Black Widow

by Jennifer Estep

  “And I think that you have as little love for your dead mama as I do. You couldn’t care less about what she would have wanted.”

  Anger flashed in Madeline’s eyes, making them flare an even brighter, more vibrant green, the same intense, wicked color as the acid that she could summon with just a wave of her French-manicured hand. She didn’t like me calling her out on her true feelings for her mother, and she especially didn’t like that I’d pointed out that the dedications were all about her ego, not Mab.

  Good. I wanted to make her angry. I wanted to piss her off. I wanted to rile her up so much that she couldn’t even see straight, much less think straight, especially when it came to me. Because that’s when she would make a mistake, and I could finally figure out what her endgame was and how I could stop it before she destroyed everything and everyone I cared about.

  “But who am I to judge?” I drawled on. “I wouldn’t care either, not if she had been my mother. I guess it’s one of those little things that we’ll just have to agree to disagree on.”

  Madeline blinked, and she forced her crimson lips to lift a little higher. “You know, I think that you’re right. We are just destined to agree to disagree—about a great many things.”

  We stared each other down, our stances casual and our features perfectly pleasant but with a deadly, dangerous coldness lurking just below the smooth surfaces.

  “Anyway, I’m afraid I must be going,” Madeline said, breaking the silence. “I have another dedication to prepare for tomorrow. This one’s at the library downtown.”

  “I’ll be there with bells on.”

  “No,” she said in a pleased voice. “I don’t think you will. But I do thank you for coming out here today, Gin. As you said, it’s always so very lovely to see you.”

  Madeline smirked at me, then pivoted on her stiletto and moved back toward the podium, shaking hands and thanking all for their support and well wishes. Emery and Jonah each gave me one more hostile glare before they trailed after her. Soon the three of them were in the heart of the crowd, with Finn and me standing by ourselves underneath the maple.

  “She really is something,” Finn said in an admiring tone, his eyes locked onto Madeline’s lithe, gorgeous figure.

  Despite his being involved with Bria, Finn was still a shameless flirt who loved to charm every woman who crossed his path. He would never do that with Madeline, for obvious reasons, but that didn’t keep him from ogling her for all he was worth. I scoffed and rolled my eyes.

  “What?” he protested. “She’s like a black widow spider. I can admire the beauty of such a creature, even if I know exactly how deadly it is.”

  “Only you would think that being eaten during your postcoital bliss would be worth it.”

  Finn shrugged, then flashed me a mischievous grin. “But what a way to go.”

  He stared at Madeline another moment before looking over the rest of the crowd. He must have spotted someone he knew, perhaps one of the clients at his bank, because he waved, murmured an excuse to me, and headed in the direction of a wizened old dwarf who was wearing a large pink sun hat and an even larger diamond solitaire that could have had its own zip code. Finn never missed an opportunity to mix business with pleasure, and a moment later, he was attached to the dwarf’s side, having winked and wiggled his way past her female giant bodyguard. Finn gave the elderly woman a charming smile as he bent down and pressed a dainty kiss to her brown, wrinkled hand. Well, at least he was an equal-opportunity flirt.

  But I continued to watch Madeline, who was still shaking hands and was now standing directly below the arch that bore her family’s name. Maybe it was the way the sun was hitting the metal, but the word Monroe seemed to flicker and gleam with a particularly intense, sinister light, as though it were made out of some sort of black fire, instead of just sturdy old iron.

  Madeline noticed me staring at her and gave me another haughty, pleased smirk before turning her back and ignoring me completely. Emery and Jonah did the same, moving to flank their boss again.

  All I could do was stand there and watch my enemy have a grand old time, basking in the warm glow of everyone’s collective, attentive goodwill.

  Maybe I’d been wrong when I told Finn that being eaten was the worst part.

  Maybe waiting for the black widow to kill you was the real torture.

  2

  The dedication wrapped up soon after that, and Madeline, Emery, and Jonah got into a black Audi and drove away from the park, probably off to the Monroe family mansion to plot and scheme the rest of the day away.

  I stood beneath the maple, alternating between glaring at the Audi as it zoomed away and that metal arch that was now a permanent reminder of Mab, Madeline, and all the horrible things they’d done to me and the people I loved. My hands clenched into fists again, my fingers digging even deeper into my spider rune scars, and cold anger seared my chest from my heart all the way down into the pit of my stomach.

  Finn finished flirting with the elderly dwarf and her bodyguard and wandered back over to me.

  “I need a drink,” I growled.

  He perked up. “Now you’re talking.”

  We left the newly crowned Monroe Memorial Park behind and walked about half a mile until we came to a gray, featureless building that looked like it might house corporate offices. A large sign of a heart with an arrow through it was mounted over the front doors, the only clue that there was more to this gin joint than met the eye. Northern Aggression, Ashland’s most decadent nightclub, was run by Roslyn Phillips, a vampire friend of ours.

  It was barely past one in the afternoon now, so the neon sign was dark, although it would light up as soon as the sun set, a glowing red, orange, and yellow beacon that would invite folks from near and far to step right on inside and indulge themselves in all the hedonistic pleasures the club offered—blood, liquor, sex, smokes. You could get all that and more inside, in as small or large quantities as you desired, as long as you had enough money to pay to play.

  Roslyn knew that Finn and I were going to the dedication, so she’d invited us to swing by afterward. I knocked on one of the doors, but there was no answer. I rang the buzzer too, in case Roslyn hadn’t heard my sharp, loud raps. Still, no answer.

  “You think something’s wrong?” I asked, worry replacing my earlier anger. “That someone’s holding Roslyn inside?”

  That’s exactly what had happened a few weeks ago when Beauregard Benson, a vampire drug dealer, held Roslyn hostage and forced her to lure me over to the nightclub.

  “I’m sure that Roslyn is fine,” Finn said. “Not everything in life is part of a dastardly plot against you, Gin.”

  I gave him a flat look.

  He sighed. “But, given your past experiences, I suppose that it wouldn’t hurt to check and make sure that everything’s kosher.” He held out his hand. “If you will be so kind?”

  Just like Madeline, I was an elemental with powerful magic. And, just like Madeline, I had a rare talent—being gifted in not one, but two of the main areas, Ice and Stone, in my case. So I held out my own hand and reached for the cool power running through my veins. A silver light flared, centered in the spider rune scar in my palm, before fading away. A second later, I handed over two long, slender Ice picks to Finn.

  He bent over and inserted the picks into the lock. Ten seconds later, the tumblers click-click-clicked into place, and the door snicked open. Finn tossed the Ice picks onto the asphalt to melt away.

  He grinned. “Child’s play.”

  I shook my head and followed him inside.

  The interior of Northern Aggression was dim, with only a few low lights on here and there, and the VIP section off to one side was completely dark. Finn strolled forward, walking out onto the springy bamboo dance floor in the center of the club, but I took a more circumspect route, hugging the thick, red velvet curtains that covered the walls and scanning the shadows, looking for any hint of danger. I also palmed a silverstone knife, one of five that I always carrie
d on me—one up either sleeve, one against the small of my back, and one tucked into the side of either boot.

  Just because I didn’t think that Madeline would strike out at me somewhere like Northern Aggression made it all the more likely that she would. That was just the way my perpetual bad luck went. I was fully expecting some sort of sneak attack from her, a proverbial knife erupting from out of nowhere and stabbing into my back again and again until I was down for the count and bleeding out. That she’d been in town for more than a month and hadn’t made an obvious move yet only set me that much more on edge.

  Oh, yeah, waiting for the black widow to strike was definitely the worst sort of torture.

  “What do you mean there’s a problem?” a loud, angry voice sounded.

  Finn and I both stopped as a door set into the back wall burst open, causing the curtains to swirl in surprise, and Roslyn Phillips came striding through, holding a cell phone up to her right ear. She was wearing a fitted, pale green pantsuit that brought out the rich, toffee color of her eyes and skin, as well as highlighting her gorgeous, curvy figure. A thin headband dotted with clear, square crystals held her black hair back from her face, although the displeased pucker of her glossy pink lips distracted from the symmetrical beauty of her flawless features.

  Roslyn spotted Finn and pointed her finger at the elemental Ice bar that lined one wall, telling him to make himself comfortable. Finn headed in that direction, but I took one more look around before sliding my knife back up my sleeve, going over, and settling myself on the stool next to his. Still holding her phone, Roslyn marched around the Ice bar and started stalking back and forth behind it, making the bamboo floor creak with her hurried steps.

  “Understand you? Of course I understand you. More important, I understand this—we have a contract,” Roslyn snapped to her caller. “And if you don’t honor it, then I will sue you for every drop of liquor and cash that I can squeeze out of you. Understand that.”

  She slammed her phone down onto the bar, causing a few chips of elemental Ice to fly up from the frosty surface. Roslyn glared at the device before pinching the bridge of her nose. She grimaced, revealing the small fangs in her mouth, before letting out a long, tired sigh and dropping her hand from her face.

  “Sorry, guys,” she said. “As you can tell, I’m having a bit of a problem. I heard the buzzer and was coming to get you, although I see that Finn went ahead and let you in anyway.”

  He winked at her. “I never let a little thing like a locked door stand between me and a free drink.”

  Roslyn laughed, but a cold finger of unease crawled up my spine.

  “What sort of problem?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Despite the fact that we have an iron-clad contract and have been working together for years, my liquor distributor has suddenly decided to triple his prices. He’s threatening to stop delivering to the club altogether unless I give in to his demands. Greedy bastard.”

  Roslyn reached under the bar and pulled out a pen and notepad. She flipped over to a new sheet on the pad, then turned around and started counting the bottles of colorful liquor sitting on the mirrored-glass shelves behind her.

  “Why do you think he did that?” I asked. “Why now?”

  She shrugged and kept on counting. “He probably realizes how much money I make just on liquor sales alone, and he wants a bigger piece of the pie.”

  “You don’t think that it’s something else?” I persisted. “That someone put him up to it?”

  Beside me, Finn snorted, slid off his stool, and went around behind the bar.

  Roslyn stopped taking inventory and looked over her shoulder at me, her eyebrows knitting together into a puzzled expression. “Who would put him up to something like that?”

  Finn grabbed an expensive bottle of gin off one of the shelves and gave it an admiring glance. “Oh, no doubt Gin thinks that it’s some sort of elaborate plot on the part of one Madeline Magda Monroe.”

  “Madeline Monroe?” Roslyn said. “Why would she care about my liquor distributor?”

  I sighed. “Because you’re my friend. Because she hates me. Because she’s evil that way. Because she delights in being petty and cruel and watching others suffer, no matter how small and trivial the problems are that she creates.”

  Roslyn gave Finn a look that clearly said she thought I was off my paranoid rocker, although she was too polite to come right out and say so to my face.

  Finn shrugged back, silently agreeing with her, then set about fixing a gin and tonic with a fat wedge of lime, which he slid across the Ice bar to me. “Here. Drink this. It’s a double. Maybe it will drown out some of your delusions.”

  I glared at him, but he merely wagged his eyebrows in response, before making another gin and tonic for Roslyn and then a final one for himself.

  The vampire waved her hand. “Finn’s right. These things happen from time to time. My supplier’s been making noises for a while now about trying to renegotiate our contract. It’s nothing. Just the cost of doing business, especially in Ashland.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Finn agreed. “I’ll drink to that.”

  The two of them clinked glasses, then started chatting about all of the crooked businesspeople they both knew and all the fast ones that those folks had tried to pull on them over the years. But I just sat there, letting their cheery conversation wash over me, my elbows propped up on the cold surface of the bar while I cradled my glass in my hands and brooded into my gin. Normally, I would have enjoyed shooting the breeze with Finn and Roslyn, but right now, I couldn’t even muster up enough enthusiasm to down my drink.

  Maybe Roslyn’s problems with her distributor were a coincidence. Maybe it was a complete fluke that the guy had decided to raise his prices today. Maybe it was just the cost of doing business in our corrupt Southern city, like my friends had said.

  The only problem with all of that was that I didn’t believe in coincidences. Not really, and especially not now, with Madeline in town. Not when there was a chance, however small, that Madeline was pulling someone’s strings, even if it was to make trouble for Roslyn instead of me.

  Then there was Madeline’s not-so-veiled threat at the dedication earlier, when she’d said that I wouldn’t be able to follow her to that library event tomorrow. Had she meant that I wouldn’t be there because I’d be trying to help Roslyn? But Finn was right. That seemed patently absurd, even for my exceedingly high level of paranoia. Roslyn didn’t need my help with her distributor. She could easily take care of something like that herself, just as she had for all the years she’d been running her club. Really, the guy would be a fool to deliberately lose her business, given how much liquor she ordered from him weekly.

  Finn and Roslyn kept chatting, and I chimed in when necessary, but mostly I sat at the bar, trying to puzzle out what Madeline would get out of messing with Roslyn, other than the satisfaction of making the vampire’s life difficult. That would be more than enough motivation for Madeline, but maybe my friends were right. Maybe I was being overly paranoid and crying wolf, when there wasn’t really anything to be worried about.

  But the thing about crying wolf was that the danger was always real and always waiting to gobble you up.

  So despite Finn and Roslyn’s assurances that everything was fine, I couldn’t help but feel that Madeline had finally fired the opening salvo, shattering the delicate détente of our previously cold war.

  * * *

  Finn and I chatted with Roslyn for about an hour before her workers started showing up to get the club ready to open for the night. The two of us walked back to our cars, which we’d left in the Northern Aggression parking lot, and went our separate ways.

  Finn headed downtown to his bank to put in the appearance of actually working today, but I’d taken the afternoon off from the Pork Pit, my barbecue restaurant, to attend the park dedication. Since I didn’t have to report in anywhere, I drove over to the Monroe family estate.

  Yes, I was probably being paranoid
, but it had kept me alive this long. No reason to stop now.

  Actually, I didn’t drive over to the Monroe estate so much as I parked near it, steering my latest Aston Martin onto the side of the road at the next house over, a six-story mansion that belonged to Charlotte Vaughn. I stopped my car about a quarter mile down the road from the open iron gates that led into the Vaughn estate and stuck a white plastic bag in the driver’s-side window, as though something was wrong with the car, and I’d gone to get help.

  I couldn’t exactly cruise down the street past the Monroe mansion, not without being spotted by one of the giant guards manning the closed gate there. But I’d trespassed on the Vaughn grounds many times before, and it was easy enough for me to scale the stone wall, drop down to the other side, and disappear into the thicket of trees that ringed the lawn. After that, it was just a matter of moving through the afternoon shadows until I could step into the dense woods that connected the Vaughn estate to the Monroe one.

  Just before I entered the woods, I stopped and looked up at the Vaughn mansion. The white lace curtains were drawn back from the windows on the third-floor library, revealing a woman with black hair sitting at a desk, a phone cradled in between her ear and shoulder as she typed on a keyboard. Charlotte Vaughn, someone I’d helped and hurt in equal measures years ago. But I wasn’t here to see Charlotte, so I slipped into the woods and continued on.

  Charlotte might be Madeline’s closest neighbor, but their respective mansions were still a couple miles apart, so it took me the better part of an hour to reach my destination—a couple of old, gray, weathered boards that had been nailed about thirty feet up in a sturdy maple and covered with a ragged, tattered camouflage cloth that had seen better days.

  At first glance, it looked like a deer stand that some enterprising hunter had erected and then forgotten about long ago, but just a couple of weeks ago I had come out here in the dead of night and put together my makeshift tree house. Madeline had any number of anonymous, disposable minions whom she could send to the Pork Pit to spy on me anytime she desired, and I’d wanted my own way of keeping tabs on her.