The path of the Spider brings the team to Arizona for their next member. And this isn’t just any member, this is an equal of Anasi’s: the Native American trickster, Coyote. Continue reading
Terrell stopped about six feet from Anansi and folded his arms. Almost in spite of themselves, the others arrayed themselves behind him, unsure of how things were going to go down. “Alright. We need an explanation.” He said flatly. “A good one. No riddles, not vagueness, no cryptic bullshit. What is going on here?”
Anansi didn’t seem concerned at all with his demands. In fact, he seemed rather proud of them, smiling even more broadly than before. “Ha. You take my claims of divinity in stride, but the very idea that I might also be running a successful business enterprise befuddles and angers you. Very well, I will answer you in truth… but you’ve really answered two questions: What is going on here,” He raised his hand and gestured to encompass World Spider Industries above their heads, “And what is going on here.” He gestured downward, specifically at the spider mosaic on the floor.
Wendell took a nervous step back as he watched it. He was one hundred percent sure now that it was moving. He nudged Susan with his elbow and when she turned to glare, glanced down to direct her gaze. She stepped back form it too.
But … Continue reading
Anansi took his time heaping his plate from the buffet. He wanted to sample everything, the good and the bad and find out what was best to him. In his reckoning, it was the loss of this skill that was the great failing of far too many people. Choosing blindly was bad, but making informed decisions without having all the options on the table was worse; it led to people thinking they were more right than they actually were.
The Spider wouldn’t even declare a favorite food until he’d had every food. Though he did have a current favorite and lamented that chicken nuggets weren’t a breakfast food.
He wasn’t blind to the effect his procrastination was having on the others though. The sly smile curling his lip made that clear.
Finally, Wendell cleared his throat.
“Yes?” Asked Anansi, meticulously buttering a biscuit.
“The reason you felt the need to look us up on the internet, approach us with this job and put my life in mortal danger?” Wendell said sternly. Susan made a not very ladylike sound at the last one, which made him glower even more.
“Anticipation is a spice only surpassed by hunger.” Anansi informed him, at … Continue reading
Wendell Leiter was no stranger to the finer places in Atlantic City. In his time, he’d trolled the high roller tables and VIP lounges; made deals in glitzy ballrooms and four star restaurants, and slept in top tier suites.
Finding himself in the Veracruz private dining room of the Twoflower was like a shark finding itself in saltwater. But this time, he was drawing no comfort from it.
It was the morning after his near-death experience and first meeting with Anansi. The stiflingly charismatic man hadn’t filled them in any further, only handed each of them his card and inviting them to breakfast at the Twoflower the next morning.
Presenting the card at the front desk got him swiftly escorted into an elevator and up to the private dining room, where a buffet style breakfast was laid out before a banks of windows offering a panoramic view of the city.
But when the valet left him, Wendell found himself alone with Susan Polanski, the woman who, less than twenty-four hours earlier, had been willing to kill him for one hundred grand.
She sat at the finely set table in the middle of the room, positioned so that she was facing … Continue reading
Terrell King was waiting in the Twoflower’s lounge when Anansi decided to make his appearance at eleven in the morning. From the three thoroughly rifled courtesy newspapers and two empty cups from the coffee machine at the end of the continental breakfast bar, he’d expected Anansi much earlier than this.
“I’m glad you took me up on my offer.” The Spider greeted him like an old friend.
“Just tell me where we’re going and what we’re doing.” Terrell said tersely.
Anansi ignored the open hostility and breezed past him to get a cup of coffee of his own. “We’ll be going across town to the Bridges Tower.” As he explained, he added two sugars and five creams. “As for what we’re doing? We’re stopping a murder.”
It was said with such a casual flippancy that Terrell almost missed it completely. And once he grasped what was just said, he wished he had missed it. He crossed the space between them with urgency and grasped the other man by the arm. “What the hell did you just say?”
Every calm, even as the jostling of his arm sent a spatter of boiling hot coffee across his arm, Anansi smiled wanly. “I … Continue reading
Two hours later and his waitress was staring.
Anansi looked up from his food laden table and smiled at her. She tried desperately to look as if she hadn’t been staring. He just took a sip of his ice water and tried to decide what to eat next.
It had taken ten trips, twelve plates, five soup bowls and an additional bowl made from a tortilla, but a proper sampling of all the food on the Twoflower hotel’s All You Can Eat Buffet lay in a spread before him.
All in all, it was a mixed bag. The salad limited the actual greens to lettuce that wasn’t nearly crisp enough, the white beans were in desperate need of salt, and the barbecue pork was unfortunately bland. On the other hand, the mashed potatoes were fluffy and buttery, the macaroni and cheese (three kinds!) were delicious, the sliced beef was juicy, and the chicken nuggets were a new and exciting take on poultry that he wished to investigate in depth.
For his fourth plate, he scooped some roasted potatoes on top of cooked spinach alongside an ear of corn, and a turkey leg. He also pulled the tortilla bowl, filled with … Continue reading
St. Louis, MO
The doctor on call met the EMTs at the door as the patient was wheeled in; a black man in his late thirties, wearing obvious second hand clothes. He was mumbling to himself and his eyes refused to focus when checked with a pen light.
As the one EMT gave the doctor the run down of what the diagnostics on the ambulance could tell, the other spoke to the the sheriff’s deputy who had followed them from the scene.
“I know him.” He explained to her, his face a portrait of displeasure. “I volunteer a the soup kitchen not far from where you found him. That’s Robert Butcher. He’s… sort of a leader among the local homeless. Works with the social workers, tells them who needs the most help, who needs medicine, that sort of thing.”
The deputy didn’t seem much bothered by this, maintaining a look of merely professional courtesy. “The homeless like to set up camp on the roofs in the summer, think that’s why he was up there?”
“Only abandoned buildings.” The EMT said, missing her general lack of empathy. “They don’t trespass, Robert the least of all.”
This was written down in the … Continue reading
