Web of Lies

31

I huddled in my usual hiding place, a small crack in the alley wall behind the Pork Pit. The enclosed space always made me feel safe. Secure. Perhaps it was because I knew no one could squeeze in here after me — especially someone as big as the giant I’d just killed.

Half an hour had passed since Douglas had forced his way into the restaurant and attacked Fletcher and Finn. My tears were gone, but blood still coated my hands from where I’d killed the giant. I scratched my fingernail across my skin, leaving a white mark in the rusty brown stains. I’d done it again. Killed again. Just like I had the night the Fire elemental had murdered my family, and I’d collapsed my own house down on top of them all — including Bria, my baby sister. My stomach twisted. Somehow, I forced down the hot bile that rose in my throat.

The back door of the Pork Pit eased open, and Fletcher Lane stepped into the alley. The middle-aged man didn’t say a word as he sat down cross-legged a few feet away from me.

His green eyes were as bright as a cat’s, although his face sagged with weariness and pain from where the giant had hit him.

I stayed in my crack, my little refuge, and wondered if this was the part where Fletcher told me to leave — and never come back. He’d seen what I’d done to the giant, what I was capable of. Who would want someone like that hanging around?

“You’ve been here a while now,” Fletcher said in a quiet voice. “You’re a smart kid, Gin. I’m sure you’ve noticed things. Like me being gone so much.”

And coming back with blood all over you, I thought.

I didn’t know what Fletcher was getting at, but at least he wasn’t telling me to get lost — yet. “Yeah, I have.”

He nodded. “I’m sure you’ve wondered where I go, what I do. All the trips I take.” Fletcher turned his eyes to me, so that I felt the full force of his green gaze. “It’s time you knew the truth, especially after tonight. I’m an assassin, Gin. Have been for years.”

Maybe I should have been surprised or stunned or even horrified. But I wasn’t. After my family’s murder and the harsh realities of living on the streets, nothing much shocked me anymore. My childhood and my innocence were gone, replaced by the knowledge people were mean, cold, crazy, dangerous.

So I just nodded my head, as if his revelation made perfect sense to me. In a twisted way, it did.

“Do you know what being an assassin means?” Fletcher asked.

I shrugged. “You kill people for money.”

He smiled. “Most of the time. Sometimes though, I get offered jobs I don’t take. Sometimes the people I turn down get angry with me. Sometimes they find me, come after me.”

“Like Douglas?”

“Just like Douglas.”

Despite the weirdness of the conversation, I found myself curious to learn more about this other life Fletcher led. “Who did Douglas want you to kill?”

A shadow passed over Fletcher’s face. “Some little girls.”

“So why didn’t you do it?”

Fletcher stared at me. “Because there are rules, Gin. Things even assassins shouldn’t do. Killing innocent kids is one of them.”

I thought of the Fire elemental and all the questions she’d asked me about Bria, my baby sister. I hadn’t answered the elemental, not even when she’d burned me with my own spider rune. Because I’d known what would happen. I would die, and then so would Bria.

“What happens when someone breaks the rules?” I asked in a hoarse whisper.

Fletcher stared at me. “I try to make it so they can’t hurt anyone else.”

I knew he meant kill them. I thought of Douglas and the way the giant had looked at me. What he would have done to me if I hadn’t done it to him first. I shivered. “That must be nice. To be able to take care of other people like that. To be that strong.” The last word came out as a raspy whisper.

Fletcher stared at me, a strange look on his lined face, as though he was considering something important. Like telling me to get lost. I decided to make it easy for him. I owed him that much, if only for the last few weeks of security he’d given me.

“Do you want me to leave?”

Fletcher frowned. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”

I stared at the blood on my hands and didn’t say anything.

“Oh, Gin,” he said in a soft voice. “You don’t really realize what you did tonight, do you? You saved me. Finn too. Douglas would have killed all three of us if you hadn’t stabbed him. Don’t you dare feel bad about stabbing that sick bastard. You did what you had to do. Nothing else.”

The knot in my stomach loosened. Maybe I wasn’t such a monster after all. Or maybe I just didn’t care anymore.

“I want you to stay, Gin,” Fletcher said. “For as long as you want. And, if you’ll let me, if you want to, I’d like to train you.”

I stared at him, confused. “Train me to do what? You’re already teaching me how to cook.”

He hesitated. “To be like me. To do what I do. To be an assassin.”

Maybe I should have been surprised. Shocked. Horrified.

But I wasn’t. Instead, I thought of Douglas, the giant. How he’d come at me and how I’d defended myself. I knew my stabbing him had been more dumb luck than anything else.

But my family was gone, and I was alone. I was tired of living on the streets and being weak and small and helpless.

Tired of hiding from everyone and everything. I looked at Fletcher. It wasn’t just that he was an adult, older than me, taller, more muscled. Fletcher Lane had an inner strength that set him apart from other people. I suddenly realized it was a strength I wanted. A strength I needed to survive.

“What about Finn?” I asked. “He’s your son. Shouldn’t you train him instead?”

Fletcher smiled. “He is my son, and I love him, but he doesn’t have the right temperament. He’s too reckless, too flashy. You’re different. Calmer. You take the time to think things through before you do them.”

I didn’t know about all that. But I decided to take what Fletcher was offering me. Grab on to it with both hands and never look back. Genevieve Snow was dead. Her family was dead. But Gin Blanco was still alive. And I wanted to stay that way.

“Okay,” I said. “You can train me.”

Fletcher nodded. “All right then. We start tonight. Come on. Let’s go back into the restaurant.”

He got to his feet and stretched out his hand to me. I stared at it a minute. I was going to be an assassin. Might as well start acting like one. Which, to me, meant getting to my own feet by myself. Which I did.

Fletcher’s green eyes brightened as he smiled—

I gasped in a breath, waking from the dreamy memory.

It took me a moment to remember where I was, what had happened — and the fact I was probably buried alive.

Panic welled up in me, threatening to break loose. But I pushed down the hot, worrisome emotion, smothering it with cold logic. I was still alive, still breathing. Which meant I still had a chance, however small it might be.

I didn’t know how long I’d huddled there under the lip of rock, with the earth shaking below my body and the cavern collapsing in on top of me. Minutes had passed, maybe hours, for all I knew. But it was quiet now. The earth had quit trembling, and the stones had quit falling, which meant it was time to come back to myself.

I opened my eyes to blackness. Again, panic filled me, and once again, I forced it down. I hadn’t been afraid of the dark since I was a child. Besides, Tobias Dawson and his giants were dead. They couldn’t hurt me anymore.

There was nothing down here but me and the rocks and the water. Nothing I couldn’t handle.

So I began to blink, focus, and strain my eyes. Slowly, the blackness lessened to a midnight gray, and the world came back into focus. What I could see of it, anyway.

Which was nothing more than a big pile of rocks. They partially blocked the entrance to the small recess where I’d taken shelter from the cave-in. I stopped a minute to assess my body. Wiggled my fingers and toes, and went through the whole routine I’d done when I’d first woken up in the cavern. Sore, scraped, raw, aching, bone-weary.

Same as before, but everything was more or less in working order.

I reached down, searching for my purse and the healing supplies Jo-Jo Deveraux had given me. But the purse was long gone. So was my blond wig, and I didn’t feel the blue contacts in my eyes anymore. They’d popped out somewhere along the way. The only thing I had left were my black dress and stilettos, which were no help at all. So I blew out a breath, crawled forward, put my hands out, and shoved.

To my surprise, the rocks moved. Bits and pieces broke off like eggshells where I touched them, and I got to work. I don’t know how long I crouched there, half under the recess, scooping rocks out of the way so I could wiggle forward and get to my feet. Slow going given my various aches and pains, but eventually I cleared a space large enough for me to worm my way through. I got up on my knees first, then lurched forward, and used my legs to push myself up and out of the hole. The rocks tore into the thin fabric of my dress and scraped my stomach, but I didn’t care.

Slowly, I got to my feet. There was almost no light, but maybe I could fix that. I uncurled my dirty palms. Even though I couldn’t see them, I knew the spider rune scars were still on my hands. I’d always been able to create a little light with my magic, especially with my Ice power.

The familiar silver light flickered over my palm anytime I made a simple cube or Ice pick.

But before, when I’d made that final, desperate reach for my Ice magic to stop Tobias Dawson, the spider rune scars on my palms had ignited and burned with cold, silvery flames of Ice magic. Something they’d never done before.

I wondered what the silverstone scars would do now that the danger wasn’t so imminent. Time to find out.

I reached for my Ice magic. Cautiously, this time, drawing on a small trickle of power. But again, it came to me far easier than it ever had before. It only took a moment of concentration to make the scars on my palms burn with cold silver fire. Better than a fucking flashlight.

“Well, that’s something new and different,” I murmured.

I held out my glowing palms. The silver light flickered over what remained of the cavern, and I surveyed the damage I’d wrought with my Stone and Ice magic.

Beyond my hole, the stone and earth rose and fell in jagged waves, and dust choked the air like storm clouds of particles. The cavern, which had once been so beautiful and elegant, was now nothing more than a pile of mismatched rubble, like a house that had fallen in on itself.

Tons and tons of earth, stone, water, and mud filled the entire stretch of the cavern, blocking the entrance back to the mine shaft. I looked up. There must have been more rock above the ceiling than Tobias Dawson had let on, because the stone had formed a sharp, sloping roof, instead of the natural arch of the original cavern.

I wasn’t getting out that way. Because even if I’d been at full strength, instead of beaten, bloody, and exhausted, I doubt even I could have managed to blast my way through so much stone and earth. Elementals had a lot of raw power, but ultimately, we all had our limits. Even me.

So I skirted around the edge of the rubble, slipping, falling, and climbing from one rocky dune of muddy earth to the other. In the distance, I heard the rush of water, like a bowl filling up. I didn’t know where the water from the creek had gone when I’d collapsed the ceiling, but it was close by. Another reason for me to get out of here. I hadn’t defeated Tobias Dawson to succumb to something as simple as drowning.

I’d just surfed down one particularly large dune when a small sound caught my attention. A tiny, sharp wail in the stone around me. I held out my glowing palms. A flash of light caught my eye, and I peered at the ground. And I realized I was standing on the diamonds.

They littered the ground under my muddy shoes like dull, frozen tears. Most of them had been pulverized to small bits, slivers, and glints that caught the silvery light emanating from my palms. Still beautiful, even in their ruined state. Too bad they were of absolutely no use to me. Definitely not a girl’s best friend, in this case.

I walked on until I came to the far side of the cavern, but the earth and stone had fully blocked the exit. Which meant I had to find another way to get out of here — now.

So I surfed back in the direction I’d come from, stopping long enough to take off my stilettos and toss them into the darkness. The broken heels were doing more damage to my feet than going barefoot would. I’d just reached the recess where I’d originally hidden when a spot of white caught my eye against the gray stone. What was that? Another diamond?

I crept closer and realized it was a hand — Tobias Dawson’s right hand, sticking out of a mound of earth, fingers stretched wide. I crawled over the earth and stone to get a closer look. But it was just a hand sticking out. Nothing else.

I checked for a pulse, but the dwarf didn’t have one.

The cold chill of death had already settled into his flesh.

Still, I picked up a jagged piece of rock and slashed his wrist just to be sure. I sat there, resting and watching his blood soak into the turned earth and shattered stone.

When his wrist quit oozing, I moved on.

I walked deeper into the back of the cavern to the part I hadn’t seen while Tobias Dawson had been challenging me to a duel. The cavern narrowed to a small corridor barely big enough for a person to squeeze through.

I stood before it and peered into the darkness, wondering what lay at the end of the midnight rainbow. Only one way to find out. I couldn’t go back, and I had to get out.

So I stepped forward into the waiting darkness.

——

I’d only gone a few feet into the corridor when the world turned from dark gray to as black as the coal Tobias Dawson had ripped out of the mountain. There was no light up ahead, nothing to help me see the dangers that waited. And I hadn’t escaped the dwarf only to break my leg and end up starving to death down here. So I reached for my Ice magic again. It came to me as easily as before, and I upped the intensity of the flames burning on my spider rune scars until I could see well enough to walk on. Around me, the stone muttered, sharp, angry, and hurt from all the upheaval it had seen today.

“Sorry,” I murmured to the rock. “I didn’t have a choice.”

My voice bounced against the stone and echoed back to me. The sound made me shiver, and I moved on, using my hands to light my way. The passageway grew narrower and narrower, until I had to turn sideways to shimmy through it. But I kept going. It wasn’t like I had a lot of other options. There was no going back. Only moving forward.

The passageway opened up again slightly, allowing me to walk through the area square on, instead of twisting from one side to the other. But twenty feet later, it narrowed again. I gritted my teeth and slipped sideways.

And so it went. Sometimes, I could walk through the corridors with ease. Sometimes, I had to turn sideways.

Other times, I had to suck in my stomach and force myself through passageways that were little more than a foot wide. But I kept moving. Despite my many injuries, despite my broken jaw and throbbing skull, despite the strange influx of magic coldly burning in my veins, I kept going. To stop would be to rest, to sleep. Who knew if I would ever wake up?

There could be some noxious gas down here already killing me slowly. Some form of carbon monoxide or something equally lethal. No, I didn’t dare stop. Not to rest, not to cry, not for anything. If Fletcher Lane had suddenly stepped out of the shadows and offered to tell me all the secrets he’d kept from me, where Bria was and what she was like, I would have walked right on by the old man.

So I trudged along in the blackness, with only the magical silver glow of my palms to light the way. Time ceased to have any sort of meaning. There were only rocks to navigate around, through, over. Sharp rocks pricking my feet. The smell of my own blood. And the murmur of the stones around me.

As I left the destruction of the cavern behind, the stones’ murmurs became soft and sweet once more. They talked of water and air and the slow passage of time that had little effect on them. After the screams of the stones and the wail of the shattered diamonds in the cavern, the murmur of the rocks was as soothing as a lullaby. But I pushed the sound to the back of my mind, tuning it out.

Because if I listened to it, I would want to stop, just for a few minutes. And then I’d be gone.

I don’t know how long I trudged along, just plodding through the dark earth. Minutes, hours, days, the end of the time. But I stumbled free of the narrow passageway I was in and entered a larger room, almost as big as the cavern where the diamonds had been. I was halfway across before I realized I was walking directly into a sheer stone wall.

I stopped, blinked, and held out my glowing palms.

The passageway branched off into two directions. Left and right. Two more dark holes just like all the others I’d walked and crawled and shimmied through. But this time, I had to make a choice. But which one? And would it even do any good? They both could lead farther into the mountain, turn back on each other, or lead me straight to a dead end. As long as it seemed like I’d been walking, I could be halfway to China by now.

But still, I had to try. Right first. I walked down into the right passageway about a hundred feet and placed my bruised, bloody hand on the stone wall. The usual, low murmurs of water, rock, and time sounded back to me.

Same sound I’d heard for hours now.

I sighed, turned around, and trudged down the left passageway. Once again, I placed my hand on the stone and listened to its vibrations. Water, rock, time. Nothing to tell me which way to go.

“Fuck,” I snarled in a loud voice.

My curse echoed up to the top of the cavern and bounced back down to me before reverberating through the whole area. I sighed and swiped my hand over my face, smearing blood, dirt, and grime deeper into my skin.

Flutter-flutter. Flutter-flutter.

I froze, wondering if I was imagining the noise. If I was somehow concussed and just didn’t know it. If maybe I was already dead, and this was all just a final dream or some sort of purgatory before I got shipped down below.

Flutter-flutter. Flutter-flutter.

Nope, I wasn’t imagining it. The noise seemed to be coming from somewhere up above. On an impulse, I raised my hands over my head, palms up. I reached for my magic again, and the cold, silver flames burning in the spider rune scars in my palms intensified. I’d just upped the wattage on my human flashlight.

I frowned and peered into the darkness above my head.

There seemed to be some sort of massive figure attached to the roof. What the hell—

Suddenly, a tiny shape detached itself from the ceiling.

Then another, then another, then another. It took me a few moments to realize what they were.

Bats.

Hundreds of them.

Evidently my resounding curse had disturbed their peaceful slumber. Because the creatures all abandoned their perches. They hovered in midair for a moment before flapping away. They all headed down the left passageway.

My heart lifted, and I scrambled after them as fast as I could. Bats needed air, light, bugs, water. If they could get out, then I could too. I didn’t care if there was only a hole small enough for the winged creatures to flutter through.

I’d find a way to get my human-size ass through it too.

Of course, the bats were much faster than me and not hampered by a lack of adequate spelunking footwear. But still, I hurried after them as fast as my aching body would let me. The passageway curved a couple of times before it opened up into a round room. I stopped at the entrance and blinked. Was it my imagination or was it lighter in here? I dropped my hold on my magic. The room went dark, and my heart started to sink again. But I stood there, waiting. And slowly, the area came into focus.

I peered up, and there it was. An opening twenty feet above my head. What looked like early morning sunlight filtered in through a tangle of kudzu vines that dropped down the walls like snakes. I peered at the opening. It looked to be just big enough for me to shove myself through. No time like the present.

I tore a couple of scraps off what remained of my dress and wrapped them around my hands. Then I grabbed hold of the kudzu and yanked on it. The vines seemed sturdy enough to support my weight, so I began to climb.

It was hard. So fucking hard. Even harder than reaching for my Ice magic had been to stop Tobias Dawson that final time in the cavern. But inch by inch, foot by foot, I hauled myself up the thick vines. Whenever I found a foothold in the stone, I jammed my bruised, bloody, cold toes into it and rested. The vines under my body smelled faintly of dew. I was about halfway up the wall when I felt a cold breeze whistle down into the hollow room.

The caress of air against my bruised, throbbing cheek made me want to cry.

But I shook off my emotion. Now was not the time to give in to my feelings. I could always slip and fall. And I’d be damned if I was going to die of a broken neck. Not now, when the sweet scent of sunshine was just a few feet away.

I drew in a breath and started climbing again. The walls narrowed to form a sort of circular point where the opening was. I was going to have to let go of the kudzu vines, reach for the edge of the hole, and hope the earth didn’t crumble under my weight.

I found a good toehold and rested a moment, gathering my strength once more. For the final time. When I felt strong enough, I bent my knees, kicked up, and reached for the lip of the opening. My hands scrabbled for purchase. At the last second, my fingers clamped around another kudzu vine, this one anchored somewhere above the surface.

I hung there in midair, supported only by my clenching fingertips. At this point, I was weeping openly from the pain in my hands, arms, shoulders. But somehow I hung on.

I slid one hand up the vine. Then the other. Hauling myself upward. Snarls and half screams spewed out of my lips, like I was possessed by some evil spirit. Maybe I was.

Because my will to survive was a powerful thing. Alexis James hadn’t been able to overcome me. Neither had Tobias Dawson. I wasn’t going to let some damp, slippery kudzu vines stop me now.

So I hung there and inched my way up, like a spider climbing up its own web.

Finally, my right hand stretched up into the clear air. I placed it on the edge of the opening, testing the ground.

Solid stone, more than steady enough to support me. I scuttled upward and managed to hook my right elbow up and out of the hole. Then the other one. I drew in a breath and strained upward. My head cleared the tangle of vines covering the opening, and the early morning sunlight slanted across my face, blinding me. I closed my eyes and enjoyed its warmth, meager though it was.

And with a final burst of strength, I pulled myself up and out into the dawn.