The jumping spiders began leaping at him from the moist hollow places in Nalini Toshi's brown body.
Remo used his hands to fend them off. There were too many of them for him to do otherwise. They leaped for his face, his hair, and his arms.
And encountered an invisible barrier that was Remo's flashing hands. They bounced back, not always whole.
The jumping spiders struck walls, bedclothes, and Nalini herself.
Her eyes snapped open. They fixed on Remo, and on the shattered, squirming rust-red body segments accumulating on the white sheet.
"My children!" she shrieked.
Immediately, she hugged her nakedness, trying to locate still-living spiders on her person. She seemed to find none.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
Remo batted away the last two attackers and said, "Forget me already?"
"Remo!"
Her voice was dull with shock.
"Surprised?"
She pulled the sheet over her breasts. "What-what do you do here?"
"I came for answers."
"To-to what?"
"To why you tried to kill me. To why you're killing people with spiders and blaming a virus that doesn't exist."
"I-I harm no one . . . ."
"Can it. I know everything. How you murdered Magarac, Parsons, and for all I know Lee Esterquest."
Nalini's eyes became wary slits. "If you know so much, you would not come seeking answers to questions."
"I know about the Spider Divas," Remo said.
Nalini just stared. "Who are you?"
"Not who. What. I am Sinanju."
And Nalini hissed like a cat in the darkness. Her eyes became hot. She flung off her sheet to reveal her splendid body anew. "If you are truly Sinanju, then I am helpless before you," she said submissively.
A cool, musty breeze was coming from under the door. The Master of Sinanju detected other smells mixed in with the mustiness. Sweat. Fear. He opened the door and descended unpainted steps.
A heartbeat in the cool darkness, muffled and sluggish. Great lungs labored for air. The Master of Sinanju sought those sounds.
There was a steamer trunk standing on end near the cold furnace. He went to it, knowing the sounds of life came from within.
The trunk was closed with padlocks but they surrendered to fingers that understood their strengths and weaknesses.
The Master of Sinanju pushed the halves of the trunk apart, and a great form rolled out and stopped at his feet.
"Roger, Thrush," said the Master of Sinanju.
Nalini was saying, "Please do not harm me, Man of Sinanju. I am but a poor servant who cannot harm you." Her voice was pitiful. Her heart was beating wildly.
Remo hesitated. Her fruity scent was in his nostrils, tickling them.
"Straight talk," he said.
Nalini gathered herself up, her liquid eyes steady on Remo's towering form.
"What do you wish to know?" she murmured.
"There's no HELP, right? Just poison spiders."
Nalini nodded. "There is no HELP, yes. Only spiders."
"So how come some people die in two days and others go as soon as they're bitten?"
The Spider Diva mustered up a tentative smile that made her dark eyes sparkle alluringly. She stretched her legs, revealing no hidden arachnids.
"It is very simple," she said, averting her eyes. "My pets are no different from other creatures. Some are male. Some are female. The bite of the male brings weakness and a slow death. Those whom my sisters bite succumb at once."
Remo grunted. "Okay, why?"
"It is my duty." She lay back, stretching her arms, arching her back like a supple brown cat. "If you are Sinanju, I do not have to explain duty to you."
"Who's your boss-Clancy?"
She closed her eyes. "Yes, my boss is Clancy."
Remo listened to her beating heart. It had been slowing down, and was now beating normally. She was telling the truth, he decided.
"What's his game?"
"To be President of the United States."
"Blotto? Who'd vote for him?"
"Grateful Americans, once he delivers them from the terrible Human Environmental Liability Paradox."
"Smart. All you gotta do is pull your spiders back and anything he does will look like a cure. But it won't work."