Jennifer Estep - By a Thread

Dekes was a vampire who’d been sucking down blood for three hundred and some odd years. At the very least, that meant that he was physically stronger than me, his senses were sharper, and his reflexes were quicker, something he’d proved when he shot me with that dart gun last night. Then there was the small matter of the kind of blood that Dekes indulged in on a regular basis—elemental blood. I didn’t know how long he’d been feeding off Vanessa and Victoria, but the vamp had used their Fire and Air magic last night with ease, like he’d been born an elemental himself—and now he had my Ice and Stone power running through his veins as well.

Any way you looked at it, Dekes would have the advantage. If he didn’t kill me with his stolen elemental magic, he could always finish the job with his fists—or fangs.

Owen must have sensed some of what I was thinking because he leaned over and threaded his fingers through mine, his simple touch warming my whole body the way it always did.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered in a voice that only I could hear. “You’ll get him, and I’ll be right there to help you.”

I nodded, not quite trusting myself to speak and voice all the doubts that were swirling through my mind, doubts about whether I could kill Randall Dekes—or if I’d end up being another one of the vampire’s victims before the night was through.

Just before dusk that evening, I found myself in the marsh once more, staring at the back of Dekes’s enormous estate. Jo-Jo had dropped Donovan, Owen, and me off about a mile away before getting into position closer to the front of the mansion. The three of us had left the road behind and made our way through the marsh, keeping to the high ground as much as possible. Now we huddled in a patch of swamp grass and cattails, watching a pair of giant guards walk a slow circuit around a patio on the back side of the mansion.

So far, I’d seen only the two men, but I knew there would be more inside the house, if only to keep an eye on Callie, Vanessa, and Victoria. The Fire elemental especially bore watching. Dekes might think he had Vanessa under control as long as he had Victoria for leverage, but I’d seen the hate that flashed in the Fire elemental’s eyes whenever she looked at her dear husband. If Vanessa could have, she would have happily killed Dekes with her bare hands, then used her Fire magic to burn his corpse to cinders.

I wondered how much Fire power she had left, and if Dekes had weakened her as much as he had me. I had no idea how often the vamp fed from Vanessa, how much power he took when he did, or how long it took her magic to replenish itself. Hopefully, Vanessa would have enough juice left to be of some use to us.

“What are we waiting for?” Donovan muttered in the grass beside me, slapping at a mosquito that had landed on his arm. “Shouldn’t Finn, Bria, and Sophia be in position already?”

My cell phone vibrated in my hand before I could tell him to be patient. I hit a button and held it up to my ear. “Talk to me, Finn.”

“Looks like we’ve got three giant guards in the front of the house.” Finn’s voice was soft in my ear. “Two walking a route along the outer wall and one stationed by the front door. The gate is closed right now, but it won’t be for long.”

“You ready with the distraction?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. The poor bastards will never know what hit ’em.” I could hear the smug smile in his voice.

“All right. Get ready. As soon as you go, so will we. You guys search the ground floor and deal with any opposition there, and we’ll take the third level and do the same. If we don’t find the women there, we’ll go down to the second floor and look there. Hopefully, we’ll meet up somewhere in the middle.”

“Got it.”

Finn quit talking, but he didn’t hang up. Neither did I. Instead, I kept the line open and slid the phone into one of the top pockets of my vest so I could get to it in a hurry if I needed to. Whichever group found the women first would signal the others.

I could feel Donovan’s eyes on me, lingering on the vest that covered my chest. Zippered pockets stuffed with supplies covered the front of the vest, which also had a heavy layer of silverstone embedded in it. The vest was black, just like the rest of my clothes—boots, cargo pants, and a long-sleeved T-shirt. I’d pulled my hair back into a ponytail and smeared two stripes of mud under my eyes to break up the paleness of my skin.

I knew that it wasn’t really the vest that got Donovan’s attention but rather what it stood for. My wearing the vest meant I was creeping around in the shadows as the Spider once more, stalking my intended prey for the evening—and that he was right here beside me again, whether he wanted to be or not.

The detective sighed and looked away, checking his gun again. On the other side of me, Owen raised his eyebrows and shifted in the grass, running his fingers up and down the staff in his hands. He had shown me the long silverstone staff right before we left the beach house. Owen made weapons as a hobby, something that his elemental talent for metal helped him excel at, and the staff was his latest creation. He’d decided to bring it along when Finn called and said that Bria and I had gotten into trouble down here. Owen had put the same care into the weapon that he had the silverstone knives he’d made me, so I knew the staff would be more than adequate to help him cave in a few giants’ skulls tonight.

Owen jerked his head at Donovan, but I just shrugged. I didn’t care what kind of mood the detective was in as long as he helped us rescue Callie and the other two women.

As for me, Dekes might have taken my regular knives last night in the library, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t armed. I’d packed a couple of spare silverstone knives in my suitcase, just in case something unexpected came up while we were in Blue Marsh. One knife was in my hand, another was up my left sleeve, and the others rested in the pockets of my vest, just waiting for me to grab and use them.

Donovan let out another sigh and squirmed in the grass. “Any damn day now—”

In the distance, a sudden roar ripped through the air, and a flash of fire flared upward into the sunset sky before blooming into a black cloud of smoke. In addition to being rather handy with guns, Finn enjoyed making the occasional explosive in his spare time, and he’d just used his expertise to blast open the front gate. A few shouts rose up, followed by the sharp crack-crack-crack of a gun. Finn again, putting down the guards in the front of the house, along with some help from Bria. My baby sister wasn’t quite as good a shot as Finn, but she could hit a giant’s head at a hundred feet, which was all she needed to do tonight.

The two men guarding the back of the house froze at the sudden explosion of noise, fire, and smoke. They glanced at each other, then ran into the interior, heading for the front of the mansion to find out what the hell was going on. I waited a few seconds to see if any reinforcements would hurry outside and take up their positions, but none did.

“Let’s go,” I said, and slipped out of the swamp grass.

I took the lead, followed by Owen, then Donovan. The three of us sprinted around the edge of the pond that butted up against the back of the mansion and pounded up a set of stairs to the third floor. The giant guards had forgotten to lock the door to the patio in their haste to go help their friends, just like I’d hoped they would. I opened it, and we slipped inside.