Spider's Revenge

19

“Mab?” Jo-Jo asked, her sweet voice sharpening as she heard the tight worry in mine.

“Not dead,” I said. “She saw me, Jo-Jo. She knows who I am. So does McAllister. So get Sophia and go to the safe house just like we planned. Right now. Owen will go pick up Eva. He’ll meet you there. I’m going to call Finn and Bria next.”

“Who else do you want me to round up?” the dwarf asked.

I thought about the other people that I’d helped over the last few months, all my friends and even friends of friends. “Tell Xavier and Roslyn, and call Violet and Warren Fox, just to be sure. I don’t want anyone left behind that Mab can snatch and use as leverage.”

“Got it.”

We both hung up.

“What now?” Owen asked, driving away from the country club as fast as he dared on the slick, snowy road.

I didn’t answer him. I was too busy dialing. But instead of picking up like he should have, Finn’s cell went to voice mail. I tried again, with the same result. One missed call I could understand, given what a sprawling labyrinth Fletcher’s house was, but not two. My stomach flipped over and started tying itself into tiny, worrisome knots.

I tried a third time. Same result. No answer, only voice mail. Why wasn’t Finn picking up his phone? He knew what was going down tonight, what was at stake for us — for all of us. Had Mab, her giants, or the bounty hunters gotten to him and Bria already? Maybe, if Mab had put out the call to her minions immediately after our fight at the country club. Now that the Fire elemental knew who I was, Fletcher’s house would be one of the first places she’d start looking for me.

The thought that Bria and Finn could already be in trouble — could already be dead—made me sick, made me physically ill, but I forced myself to remain calm. To be as calm and rational as I had ever been as the Spider. To remember all of the old man’s training over the long years, everything Fletcher had taught me about how to survive and make sure that my enemies didn’t. It took a minute, but my breathing slowed, and I felt the cold, hard, unending blackness fill my heart once more. I embraced the cold, welcomed it, reveled in it, even. Because this was the only way I had any hope of living to see the sunrise — and making sure that the people I loved did the same.

“Gin?” Owen asked in a quiet voice, sensing the change in me. “What’s wrong?”

“Finn’s not answering me,” I said. “Which means that something’s going on with him and Bria. Either they’ve both gotten on the other’s nerves and killed each other in a fit of rage or something bad is happening at Fletcher’s house and they can’t answer me. I have to go there, Owen. Right now.”

“Okay. I’ll take you.”

I shook my head. “No. We’ve got to split up. You need to go get Eva and drive her over to the safe house just like we planned. I’m going after Finn and Bria — alone.”

“Gin—”

“I’m not going to make you choose between me and your sister, Owen,” I snapped. “I would never, ever ask you to do that — not when I know how much your sister means to you. Eva’s in danger right now, and you need to get to her. Just like I need to get to Bria and Finn. But we can’t be in two places at once, at least not together. Splitting up is our only option. We both know it’s true.”

Owen turned his head to stare at me in the darkness. After a moment, he let out a loud, vicious curse, and his hands gripped the steering wheel like he wanted to rip it to pieces. He knew I was right, and he didn’t like it one bit. I understood his anger, his frustration, because I was feeling it too. So I put my burned, blistered fingers on top of his, trying to soothe him — and myself — in some small way.

“I–I appreciate your concern and the fact that you want to come with me. But we both know that it has to be this way. I would never forgive myself if something happened to Eva because of me. Because of the fact that I missed Mab tonight. I know what it’s like to think that your sister is dead, and I don’t ever want you to have to go through that pain. I care about you too much for that, Owen.”

“I know you do,” he said in a soft voice. “And I care about you too, Gin.”

“Good. Then pull over into that parking lot.”

Owen did as I asked, steering into a lot that fronted one of the many upscale shopping centers that populated this part of Northtown. A few folks had decided not to try to drive home in the snow, because a couple of cars remained in the lot, despite the late hour. Owen parked his BMW next to a late-model sedan.

“What are you going to do?” he asked. “First of all, I’m going to boost that sedan right there,” I said. “Then I’m going to drive over to Fletcher’s house, hide the car at the bottom of the hill, and hike my way up to the top of the ridge. If everything looks kosher, I’ll go in and get Finn and Bria and see why they weren’t answering the phone.”

“And if it’s not kosher?” Owen asked.

I shrugged. “Then I guess I’ll be killing people until it is.”

He just nodded, and we fell silent. Both of us bruised and bloody, and me with burns covering my hands and arms. Mab hadn’t completely melted my leather jacket with her elemental Fire, but she’d singed the sleeves in places, letting me see the raw, blistered skin that lay underneath. Something else that made me sick. Unfortunately, the night was far from over — for me or Owen.

“I’m sorry, Owen,” I said in a low voice, staring at my burned flesh instead of at him. “So, so sorry. All of this is my fault. If only I hadn’t missed Mab tonight. If only I hadn’t missed her again—”

Tears scalded my eyes, and frustration burned my throat, even harsher than Mab’s elemental Fire. Fucking emotion. Something that I didn’t need. Not now, not if I wanted to survive — and save the others.

Owen understood what I was feeling because he put his arms around me and pulled me over into his lap. For a moment, I buried my head in his chest, and he rocked me back and forth like a child.

“It’s okay, Gin,” he whispered against my hair. “Everything is going to be okay. You’re going to make it okay. I know that you will. You always do.”

His words gave me the strength to blink away my tears, lift up my head, and look at him. Moonlight painted his chiseled face in soft lines and dappled shadows, and I trailed my fingers down his bruised jaw. Owen winced, since he’d taken a couple of the giants’ punches there, but he didn’t pull away.

I leaned forward and kissed him as hard as I dared, given our mutual injuries. I poured all of my pent-up emotions into the kiss, trying to tell him everything that I felt just by touching his lips to mine, just by pressing my body against his. Trying to tell him how much I cared, even if the words always seemed to get stuck in my throat.

I don’t know if it worked, but Owen kissed me back, his arms tightening around me. The familiar heat filled my stomach just by being near him, but there was no time for that. No time at all.

I drew back and stared into his violet eyes, wondering, as I always did, at the concern that shone there for me and what the hell I’d ever done to deserve it.

“I’ll see you at the safe house,” I whispered.

“You’d better,” he murmured back. “Or I’ll come get you myself — no matter what.”

Owen called his younger sister, Eva, and told her what was going on. She was at home with her best friend, Violet Fox, and Owen told the two college girls that he’d be there to pick them up as soon as possible. While he did that, I rummaged around in the trunk, pulling out the tins of healing salve I’d gotten from Jo-Jo.

In addition to healing with their hands, Air elementals could also infuse their magic into certain products, like creams and ointments, and give them an extra kick. When Jo-Jo had come over to Fletcher’s house earlier to do my makeup, she’d given me several containers of just such an ointment, in case Mab got a few licks in on me before I killed her. I was grateful for the gift.

The lids of the tins all featured Jo-Jo’s puffy cloud rune, painted on the tops in a vivid blue. I cracked one of them open, dipped my fingers into the ointment, and slathered it all over my hands and arms. The soothing smell of vanilla wafted up to me, and warm tingles spread throughout the blistered areas, just like they did when Jo-Jo was around in person to work her Air magic on me. I sighed with relief as the pulsing pain of the burns lessened. The ointment wasn’t as good as Jo-Jo healing me herself, but it would keep me together long enough for me to get to Fletcher’s house and see what trouble waited for me there.

Owen hung up with Eva, and I popped open another tin and passed it to him. He smeared the ointment onto his face. The salve soaked into his skin, and Jo-Jo’s magic made short work of the cuts and bruises that marred his features.

I moved over to the sedan that Owen had parked beside. I didn’t bother trying to finesse the lock with a couple of elemental Ice picks. Instead, I used Owen’s hammer to smash in one of the back windows, then unlocked the front door, slid inside, and stripped the wires under the dash like Finn had shown me how to do. A few seconds later, the engine purred to life. I climbed out of the car and laid the hammer on the front passenger’s seat of Owen’s BMW.

By this point, Owen had finished with the salve, and the two of us were ready to get on with things — and split up. We stared at each other across the roof of his car.

“I’ll see you soon,” Owen said, a hard promise in his voice.

I nodded. “Count on it.”

Owen got back into his battered BMW and raced out of the parking lot. I wasn’t too worried about his getting to Eva and Violet in time, since his mansion wasn’t that far away. Besides, Mab would be focused on me right now and my immediate family — Finn, the Deveraux sisters, and most especially Bria. It wouldn’t be long before the Fire elemental sent her men after Owen, but the lapse should give him enough of a head start to get the girls to the safe house.

There was no time to waste, so I slid back into the driver’s seat of the sedan and steered the car out of the lot. While I drove toward Fletcher’s house, I pulled out the spare cell phone that had been among the supplies in Owen’s trunk and dialed Finn’s number again. Once more, it went straight to voice mail.

I growled in frustration. Where was he? What was happening with him and Bria? When I got my hands on Finn, I was going to find out. And, depending on what kind of shape he was in, I might not ask nicely. Because if Finn and Bria were busy knocking boots instead of not answering my calls telling them that they were in mortal danger, well, I was going to be a little pissed.

In between trying Finn, I also called Jo-Jo back. The dwarf told me she’d managed to reach Xavier and Roslyn, and that the two of them were on their way to the safe house. Roslyn’s sister, Lisa, and young niece, Catherine, were out of town visiting relatives, and Jo-Jo told me that Roslyn was calling them and telling them to check into a hotel under an assumed name. Jo-Jo had also managed to reach Warren Fox. The old coot had been reluctant to leave his warm, comfortable bed, but he’d seen the need after the dwarf explained the situation. Warren would meet everyone else at the safe house as soon as he could.

That just left Finn and Bria twisting in the wind — and my stomach tightening into more and more knots.

I drove as fast as I could on the slippery roads and not skid the car into a ditch, but it still took me thirty minutes to reach the road that ran by Fletcher’s house. Of course, I could have barreled the stolen vehicle right on up the driveway to the old house itself, if not for the possibility that Mab’s giants or bounty hunters were here already. I might not have killed the Fire elemental tonight, but I wasn’t going to get dead myself by doing something so reckless. The old man had trained me too well for that.

I pulled the car into a cluster of trees just off the road about a quarter mile from the driveway entrance. Five seconds later, I was out of the vehicle, in the woods, and hiking up the ridge to the house.

It was a long, hard climb, made even more so by the injuries that I’d gotten fighting Mab. Jo-Jo’s salve had healed the worst of the burns and blisters, but the ointment had done little to stop the mental and physical exhaustion creeping up on me. I gritted my teeth, shoved the weakness away, and hurried on. Every second I delayed was another second that the Fire elemental had to mobilize her troops and send them here.

Still, I paused every so often, looking, listening, and peering into the gray shadows that cloaked the uneven landscape. Nothing moved in the woods but me, and only the rasp of my breath broke the silence. I reached out with my magic, but the frosty stones buried underneath the layers of snow only sleepily murmured of the ice and cold that had seeped into them, threatening to crack their solid forms. Satisfied, I moved on.

I’d climbed about halfway up the ridge when gunshots shattered the silence.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The sounds boomed down the slope toward me, each one hammering at my heart and confirming my worst fears. I forced myself to move even faster, to plow even quicker through the snow drifts, until my feet and legs were soaked from the sprays that I kicked up. More shots rang out as I moved, along with hoarse shouts. Both echoed down the ridge to me, making it easy to pinpoint the source. Whatever bad thing was going on, it was happening at the house, which meant that Finn and Bria were in serious trouble.

After about thirty seconds, the gunshots and shouts died down, but the silence didn’t soothe me — because the quiet meant that Finn and Bria could already be dead. Once again, I could be too fucking late to save the people that I loved, just as I hadn’t been able to reach Fletcher in time to prevent the old man from being tortured and murdered inside the Pork Pit. A fist of fear punched me in the stomach, hitting me hard and stealing my breath, but I kept moving.

It took me another ten minutes to reach the top of the ridge and slide to the edge of the woods. What I saw there in the clearing before me made my heart stop in my chest in a way that nothing else like it had before.

Because bounty hunters surrounded Fletcher’s house.