Read Online Murder of Angels by Caitlin R. Kiernan - Free Book Online Page B

the bandage.
    Niki had read all the labels before she sat down, read them three times through because she was afraid of missing the one thing that was most important. But none of it seeming any more or less significant than the rest. Now she just sat there, waiting and thinking about the tiny bodies, about the spiders, mostly, the spiders the reason that she’d come here, after all. As if she’d ever need so obvious a reminder, about as tactful as Dickens’ Christmas ghosts or a lead pipe across her skull. She reached into the pocket of her coat and took out the first bottle that her fingertips encountered, the Klonopin, and she opened it.
    “Of course, they aren’t insects, you know,” Dr. Dalby said, and she hadn’t even noticed him standing there in front of her, leaning on his silver-handled walking stick and peering at the exhibit through his bifocals. “They’re actually members of the Class Arachnida.”
    “I know that,” Niki said, interrupting him, and she put two of the pills in her mouth. They tasted faintly sweet and made her tongue tingle, faint and not unpleasant numbness as they started to dissolve. “Spyder told me that.”
    “Yes,” the old man said. “She would have, wouldn’t she?”
    “I guess no one wants a Hall of Arachnids,” she mumbled, and Dr. Dalby nodded his head.
    “No, I don’t suppose they do. But it does seem a shame, don’t you think? Says here there are more than…” and he paused, reading one of the labels again. “More than thirty-eight thousand species of spiders, and only about four thousand species of mammals. And, it says, arachnids were the first terrestrial animals, with scorpions dating back to the Silurian, over four hundred million years ago.”
    “I read it already, Dr. Dalby,” and Niki dry swallowed the two half-dissolved pills, put three more in her mouth. “I read it all, three times.”
    “But that little lady there, she’s a gem, isn’t she?” and he pointed at a dead black widow. “Family Theridiidae, genus Latrodectus, species mactans . I wish I remembered more of my Latin. I’d tell you what the heck all that means.”
    “Spyder knew,” Niki said. “But I don’t. She told me once, but I can’t remember anymore. There are five species in North America,” and then Niki shut her eyes and recited them for the psychologist: “ Latrodectus mactans, Latrodectus variolus, Latrodectus geometricus, Latrodectus hesperus, and Latrodectus bishopi, ” and he smiled at her.
    “That’s impressive, Nicolan.”
    She opened her eyes, and “You’re not really Dr. Dalby, are you?” she asked the old man. “You don’t smell like him.”
    “Right now, I’m who you need me to be.”
    Niki laughed, louder than she’d intended to laugh, and several people in the Hall of Insects turned to stare at her.
    “Sorry about that,” she said, though she wasn’t, and took two more Klonopin.
    “This isn’t what you think it is,” the man who wasn’t really Dr. Dalby said and he sat down on the bench next to her and touched her gently on the shoulder. “It’s not just phantoms and hallucinations. It’s so much more than that.”
    Niki didn’t look up, stayed focused on the prescription bottle because she didn’t want to see the things in his eyes and certainly didn’t want him to see the things in hers.
    “I don’t care,” she said. “I’ve had enough of everything for one fucked-up lifetime.”
    “You know, Niki,” and then she was sure it wasn’t Dr. Dalby because he’d never once called her Niki. “Some people say spiders connect the world of the living with the world of the dead. They guard the underworld, and sometimes they even spin webs that connect the earth and Heaven.”
    “Oh, is that why you’re here? To take me to Heaven?”
    He didn’t say anything for a moment, rubbed at his mustache like it itched and arched his eyebrows.
    “No,” he said, finally. “I can’t do that.”
    “Then fuck off,” and she shook four