Spider's Revenge

21

Fletcher Lane’s escape tunnel reminded me of a coal mine that I’d been in not too long ago — low, squat, and round, with rough, uneven, earthen walls supported by thick wooden beams. The air smelled as old and musty as a dust-covered book long forgotten on a shelf. Dried-up leaves littered the entrance, and they crackled like cellophane under my boots as I moved farther inside.

The leaves gave way to hard-packed dirt, worn smooth and shiny by the tread of countless feet across it over the years. Fletcher had told me that the tunnel had once been used by bootleggers back during Prohibition, a hiding place for them and their mountain moonshine to rest before continuing their journey. Even now, all these years later, the rocks underfoot muttered with worry, tension, and fear of discovery. The on-edge sound matched my own mood perfectly.

I’d picked up one of the bounty hunters’ flashlights before stepping inside so it was easy enough for me to make my way down the tunnel. Still, I sidestepped carefully to avoid disturbing the spiderwebs that stretched from one wooden beam to the next like wispy threads of silver silk. If any more of the bounty hunters discovered the tunnel, I didn’t want them to realize that I’d been in here — or that I’d taken Finn and Bria out this way.

Ten minutes later, I reached the far end of the tunnel. I walked up a series of steep steps to a heavy metal door and banged on it three times with the flashlight, then three more times, then still three more times — a long-standing signal Fletcher had taught Finn and me should we ever need to get into the house this way.

I’d barely finished tapping on the door when I heard the bolt screech back. A second later, the metal door opened, letting light from the house stream into the tunnel. I shielded my eyes against the glare and looked up to find Bria staring down at me, her gun pointed at my head. She wasn’t taking any chances. Good.

“You all right?” I asked.

Bria lowered her weapon and moved to one side so I could climb up out of the trapdoor that was set into the floor of Fletcher’s cluttered office, right behind the old man’s desk.

“I’m fine,” she said.

She looked no worse for wear — despite the fact that she didn’t have on a shirt and had just thrown her long wool coat on over a pale pink camisole and a pair of jeans. Her bare feet were stuffed into a pair of my sneakers. A missing shirt and socks. That must have been as far as Finn had gotten to undressing her before the two of them were interrupted.

“Where’s Finn?”

“A few rooms over still picking off bounty hunters,” Bria said.

“Get him, and let’s get out of here,” I said. “I had to drop a couple of the more curious ones out in the woods already, and I want to be clear of here before the others start searching the area around the house and find their bodies and the entrance to the tunnel.”

Bria nodded and left the room. Fletcher’s office stood in one of the front corners of the house, so I eased over to the window and peered out through the curtains and silverstone bars that covered the glass. The bounty hunters still ringed the front of the house.

Every once in a while, one of them would take aim and fire off a couple of shots, even though the bullets did nothing more than catch in the thick, reinforced walls and the slabs of granite that covered the house like an armadillo’s layered, protective shell. Still, the bullets pinging into the granite had activated the runes that I’d traced into the stone with my magic. Small, tight, spiral curls — the symbol for protection. In addition to using them as symbols of their magic and allegiances, elementals could also imbue runes with power and make them perform specific functions.

When I’d first moved back into Fletcher’s house several months ago, I’d spent hours tracing the runes into every bit of stone that composed the house, watching them shimmer with the silver color of my magic before sinking into the stone. My own personal alarm system. If anyone tried to sneak inside the house, she would trigger the protection runes, and my magic would echo through the granite, rising to a shrill shriek that would rouse me from the deepest, darkest, deadest sleep. Just like it was doing now. I gritted my teeth at the harsh sound of the stone wailing all around me. Yeah, I knew we were in trouble — I didn’t need my magic to remind me of it.

Thirty seconds later, Bria entered the office again. Finn followed her inside, a flashlight in his left hand. He clutched a revolver in his right hand and had another stuffed into his waistband. The pockets on his pants bulged with ammo, and he jangled louder than a cowboy sporting a pair of shiny new silver spurs. Finn looked just as disheveled as my sister did. His suit jacket was missing, along with his tie, and his impeccable shirt was mussed and untucked, the tail of it flapping against his pants like a loose tongue.

Finn saw me eyeing his rumpled clothes and exchanged a guilty look with Bria before turning back to me. “Gin, we’re both so sorry—” he started.

I held up my hand, cutting him off. “I know you are. Let’s just get out of here. Then I can properly scream at the two of you for being so careless, and you can spend the rest of the night apologizing profusely. Deal?”

They both nodded.

“Good. Then let’s get out of here.”

Flashlight still in hand, I pounded down the steps into the tunnel. Bria followed me, her gun still out. Finn brought up the rear and closed the metal door behind us, this time bolting it from the inside, so that no one from the house could come up behind us in the tunnel — at least not without pounding through the metal and making a hell of a lot of noise doing it.

I moved quickly, despite my lingering aches and pains, and Bria and Finn did the same. Several minutes later, we exited the escape tunnel at the other end, back in the snowy woods. I went first, sliding out and moving off into the trees. Looking, listening, searching for anything that didn’t belong, anything out of place, any shadow that hadn’t been here before when I’d first gone into the tunnel.

Once more, I didn’t see or hear anything, not even the soft fall of the snow as the dime-size flakes fluttered to the ground. Still, a finger of unease crawled up my spine one cold inch at a time. The primitive, predatory, lizard part of my brain knew that something was wrong, but I couldn’t pinpoint it, and I didn’t have time to stop and think about it. Not when the bounty hunters could charge the house or start searching the woods at any second.

“Come on,” I muttered to the others. “It’s clear.”

Finn and Bria slipped out of the tunnel after me. Finn stopped long enough to shut the door on this end as well, and I had to stop myself from snapping at him for the delay. As precarious as our situation was, even a few seconds could mean the difference between life and death. But even worse than that was the grinding screech that the door made. It echoed through the forest just the way that the gunshots had earlier, only this time, there were no bullets flying through the air to help mask the noise. I would have cursed, if that sound wouldn’t have carried as well. If Gentry or any of the other bounty hunters were lurking in the woods, there was no way that they wouldn’t have heard such a high, distinctive sound — or come to investigate. Finn winced and hurried over to Bria and me.

“Follow me,” I whispered to them. “Stay right behind me no matter what. Quickly now.”

They nodded, guns ready. Finn and I turned off our flashlights. We didn’t need them. Both of us had been raised in these woods and had spent hours exploring them. Besides, someone might see the bobbing lights, which was a risk I wasn’t willing to take. There was more than enough moon and starlight to reflect off the snow and show us the way, not to mention the bright, collective glow from the bounty hunters’ cars and the lights still blazing inside the house.

The three of us plowed through the woods, going as fast as we could through the snow and still keep our footing. I took point, putting myself out front, a silverstone knife in either hand, with Bria behind me, and Finn guarding the rear, all three of us looking, watching, listening. Our breaths rasped and frosted in the air like jets leaving vapor trails behind them.

My unease grew, rising up until it matched the wailing shrieks of the stone of Fletcher’s house in its piercing intensity, but I shook it off and kept going—

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The gunshots came out of nowhere.

Too late, I realized what it was that I’d been missing before — the sound of the bounty hunters shooting at the house. The loud cracks of bullets zipping through the night had completely vanished. Now I knew why. Some of them had finally gotten smart and invaded the woods — probably drawn by the creak of Finn closing the tunnel door.

One second the three of us were alone in the forest. The next, figures moved in the trees all around us, like we’d kicked over an anthill and had sent all the biting insects scuttling in our direction, determined to exact what vengeance they could.

“Run!” I told Finn and Bria. “Run!”

We took off. There was no time to be silent or sneaky, and no time to take the bounty hunters out one by one. There were just too many of them, and they rolled over us like waves crashing against a sandy shore. As soon as one bounty hunter went down, another one swept in to take his place. I led the way, with Bria and Finn behind me, firing their guns at our pursuers. I ran as fast as I dared, as fast as I could go and still have them keep up with me, but I still knew that it was too slow — too fucking slow.

Faces began to appear in the woods. The bounty hunters’ lips were all drawn back into triumphant smiles, while greed made their eyes glint like the predators that they were. Closer and closer they crept, slowly gaining on us. Two giants had moved quicker than the rest and actually managed to get in front of us, stepping out into the path ahead and blocking our escape. Not for long. My hands tightened around my knives.

I barreled into the first giant. My blades sliced one way, then the other, and he went down screaming. But the other bastard stepped up to take his place. Behind me, Bria and Finn had both stopped to reload their guns and take aim at another group of hunters closing in on our left flank.

And that’s when Ruth Gentry made her move.

The old, spry bounty hunter darted out of the trees to our right, like a ghost appearing out of thin air. Gentry timed her attack perfectly, popping out of the forest from less than ten feet away. How the hell had she gotten that close to us without my seeing her?

Before I knew what was happening, before I could even think about stopping her, before I could even scream out a fucking warning, the old woman was on us. She snuck up on Bria’s blind side, grabbing my baby sister by her shag of blond hair. Bria shrieked in surprise and stumbled back but she brought up her elbow, ready to drive it into the stomach of whoever was behind her—

Click.

Gentry’s revolver pressed against Bria’s temple, and my sister did the only thing that she could — she froze. Finn whirled around, cursed, and raised his own gun, determined to put a bullet through one of Gentry’s eyes—

Crack!

A bullet whined out of the trees, kicking up the snow at Finn’s feet. This time, everyone froze, even the giant who’d been about to swing at me. I knew who it was, of course. Sydney, Gentry’s girl, apprentice, or whoever the hell she was, hidden farther back in the trees with that rifle of hers.

“The next one will go in your head,” Gentry said.

She spoke to Finn, but the old woman’s gaze never left my face. She recognized me from the Pork Pit. I could tell by the way that her pale eyes narrowed and her lips puckered with thought. Something like sympathy flashed in her face, and she nodded her head at me. Being respectful, the way that you would to an enemy you admired, to someone who maybe wasn’t all that different but was on the opposite side from you.

“I’ll take care of her as best I can until you come for her,” Gentry said, still staring at me. “I owe you that much for sparing Sydney the other night. Now, come on, little lady. We need to get going.”

Take care of Bria? What did she mean by that?

Keeping Bria between us and her gun against my sister’s temple, Gentry eased my baby sister back into the woods. All around me, the other bounty hunters closed in, their delighted, excited shouts making them sound like a flock of crows cawing in triumph.

But I only had eyes for Bria, and she for me. Across the snowy landscape, our gazes met and held. Desperate gray on agonizing blue.

“Go, Gin!” Bria screamed the words at me. “Leave me!”

Never.

The word burned into my heart like an icy brand, hurting me worse than anything ever had before, including Mab melting my spider rune medallion into my palms. I started forward, thinking to hell with Sydney, her rifle, and the fact that she might put a bullet in my brain, but the giant blocked my path once more. Automatically, I dodged his blows, then brought my knives up, then down, just as I’d done a thousand times before. But even as I cut into him, I knew that it wouldn’t be enough — that I just wouldn’t be fast enough.

The giant had just started to fall when Gentry and Bria disappeared from sight.

“Bria!” I screamed, trying to get past the dying giant. “Bria!”

I wasn’t quick enough. Even as I reached for my baby sister, more bounty hunters appeared, half a dozen of them running toward Finn and me.

“Come on, Gin!” Finn said, grabbing my arm and pulling me forward. “It’s too late! Bria’s gone!”

It might have been my imagination, but, for a second, I saw a glimmer of silver through the trees, as the moonlight illuminated the rune necklace Bria always wore. A delicate primrose. Bria’s rune. The symbol for beauty.

“Bria!” I screamed again.

Then the falling snow swirled and fell like a curtain between us, and she vanished.