Fist of the Spider Woman by Amber Dawn Page A

asked quietly. “Are you going to run down and tell the damn media every sordid detail?”
    â€œI’m not a plant,” Kate said.
    â€œAre you different ?” There was a sort of nastiness to the question. Kate held the file closer.
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œDo you keep secrets?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYour face,” Marlene said. “That cut. She likes them different.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” Kate felt herself constrict, pull inward. This was what she had wanted to hear, yet the whitewashed walls of the room seemed too close.
    â€œYou’ve looked at my file or else you wouldn’t be here. If you didn’t notice it the first time, look again. I’m not …” she paused. “… typical. I was born female. I’m still a woman. But I guess some people might not think I am. She likes that.” Marlene’s voice shook, but not from shame. “She likes the ambiguity because it makes a real difference when she changes us. You know the legend, right? When she was alive, she killed young women and bathed in their blood to stay beautiful.”
    â€œThat’s not the way I heard it. I heard that she killed children after her daughter died,” Kate said.
    â€œIt’s different wherever you go,” Marlene said, shaking her head. “She’s still killing women. She wants women. But you have to understand something.” Marlene bent forward, those bright blue eyes coming closer, her mutilated face filling Kate’s vision.
    Kate wanted to lean away, but the back of her chair kept her from doing so.
    â€œShe wants women who will want her back. She has her own little collection of freaks that have kept her here. She may not be alive, but she exists. She’s existed all this time. And she can’t be stopped.”
    By now, Marlene’s bandaged hand was clutching Kate’s wrist, and Kate could see blood seeping through—she must have pulled some stitches. Kate was beginning to think this was a terrible idea. The more she looked at Marlene, the more she looked like Mary.
    â€œYou have no idea. But you will. She did that to you, didn’t she?” Marlene said.
    â€œIt was my cat.”
    â€œBullshit,” Marlene spat. “What does she want with you?
    What’s wrong with you? It doesn’t matter where you go, she’s in the mirrors. Do you see any mirrors in here? No, I told them to take them out. But I still see her, wherever there are reflections.
    She wants to finish the work done on me. And then she’ll get you. There were three other women. You’ve probably seen them on the news. At least one of them looks like she’s different. But we’re all women. And that’s what she wants from us. Don’t you understand? She wants women.”
    â€œI should go,” Kate said, standing and trying to extricate her wrist, but Marlene clutched at her as though she was falling.
    â€œNo! You have to listen,” Marlene hissed. She twisted in her bed. “She’ll make you wish for death. Please, they won’t believe me, but you do, don’t you? You’ve seen her. She’s touched you. Don’t let her fool you. Don’t let her take you. She’ll kill you like all the others. She takes what makes you a woman. And she emasculates you. Yes . You believe me now? How else would I know?”
    Kate stopped pulling away. Marlene’s grip loosened until it was just her fingertips against the sensitive blue veins on the underside of Kate’s wrist. She stared into Marlene’s too bright blue eyes. Now she needed to know. She needed to know.
    â€œShe took my breasts,” Marlene said. “She took my lips. She took my face. She took my stomach. She punctured what might have been my uterus in another life. She took my—she sliced into me and took my fallen testes. It doesn’t matter what the doctor calls them—that might as well