Spider's Trap

by Jennifer Estep

  Footsteps slapped on the floor, heading toward us. I dropped down into a crouch and peered around the table situated at the corner of the hallway, Owen next to me.

  Jack Corbin raced in our direction, his legs and arms pumping hard. Behind him, a man appeared at the far end of the hallway.

  Raymond Pike.

  Pike had ditched his usual suit and was dressed just like I was—black boots, black pants, long-sleeved black shirt. A gun was holstered at his waist, while a mace dangled from his hand. An open black sack was slung across his chest, the sort that a farmer would fill with seeds, so he could reach in and scatter them as he walked through a field. Weird. What did he have in there?

  Pike’s blue eyes glowed with magic. He waved his hand, and a cold, hard surge of power blasted off his body and rolled down the hallway. In a normal house, that one wave of his magic would have been enough to make anything metal shake, rattle, and vibrate. Picture frames would have ripped off the walls, sculptures would have toppled over, chandeliers would have crashed down from the ceiling.

  But nothing happened here—no crashes, no bangs, no destruction of any sort. Well, that explained why Lorelei had so little metal in her mansion. She’d wanted to neutralize her half brother’s power as much as possible. Smart.

  But Pike wasn’t worried by the lack of metal—because he’d brought his own.

  He dropped his hand down into the black sack on his chest, then drew it back out. The bag tinked at his movements, and my stomach clenched as I realized exactly what was inside it.

  “Nails,” I whispered.

  Sure enough, Pike tossed a handful of nails out in front of him, even as he let loose with another wave of metal magic. The nails blasted down the hallway like bullets—straight into Corbin’s back.

  Punch-punch-punch-punch.

  Nail after nail slammed into Corbin’s back, and he screamed out in pain. Owen and I ducked, but the table hid us from Pike’s line of sight. None of the nails even came close to hitting us, since Pike placed each and every one of the projectiles exactly where he wanted them to go, given how much precise control he had over his magic.

  Pike waved his hand again, using the nails in Corbin’s back to propel the other man forward and slam his head into the wall. Corbin dropped to the floor, unconscious.

  I expected Pike to move in for the kill, but he eyed Corbin a moment, then turned and vanished into another hallway.

  Owen and I darted forward. He knelt next to Corbin, while I kept an eye out for Pike. When I was sure that the metal elemental wasn’t coming back, I glanced at Corbin. A dozen nails stuck up out of his back. Blood had already soaked through his blue shirt, but it didn’t look like the nails had hit anything vital. Lucky man.

  “Leave him be,” I whispered. “He’s unconscious, which is for the best right now. And forget a frontal assault on Pike. We have to take him by surprise. He’s too strong in his magic, and we brought too much metal with us.”

  I held up my knife. Owen stared at it before looking at his own blacksmith hammer. He nodded.

  We moved forward and peered around the corner where Pike had disappeared, but he was already gone. We crept down the hallway. Once again, I took care where I put my feet, not wanting a floorboard to creak and give away our position. As far as Pike knew, he, Lorelei, and Mallory were the only people left in the mansion, and I wanted to keep it that way.

  “Oh, Lorelei . . .” Pike’s voice rang out with an eerie, sing-song quality. “Come out, come out, wherever you are . . .”

  I tried to follow the sound, but the mansion had an open floor plan, with lots of wide archways, and his voice rattled around and bounced off the walls, making it hard to pinpoint exactly where he was. So I reached out with my magic, listening to the marble, brick, and granite, searching for any disturbances in the stone that would tell me which way Pike had gone.

  Owen and I reached another hallway, this one running front to back through the house. Dark mutters echoed through the stone at the back, so I pointed in that direction. Owen nodded, and we headed that way.

  “Lorelei . . .” Pike’s voice rang out again. “You can’t hide from me. Not for long. You never could. Not even when we were kids.”

  “And you always were a sick son of a bitch.” Lorelei finally spoke up. “Even back then, I knew that there was something seriously wrong with you. And all the years since haven’t changed my opinion one bit.”

  Her voice was tinny, with more than a little static. Owen pointed to an intercom box on the wall. The whole mansion was probably wired, which meant that Lorelei could be anywhere inside.

  “You shouldn’t have run away after you murdered our father,” Pike called out. “If you had just accepted your punishment back then, I might have killed you quickly. But not now. Not after I got locked up. Not after having to chase you all these years.”

  “How did you find me?” Lorelei asked.

  “It was a bit of blind luck,” he replied. “I recently entered into a new business venture with an interesting group of people. One of my conditions in adding my resources to theirs was their help in finding you. It was surprisingly easy, since one of the members knew all about your new identity. She’d even done some business with you.”

  I wondered who Pike was talking about and how that person could know who Lorelei really was. Fletcher had never been a slouch when it came to helping people disappear. So who had been able to see through the new identity he’d given Lorelei all those years ago?

  Owen and I reached the end of the hallway, and I glanced around the corner. Pike stood in the middle of the next hallway over, about twenty feet ahead of us. Too far for me to try to stab him in the back. He’d hear me coming and pelt me with nails, just like he had done to Corbin. I thought back to the mansion blueprints in Fletcher’s file, but there wasn’t another room or hallway that would let me get any closer to Pike or come at him from a different angle. So I was stuck, waiting for him to either go forward or head back in this direction.

  “Oh, Lorelei . . .” Pike called out in that creepy voice again. “Where are you . . .”

  A door opened at the far end of the hallway, and something tink-tink-tinked across the floor. A grenade spun to a stop right at Pike’s feet, twirling around and around like a toy top. Looked like Lorelei had stocked up on some of those weapons she smuggled.

  But it didn’t work.

  Pike cursed and flung his hand out. His metal magic sent the grenade skittering back down the hallway in the direction it had come from. The door at the far end slammed shut. I counted off the seconds in my head. Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .

  Boom!

  The grenade exploded, blowing large chunks out of the walls and incinerating the closed door. But Pike didn’t flinch at the shooting flames and resulting debris. Then again, he built bombs. He probably enjoyed those sorts of things.

  “Oh, Lorelei,” Pike purred, once the noise of the explosion died down. “Your weapons won’t do you any good. Not against my magic. Metal is in practically everything. Just the smallest trace of it, and I can control it with ease. Even here, in your carefully arranged house, there’s still more than enough of it for my purposes. And you know how creative Dad taught us to be with our magic, all the tricks he made us learn, even you, with your weak powers.”

  A floorboard creaked, and Lorelei darted from one room to the next in front of Pike. He growled and went after her—

  But Lorelei must have dropped another grenade behind her, because Pike lurched back out into the hallway and flattened himself against the wall.

  Boom!

  Another explosion ripped through the mansion.

  “Enough of your stupid games!” Pike roared. “Come out and fight me!”

  Lorelei’s mocking laughter floated out of the intercom system. “You always were a sore loser, even when we were kids and Dad would pit us a
gainst each other. If you couldn’t win the game right off the bat, then you just didn’t want to play at all, did you, Raymond? You might have more raw magic, but I was always more creative with my power. All you were ever interested in making were those stupid spikes, maces, and bombs. Dad was always so disappointed in you about that.”

  Tink-tink-tink.

  Lorelei tossed another grenade into the hallway, but Pike used his magic to send the device skittering back into the room it had come from.

  Boom!

  The grenade exploded, and a loud scream sounded, as though Lorelei had been caught in the blast. Pike laughed and rushed forward, with Owen and me hurry­ing to follow.

  We reached a wide archway that led into a kitchen, with a series of glass patio doors that overlooked the backyard. What looked like blood was spattered on the white tile floor, with a smear of it going behind the island in the middle of the room, as though Lorelei had dragged herself back there to hide. Pike headed in that direction.

  I motioned to Owen to circle around and approach Pike from a door on the far side of the kitchen so we could flank him. Owen nodded and hurried down the hallway.

  Pike crept closer to the bloody trail. His back was still to me, so I eased into the kitchen. Approaching him was a calculated risk, but I had to get to him before he noticed the knives I was carrying and tried to use the metal against me. But he was moving slowly, and I was coming on fast. Another ten seconds, and he’d be mine.

  Ten . . . seven . . . five . . .

  I tightened my grip and raised my knife.

  Three . . . two . . . one . . .

  Pike whipped around and snapped up his hand, magic surging off his body. My knife got stuck in midair, as though I were trying to slice through a brick wall instead of empty space. I grunted and struggled, pushing back against his power with my own Stone magic. It took me a second to break free of his invisible hold and stagger back.

  Pike arched an eyebrow, more amused than concerned. “You again with the knives. When are you going to learn? You can’t sneak up on me with those.”

  I bared my teeth. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe when you’re dead.”

  I faked that I was coming at him with my knife again, then raised my free hand and blasted him with Ice magic. But Pike was as quick as I was, and he reached into his satchel and flung out a handful of nails. The metal met my Ice, crushing the deadly shards and sending them all crashing to the floor between us.

  Even as I started forward again, trying to get close enough to just stab him already, Pike darted around the island, reached down, and yanked Lorelei to her feet. I stopped short.

  “Hello, sis,” he crooned, holding the spiked ball of his mace up against her throat. “So good to finally see you again after all these long years apart.”

  “I wish I could say the same,” Lorelei muttered.

  If Pike and I resembled commandos in our black clothes, then Lorelei was loaded for bear. She too was dressed in black and wearing enough weapons to start a small war. A bandolier studded with grenades was cinched across her chest, a brace of knives circled her waist, and her elemental Ice gun was holstered to her thigh.

  Despite her previous scream and the blood on the floor, Lorelei didn’t have a scratch on her. No blood, no cuts, no bruises of any kind. I knew a feint when I saw one, and there was still one other person in the mansion who hadn’t made an appearance yet: Mallory.

  Lorelei stared at me, then deliberately flicked her eyes to the right, toward the glass patio doors. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a small shadow creeping up to the doors, and I realized what their plan was. Lorelei would lure Raymond into the kitchen with her fake scream and blood trail. Then Mallory would step up to the doors and shoot him.

  It might have worked too—if me and my do-gooder intentions hadn’t come along and messed up the whole thing.

  Even as I cursed myself for ruining their plan, Raymond dug the mace’s spikes into Lorelei’s throat, making her tilt her head to the side to keep from getting skewered.

  “I was already going to kill you slowly,” he hissed. “Draw it out for a few hours. Now, I’m going to make it last for days.”

  Even if Mallory had been in the kitchen instead of outside, she couldn’t have taken out Pike now, not with Lorelei in the line of fire. It would have been a difficult shot even for Finn.

  Good thing I had some backup.

  Owen slipped through the kitchen’s back entrance, raised his hammer, and crept toward Pike. I stared at the metal elemental, not giving any indication that he was about to get his skull smashed in.

  “You wanted to help me, Gin,” Lorelei drawled. “I’d be all right with that happening any old time now.”

  “Don’t rush me,” I drawled back. “These things take time—”

  Pike’s eyes lit up with his magic again, and another wave of power rolled off his body, ripping Owen’s hammer out of his hand. Pike had sensed the metal weapon the same way he had sensed my knife.

  I surged forward, hoping to take him by surprise, but Pike saw me move and let loose with another burst of power.

  Even though Lorelei had eliminated as much of the metal as she could from her home, there was still one room where there was plenty of it: the kitchen.

  At Pike’s command, a butcher’s block of knives zoomed off the counter and slammed into my right arm, opening up deep cuts. One of the knives stuck in the tendons in my wrist, and I barely managed to hold on to my own weapon.

  “Gin!” Owen yelled, and stepped forward, his hands clenched into fists.

  Pike turned and threw his mace, causing Owen to drop to the floor. The heavy weapon zipped over his head and thunked into one of the cabinets behind him.

  While Pike was distracted, Lorelei grabbed her elemental Ice gun, pressed the muzzle against his leg, and pulled the trigger. The gun shattered in her hand as the icy bullet punched into his thigh just like a metal one would have. Nice.

  He screamed and let go of her. Lorelei ducked.

  “Now!” she yelled.

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  The glass doors shattered as bullets punched through them, and I spotted Mallory standing outside, revolvers in her hands. But Pike held up his own hands, sending out blast after blast of magic, the invisible waves of his power catching the metal bullets and sending them ping-ping-pinging all over the kitchen. Owen and I both ducked to keep from getting shot by accident.

  Click-click-click.

  Mallory ran out of ammo. She cursed, tossed her guns away, and reached for two more that were holstered to her waist, but Pike was quicker. He shoved his hand into his satchel, came up with a handful of nails, and tossed them at her. He used a much stronger blast of magic than he had used with Corbin, and the nails zipped through the air and punched straight into Mallory’s chest.

  The dwarf grunted at the hard, brutal impacts and staggered back, out of my line of sight.

  “Grandma!” Lorelei yelled, scrambling to her feet and running around the island.

  Pike sent an iron rack full of pots and pans mounted to the ceiling crashing down on top of her. Lorelei hit the floor, groaning.

  “You’re not getting away this time,” he growled.

  I got to my feet and darted forward. Pike let out another soft, deadly laugh and raised his hand.

  The kitchen knife still stuck in my wrist jerked loose, and I screamed as it sliced through my tendons. The pain was so intense that my own silverstone knife slipped from my bloody, nerveless fingers. It clattered onto the top of the island, and Pike used his magic to send it skittering off the countertop and right into his hand.

  Owen yelled, surged back up to his feet, and charged at Pike, who whipped around and sliced out with my knife. Owen jumped back, but his foot caught in the bottom of one of the pans on the floor, and he lurched to one side, his knee letting out an ugly pop. Owen yelped, c
linging to one of the counters just to stay upright.

  Pike put his back to a row of cabinets, his eyes flicking back and forth between Owen and me as he flipped my knife end over end in his hand.

  I grabbed hold of my Stone magic and used it to harden my skin, just in case he decided to throw my own knife at me.

  “Whom to kill first?” Pike murmured.

  He was so busy looking at us that he didn’t notice Lorelei reach out from under the rack of pots and pans and start fumbling with a drawer in the bottom of the island.

  But I wasn’t going to wait for her to act. My hands curled into tight fists, blood squeezing out between the fingers of my injured right arm. I didn’t bother palming the knife hidden up my left sleeve. The way this fight was going, Pike would just use his metal magic to disarm me again. So this time, I reached for my Ice power. A silver light flared, and a long, sharp dagger appeared in my left hand.

  I flashed the cold, glittering Ice at Pike. “Try to take this one away from me, you son of a bitch,” I hissed.

  Pike looked at the Ice dagger, then at my face, his eyes narrowing in thought. Too late, I realized what I’d done—and all the memories I’d triggered.

  “You . . . you were in the woods!” he accused.

  “Guilty as charged,” I hissed again. “I should have killed you back then when I had the chance. But I’m going to rectify that mistake right now.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  Pike waved his hand again. This time, the refrigerator wrenched free of the wall and zipped across the floor, coming straight at me. I staggered out of the way as it toppled over, the doors opening and spilling vegetables, mayonnaise, milk, and more all over the floor.

  Lorelei finally yanked open a freezer drawer in the bottom of the island and pulled out another elemental Ice gun. A row of identical weapons were lined up inside the frosty space. Cool arsenal.

  Even though she was still tangled up in all those pots and pans, Lorelei flipped over onto her back and raised the weapon to fire at Pike.