Chiun narrowed his eyes. "How do you know its name?"
Limburger grinned proudly. "I saw a picture of one once in a National Geographic. I just happen to have a photographic memory. That's how I knew those CHP guys were phonies. I recognized them as Clancy campaign aides. Just one of the varied talents of Thrush Limburger, Renaissance talk show genius."
"And how did you know this insect to be poison?"
"Simple. It up and bit the coroner. He keeled over, and his eyes turned blue." Limburger shook his head sadly. "Poor guy was dead in a New York minute."
"But you told no one?"
"Wasn't any time," Limburger protested. "I had to go on the air with it as soon as possible. The sooner I warned the world, the sooner people could avoid the damned spiders and lives would be saved. There was nothing I could do for Esterquest."
Chiun nodded. "This was wise, except that there are those who blamed you for the man's death."
"The media, right?"
"And certain others."
"That's what it is to be Thrush Limburger. If I cured cancer, they'd bitch that I overlooked the common cold. Well, let's get the heck out of this pest hole of permissiveness."
And from somewhere above, a voice emitted a startled cry of pain.
"What was that?" Limburger demanded.
"Remo!" cried Chiun. And because he could not have a human elephant stumbling after him, he felled Thrush Limburger with a short, chopping blow to the side of his head.
The man fell like an up-ended rain barrel.
Nalini Toshi laughed with musical mockery as Remo pulled himself free of her, a jumping spider clinging to the tip of his male organ.
He whacked it off, crushed it under a stamping heel.
And Nalini cried, "It is a she-spider! Your death is upon you, Western fool!"
Remo felt his manhood wilt, and knew the toxin-filled blood was returning to his body. His crotch was already growing numb. And a coldness crept into his upper thighs and solar plexus. He fought to keep the blood in check, but the coldness was already spreading toward his heart.
"Die! Die!" shrieked Nalini. "But be sure to fall where the moonlight will show me your eyes. I want to see them turn blue. I want to look into your dying eyes, Sinanju fool."
Remo sank to his knees. His arms went as limp as liver. As if they were only balloons, all the air seemed to leak out of his muscles. Closing his eyes, he bowed his head.
For a moment, he was still. For a moment, his heart stopped. And for a moment, the air in his lungs began to escape with a steady tired hissing. Then, a long silence fell.
Nalini laughed. She climbed off the bed and took his dark hair in her grasping fingers.
"Show me your dying eyes," she sneered, jerking his head backward on its unresisting neck. "So I will know that my ancestors have been avenged."
Remo's eyes snapped open. The whites were bright blue. But deep in the black core of his pupils a red spark flickered angrily.
And out of his mouth, mixed with a hot black spray of expelled venom, came a hollow roar of a voice.
"I am created Shiva, the Destroyer; Death, the shatterer of worlds!"
With a startled shriek, Nalini Toshi recoiled.
"What is this! What is this!" she said, shrinking against a wall.
And as she watched, the figure on its knees began jerking as if reviving electricity were jumping through every lean muscle and sinew.
"What are you doing?" Nalini moaned. "You should not die like that!"
And the figure came to its feet, tall, unbowed, erect in every way. The eyes were red coals and the surrounding whites where white again.
The mouth dropped open. "Who is this dog meat who stands before me?"
Nalini pressed her back to the wall in fear. "I-I am the last living Spider Diva, Nalini."
"No," said the voice of Shiva the Destroyer. "You are the dead Spider Diva, Nalini."
Nalini Toshi watched the hand lift to her eyeline as if it were in slow motion. She realized the hand was not moving in slow motion. These were the last moments of her life and her senses were doing this-trying to hold on to every precious moment the turning wheel of destiny had allotted her.
She saw the hand, like a weaving cobra's head, form a wedge and aim blunt fingers toward her face. The cruel face behind the hand went out of focus as her eyes were mesmerized by the fingertips she knew had the power to obliterate her, just as other empty hands had obliterated those of her kind who came before.
"I consign you to a place of no returning," said the hollow voice.
And the hand struck.
There was nothing more after that. No thought. No fear. There was not enough time for her brain to call up in kaleidoscope all the images it had recorded in life.
Nalini Toshi collapsed, her face an inverted mask of crushed bone and raw meat, onto the broken bodies of her children.
And in Remo's dark eyes, a red spark flared, then dwindled. He shook his head as if to clear it of cobwebs.
Chapter 29
Remo was putting his pants on when the Master of Sinanju burst into the room. Chiun froze.
"What has happened here?" he demanded, his cold eyes switching between the calm figure of his pupil and the sprawled inert thing that was the last of the Spider Divas.
"Figure it out," said Remo, his voice stripped of all emotion.
"I see the Spider Diva, dead."
"That's all you need to know."
Chiun hovered over the dead woman, taking in her nakedness. "You could not resist her, could you?"
"That's between her and me," said Remo, avoiding his Master's searching eyes.
Chiun cocked his head to one side. "But you paid a price."
"How do you know?"
"I heard the mantra of Shiva."
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Remo, buckling his belt.
"We will speak of it later. I have found Thrush Limburger, a prisoner in the basement. He has told me all he knows."
"Clancy's behind this," said Remo.
"She told you that?"
"Yeah. "
"And you believed her-a Hindu and a harlot?"
"Who else could it be?" said Remo, his voice returning to its normal timbre. "Come on, let's get out of here."
They stepped out into the corridor and a blue disk of a thing came wheeling toward them.
"What is that, Remo?" Chiun asked.
"A security robot. No big deal."
An orange light winked on and Remo stepped forward. His foot came up and down, and the robot broke like a china plate.
"See?" he said. "No big deal. They just came on the market. This is one of the cheaper models. All they do is beep out a warning."
"Ah. "
"So where's Limburger?" Remo asked.
"I left him sleeping below."
"It might help if Smith sent in the cavalry and they found Limburger here."
"That is for Smith to decide."
Remo peered about, his thick wrists rotating absently. "So what is the best way out of here?"
"Have you forgotten something, Remo?"
Remo frowned. "What?"
"You left an old woman helpless."
"Oh, yeah. Pearl Clancy. That won't take a minute."
The Master of Sinanju followed his pupil to the great parlor in the center of the rambling house.
"The whole thing was a scheme to get Ned Clancy into the White House next time around," Remo was saying. "Nalini was the Eldress. She set up all the dominoes at the start, and once HELP was a big deal, started knocking them down so Clancy could rehabilitate himself politically."
"You walk unsteadily," Chiun pointed out.
"I caught a dose."
"It does not appear to trouble you very much."
They came to the door.
"Did I mention I saw the same thing that Sambari saw in the forest?" said Remo.
"And?"
Remo threw open the door. "Sambari was a fraidy cat."
Thinning his dry lips, the Master of Sinanju followed his insolent pupil into the room.