just going to get me thrown in a looney bin. And that might be worse than prison.” He barks a sudden laugh. “Then again, I survived the last drill in my skull. Maybe it’s like poison. Take a little now so you have a resistance later.”
Assassin nods sagely. “Nostalgic. This practice is called Mithridatism.” No more exposition on the nostalgia. William extrapolates that it probably has something to do with how she learned to work with spiders. When the rictus grin remains painted on his face like it got stuck there, she tilts her head. “…Concerned. The same does not apply to head injuries.”
“Coulda fooled myself,” William grabs a coat hanger from one of his other makeshift disguises she’s probably going to throw in the fire while he’s gone, and sets the robe up on the pipe they’d been hanging from. It won’t touch anything filthy up there. “I’m going to find us some grub,” he changes subjects abruptly. “Do spirits even eat?”
“Insistent. I am no mere ‘spirit’, Master, I am a Heroic Spirit,” a hand clutches William’s shoulder, and Assassin forces him around to face her. He feels he’s made some wizardly social faux paus. “I am Assassin. Or I am Hassan. I expect to be addressed properly.” The girl releases him and pivots away, returning to her loom.
William scratches his chin. “I’m new to this.”
“Understanding. I know that you are uneducated in the true world, Master. That is why I give the benefit of correction,” the girl pontificates somewhere behind him, while William grabs his usual suit jacket. “Warning! Say the wrong thing to another and they will not be so forgiving.”
“Do Assassins eat food?” William corrects, in a deadpan that mirrors her own. “Actually,” curiosity creeps into his tired voice in spite of the downer fugue hanging in a pall around his skull. Going down from the extensive flexing of his magic circuits for the ritual has left a withdrawal from the thrill it shoots through his brain. “For that matter, do you need to breathe or sleep?” Stopping at the stairs to the lower factory level, he looks back. Assassin, or Hassan, is back at work at her loom. At her touch, the threads dance and weave themselves together with no need for a needle.
Fucking wizards.
“Reassuring. You do not need to concern yourself with my physical needs, Master. They are a crutch for those with a weaker source of mana,” a pair of spiders crawls up her neck, and William shivers, reaching back to scratch his own. A sympathetic, monkey-brained cue. Her tone shifts, or so she claims. “Delighted. I would be most willing to prepare your meals. Confident- your likelihood of food poisoning would reduce steeply.” One of her hair-trails waves like a bacterial pseudopod, at the pile of food cans stacked beside the fire pit. “Should Master wish to share the scraps of my cooking, I will savor what can be spared.”
A furtive shying of her eyes betrays she wants to say more. Tapping his foot impatiently, William finally turns to go. Only then does she speak up. “Reluctant! If we can spare the resources, tea would improve my focus.”
“Shouldn’t be hard, these bastards love their leaf water.” Lantern in hand, William descends the echoing concrete staircase. He twists and bends through a labyrinth of webs, while tiny red eyes glint in the dark, watching him.