The fist came out of nowhere.
I’d just reached the edge of the dense forest when a thick arm swung out of the darkness and the attached fist plowed into my face. The hard, sharp blow rocked me back, and my feet slid out from under me. I stumbled into a tree, hitting it so hard that a few ice-covered pine cones popped off their brittle branches and pinged me in the head. I fell to one knee, the snow soaking through my heavy cargo pants and the many layers that I had on underneath them.
But more important than my discomfort was that the attack took me by surprise. So much so that my hold on my Stone magic slipped, and my skin reverted back to its normal texture—and vulnerability—once more. Which meant that I could now be injured by bullets, fists, or whatever other dangers came my way. Plenty to go around tonight.
“Wow, I thought you’d be tougher to take down than that,” a man rumbled and stepped out of the shadows to my left. “Kind of disappointing, if you ask me, you not living up to all the hype, Spider.”
He was one of Mab’s giants, almost seven feet tall with a big, bulky frame that was ghostly pale in the wintry moonlight, thanks to his silver snowsuit. I recognized him—I’d slid past him on my way toward the mansion earlier. He smiled at me, revealing two rows of capped teeth that were even more dazzling than the frosted landscape around us.
I stayed where I was, down on one knee, as though I were still dazed from his hard hit. The giant’s grin widened, his hand clenched into a fist once more, and he stepped toward me, ready to knock my head the rest of the way off my shoulders. He didn’t see my right hand fall to my side or the glint of metal that suddenly appeared there.
Arrogance will get you, every single time.
As soon as he was in range, I reached up and slammed my silverstone knife into his chest. I drove the blade in as hard and deep as I could before yanking it out and plunging it into him again. The giant needed to get dead—now. I could still hear my other pursuers behind me, racing ever closer to the pine-filled woods and the freedom that they represented.
The giant screamed in pain, telling everyone exactly where we were, and fell to his knees. He reached for me, trying to hold on to me until his buddies could come and watch him die, but I eluded his groping grasp. Normally, I would have moved in for the kill then and slit his throat, but I just didn’t have the time—
Crack! Crack! Crack!
More bullets zinged in my direction, thunking into the trees. Splinters zipped through the air, and the sharp, sticky scent of pine sap burned my nose. I jumped over the wounded giant and darted deeper into the woods, trying to escape the web of death that was slowly tightening around me.
I ran through the forest, leaping over snow-covered logs, stumbling over icy rocks, and shoving through frozen thickets full of sharp, brittle briars. All the while, I held my breath, hoping that my next step wouldn’t be my last. That my boots wouldn’t slip too badly on the snow and ice, that I wouldn’t break my ankle, that I wouldn’t make the single misstep that would mean my death.
Making my way over the hidden, treacherous terrain wasn’t the only thing that I had to worry about. Man-made traps littered the woods as well as magical trip wires, elemental Fire bombs, and other nasty things just waiting for me to stumble into them so they could blast me off to hell. I moved as fast as I dared, keeping to the path that I’d scouted before and skirting around the traps I’d already found on my way in. I kept my pace quick and steady, but I didn’t run blindly, even though the back of my neck itched as though there was a gun pointed right there, right at the sweet spot that would end me.
Paranoia was never a good feeling, especially for an assassin on the run from a botched hit.
And then there were all the giants in the woods, snarling and swarming over everything like wolves tearing into a fresh kill. This time, I didn’t bother skirting around them. If they were between me and my escape, then they got cut with my silverstone knives, as hard and deep as I could manage it and still keep moving.
A few of them blocked my path, putting up as much resistance as they could, but I was quicker and far more ruthless. A swipe or two of my knife, and it was over. By the time the giants realized what was happening, they were more concerned about their guts spilling out of their stomachs than trying to stop me. I moved on, another obstacle hurdled, my eyes fixed ahead once more, ready to take care of the next fool stupid enough to step in front of me. I didn’t bother checking to see if I’d hurt the guards enough to kill them. The giants didn’t matter—only my escape did.
Finally, I managed to put a little distance between myself and my pursuers. The giants’ hoarse shouts faded to eerie echoes that rattled through the trees. But just because they weren’t as close anymore didn’t mean that I was in the clear yet, so I kept moving. I didn’t stop, not even for a second. That would be stupid and sloppy, and I’d already been plenty of both tonight.
I still couldn’t believe that I’d missed Mab. That I’d missed her when I’d had the chance to finish her once and for all—
The click of the gun surprised me.
So did the woman who stepped out of the woods twenty feet ahead of me. Thin, wiry body, gray hair, nut brown skin, pale blue eyes. I recognized her. Ruth Gentry, the woman who’d spoken up during the predinner festivities inside Mab’s mansion.
Now she had a revolver leveled at my chest. The gun was a big, old-fashioned piece, with the kind of fancy pearl finish you see in western movies. It glinted in the moonlight through her fingers, looking as bright as a star against the dark, weather-worn quality of her skin.
“That’s far enough,” Gentry said in the same pleasant voice she’d used with Mab earlier. “Stop right there.”
I did as she asked, even though I wasn’t particularly scared of her and her revolver. The silverstone in the vest that I had on underneath my gray clothes would catch any projectile that thunked into it. The magical metal was better than Kevlar for blocking bullets. Plus, I could always use my Stone magic to harden my skin once more.
Instead, I stood there, stared at the older woman, and struggled to make sense of things. Like how she’d gotten here ahead of me. I retraced my steps in my head, wondering how I’d been so stupid, so slow, as to let someone cut off my escape route.
The giants and the traps in the woods, I realized. I’d spent far too many precious minutes fighting them and skirting around the magical trip wires, which had let Ruth Gentry get in front of me. And now she was standing between me and my freedom.
My hands tightened around the bloody knives in my hands, so hard that I could feel the tiny spider runes stamped into the hilts press against the larger scars embedded in my palms. Not for long.
I could tell by the way her blue eyes stayed on mine and her slow, steady steps toward me that this wasn’t Gentry’s first time facing down someone like me. She wouldn’t be arrogant and assume that just because she’d gotten the drop on me she’d won. She wouldn’t give me an opening to use my knives—unless I made her.
“How did you know that I’d come this way?” I asked, even as I kept both ears open, listening for sounds of pursuit behind me.
Gentry stopped about ten feet in front of me, the revolver still aimed at my chest. Sometime between my seeing her in the dining room and then again out here, she’d put a heavy coat on over her dress. The wool fabric was just as worn and faded as her gown, and the leather boots on her feet were cracked from age and wear. Still, despite her rather shabby appearance, she’d come to Mab’s for a fancy dinner party and had then been prepared enough to tromp through the woods after me on a second’s notice. She was a thinker, then, a planner, which made her that much more dangerous.
She smiled, as though she was delighted by my question. “I guessed.”
I raised an eyebrow, even though she couldn’t see it behind the gray ski mask that covered my face. “You guessed? You must be one hell of a good guesser.”
Gentry shrugged. “Oh, that was just something to say. There wasn’t much guesswork to it r
eally. This end of the forest offers the quickest, most direct route out to the main road. It’s the way I would have come tonight, if I’d been in your shoes.”
Her logic and reasoning were spot-on, although I didn’t compliment her on them. Instead, I stared at her speckled hand and the easy, familiar way she held her revolver, like it was an old friend she didn’t want to let go of. Gentry definitely knew how to use that gun. Her shots wouldn’t go wide like the others fired at me earlier tonight—especially not at this short distance.
Gentry gave me a thoughtful look. “I don’t think that I would have missed Mab, though. Risky, taking a shot like that when there was someone else that close by. You should have waited, at least a few more seconds. Guy was shifting on his feet. Easy to tell that he wasn’t going to keep still much longer.”
I shrugged. She was right, but I wasn’t going to give the old woman the satisfaction of agreeing with her.
She stared at me, peering closely, as if she could somehow see through my ski mask and get a look at my true self—Gin Blanco. Even more interesting was that Gentry seemed rather hesitant to pull the trigger on her revolver. I didn’t know why she hadn’t plugged me full of holes yet, or at least tried to, but that hesitation was going to cost her—her life.
Gentry finally came to some sort of decision about whatever she’d been contemplating because she gave me a regretful shake of her head.
“Well,” she said. “Why don’t you turn around, and we’ll start marching the other way back toward the mansion—”
And that’s when I made my move.
I turned around like I was going to obey her, then pivoted back the other way and threw myself at the other woman. But Gentry was even smarter than I’d thought, because she’d been expecting the bluff. She got three shots off—a tight kill cluster, all of which caught in the silver-stone vest on my chest—before I tackled her and drove her to the ground. The snow cushioned our fall, and Gentry fought back. She tried to club me with the butt of her revolver, but I slapped it away. With my other hand, I brought my silverstone knife up against her neck. Gentry had the good sense to stop before I slit her throat. Something that I was going to do anyway in another minute, two tops.
We lay there on the ground, me on top of her, both of us breathing hard, surrounded by the frosty, foggy cloud of our own exertions. And then, for some reason, Gentry chuckled, as if she was pleased to be an inch away from her own death at the edge of my blade.
“Damn,” she drawled, a deep southern twang coloring her voice. “You’re just as good as they say you are, Spider. But I’m good at what I do too. Gotta be in this line of work or you don’t last long.”
My eyes narrowed. “And what line of work would that be—”
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
For the third time tonight, something surprised me when it shouldn’t have.
Four bullets sliced through the air. One zipped by my face, so close to my cheek that I could feel the heat radiating off it, before disappearing into the darkness. The other three were a bit more problematic. Two thudded into my left arm, instantly numbing it, while the third slammed into my upper thigh.
The impacts knocked me back, and I hissed with pain. While I was off balance, Gentry got her hands in between us, shoved me away, and scrambled over the ground toward her revolver.
I rolled backward away from Gentry, my body flattening the snowdrifts, before coming up into a low crouch. Ribbons of fire spread out from my wounds, moving downward through my left arm and leg. I gritted my teeth and bit back a snarling curse. Fuck. I hated getting shot.
But I was already pushing away the pain, forcing it to the back of my mind, because I had something else to worry about—where those bullets had come from. My head snapped to the left, backtracking the projectiles’ paths.
And that’s when I saw the girl.
It was the same girl who’d been with Gentry in the dining room in the mansion, although at some point during the evening, the girl had put a patched, threadbare coat on over her ridiculous pink prom dress. A pair of worn, cracked boots covered her feet. The shoes were identical to the ones that the old woman wore. The girl also happened to have a rifle with a pearl-inlaid stock aimed at my chest, just like Gentry had a moment before. Déjà vu all over again.
“Leave Gentry alone,” the girl ground out the words and advanced on me, slow and steady just the way the older woman had.
I cursed again, this time at my own carelessness. I should have remembered that Gentry had been with the girl before and that maybe she would be out here with her now. Still, despite the two-on-one odds, I wasn’t done for. Not even close, though I could feel the blood pumping out of the hole in my leg. That wound was definitely the most worrisome.
The girl kept coming at me. I stayed in my low crouch and let my silverstone knife slip out of my right hand. Then I dug my fingers into the snow and closed my hand into a tight fist.
Satisfied that I wasn’t going to try to attack her, the girl’s hazel eyes flicked to Gentry to check on the other woman, who was still searching for her revolver. The girl was distracted, just for a second, but it was all the opportunity I needed.
I snapped up my hand and hurled my snowball in her direction. The wad of ice hit the girl’s rifle, and she shrieked with surprise. She did the smart thing and pulled the trigger again, but I was already up and moving at an angle toward her. The girl turned toward me, but by that point I was too close. I jerked the rifle out of her hand and cold-cocked her in the face with the butt. She dropped like a stone, and I turned the gun around, ready to pull the trigger and shatter that thin, pretty face of hers with a bullet or two—
“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.
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.