The Don is paralyzed on his back on the doorstep of his grandson’s lover, Clay. He had traveled from Mexico in the hopes of saving his grandson, but it seems that the old man is now in need of saving.
Clay kneels next to him and when he touches his arm, there is an explosion of energy before his eyes, the world view that the Don has attained when he gained the sight that allowed him to discern the energy signatures of the Earth and its myriad inhabitants. Clay is overwhelmed to see the energy signatures of spirits and supraphysical entities that existed in the seemingly empty spaces of the world. And one such supraphysical entity had targeted the Don, though it’s true target was Clay, who had not known about it’s presence until now.
It is a huge spider, as tall as Clay, and the body supported on top of its eight legs is a large abdomen of a spider and the torso of an elegant woman with ebony black skin to match the darkness of her sturdy legs. The tip of her abdomen is visible behind her and there is a new stinger there, sharp and glistening, just like the one that Clay sees when he looks down at the Don; it protrudes from his shoulder. Clay grabs at it to pull it from his body, but he can’t grab it with his physical body.
“You are next,” the spider calls. “The Red Father will be happy to know that I destroyed two powerful potential enemies.”
Clay stands and his breathing intensifies; each breath raises his shoulders and makes him taller, more muscular, and there is a green fire raging at his eyes. He easily lifts the lifeless body of the Don and lays him inside the house, and then he charges at the spider, unafraid of her stinger that could paralyze him.
The spider woman looks back at her stinger and watches it retract, then it is replaced by a gauzy, white blob. She stares back at Clay.
“Sit down and this will go much more smoothly.” She aims the white blob, and then a stream of silk shoots from the end of her abdomen. It hits Clay like a high powered hose and surrounds his body in a mound of webbing.
To the outside observer, Clay would have looked insane, standing there struggling against webbing invisible to most eyes, and raging against a spider that also evaded the normal eye, but Clay is in dire straights as the spider approaches him slowly.
“He will restore me to my place,” the spider says. “He is powerful. You can do nothing to resist him.” The stinger reappears at the tip of her abdomen.
Clay growls and he feels his strength build inside of him, and then his mental form rips through the layers of silk. He charges the spider and punches her in the torso. Now able to interact with the energy forms of the spider and her constructs, Clay is relentless in his assault. The spider retreats to a nearby tree and yells down at Clay.
“Rumors of your might are not exaggerated. You are a-nes incarnate, servant of the spider. Pity you must die, you could serve me well.”
Clay grabs the tree where the spider hides and he pushes at it, manages to move it, but before he pushes it over, the spider jumps at him, and Clay grabs her by the neck in midair.
“Where is Ivan?!” he barks in the spider’s face as her legs move in a frenzy around them. Clay tightens his grip. “Take me to him now.” He tosses the body of the spider away like it is nothing and she collects herself.
“Die!” she screams and shoots a stinger from her abdomen, but it bounces off of Clay’s mental form and shatters to pieces. He rushes the spider and punches her with all of the strength that he can muster, and then she explodes in a chaos of red sparks that fly up around him. And then the sparks get called up, like in a wind and they form the body of a man in red.
The Don has reawakened and he stands in the doorway of Clay’s house watching the confrontation between Clay and the red man. The Don knows that this is the leech who has his grandson.
“Where they fail, the father will only succeed,” the red man says.
“Where is Ivan?!” Clay yells loudly.
“If you want him, come get him.” The red man disappears as Clay swings to punch him.
Clay yells with rage, but his yell is interrupted by the grumblings of the Don.
“Why would a man like you cry when you are facing an evil that requires your strength?” the Don stands before Clay.
“I don’t know what kind of man I am,” Clay says weakly.
“I cannot tell you what you are,” the Don says. “But I know that you are stronger than me, and you are the Clay that my nephew sent me in search of, and we must banish this red man from this realm. We must return Ivan. There is no time for tears and uncertainty. What is this red man?”
“I don’t know,” Clay says. “I’m sorry…”
As he apologizes to the Don, a car stops in front of Clay’s house, and a woman exits the back seat. She runs to Clay when she sees him and wraps her arms around his neck. The Don watches on solemnly.
“Good to see you too Alia,” Clay says grimly. “Wish it was under better circumstances. I’ll do my best to catch you up, this is Ivan’s…”
“Right, Mr. Santana, it’s so good to meet you,” she kisses the old man’s cheek as he stares at her suspiciously. “Clay we have to get to Ivan.”
“Do you know the red guy?” Clay asks.
“I didn’t before a few days ago. But we can stop him.”
“I can’t find Ivan or my sister,” Clay says sadly and the Don shakes his head, once again disappointed in Clay.
“I can take you to his body,” the Don says. “You will free my grandson?”
“We will,” Alia says. “We all will.”
Ivan is still lost in the red chaos, but when he makes his way to the green oasis, memories of his friends come to him; the magician he had known in his youth, the woman Alia, and Clay, the love of his life…
In the physical world, Ivan’s body is in the house of a family that the Red Father had ordered they abandon. It is a small house in a low income part of the city where Clay lives. Ivan’s body is levitating, but he is not cross legged. The entirety of the home’s interior is bathed in red energy that is palpable, and there are sparks of electricity that seem to fire randomly in the charged environment. The veins of Ivan’s body bulge from his temples, and they protrude on his limbs like thick ropes that wrap them. Clay’s sister Brittany is unconscious on one of the beds in a bedroom.
“They all fail,” the Red Father says with Ivan’s mouth. “But they were useful pawns. Now they will come, and I will be ready for them.”
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