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The air writhed around him, sparking with his anger. “They agree to support my efforts in Allah’s name.”

“Okaaaay.” I realized I was poking an unhinged monster, but I doubted anyone had ever sat down with him and made him question his delusions. “You’re taking away their freewill. That kind of defeats the power of faith.”

“I’m removing their clumsy reasoning and replacing it with true knowledge.” He met my eyes. “I don’t know why the venom acts as a tether to mental processing or how I’ve gained access to reprogram their frontal lobes. I’m a biochemist not a neuroscientist. But the ability works in my favor.” His fanged smile was smug and sharp. “When I die, they will continue to carry out Allah’s will.”

Holy shit, that was way more fucked-up than I’d imagined.

I absently rinsed out the shampoo, my voice quiet, reedy. “What is Allah’s will?”

“It’s really very simple, Eveline. I’m creating a planet free of susceptibility, temptation, and weakness, one that will bring mankind into contact with Allah and fulfill His commandment in making La illaha ilallah the only law of the world.”

Whatever that meant. It didn’t matter whether or not I understood his religion. In his mind, he was the champion of his faith, striving for his version of a better world, just like everyone else. But unlike my guardians, who aspired to protect and free mankind, the Drone embraced violence and repression as a means to improve humanity. However deeply skewed that was, he believed his species of altered brains would bring him closer to feeling complete.

“But you said Michio was exempt?” My gaze roamed over Michio’s face. “You haven’t altered his frontal lobe?”

“I can’t.” The Drone’s eyes hardened amid the soft droop of his facial features. “Just like I can’t access the brain of a bitten woman. Why do you think that is?”

I massaged my temples, my head pounding. He could only control the motor area of Michio’s brain and none of a woman’s? What did they have in common?

Me?

Michio had never technically bitten me, never injected me with venom. His fangs had grazed my skin, but he hadn’t drank my blood. No, wait, that wasn’t true. He’d told me in Georgia he’d been consuming the blood leftover in my transfusion vials. So, yeah, my blood had entered his body. And every cured woman carried my plasma in her veins.

I gripped my throat. “My blood.”

“That’s right. Your blood. The potency of the venom is the same whether the bite comes from me or my spiders. I rarely sink my fangs into a vein anymore. I don’t get much pleasure from it. But for you, I will make an exception. Now ask me why I haven’t bitten you yet.”

My voice quivered. “Why haven’t you bitten me?”

He stopped behind me and dragged his despicable talons along my hips. The spray of water peppered his fingers, his skin sizzling beneath the droplets. Bubbled sores formed and disappeared just as quickly. He was allergic to water and able to heal the reaction.

The stale scent of his breath trickled over my shoulder, his nails on my hips pulling me away from the stream. “The venom from the bite makes both men and women infertile, my dear. If I bit you now…”

“I wouldn’t be able to conceive,” I said, numbly.

“Very good.”

The words he’d said when he visited me in a dark dream brushed the back of my mind. You shall become my queen. Together we will populate the world with Allah’s chosen.

I wrestled with my lungs, begging them to sound quieter. “Why are you sinking your fangs into the world, knowing they won’t be able to reproduce?”

He dragged his sharp teeth across my shoulder, instigating a belligerent shudder through my body. “I have a supply of unbitten men who impregnate the women. After the women conceive, they’re bitten.”

My breath burst in and out as I pulled away from his clutches, my voice shrill. “What does the venom do to the pregnant women? The babies?”

Did he intend to impregnate me by one of his non-spider men? Then bite me?

Suddenly, I felt unnervingly vulnerable. I needed clothes, protection, something. A towel and a pile of blue cotton sat on one of the sinks, so I darted for them, drying quickly. Then I wrapped the full-body-length semicircle of cotton—similar to Elaine’s coverings—around my body and neck. Behind me, the water shut off.

The Drone watched me with pleasure as I covered my body. “Every woman alive today carries traces of your blood, which acts as a vaccine against the venom. Women don’t acquire the superhuman benefits of the bite. They can’t bite others because they don’t have fangs. And unfortunately, they are able to block my attempts to alter their minds.”

Women like Elaine. So the only effect the venom had on women was infertility. But these were pregnant women.