Authors: Jennifer Estep
My gaze fell to Bria’s throat, and the rune necklace hanging there. The one that she always wore—the one I’d never seen her without. A delicate primrose. The symbol for beauty. Bria’s rune, the silverstone medallion given to
her by our mother, Eira Snow, when she was a little girl. Our older sister, Annabella, had worn an ivy vine around her neck, representing elegance, while our mother’s rune had been a snowflake, the symbol for icy calm.
Once upon a time, I’d had a necklace as well—a spider rune, of course. A small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. The symbol for patience. My assassin name. And so much a part of who and what I was.
In a way, I still had my spider rune and, like Bria, never went anywhere without it—because the metal medallion had been melted into my palms by Mab.
The memories of that night swam up in my head and, for a moment, I was back there. Tied down to a chair. Sweat streaming down my face. Choking on the stench of my own charred flesh. The silverstone melting, burning, searing its way into my palms—
My hands tightened into fists, and I felt another piece of metal dig into my skin—a small silverstone ring on my right index finger. The slight sensation was enough to derail my memories, and I dropped my gaze to the ring, latching on to the distraction.
Truth be told, it wasn’t much to look at. The ring was completely plain and featureless, except for the tiny spider rune stamped into the middle of the thin band. But to me it was more precious than any diamond because it had been a gift from Bria.
My sister had given me the ring for Christmas. She’d worn it for years as a reminder of me, her big sister, Genevieve Snow. Even now, two more silverstone bands glinted on her left index finger—with runes carved into both surfaces. Snowflakes for our mother, and ivy vines for our
older sister. Bria wore the rings every day, along with her primrose rune, as a tribute to them, our lost family.
I pulled my gaze up from the jewelry and looked at Bria. For seventeen years, I’d thought that she was dead, that I’d accidentally killed her. After Mab had tortured me that night, I’d heard Bria scream and thought that the Fire elemental had found the place where I’d hidden her. So I’d lashed out with my Ice and Stone magic to try to escape from the ropes that had held me down, to try to get to Bria before Mab killed her. But I’d used too much magic far too wildly. As a result, I’d collapsed our whole house—and I’d thought that Bria had been crushed to death by the falling stones. A secret guilt that I’d carried with me until just a few months ago when Bria had come back to Ashland.
My sister had been drawn here by a picture of the spider rune scar on my palm that Fletcher had sent her. Just as I’d started looking for her when the old man had arranged to leave me a photo of her from beyond the grave. Fletcher had wanted us to find each other, and we had. But our reunion hadn’t exactly been a rosy one. As a detective, Bria had dedicated her whole adult life to being a cop, to helping people, to doing the right thing and making sure that bad guys like me got exactly what they deserved. As the assassin the Spider, all I’d done was kill people for money and contribute to my retirement fund. The two worldviews didn’t exactly mesh.
But Bria and I were working through our differences—or at least trying to find some common ground. It had started at Christmas, when I’d saved Bria from getting dead at the hands of LaFleur and had told my sister who
I really was. Bria had been shocked and horrified that her big sister, Genevieve, had grown up to be the Spider, but she was trying to accept me, which is more than I’d dared to hope for.
Now, almost two months later, we weren’t exactly best friends, but we weren’t enemies either. We had coffee sometimes and tried to talk. But even when we just sat there staring at each other, searching for something to say, I was grateful that my sister was back in my life. I thought that Bria felt the same way. At least, I hoped she did.
Bria wasn’t alone. Xavier, the roughly seven-foot-tall giant who was her partner on the force, stepped inside the Pork Pit and shut the door behind him. I knew Xavier well and counted him among my few friends. The giant had helped me out of some tough situations a time or two, and I’d returned the favor a while back by going after Elliot Slater, the sick, twisted bastard who’d been stalking and terrorizing Roslyn Phillips, Xavier’s main squeeze. Roslyn had eventually killed Slater, but as the Spider, I’d claimed responsibility for his death to take the heat off her.
The two of them headed over to the counter. I leaned down on my elbows and waited for them. Sophia stood off to my left, peeling potatoes in case anyone else came in this afternoon who had a hankering for the thick, steak-cut French fries that the Pit was famous for, among other things.
“Hey there, baby sister,” I said to Bria. “Xavier.”
They nodded at me.
“Here for a late lunch?” I asked.
Xavier grinned at me, his teeth flashing like opals
against his onyx-colored skin. “Something like that. Think the owner will give us a break on the price?”
“Oh,” I drawled. “She might make an exception for two of Ashland’s finest.”
They both took off their coats and settled themselves at the counter. Xavier sat down first, forcing Bria to move in between him and Finn or risk being left out of the conversation that was sure to follow. My sister sighed but slid onto the stool.
For his part, Finn was all too happy to swivel around in Bria’s direction and give her his most charming, winning, aw-shucks smile.
To say that Finnegan Lane was something of a womanizer was like telling someone that it was a little steamy in the South in the summertime. Old, young, fat, thin, blonde, brunette, bald, toothless, face like a steel trap, Finn didn’t care as long as it was breathing, female, and had the breasts to prove it. He wasn’t even particular about how perky they were. Finn regarded pesky little things like wedding bands, engagement rings, and jealous, hulking menfolk more as amusing challenges than immovable obstacles that could be hazardous to his health. It always amazed me that some jilted husband hadn’t hired me, the Spider, to kill my foster brother long ago. But Finn had his own sort of magic when it came to charming the ladies.
At least, until he’d met Bria.
Finn had laid a hell of a kiss on my sister during a Christmas party at Owen’s mansion. The kind of kiss that would make most women melt. Some men too. But Bria wasn’t most women. Oh, I could tell that my sister
was attracted to Finn. She’d have to be blind not to be. But she was going to make him work for every sly innuendo, every heated look, every steamy kiss. Which, of course, only made Finn pursue her that much harder. So far, though, Bria had proved to be just as wily and elusive as Finn was clever, rebuffing every attempt he made to get close to her.
Still, there was something in Finn’s eyes when he looked at Bria, something that made me think that all this effort might be a little more serious than he let on, something I’d never seen before—a touch of fear. Like maybe he was afraid of what he could actually feel for her—of falling for her the way that he’d made so many other women fall for him.
Maybe I should have stepped in and told him to knock it off. Having the two of them at odds didn’t exactly make for warm, fuzzy family moments. But for once, a woman was getting the best of Finnegan Lane, and damned if I wasn’t enjoying the show.
“Detective,” Finn crooned in his most seductive voice. “You’re looking smashing, as always.”
Bria smiled at him, although as many teeth as she bared, it was more of a warning. “Lane. I see you’re as oily and smarmy as ever.”
Finn pouted and put his hand over his heart. “Oh, detective, how you—”
“Wound you.” Bria finished his sentence and snorted. “If I ever did hurt you, Lane, you’d know it.”
Finn raised an eyebrow and turned to look at me. “I see that your sister has the same violent streak that you do, Gin.”
I gave him a toothy smile that matched Bria’s. “Must run in the family.”
Farther down the counter, Sophia let out a soft, raspy laugh. The Goth dwarf enjoyed Finn’s discomfort just as much as I did.
Despite Bria’s icy attitude, Finn didn’t give up. He focused all of his attention on her, as if he were a general and she was just another battle to be won no matter what casualties he might suffer along the way—including the complete and utter loss of his self-respect, pride, and dignity. Bria coolly rebuffed all of his advances, but she wasn’t completely immune to his charms. Interest sparked in her gaze whenever she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Bria enjoyed being chased just as much as Finn liked running after her.
“So, what’ll it be?” I asked.
Xavier ordered a double cheeseburger with all the fixings, along with fries and baked beans. Bria opted for the Pork Pit’s most excellent grilled cheese sandwich, along with some potato salad and a piece of strawberry pie—the final slice that Finn hadn’t managed to scarf down yet.
Sophia and I worked on the food, and the five of us talked back and forth across the counter. The dwarf and I slid the steaming food over to Xavier and Bria, and the two of them spent the next twenty minutes stuffing their faces, while Finn talked enough for everyone. Food, friends, and my sister, all in one place. It was about as good as things could get for me. Almost good enough to let me forget about how I’d botched my hit on Mab last night.
Almost.
Bria and Xavier polished off their food, but instead of saying their good-byes, the two of them lingered in the Pork Pit. It wasn’t like either one of them to do that, not while they were on duty, no matter how good the food was. Something was going on.
Bria kept sneaking glances at first me, then Xavier. The giant nodded his shaved head at her, telling her to get on with it. Still, she hesitated. So I decided to make things easy for her, seeing as how the relationship between us hadn’t exactly been smooth sailing so far.
“Something on your mind, Bria?” I asked.
Bria looked up, startled by my question. Then a rueful grin spread across her pretty face. “Is it that obvious?”
“Probably not to anyone else but me.”
She nodded, accepting my explanation. “Actually, there is another reason that Xavier and I came by the Pit today, other than the food.”
Bria drew in a breath and stared at me. “We need your help, Gin.”
My sister asking for my help—especially considering the violent, bloody kind of
help
that I specialized in—was a new experience. But I wasn’t about to deny her. Anything that Bria asked of me, I would happily give her—and then some. Still, if my sister, the straight arrow, the upstanding detective, had turned to me, the morally bankrupt assassin, for aid, then something really big must be up.
I raised an eyebrow. “Really? You need my help? Who exactly needs killing?”
Bria winced. “It’s not—it’s not like that. Not like that at all, Gin. I don’t want anybody dead.”
I stared at her another moment before my gaze cut to Xavier. The giant just shrugged his massive shoulders, telling me that Bria had the lead on this thing, whatever it was.
“So what’s up?” I asked. “Why do two such esteemed members of the Ashland po-po need my help? Got a dirty cop you need to bust or something?”
Xavier snorted, with good reason. Besides the giant and Bria, honest cops were rarer than blizzards in the summertime in Ashland. Most members of the police force preferred to take wads of C-notes to look the other way, rather than actually try to solve the many crimes that plagued the city. It was easier, less dangerous, and far more profitable for everyone involved that way. For most folks, the only justice in Ashland was what they made for themselves—with whatever sharp, pointed weapon happened to be nearby.
Bria took a sip of her blackberry lemonade and tapped her left index finger on the counter before reaching down and twisting around the two rings that she wore there. Turn, turn, turn. Twisting the silverstone bands around and around was Bria’s tell, something that she did whenever she was thinking hard about a problem. Light pooled in the snowflake and ivy symbols embedded in the metal and flashed the runes back at me.
“It’s not that we need your help,” she finally said. “It’s just that we can’t quite figure things out.”
“What do you mean?”
Bria looked at me. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that there’s been a bit more crime lately in Ashland than usual.”
“Especially for the dead of winter,” Xavier chimed
in. “Usually, crime around here goes down the more the snow piles up, since most folks don’t want to get out into the cold. Of course, we get a few bums squatting in abandoned buildings over in Southtown, some trash-can fires that get out of control, but that’s about it, except for the usual stuff.”
By
the usual stuff
, Xavier meant all the domestic disputes, robberies, rapes, gang violence, and assorted murders that took place in the city on a daily basis. From a distance, Ashland might resemble a larger version of Mayberry, but in reality, the city was about as far removed from that quaint Southern ideal as could be. The only whistling folks did in Ashland was after they’d bashed you over the head, ripped your purse off your arm, and were strolling away counting the bills inside.
“Crime around the city has skyrocketed in the past few days,” Bria continued. “Bar fights, robberies, beatings, murders. It’s like some kind of army has invaded Ashland and is determined to tear up as much stuff as they can.”
I frowned, and my mind flashed back to last night and the dinner guests that I’d seen at Mab’s mansion. They’d all had a hard edge to them, a sharpness in their faces, and a twitch in their fingers that had marked them as potential dangerous troublemakers. I glanced at Finn, who was staring back at me, the same thought shining in his eyes.
“You think the crime spree has something to do with Mab’s guests?” I asked him.
Finn shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Although the people that Mab does business with usually have a little more self-control than to go around getting into bar fights.”
He had a point, so I waved at Bria, telling her to continue.