Spider's Bite

  I could be patient for that. I could wait forever, as long as I knew that Sebastian would die in the end.

  “Of course, there’s the other possibility,” he said, continuing with his musings. “That you don’t have any great tragedy in your past. That you enjoy violence. That you simply like killing people, so you decided to make yourself an expert at it. That’s certainly what I’ve done. My father wasn’t the first person I ever had murdered. I learned at an early age that it’s extremely easy to get people to do exactly what you want. All you have to do is push the right buttons, say the right things, and people will practically fall over themselves to do your bidding. That’s the difference between you and me, Gin. You take orders on who to kill, whereas I give them. Another reason I’m afraid that we’d never work out. But you do have to admit that it was fun while it lasted. Don’t you think?”

  I still didn’t respond to his ditherings. I was much more focused on the fact that he had reached the end of the second aisle, had stepped into the third, and was ambling back in my direction.

  “But unfortunately, our time together has come to an end,” Sebastian said.

  He stopped, and I thought that he might stay where he was, about halfway down the aisle, but he slowly headed in my direction. I drew in a breath and got ready. I’d only have one shot at him, and I needed to make it count.

  “I know you actually thought that we might have a future together, but I have to admit something,” Sebastian crooned, his voice taking on a mischievous note, as though what he was about to say was somehow amusing. “You’re just not my type, Gin. Not connected enough, not rich enough, not pretty enough, and certainly not strong enough.”

  He walked right by my position. I stepped out from the shadows, raised my knife high, and brought it down, aiming for the center of his back—

  Sebastian whipped around and caught my hand in his. I tried to break his grip, but he reached for his magic, essentially encasing my arm in his own fist of stone.

  He gave me a smug, satisfied smile, then shook his head. “Oh, Gin. Don’t you know that you gave yourself away? The greenhouse might be made of glass, but there’s still enough stone in here to whisper to me about all of your intentions, all of your hopeless little plans. And there’s still enough stone in here for me to kill you with.”

  One of the stone planters sitting on a table to my left shattered at his words, the bits of resulting shrapnel zipping through the air and straight into my side. I yelped with pain and tried to pull my hand free, but Sebastian tightened his grip. He gave me a bored look, then snapped my wrist all the way back.

  I screamed, and this time, he finally let me go. I staggered back, clutching my broken right wrist to my chest, my knife dropping from my suddenly nerveless fingers. Wave after wave of pain shot through my body, and I could feel the pieces of my shattered bones scraping against each other and then my skin on top of them, threatening to break through the surface. Nausea filled me, along with the pulsing waves of pain, and I had to focus on choking down the hot, bitter bile that rose in my throat.

  But Sebastian didn’t give me a chance to regroup. No, this time, he went on the attack. He stepped forward and backhanded me across the face. He was still holding on to his magic, so his hand was as hard and heavy as a cement block cracking against my cheek.

  More pain exploded in my jaw. I fell onto a table. Since it was made of marble, Sebastian used his magic to shatter it, making me stumble forward and slam all the way over into one of the glass walls. I’d thought that by coming in here, we’d be on more equal footing, but he was right. There was still enough stone in here for him to kill me with.

  Something he was probably going to do in another minute, two tops. Just as soon as he got done playing with me.

  Sebastian stepped forward, dug his fingers into my hair, and pulled me away from the glass. Before I could even think about fighting back, he threw me down onto the ground. I landed on my broken wrist, and black spots flashed on and off in my vision in a dire warning. They tried to come together to blot out the pain, but I ruthlessly pushed them back. If I lost consciousness, then I was dead, and Sebastian could kill me at his leisure.

  Or worse, go through with his original plan for me.

  Somehow I managed to stagger back up onto my feet. I turned around, but Sebastian was waiting. I raised my left, unbroken arm and attempted to hit him with my fist, but he easily sidestepped the clumsy blow. He wrapped his hand around my throat, lifted me up, and then slammed me down, so that my back and shoulders were on one of the tables. Beside me, a cluster of dark blue roses shook in their stone planter, as if they were shocked by the violence that was taking place right in front of them.

  Sebastian kept his tight grip on my throat and held up the index finger of his free hand. “Among all the other little fantasies that I’ve had about you these past several days, Gin, the one that I’ve had the most fun with was how I was ultimately going to kill you. I hadn’t really decided, but you’ve given me a grand idea. You seem to be so fond of knives. Let me show you the sort of knife that I like to use.”

  Sebastian reached out and put his hand on the side of the marble planter. I watched in horror as the stone began to chip and flake and peel away from itself. The planter crumbled, spilling dirt and roses everywhere, and a pleased, maniacal grin lit up Sebastian’s face.

  A moment later, he held up his weapon so I could see it. Truth be told, it was a crude knife, sort of like the Ice daggers that I sometimes made. But Sebastian had used his Stone magic to fashion the end into a razor-sharp point, one that was more than capable of slitting my throat.

  Sebastian still had one hand wrapped around my neck, holding me down, and he leaned forward and slowly drew the stone blade down my cheek. Not hard enough to draw blood. Not yet.

  But I could hear the marble muttering with all of Sebastian’s dark, gleeful malice, whispering exactly how he planned to carve me up with the knife he’d created out of his own element—my element. Something else that made me sick to my stomach. I could hear all of the stone in the greenhouse muttering now, as it soaked up Sebastian’s murderous intentions.

  He pulled the knife away from my face and gave it an appraising look. No doubt, he could hear its whispers too, as it murmured with all of his secrets—

  And no matter what, you should never, ever tell someone all of your secrets. Finn’s voice suddenly popped into my mind.

  Sebastian had said that I was good at keeping secrets, and I realized that I still had one card left to play, one secret that I hadn’t told him, one thing that he hadn’t guessed about me like he had everything else. I just hoped that it would be enough to end him, once and for all.

  “Tell me, sugar,” Sebastian purred, focusing his gaze on me again. “Any last words before I cut open that pretty throat of yours?”

  “You fucked with the wrong assassin,” I growled. “You fucked with the Spider.”

  He laughed. “The Spider? Is that the pathetic little moniker you’ve chosen for yourself?”

  “You bet it is.”

  “And why is that?”

  I grinned. “Because you never see spiders coming—until they bite you.”

  Sebastian snorted. “I never see spiders until I crush them under my boot. Even then, they don’t attract any notice.”

  This time, I laughed. “You know what, Sebastian?” I sneered into his face. “You’re all talk and no action. Just like you were in bed. If you’re going to kill me, then just do it, already. Because I’m sick and tired of listening to you brag.”

  He stared at me and raised the knife high, but instead of ramming it into my heart, he slammed it into my right shoulder, adding to the agony on that side of my body. I screamed again. Sebastian chuckled and twisted the knife in even deeper. Oh, yes. He wanted to make me suffer before he killed me, which just might give me a chance to end him instead.

  “How does it feels to have a knife in your shoulder, bitch?” he hissed.

  I swallowed down an
other scream. Then I laughed.

  He frowned. “What’s so funny?”

  “You,” I said. “Because you’re forgetting one small thing.”

  “Really? What’s that?”

  “You’re not the only elemental here.”

  He snorted. “You mean that pitiful Ice power that you have? Please. You couldn’t make an Ice cube with that right now, much less do any damage to me.”

  “True. But Ice isn’t the only magic that I have.”

  He frowned, wondering at my words. I sent out a small burst of magic, just enough to get everyone’s attention. All of the stone in the greenhouse, including the piece stuck in my shoulder, began to murmur again. But not with Sebastian’s ill intentions. No, now the stone whispered with mine.

  Sebastian cocked his head to the side, surprised by the sudden surge of violence in the stone. His eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open.

  “You have Stone magic too,” he muttered. “You sly little bitch.”

  “You’re damn right I do,” I countered. “And I know exactly what to do with it, you bastard—”

  Sebastian tightened his grip on the knife in my shoulder and yanked it out. I didn’t even have time to scream before he brought it up, determined to end me this time. I held my hand up at the last second, so that the blade punched through the center of my left palm, inside the circle of my spider rune, instead of into my chest.

  We stood there, seesawing back and forth, with Sebastian trying to drive the knife down and into my heart and me trying to keep him from doing that.

  “You know, Sebastian, your father wasn’t as strong an elemental as you, but he did have one particular trick that I admired,” I rasped through the pain.

  “Really? What’s that?”

  “This.”

  I sent out a small, concentrated pulse of magic, shattering the crude knife in my hand, even though it caused me more agony. Sebastian hissed and jerked back in surprise, trying to duck the flying bits of stone. A long, thin, bloody shard split off from the knife and clattered to the table next to me. I snatched up the wickedly sharp piece of stone, the way I had my silverstone knives so many times before.

  Then, before Sebastian could move, before he could react, before he could fight back, I surged forward and drove the point of the shard into his throat.

  Sebastian’s mouth gaped open, and a soft hiss of air escaped his lips, along with blood that spattered onto my face, stinging my eyes like tears. He staggered back and sent out another burst of magic, shattering the shard, but I’d driven it in too deep, all the way into his jugular, and it was more of a last-gasp reflex than an actual attack. But he’d been holding on to a lot of power, and it rippled out from him in invisible waves, causing more of the stone planters and tables to shatter and sending chunks of rocks everywhere, including through the glass walls of the greenhouse.

  Sebastian’s hands went to his throat. He pulled them away, once again staring down in disbelief at all the blood on his hands. Then he raised his eyes to mine.

  “Good-bye, Sebastian,” I said in a quiet voice. “You were right. It was fun while it lasted.”

  Sebastian made a choking sound in the back of his throat, causing more blood to spew out of his lips, as easily as all of his lies had. Then he crumpled to the ground and was still.

  35

  It took Sebastian the better part of two minutes to bleed out. But when the stone planters and tables finally quit shattering, I knew that he was gone. I stared down at the man I thought I had loved. I shouldn’t have felt anything but relief that he was dead, that he couldn’t hurt me or anyone else anymore.

  But all I felt was empty—sad and empty—just like he’d said I was.

  I had started to move away from him when I noticed a single blue rose lying on the table where we’d had our last struggle. Somehow it had escaped the destruction of our fight and was as perfect as if it had been cut for a bouquet. I picked up the flower and brought it to my nose. Despite the chaos, the rose smelled as sweet as ever. I hesitated, then tossed it down on top of Sebastian’s body.

  It was the only bit of sentiment that I had left—and far more regard than he deserved after everything he’d done.

  I stared at Sebastian another moment before turning and walking away.

  • • •

  I grabbed my knife from where it had fallen, then left the greenhouse behind and made my way through the grounds, across the lawn, and back up to the library. I picked up the knife that I’d thrown in here earlier at Sebastian, then went over to his father’s desk to conduct my long-delayed search for the file that Coolidge had compiled on Sebastian. It didn’t take me long to find it, since it was lying on top of a stack of papers on the desk, the folder wide open, as though Sebastian had been admiring his own handiwork over a drink. He probably had.

  I took the file too. After that, it was just a matter of hobbling down the stairs, out of the mansion, and onto the driveway toward the front gate. At this point, I didn’t care who saw me leaving the scene of the crime. I doubted there was anyone left to look, anyway. If they’d been smart, all of the workers would have fled the mansion the second Sebastian had started to unleash his Stone magic throughout the structure.

  So no one was around to see the Spider take her victory lap—such as it was.

  No one except Fletcher.

  The old man was waiting in his white van down the street from the open gate. I staggered across the sidewalk, opened the door, and crawled into the passenger seat, cradling my broken wrist and the folder against my chest.

  Fletcher’s sharp green eyes tracked up and down my body, silently assessing my injuries. Broken wrist, stab wound in my shoulder, dozens of cuts and bruises from where Sebastian’s rocks had battered me. His shoulders sagged with a tiny bit of relief, although he kept his face calm and composed.

  “Looks like we need to get over to Jo-Jo’s,” he said.

  All I could do was nod.

  He threw the van into gear and headed in that direction. Fletcher drove slowly and carefully, mindful of my injuries, but every bump and jostle of the van made me wince. So I concentrated on breathing, surfing the waves of pain as best I could.

  It was several minutes before he spoke again.

  “Seems like you caused quite the commotion in there,” Fletcher said in a mild voice. “The staff couldn’t drive away fast enough. They all piled in on top of one another, like a bunch of clowns all trying to get into the same cars.”

  “Good for them.”

  I hoped no one else had been injured inside the mansion.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head. “Not tonight. Maybe . . . later. Okay?”

  Fletcher nodded back.

  But I didn’t have any intention of talking about what had happened tonight. Not to Fletcher, not to anyone, not ever. Part of it was because I was still humiliated by how easily Sebastian had tricked me and how hard I’d fallen for him. And the other part of it, well, I couldn’t quite say. All I knew was that all of the things Sebastian had done and said were my burdens to bear now, more secrets to add to the ones I already had.

  “Maybe in a few days, when you’re feeling better, we can go look at those apartments across from the Pork Pit,” Fletcher said. “After all, an assassin should have her own place. Especially one like the Spider, don’t you think?”

  A quiet note of pride rippled through the old man’s voice. He’d called me the Spider many times over the years, but this time, I knew he meant it in a way that he never had before. Maybe one day soon, I’d tell him that I finally understood all the lessons he’d been trying to teach me for so long. About when to wait and when to act and how to find that delicate balance between the two. But knowing Fletcher, he realized all of that already. Just like I knew that I wouldn’t have survived tonight if not for him.

  “Gin?”

  I smiled because he expected me to, even though getting my own apartment was the last thing on my mind right now. Still,
I knew that he was trying to do something nice, trying to tell me that I’d proven myself in more ways than one tonight.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That would be great.”

  He nodded, and we both fell silent.

  I leaned my head against the car window, breathed through another surge of pain, and brooded into the night, still thinking of Sebastian and everything that had happened between us. With every mile that passed, I slowly let his betrayal and cruelty ice over the few soft parts of my heart that were left, and I vowed never to let them thaw again.

  Not for anyone.

  Ever.

  36

  PRESENT DAY

  I finished my story and leaned back, feeling tired and drained, as though I’d just relived the whole fight with Sebastian and had once again suffered all the injuries that he’d inflicted on my body and my heart back then. It took me a moment to let go of the memories and realize that I was in the Pork Pit, that what I had described had taken place ten years ago, instead of just ten minutes ago.

  “You?” Owen asked. “You killed Sebastian Vaughn?”

  I grinned. “Who else?”

  “I remember that,” he said. “It was the talk of Ashland for weeks. It was all over the news. How part of the mansion was destroyed, how the cops found a dead giant inside the house and then Sebastian out in the greenhouse. From what I remember, the police thought that the same person who killed Cesar had killed Sebastian too.”

  I grimaced. “Well, they were actually right about that. For a change.”

  Owen took my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. He didn’t ask me to say anything else, and he didn’t make any comments about what I’d told him. He simply let me know that he was here for me.

  “And to think,” he murmured. “We actually met back then.”

  “I know,” I replied. “I’d mostly forgotten about it until now. Did you ever think about that girl you picked up on the side of the road that night?”