Jennifer Estep - Spider's Bite

The familiar, heavy footsteps sounded, and a moment later, Jo-Jo Deveraux threw open the door. Her eyes widened at the sight of my battered, blistered face.

“Ding-dong,” I said. “The bitch is dead.”

Jo-Jo just smiled.

“Are you sure you couldn’t have killed her sooner, Gin?” Finn asked. “Before she made your skin look like you had the worst case of chicken pox and poison ivy ever?”

“I don’t know,” I sniped. “Why don’t we rewind time and see how you would have fared against Alexis James’s Air magic?”

Finn cocked an eyebrow. Jo-Jo sat in front of me, but I glared over her head at him.

“Shush,” Jo-Jo said. The dwarf’s eyes glowed white with magic. “It’s harder to concentrate while you two are having one of your spats.”

Jo-Jo had spent the last hour pouring her magic into me. Unlike Finn’s previous wounds, most of mine had been caused by elemental magic, which meant they were harder to heal, despite Jo-Jo’s own strength and expertise. Magic was always harder to undo than it was to create in the first place.

The dwarf using so much of her magic on me at one time also hurt like hell. Even though I knew Jo-Jo would never harm me, my body felt like it was still back in the rock quarry being thrashed with Alexis James’s Air magic. Which is why Sofia Deveraux stood behind me, pinning my arms to my sides so I wouldn’t move or try to get up out of the padded chair before Jo-Jo was finished with me.

She sent another surge of her Air magic into my left arm, working on the bullet that was still lodged in there. I gritted my teeth and looked for something to focus on besides the way Jo-Jo’s power made the spider rune scars on my palms itch and burn — along with the rest of my body. My eyes latched onto Sophia’s hands. Despite the Goth dwarf’s love affair with black, pale, little-girl-pink polish covered her short fingernails.

“Nice color,” I said.

Sophia grunted her agreement and tightened her grip on me. I bit back a groan. I could have been pinned under a Mack truck, and it wouldn’t have felt as strong and solid as Sophia’s hands. No wonder she could throw dead bodies around like they were plastic dolls.

While Jo-Jo worked, Finn filled the dwarven sisters in on everything that had happened the past few days.

“So Alexis James actually thought she was going to dethrone Mab Monroe?” Jo-Jo asked. “She’s not the first one to think that way. Poor girl was really touched in the head, wasn’t she?”

“Stupid,” Sophia agreed in her raspy voice.

I thought of the pure, raw power Alexis James had possessed. Her desire to take on Mab for control of Ashland didn’t sound as far-fetched to me as it once had. But Alexis was dead now, and that was all that mattered.

After Jo-Jo fixed the damage, Sophia let go of my arms, and she and Finn moved into the kitchen to get something to eat. Jo-Jo got up, went over to the sink, and washed my blood off her hands. I stayed where I was in the padded chair, relaxing.

“You were wrong,” I said.

Jo-Jo wiped her hands off on a paper towel. “About what?”

“About nothing being able to penetrate my Stone magic. Alexis James’s Air power did.”

The dwarf shrugged. “You said yourself your concentration broke. Next time, you’ll know what to expect. Besides, you’re still young, Gin. You’re just now fully coming into your power.”

“But Alexis was stronger than I was,” I protested. “Her magic was stronger. I felt it. You saw what she did to me with it.”

Jo-Jo gave me a sly look. “If she was so strong, how come she’s rotting out in the quarry and you’re sitting here in my chair?”

I didn’t have an answer to that.

The dwarf chuckled. “Pure strength is one thing, darling, whether it’s magical or natural. It’ll only get you so far. But how you use what you’ve been given — that’s what really matters. When you figure that out, ain’t nobody going to be able to touch you. Not even me or Mab Monroe.”

Jo-Jo threw her paper towel away and started puttering around the salon. While she worked, I just sat there in the chair pondering her words — and the cold fear they raised in me.

The Alexis James story played out for the next week. To say it was a circus would have been to underestimate the rabid appetite of the Ashland media. Story after story flooded the airwaves and newspapers about James and the trail of bodies in her wake. Donovan Caine must have been a better liar than I’d given him credit for, because the detective placed the blame for everything on Alexis, and nobody seemed willing to contradict him.

Haley James might have, if she’d been able to. But her home burned to the ground with her in it the night after the incident at the rock quarry. Only the house’s stone foundation survived the blaze, along with a few of Haley’s teeth. Everything else was totally obliterated by the heat. The fire was ruled an accident, and the coroner said Haley probably died from smoke inhalation, since he didn’t actually have her body to autopsy. But I had no doubt Mab Monroe had paid Haley a visit for hiding Alexis’s activities from her. So the very thing Haley had feared came true after all. Irony. What a bitch.

Finn made his own discreet inquiries into the matter, reaching out to his various contacts. He wanted to know if Haley had spilled her guts to Mab, if she’d said anything to the Fire elemental about Fletcher, Finn, or me. About what we did or what the James sisters had hired us to do. But evidently, Haley had never gotten the chance. Rumor had it that Mab had been so enraged at Haley’s part in the embezzlement scheme that the Fire elemental had fried her on the spot. No questions asked. And with Alexis and the rest of her men dead, there was no one else to tell the tale. Which meant that Finn and I were safe from anyone else nosing around or blowing our cover to Mab.

A week after the incident at the rock quarry, we buried Fletcher in Blue Ridge Cemetery. Me, Finn, Jo-Jo, Sophia, the waitstaff and cooks from the Pork Pit, some of Fletcher’s buddies, who were as gnarled and old and grumpy as he’d been. Roslyn Phillips also showed up for the service, although the vampire stood off to one side by herself.

It was another gorgeous fall day. Cerulean blue sky, bright sun, clouds that were smoother than marshmallow creme. The cemetery stood on a plateau on top of one of the mountains that ringed Ashland and offered a spectacular view of the sprawling city and countryside below. The grass gleamed like gold underfoot, while the burnt sienna and scarlet leaves painted the landscape with even more color. The mountaintops around us were smoky blue smudges against the sky.

We ringed a plain wooden casket burnished to a high gloss. Fletcher hadn’t wanted anything fancy, he hadn’t been that kind of man, and Finn had respected his father’s wishes. The preacher had just started the graveside service, and people were already weepy. Several of the waitstaff and cooks snuffled into tissues. The old men dabbed their eyes with white handkerchiefs. Finn did the same. Jo-Jo Deveraux bawled like a baby, unashamed of her many tears, even though they were ruining her makeup. Sophia stood over her older sister, patting her back. The younger dwarf was dry-eyed, just like me. I’d cried my tears the night I’d found Fletcher’s body. Now, I just felt … empty. Hollow. Another piece of my heart was gone, and it was never coming back. Just like all the other bits I’d lost over the years.

As the preacher spoke the traditional words of comfort, my mind drifted back to the day Fletcher had taken me in …

My family had been gone nine weeks now. Maybe ten. Time had little meaning to me anymore. All that mattered was finding enough food for one more day and someplace that wasn’t too cold to sleep at night. Something that was getting more difficult as winter approached. My favorite spot was next to this barbecue restaurant called the Pork Pit. A crack in the alley across from the back of the restaurant was just big enough for me to squeeze into. I liked the small, tight space and the muted contentment of the stones in the surrounding buildings. Both of them made me feel safe, even though I knew it was only an illusion.