Black Widow

by Jennifer Estep

  And the stuffed rabbit began to smoke and burn in her hands.

  Small drops of acid spattered onto the rabbit’s face, melting it in an instant, as Moira looked up at me with round, scared eyes. I sucked in another breath, and I finally managed to plaster a tight, miserable smile on my face. Well, that answered my question about what kind of magic she might have. As for her power level, it was hard to tell since she was still so young, but if she had even half of Madeline’s strength, then she would be an elemental to be reckoned with.

  Still, as I looked at the girl, trying to seem as nonthreatening as possible, I almost felt as if I were . . . Mab.

  I could see it all so clearly, just the way that she no doubt had all those years ago. How this one innocent girl could one day grow up to be a threat to me. How she could destroy everything I’d built. How she could kill everyone I loved, before she finally murdered me herself.

  In that moment, I could almost . . . understand why Mab had murdered my mother and Annabelle and had tried to do the same to me and Bria all those years ago. How, in her mind, she’d simply been trying to protect herself and her empire. How she’d wanted to nip this potential threat in the bud, since it was by far the most dangerous one that she would ever encounter. And how all she had done was set in motion her own destruction with her attack on my family.

  Yes, I could almost understand Mab’s reasoning back then, but that didn’t mean that I could do what she had done. Because no matter how ruthless I was, no matter how cold or tough or brutal of an assassin, Fletcher had taught me a few simple rules, ones that held firm even now, when I was confronted by the next generation of the Snow-Monroe family feud in the making.

  No kids—ever.

  So I cleared my throat, plastered a more genuine smile on my face, and crouched down on my knees so that my face was level with hers.

  “Hi, there, sweetheart. My name is Gin.”

  I held out my hand to her. Moira stared at me, still frightened, but I had soothed her enough to get her to release her acid magic. The pale green sparks flickering around her fingers vanished, although her rabbit continued to burn against her chest. She gingerly took my hand in hers. I gritted my teeth, expecting to feel the invisible waves of her magic burning my skin, but her hand was small, warm, and soft, with no trace of her power pulsing on her delicate skin—yet.

  “Hey,” she said, perking up for no apparent reason the way that kids so often do. “Would you like to see my room? It’s this way!”

  Instead of letting go of my hand, Moira started tugging me out of the ballroom. I looked back over my shoulder at my friends. Most of them gave me helpless shrugs, but Bria stepped forward, following us.

  Moira led me down the hallway like a general directing a soldier. She didn’t let go of my hand until she reached a door that was cracked open at the end of one of the corridors. The door was painted blue, and as soon as she saw it, she barreled ahead into the room. I drew in a breath and followed her, bracing myself for what I knew I was going to find.

  An enormous playroom lay before me.

  A child-size, white wicker table with four matching seats stood in the center of the room, covered with a white china tea set patterned with delicate blue roses. Real pitchers of lemonade sat on the table, along with a plate of half-eaten sugar cookies and apple slices that had already turned brown. Picture books, dolls, and stuffed animals lined wooden shelves built into one of the walls near a white, padded window seat, while large, open cedar chests in the corners held even more toys. Any little girl could spend hours in this sort of fantasy playground, happily drinking lemonade, eating cookies, and reading books to all her stuffed-animal friends.

  At the far side, an archway led to a large bedroom, and I could see a bathroom branching off that area. This was the suite of rooms that Silvio had shown me yesterday, the ones that he’d thought Madeline was remodeling for some guest. Well, now I knew exactly who’d been staying in them.

  I just didn’t know what to do about it.

  Beside me, Bria stood in the doorway and stared at the playroom, memories, heartache, and longing etched in the tight lines around her mouth.

  “We used to have a room just like this,” she said in a low voice. “Full of toys and games and dolls and tea sets. Do you remember, Gin? What it was like, what we were like, before . . . Mab?”

  I nodded and gripped her hand tight.

  Moira plopped her half-melted bunny down in one of the chairs, then skipped over and grabbed my hand again, pulling me forward.

  “C’mon, Gin. Let’s have a tea party!” Moira stopped, giving Bria a shy look. “The pretty princess lady can come too.”

  I looked at Bria, who looked just as stunned as I did. I shrugged at my sister, and she shrugged back. Moira tugged on our hands and led us both over to the white wicker table in the center of the playroom.

  Why not. It would be better than the party we’d just been at.

  * * *

  Bria and I sat on the floor next to the table while Moira ran around the playroom, introducing us to all her dolls and stuffed animals. My sister and I made the appropriate noises, but we were both still too stunned to really hear what the little girl was chattering on about.

  Jo-Jo came to the playroom a few minutes later, and the dwarf somehow managed to get Moira settled in bed and started reading a book to her. So Bria and I slipped away and went back out to the ballroom.

  The rest of my friends were still there, checking the bodies, but I ignored them and marched over to where Jonah McAllister lay in front of the terrace doors. He was still out cold, so I started kicking him in the ribs until the weaselly bastard woke up. It didn’t take long before he groaned and rolled over onto his side. I kicked him one more time, then leaned down, grabbed the lapels of his tuxedo, hoisted him upright, and slammed his body back against the closest door. It took his brown eyes a moment to focus on me, but I was pleased to note the fear that filled them the second he realized that I was looming over him.

  “The girl,” I ground out. “Moira. Madeline’s daughter. Start talking. How old is she? Where is she from? Who is her father?”

  Jonah just stared at me, more and more fear filling his eyes and blocking out everything else, including my pointed questions.

  I shook him once, roughly, then leaned forward a little more so that my face was inches away from his. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

  His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “I don’t know much.”

  I leaned forward even more.

  “I don’t! I swear!” Jonah cried out. “Just that the girl is almost four years old. Madeline had her, but she wanted to focus on building her own business empire, so she left the girl with her father.”

  “And who might that be?”

  He shrugged. “Some Stone elemental, I think. Apparently, he really loved Moira and was happy to raise her by himself. Then Madeline came around again and told him that she was taking her daughter to Ashland. The father tried to run, tried to take the girl with him, but Madeline had Emery track him down.”

  My heart sank. I could imagine exactly what the giant had done to the runaway father. “Is he still alive?”

  “I think so. But you know Emery. She could have easily killed him just for spite.”

  I dropped McAllister. His head cracked against the marble floor, but he shook off his daze enough to flip over onto his belly like the snake he was and start crawling away from me. For once, I let him. I was too busy thinking about Moira.

  Xavier and Bria moved toward McAllister, probably to ask him more questions about Moira and her father, but I stalked back across the ballroom until I was standing in front of Madeline.

  “You sly Monroes,” I growled to the acid elemental’s still-frozen corpse. “You do delight in fucking with me from beyond the grave, don’t you?”

  Madeline didn’t answer, of course, but I could have sworn that I saw the curve of her crimson lips and the gleam of her white teeth through the Ice, almost as if the b
lack widow were laughing at me one final time.

  * * *

  At my request, Bria and Xavier called the cops to the mansion so we could put our own spin on how everything had gone down here tonight. Instead of leaving the scene of my crime like I had so many times before, I stayed and faced the po-po with my friends.

  Most of the officers seemed more shocked at my having actually killed Madeline than anything else, even that I was still alive, but none of them approached me, and none of them dared to arrest me. Even if they’d tried, they couldn’t have so much as touched me, thanks to all those old, antiquated laws I’d found on the books. I’d challenged Madeline to a duel, she’d accepted, and she’d lost. Perfectly legal, and perfectly deadly. For her at least.

  I’d thought that the cops might try to take me in for supposedly killing Captain Dobson, but Silvio had already laid the groundwork to get me out of that too. He had a quiet, but rather pointed, discussion with the commanding officer on the scene about the bull pen, how I could identify many of the cops who’d been there that night and, worst of all, sue the department for every dime it had. So all the charges against me were summarily dropped. Silvio even got the commanding officer to promise to issue me a public apology.

  As for the other dead bodies, Bria and Xavier claimed that the crowd watching the duel had panicked and that several folks had been trampled to death as a result. It wasn’t plausible, not at all, but none of the surviving underworld bosses were going to speak up and tell the police what had really happened.

  Dr. Ryan Colson arrived soon after that, along with several of his assistants. I hadn’t seen the coroner since my visit to his office, but he didn’t seem surprised or upset by my presence here. Colson gave me a respectful nod, which I returned, then went about his business of seeing to the bodies. He would know that they hadn’t died from being trampled, not given all the stab wounds, snapped necks, and bruised throats on them, but I doubted he would make an issue of it.

  Eventually, I settled myself on part of the marble staircase that had escaped Madeline’s acid. Owen drifted over and sat down next to me. Together, the two of us watched the cops work.

  “Now what?” he asked. “What are you thinking about, Gin?”

  I looked around the ballroom. Two hours ago, it had been a beautiful spot, glittering, pristine, and perfect with its diamond chandeliers, creamy orchids, and soft white lights. Now it looked like a bomb had gone off inside the once-elegant space.

  I felt the exact same way inside with the revelation that Madeline had a daughter—and that perhaps our family feud wasn’t as finished as I’d thought.

  Mab had killed my mother and older sister and had tried to do the same to me and Bria. Because of all that, I’d grown up with one thought on my mind—revenge. I wondered if Moira would be the same way. If she’d grow up with that same obsessive desire, that same driving ambition, that same unending thirst for blood.

  My blood.

  “Gin?” Owen asked again. “Bria says that there’s nothing more we can do here. Are you ready to go?”

  I glanced around the ballroom a final time, at all the blood and the bodies and the still-burning pools of green acid, and me sitting smack-dab in the center of it all. Part of me wondered how I’d ever wound up here, in this time, in this place. A larger part of me wondered what would happen next—what all the consequences of my actions here tonight would be.

  But those were questions and worries for another day. Madeline Magda Monroe was finished, and her schemes as dead as she was, and that was all that mattered tonight.

  “Yeah, I’m done here.”

  Owen got to his feet and held out his hand. I threaded my fingers through his, and he pulled me up. Together, arm in arm, we walked past Madeline’s frozen corpse and out of the ballroom.

  30

  The next few weeks flew by in a whirlwind of activity.

  Several stories popped up in the media about Madeline’s death, Dobson’s too, but given Silvio’s not-so-subtle threats that I could still sue the department, the po-po decided to pretty much sweep everything under the proverbial rug. Par for the course in Ashland.

  With Madeline dead, her schemes against my friends all unraveled as well. Roslyn’s liquor distributor backed down, Owen’s business deal finally went through, Eva’s name was cleared and she was reinstated at the community college, Jo-Jo’s salon was declared to be mold-free, and Bria and Xavier got their jobs back on the police force. Even Finn’s lawsuit got dropped for lack of evidence.

  But there was still the not-so-small matter of the Pork Pit.

  The interior of the restaurant had been a total loss, thanks to the fire, although the brick walls were still intact, along with the pig sign hanging over the front door. By some stroke of luck, the fire hadn’t so much as touched the sign, although I’d hired a crew to clean off all the residue left behind from all the smoke and ash that had boiled out of the restaurant.

  After that, another crew came in—this one from Vaughn Construction—to gut what was left of the interior, clear out all the debris, and start again. I’d thought that Charlotte might refuse the job, given our tangled, troubled history, but she accepted it. In fact, she’d come down to the restaurant to personally oversee the construction, along with a few new features that I was adding—including a hidden door in one of the brick walls that would give me a secret way outside, should I ever have need of such a thing again.

  Given my luck, I was betting that would happen sooner rather than later.

  But the days and weeks passed by, and before I knew it, I was standing on the sidewalk outside the restaurant on a cool November day, staring up at the freshly cleaned sign with the pig holding a platter of food. Maybe I should change the logo to a phoenix. After all, the restaurant had risen from the ashes, just like I had. I grinned. Nah. I liked things just the way they were.

  Still, as I slid my key into the front-door lock, I couldn’t help but look around, searching for rune traps and any other nasty surprises that someone might have left for me. But things had been shockingly, amazingly quiet since I killed Madeline. None of the underworld bosses had sent any more of their men after me. No one had tried to kill me at all. Perhaps they’d taken my words to heart. Or perhaps they were lying in wait like Madeline had, spinning their black-widow webs and hoping to ensnare me in them. Either way, I’d finally gotten my peace and quiet, and I was going to enjoy it while it lasted.

  There were no runes or traps, so I stepped inside the restaurant and locked the front door behind me. It was early, just after nine, and today was the first day that I was going to open the restaurant since the night it had burned.

  I looked out over the storefront, which was brand spanking new, yet so familiar at the same time. Everything inside was new, shiny, and polished, from the blue-and-pink vinyl booths that lined my improved bulletproof windows, to the sturdy metal tables and chairs in the middle of the storefront, to the padded, swivel stools that fronted the long counter that ran along the back wall.

  I’d even had an artist come in and redo the blue and pink pig tracks on the floor. They curved over to the restrooms as usual, but the artist had taken the extra step of having the tracks lead to other places too—the cash register, the double doors, the back of the restaurant, and even up onto the walls and all the way across the ceiling. To me, the tracks were almost like Fletcher’s footsteps, marking his paths through the restaurant and all the memories I had of him here over the years. Mine too. I liked them, and I knew that he would have too.

  I moved over to the counter and ran my hand along the slick surface. Since I’d had to remodel the entire restaurant, I’d upgraded everything inside and now had fancy new appliances, dishes, and silverware that would put the most expensive, highfalutin, and uppity restaurant to shame. Underwood’s didn’t have stoves, pots, and pans as nice as I did now. Even the dish towels were all new, fresh, and clean.

  I moved over to the cash register. It was just about the only thing that I hadn’t m
odernized. Oh, it was new to me, but Jo-Jo had found it in one of the antique shops a few blocks over. It wasn’t exactly the same as the one that Fletcher had had for so many years, but it was close enough and made a similar ring-ring-ring whenever I opened the cash drawer.

  But there were two important things that were missing. I unzipped the black duffel bag hanging off my shoulder and reached inside. I drew out some paneling nails, along with a small hammer. A few tack-tack-tacks later, and I had put two nails in the wall close to the cash register, right where I wanted them.

  When that was done, I put the nails and hammer away and reached back into the bag. The photo of a young Fletcher with an equally young Warren T. Fox went up on one nail. On the other, I carefully hung the framed copy of Where the Red Fern Grows, the one that was spattered with the old man’s blood. I looked at the two framed items, the counter, the old-fashioned cash register, and the pig tracks curving every which way through the restaurant. Things that were old, new, borrowed, and blue. I took them all as a sign of good luck. I had finally reclaimed the last thing that Madeline had tried to take away from me, and it felt damn good.

  The Pork Pit was back in business.

  * * *

  I admired the restaurant for a few more minutes before getting to work. Turning on the appliances, tying a new blue work apron on over my jeans and long-sleeve T-shirt, pulling out vegetables and other foodstuffs to get everything ready for the day.

  The first thing I put together was a vat of Fletcher’s secret barbecue sauce. As soon as it started simmering away with its rich, smoky mix of cumin, black pepper, and other spices, the restaurant felt like home again. I quickly fell into the usual routines and lost myself in the welcome familiarity of cooking. Sophia, Catalina, and the rest of the waitstaff came in, and I went over and flipped the sign on the front door over to Open.