Monster Girls - Spider Noir

The fan in the corner clacked as it spun lazily around. Damned thing never worked right since I hurled it across the office during the Spitzam case. I looked at the smoke rising from my cigarette sullenly. It drifted lazily up from my hand. I took another pull and left it sitting in the corner of my mouth as I turned my attention to the desk in front of me. My sullen expression only grew worse.

Bills. Bills. So many bills. Stark pink collections notices. Bright yellow warnings of legal action. I was underwater already yet they just sent more. The shitty 'retirement' the department pushed on me when I was shoved out barely made the rent on my apartment. Even in Brooklyn, New York wasn't cheap. It was 1959. What could you do?

I stacked the late notices back in my 'IN' box and looked through the rest of the mail. Junk. Fliers for local union protests or parade for this or that. Nothing worth a damn. That is until I picked up the manila package sitting on the bottom.

In it was a series of pictures, a letter, and a bundle of money. I grabbed that first and thumbed it; at least five grand. My eyes just about popped out of my head at the money. I snatched up the letter and started to read.

'Hello Mister Benoit.'

'Or is it Lieutenant Arthur?'

'Not anymore, I suppose. The past is the past, right? I'm certain you want to mend fences and smooth things over. That's why we're suggesting you take this money and use it to find who killed one of the Family.'

'Enclosed is a photo of the deceased and one of the suspect. Find her. Get us information on her. Bring it to the 92nd street station next Friday at noon. If you don't, you might find that some of the past is not entirely forgotten.'

'Your buddy.'

I let out a groan and stared at the money, this time in detest. I was being strung along by the Mob. That was the Family. The past they were talking about was an incident with a man who had been beating his wife. One thing led to another, he was found dead, and I was the one holding the gun. The Department didn't want to get rid of one of their best detectives but they had no choice. Early retirement was the best I could've hoped for. Anything else would've led to criminal charges.

I had been investigating the Mob before it happened and they had taken issue with some of my questions. They had enough sway in the NYPD to ensure I was going to go down for the murder unless I disappeared and my investigation with me. It was a disgusting situation and I had all the evidence in the world of the PD's Mob corruption, but they had us. The Captain did everything he could to keep me from going down and this was the result. I was doing PI work to make the bills and the Mob harassed me every few months for a job because they still had their thumb on me.

I really needed to just get out of this town. Move out west with a nice girl and disappear. I took a long drag and blew the smoke out my nose.

Ha. Fat chance. I was forty, slowly losing the tone and muscle from working out with the others at the station, and I had an income that a teenager would laugh at. No way I could support a wife let alone a family.

I flicked a finger at the bundle of money. It would catch up my bills and even put me nicely ahead. The Mob definitely wanted this person dead for what they did if they were giving me this much. Despite that, I still felt a churning in my gut. This wasn't a kindness. They knew I desperately needed money. This was the Mob telling me they had me dead to rights. If I didn't do it, this money would come up missing from a store somewhere that got knocked over in the night. I would get dragged down the station and some corrupt judge would bring the last case up and I would get pinned for both. Zoom. Off to the big house for me. Thirty to life for the murder plus another ten for the robbery.

I sighed loudly and flipped over the photos.

The first was a young guy. Good looking. Blonde hair, brown eyes. Maybe seventeen. I'm sure he's the victim. Probably the kid of someone in the Mob family.

The next caught my attention. It was dark and fuzzy. The photo had clearly been take at night and in a hurry. But the six bright eyes were a compete give away.

The Mob wanted me to find an Arachne.

*******

The photo had a couple of clues for me to follow that I immediately started after. Mainly behind the shadowy figure of the Arachne was the lit door of a warehouse. Only a few places in the city had warehouses like that.

My sapphire blue '53 Mainline puttered softly as I rolled through the dockside warehouses on the south end of Queens. A few dollars slipped to the watchman and a hint that I was here on Family business was all it took. The man had grown pale and waved me past the security gate. No sane man would lie about being in the Mob, but I don't think they would've cared if I got the information they wanted.

The wheels creaked and gravel crunched as I came to a stop. Even if the union protests weren't keeping the workers away, the docks would've still been deserted this time of night. The company here wasn't doing too well, probably close up soon. Even with the war over, life continued on and greed consumed everything.

The Mainlines door squeaked as I shut off the engine and got out. The wind shifted and my long brown coat ruffled around my shins. The scent of the Hudson met my nose and I huffed. A match sparked in my hand. A lone light in the empty place. I inhaled and sighed savoring the scent of the smoke over the wretched odor of the polluted river.

I left the cigarette in my mouth and pulled out the photo to eye it one last time by the light of my match. The construction of the warehouse in the background was similar to those near me. It could've happened around her. No addresses or obvious details on the photo, but I should be able to find the approximate area.

With a sigh, I set off through the gravel yard. It crunched beneath each step and I eyed the lit front of each warehouse. So many looked like the photo but none were in a position that could've been it. The Arachne was standing in shadows a distance from it, directly in front. Each of these warehouses was across from one another, each lit with a single large bulb hanging over rolling doors.

I turned down an alley between them and kept my eyes wide open. If the Arachne was killing indiscriminately then I could easily walk into its web and be the next victim. Their kind wasn't well liked and they were simply tolerated here in America. After the desegregation in the military and the rumblings of similar across the country, such folks as the Arachne were starting to come out and join the parades and protests. Bigotry was rampant against more than just blacks. Anyone non-human was treated just as bad even if they had white skin.

Honestly, I found it all rather disgusting. I've seen whites do more horrific things to people far more than any non-human or any black or Irish. Humanity as a whole was a disgusting, festering mess of hate and the 'peace' that followed the recent World War was only a mask for that nastiness. It would come back. It always did.

The end of the alley opened to the waterside docks. A line of warehouses on this side faced the waterfront. Bingo. The photo could've been taken from the docks or maybe even from a boat. The Arachne would've been standing at the pier's edge as if she had been chasing the cameraman.

"Bingo." I smiled and walked down the concrete pier, flicking my cigarette into the water. I was looking for a few particular details that would pick out one warehouse from another. Almost to the end, I spotted it. A scrape, a damage on the wall. I yanked the photo from my pocket and peered closer at it under the door light. Sure enough, I found the same paint damage in the photo. This was the building.

I looked up at it. Beside the large rolling door, there was a smaller door to the side. Large windows lined the upper edge of the wall near the ceiling. The place wasn't covered in cobwebs and there weren't any bodies strewn about. Nothing to obviously indicate an Arachne had taken up residence.

Something nagged at me. If the Mob wanted me to find the Arachne, then they didn't know the picture had been taken here. So how did they get it?

A flash of movement behind the windows showed with a flicker of moonlight off a shiny piece of chitin. My heart leapt into my throat and I jammed my hand into my pocket. It closed tightly over the cool handle of my service revolver and I drew it.

Years of war, my entire time as an officer, and now my work as a detective, the revolver had served me well. I hadn't ever fought an Arachne before, they were not overly patriotic. In the war, for the most part we only saw the bipedal non-humans. In my unit we had three wolf men. They had been absolutely fierce fighters and were a terror up close. But never an Arachne, so I could only hope the gun would prove effective if they tried to kill me.

My feet were steady but my heart continued pounding as I advanced on the smaller door into the warehouse. Everyone thinks combat steels you and takes away the fear of it in the future. No, all it did was make me able to handle that fear. I knew what it was like to see men injured and dying. I could force myself into the breach without collapsing from the fear. The thoughts of the war brought a twinge of phantom pain to my left shoulder where years before I had taken a bullet in Germany. Not a crippling wound but it hurt when it got cold or strained.

I grasped the cold metal of the doorknob and turned it. Unlocked. It opened with a slight squeak and I looked into the moonlit warehouse. It was full of crates stacked in long neat lines. I looked up to where I had seen the movement. A walkway in front of the windows overhead was empty. My heart pounded harder and I felt sweat roll down the back of my neck.

Something scratched nearby and I jerked around quickly. The gun pointed into the dark and I reached into my other pocket for a match. Without lowering my gun from where I heard the noise, I struck the match on the wall and it flared into light.

The flickering orange fell across her. First those long black legs, shiny as polished black steel. Then a lithe, powerful body of a coal black spider. A soft, creamy pale midsection up to a bare naked chest that could adequately be called 'ample'.

Her face was what captured me. So feminine and gorgeous. A little nose and plump red lips. Deep crimson eyes, six of them, glowed in the match light. I almost lowered the gun just from the sight alone.

Most would probably be repulsed. She was half of a creature that most people feared. But I wasn't. I was enchanted by the exotic nature of her. Something about the slenderness of her legs, the stillness of her form, and the commanding presence of those eyes... My breath caught in my throat and I couldn't speak.

"I knew more would come." She said and then moved with a quickness one would not expect out of a body of her size. She was on me before I could pull the trigger and when I finally did, the gun cracked and the bullet struck somewhere across the warehouse.

I fell to the ground beneath her and my head smacked the floor. Stars burst in my vision and my sight darkened. The Arachne bent over me and I felt her strong hands grab my shoulders. Darkness flooded in as my resistance faded.

Son of a bitch. I didn't want to go out like this.

*******

I awoke. That in itself surprised me. I obviously hadn't been gutted by the Arachne but I was bound and laying on something soft. I kept my eyes shut as tried to keep my breathing steady. It wouldn't do to waste time that I could easily buy if I pretended to still be out cold.

The nagging feeling was still there. The Mob. The photo. The warehouse. The Arachne. Something was missing. It all fit together about as good as four pieces from three different puzzles. I continued puzzling in silence. If I could figure it out, perhaps I could bargain with the Arachne for my life. There might be an out in this somewhere that I couldn't see.

Was I being set up? The thought was pretty obvious but it was silly. If the Mob wanted me gone, they had every way to do it without killing me. They avoided such drastic measures unless necessary since deaths were often messy and left questions. However if I was killed by an Arachne that had previously killed, most of those questions would go away. But why? I detested admitting it, but to stay out of prison I had proven quite useful to the Mob. I had definitely done my best to keep my nose away from them. So why kill me now? If they were trying to kill me, why waste the money?

Okay, put that thought aside. What if they weren't trying to kill me. If this wasn't a setup to knock me off. What then? Well it left the photo unexplained. If they took it, then they would know about this place. If they didn't, then how did they get it without knowing about this place?

Put that aside too. Assume it was all as it is stated. They wanted me to find her. Why? Well she killed one of the Family. That was the issue. They needed to show what happens when someone crosses them. They had to string her up as a message.

But wait... The Arachne. She said more would come. Would come as in some already had. If she was to be believed, then they had come here and she hadn't gone after them. That set all of this on its head. Some young guy from the Mob came here and she killed him. Why on both events?

I wasn't making any headway. Something was missing. If the Mob had come here, then why? And that would mean they knew where she was when they asked me to come here, which meant this was a set up. If they hadn't and she was just talking about them going after her, that still left why she killed him in the first place.

Everything came back to her. I had to talk to her. So I took a breath and opened my eyes.

She was right in front of me, staring intently at me. A small smile curled her mouth, "Good evening. Decided to wake up finally?"

It took a moment for me to overcome her beauty again and remember I was in terrible danger. In the shadows and faint moonlight, her body was magnificent. Despite being so far removed from human, everything about her still seemed so feminine on a very animal level. There was a sense that I was her prey in a very sexual manner.

I looked around and found myself laying in a large net of some kind. My ankles, knees, wrists, and chest had all been bound with loops of thin string. No... With loops of silk. The net was a huge web in the rafters of the warehouse. Thirty feet of open air was between it and the crates below. Sweat broke out on my head again.

"Uhhh. Yeah." I stammered.

"Good. Now what fun should I have with you before I kill you? I'm tired of being chased by everyone who's scared of the dark. If you all just left me alone, I'd leave you alone." She said coldly.

I forced myself to remain still. Each breath, each twitch, made the entire web wobble slightly. It felt like it would give way at any point. I spoke after a steady breath, "I think I need to do some explaining. I'm not here to hurt you."

"Oh?" She said with a very devious and knowing smile. She did not at all believe me.

"Yes. Look, I was sent here by the Mob. Unwillingly, I might add, and something about this whole thing just doesn't add up to me." I decided the best thing was to lay it all out. If I could make her believe I wouldn't turn her into the Mob and to cut me loose, I could dash. The Mob would get their info and I wouldn't be spider food. I continued, "I was blackmailed into finding you. But something you said has made me rethink this whole thing. How could someone come here after you and yet the Mob don't know where you are? They asked me to find you, and to tell them where they are. I think they wanted you to kill me. I just can't figure out why."

That actually took the sharp and devious look from her face. There was a flicker of confusion and uncertainty. I had a chance. With a nod, I continued, "Look, I don't want you to be hurt. I certainly don't want to die. But I can't figure out why they wanted me to come find you. I need to put it all together. When they came here, who came? Was it just a kid? A blonde kid?"

"No. There was three men and a boat." Her face grew dark. She settled down on the web and eyed me. Her words were quiet and careful, "How can I trust you?"

"In my coat. I have a photo they gave me. It was taken from the end of the dock. They obviously know where you are if there was more than one of them here. I get the feeling that I'm a pawn and perhaps you are too." I said, nodding down towards my breast pocket.

She reached forward, one shiny chitinous hand reaching into my coat. Her touch was soft and quick. She withdrew both pictures and looked at them. "This was the one that tried to attack me. He came in here with an axe and he was alone. The rest of them waited out on the dock."

Now that got my attention. That wasn't the Mob at all. They were a run and gun kind of group. If they were going to kill someone that they knew could fight back, they would rush in and fill the place with holes. Or they'd just shoot it up from outside. I fidgeted and said, "You're certain the rest of them waited outside? How many?"

"One in the boat, one on the dock. Only he approached." She waved the picture of the blonde.

"He was the target." I said flatly.

"I don't understand." She turned her six eyes to me.

I nodded. I expected as much. It was convoluted but it made everything fit and that was what was important. Twist theories until they fit the facts as they are presented. I jerked my head at the photo, "They wanted him dead. But in my letter, they said he was one of the Family. If that was the case, they couldn't just off him without good reason. The Family, the Mob Family, don't stand for killing their own without good cause. If this kid slept with the wrong girl or pocketed the wrong money, someone would have a grudge but not enough to kill him with impunity from the rest of the Mob."

"Keep going." She waved a hand.

"If they, say, knew where you were and convinced the guy he had to come in here and kill you, then they could shrug and just say it was you that attacked him. The guy gives them a photo of you, says some bullshit about him and the blonde having a harmless stroll through the night and boom, he's offed his grudge and got away free. Only loose end is you and he leaves the Family to go after you." I explained.

She tossed the photos aside and stepped over to me again, walking with strange daintiness on the web. It was difficult to explain, but I found her movements exciting. Like watching a dancer on stage as she flicks her skirt about.

The Arachne leaned over me, her eyes suspicious and hard. She put a hand on my face, "You are so adorable. It is a hell of a story to try and get away. Let's assume it's all true. How does any of this include you? How can I know you're not another one of them coming to get revenge?"

That one got me. If I was still on the force, a flash of my badge always worked when people didn't believe. Well... Maybe my PI license? I swallowed nervously as I looked into her red eyes.

Ah what the hell. If she was going to kill me anyway. Might as well try to get the girl...

"Because you're damn beautiful and I'm certain there is no way I could live with myself if I hurt you." I said and it was the truth. My pants were more than a little hot. "Honestly, I've never seen a woman your equal and I find myself entranced."

Her response, now that I had not expected. Perhaps anger, or snide derision. Disgust or maybe even coming onto me before killing me. But not this.

"Wha..." Her eyes were wide in shock, all of them, and she was blushing. She pulled her hands back and wobbled on her thin legs. Then sudden fury filled her and she raised her hand, showing the sharp black chitin at her fingertips. "YOU LIE!"