"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.
Chapter 20
I'd been expecting the bounty hunters to show up here now that the word was out about who the Spider really was. I just hadn't thought they'd get here so quickly-or that there would be so damn many of them.
A dozen vehicles were haphazardly parked in front of the sprawling structure. The multitude of lights burning inside the house let me see exactly what I was up against. Several of the bounty hunters crouched behind their vehicles, using the open doors as shields. Every single one had their guns out and pointed at the house-or at each other. Half a dozen bodies littered the snowy landscape like forgotten Christmas decorations, blood spilling out from wounds instead of holiday cheer.
There had been one hell of a fight already, probably with the various bounty hunters gunning it out in front of the house to see who got to go inside and capture whatever prize was in there waiting for them. I was grateful for the crowd. The bounty hunters slugging it out with each other in the yard was probably the only reason that they hadn't collectively stormed the house yet and either captured or killed Finn and Bria.
My eyes scanned the ranks. Men, women, young, old, dwarves, giants, even a vampire or two-all with a hard, hungry, predatory set to their shadowy features. I recognized a few of the faces from Mab's dinner party. I couldn't tell if any of the bounty hunters had elemental power, though. No one's eyes glowed in the semidarkness, and I didn't feel any kind of magic stirring in the night air. Some elementals, especially those with considerable juice like Mab, continuously gave off waves of power, like heat radiating off a fire. As an elemental myself, I could sense that constant surge of magic. Even if there had been another elemental in the mix, it didn't much matter. I was going to do whatever the hell I had to in order to save Finn and Bria-if they were even still alive.
One of the bounty hunters let out a low curse and started creeping around the hood of his pickup. He paused and looked over his shoulder. Three more men had taken refuge behind the vehicle. I couldn't tell if they were all part of the same group, but the other three leveled their guns at him, a clear indication that he should go forward-or else. Looked like he'd drawn the short straw tonight.
The man eased out from behind the front of the truck and tiptoed through the snow toward the house, hunching over as much as he could. He stopped and swallowed once, clearly nervous about being out in the open. A minute later, when nothing happened, he straightened. He stood there a moment, his body tense, expecting a shot from somewhere. Maybe from the other bounty hunters, maybe from the house. But it didn't come, and he continued on his slow, careful journey.
I palmed my silverstone knives, my hands tightening around the hilts. Why wasn't someone shooting at him? Fifty more feet, and the bastard would be at the front door. Once he made it up onto the porch, the others would follow in a sudden, violent swarm. Then, if Finn and Bria were still in the house, they'd be found, dragged outside, and hauled off to Mab.
