Guarded by the Spider: (Monster Security Agency), page 1
Guarded by the Spider
MONSTER SECURITY AGENCY
BOOK THREE
CASSIE ALEXANDER
Copyright © 2024 by Cassie Alexander
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
www.cassiealexander.com
Cover image by Novae Caelum and Midjourney 5.2 (Stunning hand-drawn illustration, male-spider-bodyguard-hybrid with spider legs and pincers embracing a beautiful woman in the city)
Cover text by Layla Fae
Formatting by Morrigan Author Services
Contents
Chapter 1
Nia’n’an
Chapter 2
Nia’n’an
Chapter 3
Nia’n’an
Chapter 4
Nia’n’an
Chapter 5
Nia’n’an
Chapter 6
Nia’n’an
Chapter 7
Sloane
Chapter 8
Sloane
Chapter 9
Nia’n’an
Chapter 10
Sloane
Chapter 11
Sloane
Chapter 12
Nia’n’an
Chapter 13
Sloane
Chapter 14
Sloane
Chapter 15
Nia’n’an
Chapter 16
Sloane
Chapter 17
Nia’n’an
Chapter 18
Sloane
Chapter 19
Nia’n’an
Chapter 20
Sloane
Chapter 21
Nia’n’an
Chapter 22
Sloane
Chapter 23
Nia’n’an
Chapter 24
Sloane
Chapter 25
Nia’n’an
Chapter 26
Sloane
Chapter 27
Nia’n’an
Chapter 28
Sloane
Chapter 29
Nia’n’an
Chapter 30
Sloane
Chapter 31
Nia’n’an
Chapter 32
Sloane
Chapter 33
Nia’n’an
Chapter 34
Sloane
Chapter 35
Nia’n’an
Chapter 36
Sloane
Chapter 37
Nia’n’an
Chapter 38
Sloane
Chapter 39
Nia’n’an
Chapter 40
Sloane
Chapter 41
Nia’n’an
Chapter 42
Sloane
Chapter 43
Nia’n’an
Chapter 44
Sloane
Chapter 45
Nia’n’an
Chapter 46
Sloane
Chapter 47
Nia’n’an
Chapter 48
Sloane
Chapter 49
Nia’n’an
Epilogue
Also by Cassie Alexander
About the Author
One
NIA’N’AN
I felt the pattern of Royce’s footsteps coming down the webbing in my hall long before I heard him knock on my apartment’s door.
Not content with hammering his fist, he immediately shouted “Nine! Are you still alive?” right after.
It was a valid question. I’d left his employment at the Monster Security Agency recently because I knew my death was imminent—that’d been two weeks ago, and nothing had changed since.
He beat on the door again. “Don’t make me call an exterminator!”
I stirred in the nest I’d created for myself to go to the Great Web in—I would be damned if those were last words I heard before I moved on.
I cursed in a language he wouldn’t understand, extricated myself from the entirely comfortable tunnel I’d created for myself to die in, and reached for the translation device that allowed humans to understand my kind, mounting it against my ear slit before opening the door.
“Can’t a spider die in peace?”
Royce was a big man by human standards, his appearance made slightly more ominous by his baldness, and the way he chose to dress, in crisp, shiny suits, no matter the occasion. But this apartment was created for others like me, who had more monstrous proportions, and because of my eight legs and spider body I stood half his height higher than he did.
He was pleased to see me, which was usually a bad sign. People were frequently scared of my kind—even though Arachnaea were quite rare—but men like my former handler were far more dangerous on a day-to-day basis. “Not when there’s a ten million dollars on the line,” he said. “Can I come in?” he asked—and then began to barge around my foremost set of legs.
“Why, yes, certainly, I can’t wait to entertain you in my funeral parlor,” I said, backing up and turning around to follow him into my living room.
He didn’t have much room to stand—I’d decorated the entire place in the way of my people, with webbing covering every conceivable space: walls, floors, ceiling, in intricate patterns.
“Jesus, Nine.”
I made an irritated clicking sound at him—one the translator couldn’t translate. “I wasn’t really setting up for company. I hope you understand.”
“Yeah,” he said, turning back to me once he was finished judging my decor. “About that—how much longer do you think you have left?”
“Hmm. How about you tell me why you’re asking first?” I folded the human-looking arms of my torso across my chest.
“You’ve heard of Arcus Marlow?”
I squinted at him. “I live in an apartment. Not under a rock.” Arcus Marlow was one of the richest men on the planet. His business exploits frequently made the news, as did the rocket ships he felt compelled to shoot into space periodically.
Royce made a show of looking around. “Yeah, well—what you haven’t heard is that his baby girl’s been kidnapped.”
I tilted my head, considering what response would most irritate Royce. “He must be at least sixty human years. He still breeds?”
He made a face. “It’s a metaphor—she’s twenty-five.”
“So she is not little, is what you are saying?” I went on, pretending to be deliberately obtuse.
“Nine—”
“All humans are little to me, you see,” I went on, from my greater height. “So I am just checking.”
Royce finally realized I was pulling one of his mere two legs. “Fuck you,” he said, with a snort. He looked around my apartment again. “Do you have a human-sized chair anywhere in here?”
I disturbed some of my lacy webwork for his comfort. He sat down to level with me, and I did him the kindness of tucking all my legs in beside myself, setting my abdomen against the soft silks I had streamed my home with, so that I was sitting too.
Royce pulled out his phone and brought up a picture of a human woman to show me. She was standing behind electronic equipment, waving her arms up in the air.
She was beautiful—even though we were vastly different species, I recognized the characteristics that made her such. Her hair was shiny, indicating good health, and her body was visually proportional. She lacked fangs, but her teeth were even, which meant she would have a strong bite.
“Slone Marlow is a jet-setting international DJ—she goes from exotic location to exotic location,” Royce began.
“Playing the discordant music of your kind?”
He paused, and then shrugged. “Pretty much. She was kidnapped from one of these places, a small artificial island her father created, off of the Amalfi coast.”
“Was she unguarded at the time?”
“No. Her kidnappers plowed through her team, and about twenty concertgoers,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s been all over the news, something you’d know if you weren’t in hiding.”
“Dying,” I corrected him. But he was right, I hadn’t paid attention to anything else other than webbing my rooms for weeks.
“So far the story they’ve been telling people is that Sloane is too emotionally traumatized to appear in public, but she sends her fans her regards—in actuality, they’ve been getting ransom notes from the kidnappers, with increasingly erratic demands.”
“Is Arcus entertaining them?” I asked, and then I wondered about the length of the timeline.
“No—he refuses to pay until he knows who they are. I’ve talked to him personally, but he doesn’t want to set a precedent, or so he says.” Royce made a tight face that let me know what he thought of the wisdom of the apparently over-principled billionaire versus the
“So he’s just been sitting on his hands?” Royce wouldn’t need the translator to pick up on my mystified tone.
He shook his head strongly. “No. They’re two extraction teams down. And I’m talking full teams here, Nine. They were Shiranak’s.” Shiranak was the boss of some of our competitors; I had met him more than once before. He was massive, even for an orc, almost my same stature—and just as flamboyant as Royce was in his own way, choosing to wear cowboy hats, boots, and silver belt buckles the size of dinner plates. He ran full orc crews that might better be classified as mercenaries than bodyguards, depending on the local law enforcement’s definition at the time.
“That’s why the kidnappers are demanding more money. They don’t think Arcus is negotiating in good faith. And he doesn’t think they are, seeing as they’re not providing proof-of-life photos anymore.”
I groaned and shook my head. “A tragic situation, to be sure,” I granted. “But I don’t understand what any of this has to do with me.”
“I want to send you in. To get her.”
I shook my head gravely and put a fist to my chest. “I cannot be relied on. I could die at any moment—my time is near. I won’t let you put me in a position where my death could injure teammates.”
Royce licked his lips. “I . . . wasn’t going to send anyone else.” I blinked and reared back. “It’s almost a guaranteed suicide mission, Nine. And you could just be going in to bring back a corpse. But hey, I figured since you were already dying . . .”
His voice drifted as I understood his math. I hissed at him before continuing. “Here,” I said, using my arms to illustrate the surroundings. “The way I’m supposed to. Not in some firefight in a place that is not my own.”
“Ahh.” He leaned forward dramatically. “But they’re keeping her inside the Threadstone Mountains. Isn’t that where you came from or something?”
The Threadstone were Arachnaea’s ancestral homeland. “Nice to know you listened, once upon a time.”
“I pay attention more often than you think,” he said with a wicked grin. “Some of Shiranak’s drones got some footage out—they were two days’ travel deep.”
“That means nothing. The Threadstone . . .” I began, but my voice drifted. I’d never been “home” personally, but I remembered all of my mother’s tales from her childhood, before she’d been abducted and brought to “civilization” several centuries ago, to spin silk for wealthy individuals. She’d always said the system of caves and caverns was massive, that you could spend your entire life walking or climbing underground and still not come out on the other side.
I had no idea if she was telling the truth, or if those were just stories meant to entertain me, as a child.
“So?” Royce prompted. “Is there any chance you might consider going back there to die? Isn’t it more magical or something?” I clicked at him again and he blew me off. “Look, you can’t blame a guy for hoping when ten million dollars are on the line,” he said. “It’s not even the money, Nine. The money’s temporary. But having one of the richest men on the planet owe the Monster Security Agency? That shit’s worth a solid gold toilet.”
I looked him up and down. “You are but a fragile human. You couldn’t carry a solid gold toilet—why would you want one?”
He tried to read my face, his round eyes squinting. “I can’t tell whether or not you’re joking sometimes—it bugs me, no pun intended.”
“I was making a joke. And—none taken.”
That last part was a lie, however.
I’d lived in this city my entire life, after being raised by my mother until it was her turn to pass.
In all of that time, I’d never once fit in.
I had heard every bug joke and insect pun in existence—for some reason all the humans seemed to give my spider half more weight than the rest of me.
But perhaps this was my opportunity to do the same.
It felt fitting to go to Threadstone before I died—assuming I survived the journey.
And there was the slightest possibility that there were Arachnaea there still.
If there were . . . maybe I could find a mate for me.
That was the whole reason I was dying. Lack of companionship. It didn’t matter what my human-appearing half thought—my spider body was starved for something that I had not managed to give it. And while I had met other Arachnaea in passing, it seemed none of them were appropriate for me.
I knew when I met the right mate I was supposed to know, which meant I hadn’t found them yet.
“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”
“Probably to my detriment, but yes.”
“Good.” He took another look around at his surroundings. “I assumed you’d already said all your goodbyes, so I took the liberty of booking you passage from the helipad atop Arcus’s tower in the financial district in an hour. You don’t even need a go bag—everything, including a dossier of what we know about Shiranak’s orcs’ failed attempts—will be provided for you.” He stood and offered me his hand. “And I swear to you, Nine, if for some reason you die before you get there—they’ll bring back your body and we’ll put you in here for your interment.”
While Royce and I had had our differences—he was entirely human, how could we not!—he had always treated me fairly, so I believed him.
“I promise not to clip my thread before its time,” I said, taking his hand and shaking it.
Two
NIA’N’AN
I made sure to duck down beneath the whirring blades of the waiting Sikorsky. When I got myself inside and secured with my own webbings, a familiar pilot twisted back to give me headphones.
“Yo, Nine! I thought you were dead!”
I tapped the translator once my headphones were on. “Nice to see you too, Ellum.”
Ellum was a minotaur I’d gone on several missions with in the past. He’d sawed off his horns to make it easier for him to function in crowded situations like the helicopter’s cabin, but he’d been known to screw attachments like tactical lights or communication gear into them instead—or mistletoe, which he would then use to hassle his wife for kisses endlessly, at their annual Christmas parties.
“For reals, though,” he went on, as the helicopter began to take off. “What happened?”
I reached forward to open the bag at my feet, which Royce had left for me. On top was a tablet, which I knew would hold all the information Royce could give me.
He wanted me to succeed—but he wasn’t willing to risk the rest of my old crew on it, which was something I appreciated.
“It’s complicated,” I told Ellum, as I began thumbing through screens full of data on the mysterious Sloane Marlow.
All of the information on her had clearly been filtered through her father’s PR team. I knew because there wasn’t a single useful item in it. Knowing her height and weight were useless to me. I didn’t care that she had three Russian Toy dogs named Mercy, Love, and Fire, respectively. I didn’t need to know that she was an “ambassador” for her father’s many humanitarian endeavors.
Those were all stupid things designed—theoretically—to make me care about rescuing her, versus giving me the information I actually needed to know.
Could Sloane physically withstand two weeks underground? While she was fiercely posed in several of the photos, she was also wearing outfits that barely covered her sexual attributes, making it clear she was fully human, and had no intrinsic armor of any kind. Her body did not appear to have a high enough fat content to sustain herself with for long. Were they feeding her? Giving her enough water to drink? I tucked the tablet under my arm and went through the rest of the bag Royce had provided. He’d put in high-energy fluids and provisions for me—although I’d stopped eating two weeks ago, once I’d accepted my fate—but would her stomach be able to take them, when and if I found her?
