"Sydney!" Gentry cried out in a low, hoarse voice.
Something in her voice, some tone, some tiny bit of anguish that she couldn't quite hide, made me look over at her instead of pulling the trigger. Gentry had forgotten all about her revolver. Instead, she huddled on her knees. Her gray hair had come loose from its tight bun, and snow crusted her face, but Gentry didn't care. Fear flickered in her pale blue gaze, and she held her brown, wrinkled hands out wide, silently begging me not to kill the girl.
I studied her carefully, but as far as I could tell, this was no sly trick she was trying to pull. Gentry seemed genuinely concerned for Sydney, which was more than warranted, considering that I was about a second away from ending her existence.
I even went so far as to turn back toward the girl, my finger tightening on the rifle's trigger. But then she let out a low moan of pain and stared up at me with her hazel eyes. Deer eyes-doe eyes-wide, liquid, and trembling, glistening with tears, pain, and fear.
Damn and double damn.
Something inside me, some little black shred of my heart, wouldn't let me kill the girl, even if she had just put three bullets into me. Maybe because she reminded me of myself at that age-poor little Genevieve Snow whose family had been so brutally murdered. Maybe because I was exhausted. Maybe because I was suffering from the blood loss already. Or maybe it was because I could hear Fletcher's voice whispering in my ear. No kids-ever, the old man seemed to murmur to me, even though he was long dead and cold in his own grave.
I'd ignored the old man's teachings earlier, when I'd hastily pulled the trigger on my crossbow instead of waiting until I had an absolutely clear shot at Mab. I wasn't about to turn my back on Fletcher again, even if he was only a ghost in my head.
Instead of pulling the trigger, I heaved the rifle as far as I could into the trees. The gun hit one of the snow-splattered trunks and clattered off into the night. Gentry just looked at me, mouth agape, as if she couldn't believe that I hadn't gone for the kill shot when I'd had the chance. Part of me couldn't believe it either, but that was the way things were.
Even as an assassin, even as the Spider, I didn't kill innocents-ever. Sure, the girl had shot me, but she couldn't be more than fifteen, sixteen, tops. Still a kid in so many ways.
Gentry crawled across the snow to the girl and held her close, shielding her from me, like she wasn't sure what I was going to do next. Damned if I knew either.
"Next time, sweetheart," I murmured to the girl as I bent down to pick up the knife that I'd dropped. "Keep shooting until you run out of bullets and not a second before."
Gentry and Sydney both stared at me, their eyes identical pools of wariness, shock, and fear.
I skirted around them and disappeared into the snowy trees.
Chapter 4
Stumbling and bleeding, as well as listening for sounds of pursuit from Gentry, the girl, or whoever else might be following me, I somehow made it to the old, anonymous car I'd stashed in a thicket of trees two miles from the edge of Mab's property. I sank into the driver's seat, cranked the engine, and turned the ancient heater up as high and hot as it would go.
White starbursts exploded in my eyes, and I struggled to blink them away. The girl, Sydney, had been a better shot than I'd given her credit for. The two bullets in my shoulder throbbed and burned with pain, and she'd gotten close to my femoral artery with that last shot to my left thigh. Good for her, bad for me. I'd left a blood trail through the snow that a child could follow. If I hadn't had the car here, I would have been done for, still out floundering in the trees, trying to stay ahead of Mab, her giants, and her dinner guests, two of whom had already taken an unhealthy interest in me. And I was still in the proverbial woods, if I didn't get the leg taken care of soon.
I ripped off my sweat-soaked ski mask, tore the fabric into strips with my silverstone knife, and used the pieces to make a tourniquet for my leg. I tied it off as tight as I could so I wouldn't bleed out before I got to Jo-Jo. At this point, I just hoped that I had enough juice left to drive over to the dwarf's house. But there was no time to think about things or procrastinate, so I threw the car into gear and put my foot on the gas.
As I steered through the trees and pulled back onto the icy road, I reached for my magic again. But not my Stone power. No, this time I grabbed hold of my other magic-my elemental Ice power-and let it fill the lower part of my body, particularly my left thigh. The cold magic flooded my veins, and the wounded area immediately went numb-so numb I couldn't even feel that part of my body anymore. Or, more important, the pain pulsing through my thigh, and the blood pumping out of it with every beat of my heart. I sighed with relief.
For years, my Ice magic had been the weaker of my two abilities, until I'd overcome a block associated with it. Now it was just as strong as my Stone power. Numbing my own limbs so I wouldn't feel pain was one of the recent tricks that I'd learned how to do with my Ice magic-the one that had helped me kill Elektra LaFleur when she'd tried to shock me to death with her electrical power.
LaFleur's magic had been a bit of a fluke, as it wasn't one of the four main areas-Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone-that most elementals were gifted in, that you had to be able to tap into to be considered a true elemental. But magic could take many forms, could manifest in all sorts of strange ways, and many folks were gifted in other areas, offshoots of the four main elements. Like water was an offshoot of Ice, and electricity was one of Air. The mechanics behind it all had never really concerned me. I was just glad I was still alive-and that LaFleur was rotting in whatever shallow, pauper's grave Mab had dumped her in.
I'd only beaten LaFleur because I was the rarest of elementals-someone who could control not only one but two elements. Ice and Stone, in my case. Connected powers, but each with their own unique quirks.
My Stone magic had always been incredibly strong and let me do anything that I wanted to with the element, like hear the whispered vibrations in the rocks around me, make bricks fly out of a solid wall, or even turn my own skin into the equivalent of human marble.
My Ice power was different, in that it actually let me create elemental Ice with my bare hands-Ice that I could turn into all sorts of shapes, like cubes, crystals, and the occasional knife. My Ice magic also let me numb my body so that I would feel no pain, something that I was doing right now just to stay upright. Hell, maybe it would slow the blood loss too. I wasn't familiar with all the ins and outs of this particular trick just yet. Maybe Jo-Jo could tell me more when I got to her.
If I got to her before I bled to death.
It was after midnight now, and the Ashland streets were deserted. Not surprising, given the icy conditions. Ashland was the southern metropolis that sprawled over the rugged corner of the world where the Appalachian Mountains cut through Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. From a distance, Ashland looked like a jewel-toned paradise, surrounded by emerald forests and sapphire rivers with a silver diamond of a city set into the middle of all the sparkling grandeur. But anyone who'd ever spent any time in Ashland knew exactly what kind of violent, gritty place it really was. The horrible, despicable things that only happened on the darkest, dingiest streets in other cities occurred on Ashland's main thoroughfares-often in broad daylight.
The city was divided into two sections-Northtown and Southtown-held together by the rough circle of the downtown area and flanked on either side by suburbs full of soccer moms, spoiled kids, and other middle-class folks. Northtown was the rich part of Ashland, where the city's social, magical, and monetary elite lived, died, and generally tried to screw each other over every which way they could. All sorts of evil lurked inside the sultan-size mansions in Northtown, made even more sinister by the immaculate facades and perfectly groomed lawns. Mab Monroe, of course, lived in the heart of Northtown in the biggest mansion in the city, given the fact that she was the queen bee of the Ashland underworld.
The folks were poorer in Southtown-much, much poorer-but that didn't make them any less dangerous. Vampire hookers, pimps, gangbangers, elemental junkies strung out on their own magic who'd just as soon light you up with their Fire power as spit on you. Those were the people who called Southtown home. Still, I'd always had a begrudging fondness for the area. At least in South-town you knew exactly what dangers to expect, whereas in Northtown you might go over to someone's house for a friendly cookout and end up with your ribs being the ones basted in the barbecue sauce.
It had been snowing in Ashland for several days straight. The February cold had been so bitter, biting, and unrelenting that what snow fell didn't even begin to melt before the next arctic front blew in and dropped six more inches on top of it. By this point, the snowbanks on either side of the slick roads were taller than most dwarves-topping out at about five feet.
It was hard for me to drive in it, especially considering the absolute shit box of a car that I was in. Twice, the old, worn tires started sliding on the black ice, and it was only by the grace of whatever god was laughing at me that the car didn't slam into one of the trees that lined the road. It also didn't help matters that I could feel myself weakening and my attention wandering as more and more blood pumped out of my thigh. But I forced my hands to grip the steering wheel, the cracked leather digging into the spider rune scars on my palms, and drive on.
I went as fast as I dared, the car tires alternately crunching through or slipping on the snow and ice. Even though there was no one out tonight, it was still slow going, and it took me thirty long, precious minutes to make it to Jo-Jo's.
Jolene "Jo-Jo" Deveraux was a two-hundred-fifty-seven-year-old dwarf with Air elemental magic who used her power to heal people on the sly. She also happened to be my only hope of getting the wound in my thigh to quit gushing blood before I ran out of the fluid altogether.
Like others of her monetary, social, and magically elite status, Jo-Jo made her home in an upscale Northtown subdivision called Tara Heights. Most of the subdivisions in Ashland had cutesy names like that, almost all of which had a Southern connotation. Like Lee's Lament, another nearby subdivision. For some folks in Ashland, especially the vampires who'd lived through the era, the Civil War would just never, ever be over.
I steered the rattletrap car past the snowbanks that had been plowed up on either side of the subdivision's entrance and made the appropriate turn onto a street marked Magnolia Lane. I started up the hill to Jo-Jo's house, but the tires just wouldn't grip the ice that coated the cobblestone driveway. For a moment, I was afraid that I was going to have to get out and walk-something that I didn't have the strength or blood left for. But finally the squealing, smoking tires caught, probably for the last time in their miserable, rubbery lives, and the car lurched up the driveway.
I crested the hill, and Jo-Jo's house came into view. The three-story, plantation-style structure looked even more elegant in the winter white dark, the layers of snow and ice swirling around it like buttercream frosting. The columns that supported the house only added to the effect, making the whole thing resemble a tiered cake. Normally, I would have enjoyed the ghostly view, but tonight the snow was just another obstacle to plow through.
By this point, I was fading fast. It took me two concentrated tries before I remembered to put the car in park so it wouldn't roll back down the hill. Opening the door, crossing the yard, trudging up the steps that led to the porch that wrapped around the house-all of it took much more effort than it should have. By the time I raised the cloud-shaped door knocker that was Jo-Jo's rune, a symbol of her Air elemental magic, I was cold and clammy with sweat and about to pass out. I rapped on the door as hard as I could, then sagged against the house, smearing blood all over the white paint in abstract, snowflake-like patterns.
I don't know how long I stood there. Seconds passed, maybe minutes, before I heard heavy footsteps on the other side of the door. Even out here on the porch, I still caught a whiff of her Chantilly perfume. I breathed in the scent, comforted by the sweet smell, because I knew that I'd made it. Jo-Jo would work her Air magic once more and heal me the way she always did whenever I showed up at her house late at night an inch away from death.
A moment later, the door opened and a woman appeared. Like everyone else in Ashland on this cold, cold night, Jo-Jo had been bundled up and firmly ensconced in bed. A long-sleeved pink flannel housecoat swathed the dwarf's stocky body from head to toe. Despite the late hour, a string of gravel-size pearls hung around her neck. In Jo-Jo's mind, nothing proclaimed you to be a true southern lady more than a set of real pearls, and she never went anywhere without hers-not even to bed.
The dwarf's bleached blond-white hair had been rolled up tight for the night in pink sponge curlers in a tidy formation that any general would have been proud of. For once, Jo-Jo's middle-aged face was free of makeup, although the fuchsia polish on her toenails glistened in the semidarkness. The dwarf almost always went barefoot at home, even in the dead of winter.
Jo-Jo stuck her head outside, a turtle coming out of her warm, comfortable shell, obviously wondering who could be knocking on her door at this hour. Especially since I wasn't scheduled to be doing anything tonight other than cozying up with my lover, Owen Grayson.
Jo-Jo's eyes, which were almost colorless except for the pinprick of black at their center, widened when she spotted me on the porch-along with the blood that had pooled underneath my left leg.
"Gin?" Jo-Jo asked in a surprised voice. "Is that you?"
"Who else?" I drawled.
And then I collapsed at her feet without another word.
Chapter 5
I was somewhat aware of Jo-Jo calling out to her sister, Sophia, and the younger dwarf picking me up and carrying me inside into the beauty salon that took up the back half of Jo-Jo's sprawling house.
