The Spider(Elemental Assassin series)

25





I hiked through the trees on the back side of the estate until I reached the main road. Then I started walking. There was nothing else I could do. The Vaughn estate wasn’t out in the boonies, but it wasn’t exactly close to anything either—except Mab Monroe’s mansion.

I stopped and peered through the gates at the enormous compound that served as the Fire elemental’s home, but there was no way that anyone inside would help me, and I wasn’t going to be dumb enough to try to sneak onto the grounds and steal a vehicle. Mab had dozens of giant guards at her disposal, any one of whom would have been happy to kill a car thief. So I shuffled on past the mansion.

I kept walking down the road, moving as fast as I could. Still, I knew that it would take me hours to get to Finn’s apartment and even longer to make it to Fletcher’s, which would be far too late to save either one of them—

Headlights appeared behind me.

I was so surprised that I stopped dead in my tracks. It was long after midnight now, and I wondered who would be out so late, especially this close to Mab’s mansion. But the lights kept coming and coming, catching me in their hot glare.

I hesitated, then scurried up to the edge of the road and stuck my left thumb out.

Hitchhiking wasn’t something that I normally did, not even when I was living on the streets and wanted to get from one side of Ashland to the other. In this city, you never knew whose car you were getting into, and the nicest Northtown smile could hide the cruelest heart, something you wouldn’t know until the locks had clicked shut, trapping you with whatever evil was behind the wheel. But I was out of options.

I squinted against the oncoming glare and dropped my right hand down by my side, so that my knife would be out of sight against my body. If worse came to worse, I could always stab my way free. The mood I was in, I was more than willing to do that and pretend that I was killing Sebastian all the while.

The car rolled forward, and I fully expected the driver to ram his foot onto the gas and zoom right on past me, especially since I looked like some haint from a horror movie, but the car slowed, then stopped. The passenger-side window rolled down, and I warily approached the vehicle, still clutching my knife.

A guy who was a few years older than me sat in the driver’s seat. His black hair disappeared into the darkness, and the dim blue light from the display cast his face in shadows, although I could still see the crooked tilt of his nose, as though someone had smashed a fist into it once upon a time.

The guy leaned forward so he could get a better look at me through the open window. His eyes flicked over me, taking in my ruined, tattered dress, my dusty bird’s nest of hair, and the gray grime that streaked my arms, chest, and face. The only sound was the steady hum of the engine.

“You look like you could use some help,” he finally said, popping the door locks. “Get in.”

I hesitated again, wondering if this was really a good idea. Nice guys, good guys, didn’t pick up girls who looked like me, especially not this late at night. He probably thought that I was some hooker who’d gotten the shit beat out of her by her pimp and that I would give him a freebie for the ride. But I didn’t have time to be choosy. Not if I wanted to save Finn and Fletcher. So I made sure that my knife was down by my leg out of sight, opened the door, and slid into the car.

“Where to?” the guy asked.

I eyed him, taking in the thick muscles in his arms and chest. He wasn’t a dwarf or a giant, but he obviously did regular, hard, physical labor. You didn’t get muscles like that working out in the gym. At best, he was much stronger than I was. At worst, he had magic to augment his physical abilities. I didn’t sense any elemental power radiating off him, though. Either way, I’d just have to take my chances.

“Just like that?” I asked. “You pick up some strange chick on a deserted road late at night, and you offer to drive her wherever she wants? What are you, some sort of Prince Charming?”

The guy shrugged, making the muscles in his chest roll with the motion. “Just trying to be nice, ma’am.”

I let out a crazy, bitter laugh. He kept staring at me. I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were, only that they were light, almost like marbles set into the rough, rugged planes of his face.

“All right, then,” I said, rattling off the address of Finn’s apartment building. “Take me there.”

“You got it.”

He threw the car into gear and steered down the street. I studied my would-be rescuer out of the corner of my eye. He was wearing dark blue coveralls, although the front was partially unzipped, letting his pale blue T-shirt underneath peek through. His clothes were wrinkled and rumpled, as though he’d been wearing them all day long, and small black holes marred the sleeves of his coveralls, as though some sort of hot sparks had landed on his arms and burned through the heavy material. Maybe he was a mechanic or welder.

The guy didn’t speak for two miles. “You sure you want me to take you to that address?” he asked. “Instead of the police station?”

I tensed. A trip to the po-po was the last thing I needed. What the hell would I tell them, anyway? I was an assassin who’d been f*cked over—literally—by her client. These last few weeks mooning over Sebastian hadn’t exactly been my best. “I’m sure.”

“You want to tell me what happened?”

“I had a rough night,” I deadpanned.

He let out a low, rumbling laugh. Despite everything, I smiled a little. Well, at least I’d amused someone tonight—someone other than Sebastian.

“It seems like it was a little more than rough.”

“What?” I shot back. “You don’t like my bed-head look? I spent hours on it.”

He laughed again, the sound a little deeper and more genuine this time. But his face turned serious, and he stared at me again. “Look, if someone hurt you, or if there’s someone after you, I can take you to the cops. It’s no problem.”

I snorted. “Please. The cops in this town are a joke.”

“Maybe so,” he agreed. “But you look like you could use someone’s help.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing? Helping me?”

“Well, yeah. But you seem . . . really sad and just . . . hurt.”

“It’s nothing,” I said, biting back a curse at how perceptive he was. “My boyfriend and I had a fight. Apparently, he thought it would be hilarious to take me to a party and leave me stranded out in the middle of nowhere Northtown.”

“And your ripped clothes?” the guy asked in a quiet voice.

I shrugged. “The party was back in the woods. I didn’t know where I was going, and I couldn’t see because it was dark. I fell down a hill and landed in a briar patch.”

“Funny,” he said. “Because you look like you’re covered with dust, not dirt.”

I glanced down. The interior of the car was dim, but he was right. A pale gray powder covered me from head to toe, as though I’d had a bag of flour upended over my head. No, I didn’t look like I’d been out wandering around in the woods.

“Well, aren’t you observant,” I sniped.

He continued on as though I hadn’t spoken. “When I first saw you, I thought you were some haint, some ghost, that had wandered out of the woods.”

Oh, I was a ghost all right, one who was going to come back and haunt Sebastian. No, scratch that. I was just going to kill him. More rage burned in my heart, but I plastered a smile on my face. No use scaring my chatty driver. He hadn’t done anything to me—Sebastian had.

“You believe in haints?”

He grinned. “Don’t you?”

I didn’t answer, and he fell silent again. He made a turn that would take us to the downtown loop. The guy drove a few more miles before clearing his throat.

“Your boyfriend is a real dick for leaving you like this,” he said.

“You have no idea.”

“You just don’t do that to a girl, no matter the circumstances,” he continued. “I hope you don’t plan to see this guy again. He’s a total douche bag, if you ask me.”

“Oh, I plan to see him again all right. One more time, in fact, to tell him exactly what I think of him.” Right before I rammed my knife into his heart, but driver dude didn’t need to know that.

He nodded. “Good. I hope you give him a piece of your mind.”

Out of sight, below the seat, my thumb rubbed over the hilt of the knife still in my hand. “Oh, you can count on that.”

The guy hit the downtown loop, and ten minutes later, he pulled up in front of Finn’s apartment building. I glanced up and down the street. Several cars were parked by the curbs, including a black SUV with a bumper sticker that said Vaughn Construction, complete with that distinctive V made out of two thorns curving together. Through the windshield, I could see three giants inside, one of whom was talking on his phone, probably waiting for the final go order from Porter. I let out a tense breath. I had managed to get here in time after all.

Driver dude started to stop in front of the building, which would have given the giants a clear view of me in all my marble-dusted glory. Right now, the element of surprise was the only thing I had going for me, and I didn’t want to lose it.

“Actually, sweetheart, if you don’t mind, pull over into that lot right there,” I said, pointing my finger down the street.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He shrugged, but he steered the car into the lot. He pulled up to a side door, out of sight of the street and the giants’ SUV. He killed the engine, then turned to look at me, his eyes serious once more. “So now that you’re not seeing the dickhead anymore, what are you going to do with the rest of your weekend?”

It took me a second to realize what he was really asking.

I gave him a flat look. “Are you kidding me? I’ve just had the worst date in the history of the world, and you’re actually hitting on me?”

An embarrassed flush filled his chiseled cheeks. “Well, when you put it like that, it does sound really bad.”

I snorted again. “You could say that. Although you and my foster brother would get along great. He would totally approve of your method of trying to seduce a girl when she’s down.”

“Hey, now,” the guy said, seeming genuinely affronted. “It’s not like that at all. You’re not the only one who’s had a bad . . . breakup. Trust me on that. But you just seem . . . interesting. More interesting than any girl I’ve met in a long time.”

My heart twisted, because those were more or less the same words that Sebastian had so sweetly said to me, the first of many that he’d used to draw me into his sticky web of lies. Anger rose up in me again, along with more than a little hurt.

“Listen, pal,” I snapped. “I’m a waitress. Just because you found me wandering around Northtown doesn’t mean that I have money. Even if I did, you wouldn’t be getting any of it.”

He shrugged again. “I don’t care what you do. I’m a blacksmith, so I’m not exactly rolling in dough either. Not yet, anyway. I have plans, though—”

“Good for you.” I cut him off.

The guy fell silent, still staring at me. I shifted under his scrutiny. For some reason, it seemed like he could see all of my secrets written in the harsh lines of my dust-covered face.

“This guy who left you stranded, he really did a number on you, didn’t he?”

I shrugged, trying not to let him see how close he was to the truth. Sebastian had ripped my heart to shreds, but that wasn’t the worst thing. He’d also made me doubt myself, especially my ability to tell the truth from a bald-faced lie. In a few short weeks, he’d undermined all the confidence that I had in myself as an assassin, and I hadn’t even realized that I was being taken for a fool until it was too late. If I couldn’t tell when a guy was playing me, then how could I ever be good enough to live up to what Fletcher had trained me to be?

How could I ever truly be the Spider?

But I couldn’t think about that right now. What mattered was getting to Finn. Time to go. My fingers curled around my knife. Time to kill.

“Thanks for the ride,” I said, opening the door and getting out of the car. “But I need to leave now.”

“But you didn’t even tell me your name,” the guy protested.

“It’s not like you told me yours.”

“Owen,” he said with a grin.

“Well, good night, Owen.”

He hesitated, obviously waiting for me to tell him my name, but I’d learned my lesson with Sebastian, one that I’d never, ever forget. Finally, when it became clear that I wasn’t going to give him any more information about myself, he nodded his head.

“Take care,” Owen finally said.

“Yeah. You too.”

He waved at me. “Until we meet again.”

I wanted to tell him that the odds of that were slim to none, but his crooked grin made me hold my tongue. He’d done me a huge favor, and I’d acted like a total bitch during the entire ride. So I raised my hand and waved back at him, as though he were dropping me off at home after a late-night date. I sort of wished that he was. He seemed nice, this Owen.

The smile slipped off my face. So had Sebastian.

Owen gave me a final wave, then made a U-turn in the parking lot and drove off. As soon as his taillights had disappeared, I crept over to the side of the building and peered around the corner. Apparently, the giant had finished his phone call, because all three men were getting out of their vehicle and heading for the front door. It wouldn’t take them long to get inside the building and make their way to Finn’s apartment, and I wanted to be in place before they did.

I tightened my grip on my knife and disappeared around the corner.

? ? ?

I hurried over to the side door of the building. Unlike the front door, which was always open, this one was locked. I reached for my magic, and a few seconds later, I was bending over the door, a pair of Ice picks clutched in my fingers. It took me longer than I would have liked to pick the lock, but I managed it, then tossed the thin shards of Ice off into the bushes that lined this side of the building.

I slipped inside and shut the door behind me. I was at the bottom of a stairwell, so I crept up the five steps to the first floor of the building. I peered through the glass set into the top of a door there, which let me see into the lobby. The three giants now stood in front of the elevator, waiting for it to come down so they could ride up to Finn’s floor.

I hurried up the steps, determined to beat them, even though I was sucking wind by the time I reached Finn’s floor. I stopped in the stairwell and looked out through the glass in that door, but the giants weren’t here yet.

I opened the door, stepped into the hallway, and hurried over to the elevator. Behind me, the door to Finn’s apartment was closed, but I ignored it. This was a new building, and he was the only tenant on this floor so far, something he crowed about every chance he got. Good. That meant that no one else would hear the screams that were coming. Besides, I didn’t need his help with this.

The lights on the elevator slowly lit up as the metal cart climbed from one floor to the next. I stayed where I was, right in front of the opening, and waited—just waited. I didn’t mind being patient. Not for this.

Ding!

The doors slid back, revealing the three giants. They’d been talking among themselves, and they weren’t even looking toward the opening, which gave me time to dart forward, raise my knife high, and slam it into the chest of the man closest to me. He screamed in surprise, and his buddies’ heads snapped around as they wondered why some ghostly-looking chick was stabbing their friend to death.

I didn’t give them time to wonder long.

I pulled my knife out of the giant’s chest and slashed it across his throat. Blood sprayed all over the inside of the elevator, and me too, but I didn’t care. I finally had a focus for my rage, and I was going to let it out.

The second giant raised his fists and swung at me, but I ducked down, twirled my knife in my hand, and rammed it into his thigh. He collapsed on top of the first giant, and I drove my knife into the side of his neck, feeling the blade scrape against the bones in his spine.

Before I could pull the blade free, the third and last giant dug his fingers into my hair and yanked me up and off his friend. He drew his hand back, as though he was going to drive his fist into my stomach, but I lurched forward, grabbed hold of his arm, and sank my teeth into the soft web of his hand between his thumb and index finger.

The giant screamed and tried to shake me off, like a cat attempting to snap a mouse’s neck. I pulled back just long enough to bite him again. This time, he flung me away, sending me flying into the opposite side of the elevator car. But I bounced off like a wrestler on the ropes and went right back at him.

The giant held his hand up, trying to block me from getting close enough to bite him again, but that wasn’t my intention. Instead, I darted forward, plucked the gun from the holster on his belt, put it against his chest, and pulled the trigger three times.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The giant’s body muffled the blasts, although it still sounded like I’d let off a series of firecrackers inside the elevator. The giant slid to the floor, joining his two dead friends.

Ding!

The elevator doors kept trying to close, but they couldn’t, given the arms and legs of the dead men that were blocking them. I pulled my knife from the giant’s neck and kept the gun in my other hand. Then I stepped over the bodies, went to Finn’s door, raised my hand, and rapped politely on the wood with the bloody barrel of the gun.

No answer.

I raised the gun and rapped again, a little more forcefully this time.

“Go away.” Finn’s voice rumbled through the wood, along with the faint sounds of smooth jazz. “We’re busy.”

A soft, feminine laugh accompanied his statement.

“Put your pants back on and open the damn door,” I growled, loudly enough for him to hear. “Right now, Finn.”

Silence. Finn let out a curse, but the door cracked open, and I found myself staring into his green eyes—eyed that widened when he noticed all the blood, dust, and grime on me.

“We have a problem—”

Ding!

The elevator cut me off. Finn opened the door wide enough to stick his head outside. His gaze flicked to the dead giants sprawled in the elevator. He sighed and shook his head.

“You just had to come here and make a mess, didn’t you?” he sniped. “I’ve only had this apartment for three months. Now I’m going to have to move.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “We have a situation. The old man’s in danger.”