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  Spider’s Bargain

  The cop was going to die tonight.

  He just didn’t know it yet.

  For Detec­tive Cliff Ingles, this was just another Sat­ur­day night in the south­ern metrop­o­lis of Ash­land, and he was spend­ing it the way he did all his other Sat­ur­day nights—slugging down drinks and ogling the sul­try vam­pire hook­ers at North­ern Aggres­sion, the most pop­u­lar night­club in the city.

  Just before mid­night, and peo­ple packed into the night­club. Men in designer suits, women in skirts that barely cov­ered their asses, all look­ing for their par­tic­u­lar brand of poi­son. Blood, booze, drugs, sex, smokes. North­ern Aggres­sion offered all that and more, as long as you had the cash or plas­tic to pay for your par­tic­u­lar vice.

  Still, despite the ver­i­ta­ble unwashed masses that sur­rounded me, I had to admit that the night­club had a deca­dent style about it. Crushed red vel­vet drapes cov­ered the walls, while the floor was made of soft, springy bam­boo. But the most strik­ing thing in the club was the bar that ran down one wall—an elab­o­rate sheet made entirely of ice. Runes had been carved into the slick sur­face of the ice. Suns and stars, mostly, sym­bol­iz­ing life and joy. I sup­posed the sym­bols were rather appro­pri­ate, given all the peo­ple get­ting hot ‘n’ heavy in the booths in the back of the club.

  Either way, I’d spent the last hour sit­ting at the Ice bar—along with Cliff Ingles.

  The detec­tive threw back his third whiskey of the evening, then leaned for­ward and mur­mured some­thing in the ear of the vam­pire wait­ress who’d brought over his drink. The two of them were near the cen­ter of the enor­mous Ice bar, about fifty feet away from my posi­tion around the curve and up against the far wall.

  Ingles never had a clue that I was watch­ing him. No real rea­son why he would. If the detec­tive had both­ered to look in my direc­tion, all he would have seen was another woman drink­ing her way through a night out on the town.

  Even if the detec­tive had noticed me, even if he’d come over and tried to pick me up, I would have told him exactly who I was. Gin Blanco. A part-time cook and wait­ress at the Pork Pit bar­be­cue joint in down­town Ash­land. A Stone and Ice elemental.

  And the assas­sin known as the Spider.

  The woman who was going to make sure Detec­tive Cliff Ingles quit breath­ing before the night was through.

  But there was no dan­ger of Ingles notic­ing me. I wasn’t his type. The bas­tard pre­ferred to force him­self on young, help­less girls.

  And with the five sil­ver­stone knives hid­den on my per­son, I was any­thing but helpless.

  I took another sip of my gin and tonic and stud­ied my tar­get, com­par­ing the man in front of me to the photo that had been in the file of infor­ma­tion that my han­dler, Fletcher Lane, had given me when he’d told me about the hit.

  Detec­tive Cliff Ingles stood six feet tall, which meant he was a good foot shorter than the giant bounc­ers who patrolled the night­club and kept every­one in line. Still, at more than two hun­dred fifty pounds, Ingles wasn’t a small guy, although his once trim, hard mus­cle was slowly giv­ing way to flabby fat under­neath his expen­sive navy suit.

  With his thick, honey-blonde hair, wide smile, and square chin, Ingles wasn’t an unat­trac­tive man. But his brown eyes got a lit­tle nar­rower and a lit­tle meaner with every drink that he had. Now, he reminded me of a cop­per­head, all coiled up and ready to lash out and sink his poi­so­nous fangs into who­ever crossed his path tonight.

  Ingles wore his gold detective’s badge openly on the leather belt around his thick waist, along with his gun, almost like being a mem­ber of the Ash­land police force was some­thing to be proud of.

  I snorted into my drink. Every­one knew that the major­ity of the Ash­land cops were dirt­ier than the gang­banger graf­fiti that cov­ered some of the city’s build­ings. Ingles was no excep­tion. Fletcher had dug up all sorts of nasty bits of busi­ness that the detec­tive was involved in. Extor­tion, gam­bling, forc­ing vam­pire hook­ers to give him free­bies in the back of his city-issued sedan. Ingles was a real classy guy all the way around.

  But he wasn’t going to die for those par­tic­u­lar sins. No, Cliff Ingles was get­ting my par­tic­u­lar brand of atten­tion because he’d raped a thirteen-year-old girl, beaten her after the fact, and left her for dead. Ash­land was a vio­lent city, full of bad peo­ple doing a lot of bad things. But Ingles was the low­est sort of scum for what he’d done to that girl.

  And I was here tonight to make sure that he never had the chance to do it again.

  Pro fuck­ing bono.

  Nor­mally, I didn’t work for noth­ing. Mine was a highly spe­cial­ized skill set, and I liked get­ting paid for it. I earned it, if only for all the blood I had to wash out of my clothes and hair after the fact.

  And as the Spi­der, I got paid a lot to kill peo­ple. I’d been in the assas­sin busi­ness since I was thir­teen. Now, creep­ing up on thirty, I had more money tucked away than I could spend in two life­times. Which was one of the rea­sons my han­dler, Fletcher, kept nag­ging me to retire. The old man wanted me to live long enough to actu­ally spend and enjoy my ill-gotten gains.

  So far, I’d only lis­tened to Fletcher with half an ear. Killing peo­ple was all that I knew how to do. What the fuck would I do if I retired? Take up knit­ting? Adopt stray pup­pies? Get knocked up by some guy, move to the sub­urbs, become a soc­cer mom, and try to put my bloody past behind me?

  None of those things par­tic­u­larly appealed to me. Well, maybe the pup­pies. I’d always been a dog person.

  But the sim­ple fact was that I liked my job. Sure, it was dark, dan­ger­ous work. But the blood and the screams didn’t bother me, and I’d long ago given up try­ing to save my own immor­tal soul from the fiery hell I knew I was des­tined for. Besides, every once in a while, I got to take care of some­body like Cliff Ingles. Got to make the city of Ash­land just a lit­tle bit safer in my own twisted way.

  It was the lit­tle things in life that made me happy.

  A bit of cool magic surged through the air, inter­rupt­ing my mus­ings. I glanced over at the guy tend­ing bar. His eyes glowed a blue-white in the semi-darkness of the night­club, as he embraced his power once more. The Ice ele­men­tal respon­si­ble for keep­ing the bar in one piece for the night was feed­ing a bit of his magic into the cold, mas­sive structure.

  My own slug­gish Ice magic responded to the famil­iar influx of power trick­ling into the bar. I was an ele­men­tal too, with the rare abil­ity to use two of the four elements—Stone and Ice in my case, although my Ice magic was far weaker than my Stone power. Usu­ally, though, I didn’t think too much about my magic when I was out on a job. As the Spi­der, I didn’t use my ele­men­tal pow­ers to kill.

  That’s what my knives were for.

  Still, I uncurled my palm from around my drink and stared down at the scar embed­ded in my flesh. A small cir­cle sur­rounded by eight thin rays. A spi­der rune. The sym­bol for patience. My name­sake, in more ways than one. A match­ing scar dec­o­rated my other palm.

  The spi­der rune had once been a medal­lion that I’d worn around my neck as a child, until a Fire ele­men­tal had super­heated the metal and burned the sym­bol into my palms, mark­ing me for­ever the night she’d mur­dered my family—

  “Dis­gust­ing pig!”

  The vam­pire wait­ress that Cliff Ingles had been propo­si­tion­ing spat out the words, then drew back her hand and slapped him across the face—hard. Despite the music that filled the club, I still heard the sting­ing crack of her blow at my end of the bar.

  Wow. What­ever he’d said to her must have bee
n pretty bad for her to react that way. Because the vam­pire was also a hooker, just like all the other folks on the wait staff. There weren’t many things you couldn’t do at North­ern Aggres­sion, which made me won­der exactly what sick thing Ingles had just suggested.

  “Bitch!” The detec­tive snarled, his hand drift­ing down to the gun on his belt, like he wanted to pull it out and cold-cock her with it.

  The vampire’s dark eyes widened, and she backed up a cou­ple of steps.

  But before Ingles could pull his gun and retal­i­ate, one of the giant bounc­ers cut through the crowd, tak­ing up a defen­sive posi­tion in front of the wait­ress, shield­ing her from Ingles with his seven-foot frame. The giant’s shaved head glinted like onyx under the club’s black lights.

  “Is there a prob­lem here?” the giant rum­bled, his deep bari­tone voice cut­ting through the puls­ing beat of the music.

  I’d seen this par­tic­u­lar giant around the club a time or two when I’d been in here before. Hard to miss seven feet of solid mus­cle. Xavier was his name.

  Ingles stared at the giant in front of him. His eyes cut to the wait­ress before flick­ing back to Xavier. The waitress’s hand­print marked Ingles’ cheek like a scar­let let­ter, not even start­ing to fade. But the detec­tive made a vis­i­ble effort to get him­self under con­trol. He might be a mem­ber of the Ash­land po-po, but Ingles knew he’d get his ass kicked if he kept push­ing things. Even cops couldn’t get away with assault­ing women—at least not in public.

  “No prob­lem,” Ingles spat out. “The bitch isn’t worth it. I was just leaving.”

  Xavier nod­ded. “You do that.”

  Ingles’ eyes nar­rowed to slits in his face, but he reached into his pocket, drew out a cou­ple of bills, and tossed them on the Ice bar. Then, the detec­tive turned and started shov­ing his way through the crowd, head­ing for the door.

  But instead of imme­di­ately fol­low­ing him, my gray eyes skimmed over the scene, flick­ing from the peo­ple three deep around the Ice bar to those groov­ing out on the dance floor to some old song by The Pre­tenders. Look­ing for trou­ble, search­ing for any­thing out of place, any­one who was tak­ing a par­tic­u­lar inter­est in my tar­get or me. I’d been an assas­sin for almost twenty years now, and I hadn’t sur­vived this long by being sloppy.

  But once he made sure Ingles was really leav­ing, Xavier turned back to the wait­ress, and the two of them started talk­ing. To them, the detec­tive was just another creepy cus­tomer they’d had to kick to the curb. It hap­pened, even here at North­ern Aggres­sion, where very lit­tle was off lim­its. But no one else showed any inter­est in Detec­tive Cliff Ingles or more impor­tantly in me.

  Which meant it was finally time to make my move.

  I swal­lowed the rest of my gin, enjoy­ing the sen­sa­tion of the cold liquor slid­ing down my throat before start­ing its slow, sweet burn in my stom­ach. Then, I paid my own tab, walked away from the Ice bar, and saun­tered out of the club, mov­ing ever closer toward my prey.

  The Spi­der was ready to spin her web for the evening.

  #

  It was late July, and the night air was thick with humid­ity the way it always was this time of year. Ash­land was located in the moun­tain­ous cor­ner where Ten­nessee, Vir­ginia, and North Car­olina met in the heart of the Appalachian Moun­tains. So muggy sum­mer nights were part of the region’s many charms. Even here in the city, more than a few fire­flies winked on and off in the dark­ness, their quick lit­tle flashes match­ing the smol­der­ing red glows from the cig­a­rettes of those smok­ing outside.

  Even though it was after mid­night now, a line of peo­ple still stood out­side the night­club wait­ing to get in past the giant guard­ing the vel­vet rope in front of the entrance. Above his head, a neon sign shaped like a heart with an arrow through it flashed red, then yel­low, then orange. The rune for North­ern Aggres­sion, the sym­bol the nightclub’s owner, Roslyn Phillips, used to pro­mote and iden­tify her business.

  I walked away from the club’s entrance, scan­ning the rows of parked cars, look­ing for Detec­tive Cliff Ingles. Ten…twenty…it didn’t even take me thirty sec­onds to spot him.

  Because Ingles hadn’t got­ten far. The detec­tive had moved off into the park­ing lot and was now stalk­ing back and forth under­neath the gen­tly sway­ing ten­drils of a weep­ing wil­low. An anony­mous black car sat next to the large tree. The detective’s city-issued sedan. The license plate and descrip­tion had been in the file of infor­ma­tion that Fletcher Lane had given me. The old man was noth­ing if not thorough.

  I looked at every­thing, from the peo­ple still stand­ing in line to Ingles to the few folks stag­ger­ing out to their cars in the side lots that flanked the night­club. Nobody gave me a sec­ond glance, and nobody was sober or close enough to the detec­tive to notice anything—especially not him dying.

  Per­fect.

  I smoothed down my black leather miniskirt and put a lit­tle swing in my hips as I approached the detec­tive. If I’d just come to the club to enjoy myself, I would have worn my usual out­fit of jeans, boots, and a long-sleeved T-shirt. But tonight, since I was going out on the town as the Spi­der, I’d dressed up a bit, just in case I had to use my fem­i­nine wiles to lure Cliff Ingles to my side long enough to stab the bas­tard to death.

  Which is why in addi­tion to the leather miniskirt, I was also sport­ing a long-sleeved, red silk skirt and a pair of black, stiletto-heeled boots that came all the way up to my thighs. I’d even teased out my bleached blonde hair to TBH—Tennessee Big Hair—proportions. In short, I looked like a girl out to have an evening to remember.

  Cliff Ingles cer­tainly wouldn’t for­get meet­ing me.

  I didn’t bother to walk qui­etly, and the sharp crack of my heels on the pave­ment soon caught Ingles’ atten­tion. The detec­tive glared in my direc­tion, but the hot anger shim­mer­ing in his brown eyes soon turned to some­thing darker and uglier as he took in my outfit.

  I tossed my hair back over my shoul­der to take one more quick glance around, but nobody was star­ing in our direc­tion. Excellent.

  I finally stopped when I was within arm’s reach of Ingles. I put one hand on my hip and struck a pose, let­ting him get a good, long look at me and all I had to offer.

  “Hey, there, sugar,” I cooed in my best slow, sweet, husky, south­ern drawl. “Got a light?”

  Ingles’ brown eyes flicked down my body and back up again, men­tally check­ing off parts of my anatomy one by one. Boobs. Thighs. And the sweet spot in between them. He must have liked what he saw, because a cold, hard smile lifted his lips.

  “For you, dar­ling? Of course,” Ingles murmured.

  The detec­tive started pat­ting the pock­ets of his suit, look­ing for his cig­a­rette lighter. While he was dis­tracted, I dis­creetly slid my right arm behind my back and palmed a sil­ver­stone knife—one of five that I had on me tonight. A sec­ond knife was tucked up my other sleeve, while one rested in the small of my back. Two more were hid­den in the tops of my fuck-me boots. My usual five-point arse­nal. Never left home with­out ‘em.

  While Ingles searched for his lighter, my gray eyes scanned the area around us one more time. But the clos­est per­son was at least a hun­dred feet away, and the music drift­ing out from the club would cover any sound the detec­tive might make.

  My hand tight­ened around the hilt of my knife. The weapon felt cold, hard, solid against my skin. The weight of it com­forted me the way that it always did.

  Ingles finally found his lighter, flicked it on, and held it up to me. The flame wavered in the dark­ness between us, a tiny bea­con of sput­ter­ing light.

  Ingles frowned when I didn’t imme­di­ately pro­duce a cig­a­rette, lean for­ward, and let him get a bet­ter look at my boobs.

  “Hey,” he snapped. “Don’t you have a smoke on you? Because I’m not giv­ing you one of mine. Damn things are too expen
­sive for that, these days.”

  He paused, his eyes nar­row­ing and his smile get­ting that much colder. “Unless you want to trade me some­thing for it, darling.”

  Fuck him for a cig­a­rette? I’d rather stab myself. Yeah, Cliff Ingles was a real class act.

  But I gave him my most win­some smile, keep­ing up the cha­rade just a few sec­onds longer. “No,” I replied. “I don’t have a smoke on me. I’ve got some­thing bet­ter. This.”

  I brought my hand around from behind my back and showed him the sil­ver­stone knife. The mag­i­cal metal glinted dully in the semi-darkness.

  Ingles’ brown eyes widened in sur­prise, but before he could open his mouth to scream, my arm punched for­ward, and I buried my sil­ver­stone knife in his heart.

  All the way up to the hilt.

  Ingles drew in another breath, but before he could scream it out, I clamped my free hand over his mouth, my fin­gers dig­ging into his skin.