Spider's Trap

by Jennifer Estep

  So I drove over to Lorelei’s mansion in Northtown. I parked about half a mile away from the edge of her property, which butted up against the Aneirin River, not too far away from Salina Dubois’s former estate, which I’d had the misfortune to visit earlier this year. I just hoped things went better tonight than they had back then.

  Fletcher had included several photos of Lorelei and Mallory’s estate in his file, and I’d studied the images before I’d left the house. As with most Northtown mansions, thick stands of trees separated their home from their closest neighbor’s, giving the illusion of privacy—and plenty of places for an assassin to hide.

  A full moon glimmered in the sky, along with a bright blanket of stars, giving me enough light to navigate through the woods. Good thing, since I didn’t dare use a flashlight. If Pike was out here, I wanted to take him by surprise, which meant no lights and no noise of any kind.

  I reached the edge of the tree line and hunkered down behind a large maple. I pulled a pair of night-vision goggles out of my black duffel bag, held them up to my eyes, and scanned the estate.

  The mansion was modest by Northtown standards, three sprawling stories with about thirty rooms total. A pool was at the right side of the house, along with an impressive garden filled with bird baths and feeders. Thick, padded chairs shaded by umbrellas were arranged on a stone patio. I could easily picture Mallory sitting outside and watching the flowers and birds for hours on end.

  To my surprise, Lorelei didn’t have all that many giant guards patrolling the perimeter. I only spotted three doing a slow circuit around the house, stepping into and out of the golden glows cast out by the numerous lights mounted on the mansion’s exterior. Given that Pike was gunning for her, I’d assumed that she’d have at least a dozen men on the premises, if not more. Or maybe she really did think she could take care of Pike by herself. If that was the case, I admired her confidence, even if it was most likely going to get her killed.

  Once I’d scanned the grounds, I put away the night-vision goggles and pulled out a pair of binoculars, training them on the mansion itself. Some of the windows were covered with lace curtains, but it looked like every single light in the entire house was on. I wondered if that was because Lorelei wanted to see her brother coming.

  I moved my binoculars back and forth, peering at all the doors and windows, until I spotted Lorelei sitting at a desk in a library on the first floor. She held her hand out in front of her, and a pale blue light flickered on her fingertips. A second later, the light vanished, leaving behind a rectangular piece of elemental Ice in her hand. She studied it a moment, then reached for her power again, creating another piece of Ice, this one shaped like a short cylinder.

  Then another one, then another one.

  I watched while she created and assembled all the odd bits of Ice, as though she were working a jigsaw puzzle. But the end result was far more interesting than a pretty picture.

  It was a gun.

  It looked like a small revolver, but it was made entirely out of elemental Ice, including the single bullet that she created and then loaded it with. An Ice gun . . . that must have been what I’d seen glinting in her clutch at the garden party. It would also explain the chill that had been radiating off her bag.

  Impressive. I’d heard of such weapons, but I’d never seen one being made before, and I certainly didn’t have the skill to do something like that. An Ice dagger was about as complicated a shape as I ever made. Lorelei might not have as much raw magic as I did, but she more than made up for it with her finesse. Maybe she was better prepared than I’d thought. Maybe she was even better prepared than me. At least she wasn’t carrying around metal weapons that could potentially be used against her.

  I scanned the other rooms, but I didn’t see Mallory. She must be somewhere deeper in the mansion. She wouldn’t leave Lorelei as long as Pike was alive.

  So far, her brother had been playing games with her. Since he’d failed in his previous attempts, it would make sense for Pike to come here and finish what he’d started by trying to kill Lorelei. I was counting on it, and it looked like she was too.

  Since the mansion was secure, I switched back to my night-vision goggles and scanned the woods around me again, but I didn’t see or hear anything unusual. Just the rustling of the wind dancing through the branches, the bzz-bzz-bzz of a few bugs droning defiantly against the growing cold, and the mournful hoots of an owl hidden in a tree.

  So I left my hiding spot and did a perimeter sweep, keeping one eye on the guards patrolling the mansion and the other on my surroundings, just in case Pike had slipped into the woods without me spotting him. I reached out with my Stone magic, listening to the whispers of the rocks hidden under the brown, brittle leaves, but they only reflected back my own tension at what might happen here tonight.

  I completed my circuit and was about to return to my initial hiding spot when a branch snapped off to my left. But what was even more interesting was the faint cursing that followed.

  I frowned. Surely Pike wouldn’t be that sloppy, but perhaps the terrain had undermined him. Either way, I was going to take advantage of his blunder, so I palmed a knife and headed in that direction. Maybe this would be an earlier, easier night than I’d thought.

  I sidled through the trees like a ghost, taking care where I stepped so that I wouldn’t give myself away like Pike had. When I was close to where the telltale crack had come from, I stopped and dropped into a crouch, looking, listening, and waiting for Pike to move and make another mistake.

  One minute passed, then two, then three.

  I didn’t hear any more cracks or cursing. Pike must have finally realized that it would be best to be quiet.

  Scanning the woods, I spotted a shadow moving off to my left, creeping closer and closer to my location. My frown deepened. How could he possibly know where I was? I was wearing black from head to toe and staying perfectly still. I should have been just another bit of darkness to him.

  But the shadow kept approaching, slowly sharpening into a distinct, familiar figure—a tall, muscular man.

  I sighed, stood up, leaned against the closest tree, and tucked my knife back up my sleeve. I waited until the shadow had moved past me, then scuffed my feet through the leaves, making enough noise to attract his attention.

  “You want to tell me what you’re doing here?” I drawled.

  Owen whipped around.

  * * *

  We stared at each other for several seconds. Me calm and unruffled, Owen tense and wound up. Like me, he was dressed in black from head to toe and geared up for a night of skulking. He had his phone clutched in one hand and his blacksmith hammer raised high in the other.

  He let out a breath and lowered the weapon to his side. “You could have just called out to me.”

  “I would have, if I’d known you were going to be creeping through the woods.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “What are you doing here?”

  “You mean how did I find you when you thought that you had snuck off without telling anyone what you were up to? Silvio helped me with that.” Owen held up his phone, the light illuminating his face. “While you were taking out the trash today at the restaurant, Silvio installed a new app on your phone, one that lets him track where it and you currently are to within fifty feet.”

  “You guys bugged me?”

  Owen nodded, not the least bit apologetic, and brought the phone up to his ear. “Hey, Silvio. I found her, right where you said she would be. I’ll take it from here. Thanks, man.”

  Silvio murmured something back, and Owen ended the call and slid the phone into his pants pocket.

  My eyes narrowed. “And why did you and Silvio decide to track my phone tonight? I told everyone that I was going home and staying put.”

  “It was Finn’s idea. All three of us knew as soon as Mallory came into the restaurant that you were going to help Lorelei. Finn
had to wine and dine some big new client, and Silvio said he was looking into some stuff for you. So I decided to come and back you up.”

  “But how did you know for sure that I would be out here? I didn’t even know myself until a couple of hours ago.”

  “Finn kept talking about what a soft touch you are. That somebody spins you a sob story, and you go rushing off all by your lonesome to help them.” A faint grin curved Owen’s lips. “Finn said that it’s your own little spider’s trap that you fall into every single time.”

  “I am not a soft touch,” I growled.

  “What Finn was trying to say was that it was obvious at the Pork Pit that you somehow feel responsible for what’s happening to Lorelei. And we all know that when you feel responsible for something, you’ll do anything to make it right,” Owen finished in a soft voice. “That’s one of the things I admire most about you.”

  Frustration surged through me, and I ground my teeth together. I hadn’t called anyone because I hadn’t wanted any of my friends involved in this—none of them. Because Raymond Pike was a dangerous enemy, and it was my responsibility to take care of him. Not theirs.

  “You need to leave,” I growled again. “Right now. Pike could be here any second.”

  “You know that’s not going to happen. I’m here, and I’m staying.” Owen reached out and took my hand in his. “What’s going on, Gin? Something’s up. I can tell. What happened with you and Lorelei? Why are you so interested in Pike?”

  He gave my fingers a gentle, knowing squeeze. Care, concern, and understanding shimmered in his violet eyes, melting the last of my defenses.

  I sighed. “Because Pike has the wrong person. He thinks that Lorelei killed their father, but she didn’t—

  I did.”

  He nodded. “I figured it might be something like that. But how did you even meet Lorelei’s father? Was he one of your jobs as the Spider?”

  “Not one of my jobs, one of Fletcher’s.”

  His features sharpened with understanding. “Finn said that his dad knew Mallory. That Fletcher was the one who introduced Finn to her, back when Finn was first starting out at his bank. What else did Fletcher do for Mallory?”

  I shook my head. “Not here. Let’s get into position, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  * * *

  I led Owen over to my hiding spot, which gave us the best view of the mansion and grounds. We hunkered down inside the tree line, and I used my night-vision goggles and binoculars to make sure that the coast was still clear.

  A car drove up to the mansion, but a quick look revealed that Jack Corbin was behind the wheel. Lorelei must have called him over for added protection, since he was her second-in-command. Corbin steered his car into the garage attached to the far side of the house. A few seconds later, the door slid shut, hiding him and the vehicle from view.

  While I finished my scan, I told Owen everything that had happened that day in the woods. How Renaldo Pike had torn the cabin apart, how Lorelei and I had tried to run away from him, how I’d eventually killed him.

  Owen let out a low whistle. “He really did all those horrible things to his own wife and daughter?”

  I nodded. “And a lot of other people too. Fletcher showed me some crime-scene photos of Renaldo’s victims. Business rivals, mostly. They weren’t pretty. He scratched them up with nails, then used his mace to smash in their skulls.”

  “And Lorelei?”

  I shrugged. “I never saw her again after that day. Fletcher told me that he’d given her a new identity and she’d gone to live with her grandmother. I was happy that she was safe, but I eventually put her out of my mind. I didn’t recognize or really remember her until a few days ago. And now here we are.”

  “And now here you are, helping her again.”

  “Yeah,” I replied in a tired voice. “Caught in my own little spider’s trap again.”

  Owen smiled, the moonlight highlighting the rough, rugged planes of his face. “It’s not really a trap, you know. More like doing the right thing.”

  I sighed. “Sometimes it feels like it.”

  He reached out and squeezed my hand again in a silent show of support.

  I squeezed back, then picked up my binoculars and focused on the mansion. After a minute, I lowered them, then checked the time on my phone.

  “It’s after midnight,” I said, putting my phone away. “You’d think that Pike would have shown himself by now, if he was going to try to kill Lorelei tonight.”

  “Maybe he wants to terrorize her some more first,” Owen said. “So far, that seems to be making him pretty happy.”

  “And it would have made a lot of people pretty dead, if I hadn’t been able to stop him,” I muttered, looking at the mansion. “But I can only get lucky so many times before Pike puts one over on me—”

  The shadow of a man detached itself from the corner of the garage, raising his arm back and throwing something across the lawn. The object landed on the grass and tumbled end over end before finally stopping about ten feet away from where one of the giant guards was patrolling. The guard turned in that direction, his gaze drawn by the motion just like mine had been—

  Boom!

  22

  A ball of fire erupted on the lawn.

  The burst of red-orange light illuminated Pike standing at the corner of the garage, a gun in his hand and a satisfied smirk on his face as he watched the flames shoot into the air.

  How had Pike gotten that close to the mansion without me seeing him? Had he been here the whole time I’d been watching? Maybe he’d arrived before I had. But if so, where had he been hiding that I hadn’t spotted him?

  Compared with Pike’s garden party bomb, this was a relatively small blast, probably from a grenade rather than a full-fledged explosive device. But it was loud and bright enough to get the first guard and the other two to grab their weapons and race in that direction.

  Crack!

  Crack! Crack!

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  But the explosion was a lure, just a trap to get all three guards to come investigate at once. With all of them in one place, it was easy for Pike to raise his gun and mow them down like weeds. The giants never even knew what hit them.

  The second the guards were down, Pike sauntered over to the nearest door, smashed the glass with his gun so he could unlock it, and stepped inside.

  Through the fire and boiling smoke, I could see Lorelei jump to her feet in the library, the elemental Ice gun glinting in her hand. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but she looked grim, determined, and almost . . . happy. As if she was finally getting to do something that she’d waited a long, long time for.

  And I realized that Pike wasn’t the only one hungry for revenge.

  I pulled out my phone and texted Bria, Finn, and Silvio, letting them know that Pike was here. Then I surged forward, but I’d only taken three steps when I thought better of things and stopped. If Pike had indeed gotten here before me, he might have planted some explosives in the lawn to keep people from rushing to the mansion, just like he’d left that booby-trapped bomb in the woods across the river from the Delta Queen. So I turned to Owen.

  “Can you scan the ground?” I asked. “In case Pike hid any bombs in the grass?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I can use my own metal magic to sense his power. Follow me, and step exactly where I step.”

  I didn’t like Owen being out front, where he would be an easy target if Pike came back outside and decided to shoot him, but this was the safest and quickest way for us to get to the mansion.

  Owen’s eyes started glowing a vivid violet, and his gaze dropped to the ground and swept from side to side. He was reaching out with his power, trying to sense any bits of metal that might be buried in the grass and what they might whisper back to him about potential dangers. Still holding his blacksmith hammer, Owen steppe
d out onto the lawn. I followed him closely, palming a knife.

  Pike’s hail of bullets had killed the three guards instantly, so no screams, shrieks, or shouts of pain tore through the air, although a small cluster of flames still crackled at the explosion site. It looked like a cheery campfire, instead of the funeral pyre it really was, marking where the giants had fallen.

  I frowned. Pike had picked the perfect spot at the garage to ambush the giants, almost as if he’d known how many guards would be here, along with their exact routes. The garage . . . A suspicion bubbled up in my mind about where Pike might have gotten that information, but I had no way of confirming it right now, so I pushed the thought aside.

  Owen didn’t find any bombs hidden in the grass, and we reached the stone patio at the side of the mansion.

  I flashed my knife at him. “Now it’s my turn to be in the lead.”

  He nodded, his hammer propped up on his shoulder, ready to back me up, just like always, despite the trouble I’d gone looking for tonight.

  The grenade had blown the glass out of the patio doors, and I carefully stepped through the jagged opening to the other side, minimizing the crunching of my boots in the shards. I didn’t spot Pike, Lorelei, Corbin, or even Mallory in the hallway in front of me. The popping and hissing of the fire still burning on the lawn faded away, and the mansion was as silent as a tomb.

  I sidled along one wall, stopping and peering into every room we passed, with Owen behind me. The interior was quite lovely, each room boasting a different color and theme, from a rose living room with pink sofas to a beach sunroom with white wicker chairs stuffed with blue starfish-shaped pillows.

  But the deeper we went into the mansion, the more I noticed that there was one thing missing from all the fine furnishings.

  Metal.

  Oh, bits of metal flashed here and there, but most every­thing was made out of glass, ceramic, or plastic. No silver picture frames adorned the walls, no iron sculptures perched in the corners, no brass lamps sat on the tables. I didn’t see so much as an aluminum soda can squatting on a coaster—