Page 4 (1/2)

"Sydney!" Gentry cried out in a low, hoarse voice

Souish that she couldn’t quite hide, er Gentry had forgotten all about her revolver Instead, she huddled on her knees Her gray hair had coht bun, and snow crusted her face, but Gentry didn’t care Fear flickered in her pale blue gaze, and she held her brorinkled hands out wide, silently begging irl

I studied her carefully, but as far as I could tell, this was no sly trick she was trying to pull Gentry seeenuinely concerned for Sydney, which wasthat I was about a second away fro her existence

I even went so far as to turn back toward the girl, er But then she let out a low moan of pain and stared up at me with her hazel eyes Deer eyes-doe eyes-wide, liquid, and tre with tears, pain, and fear

Da inside me, some little black shred of irl, even if she had just put three bullets into e-poor little Genevieve Snohose family had been so brutally murdered Maybe because I was exhausted Maybe because I was suffering from the blood loss already Or maybe it was because I could hear Fletcher’s voice whispering in my ear No kids-ever, the olddead and cold in his own grave

I’d ignored the old s earlier, when I’d hastily pulled the trigger onuntil I had an absolutely clear shot at Mab I wasn’t about to turn host in er, I heaved the rifle as far as I could into the trees The gun hit one of the snow-splattered trunks and clattered off into the night Gentry just looked at ape, as if she couldn’t believe that I hadn’t gone for the kill shot when I’d had the chance Part of s were

Even as an assassin, even as the Spider, I didn’t kill innocents-ever Sure, the girl had shot me, but she couldn’t be more than fifteen, sixteen, tops Still a kid in so irl and held her close, shielding her fro to do next Damned if I knew either

"Next tiirl as I bent down to pick up the knife that I’d dropped "Keep shooting until you run out of bullets and not a second before"

Gentry and Sydney both stared at me, their eyes identical pools of wariness, shock, and fear

I skirted around them and disappeared into the snowy trees

Chapter 4

Stu for sounds of pursuit fro me, I somehow made it to the old, anonymous car I’d stashed in a thicket of trees two e of Mab’s property I sank into the driver’s seat, cranked the engine, and turned the ancient heater up as high and hot as it would go

White starbursts exploded in irl, Sydney, had been a better shot than I’d given her credit for The two bullets in otten close to h Good for her, bad for h the snow that a child could follow If I hadn’t had the car here, I would have been done for, still out floundering in the trees, trying to stay ahead of Mab, her giants, and her dinner guests, two of whom had already taken an unhealthy interest in et the leg taken care of soon

I ripped off my sweat-soaked ski mask, tore the fabric into strips with my silverstone knife, and used the pieces to ht as I could so I wouldn’t bleed out before I got to Jo-Jo At this point, I just hoped that I had enough juice left to drive over to the dwarf’s house But there was no tis or procrastinate, so I threw the car into gear and put h the trees and pulled back onto the icy road, I reached for rabbed hold of ic-my elemental Ice power-and let it fill the lower part of ic flooded my veins, and the wounded area immediately went numb-so numb I couldn’t even feel that part of hout of it with every beat of ic had been the weaker of my two abilities, until I’d overco asmy own limbs so I wouldn’t feel pain was one of the recent tricks that I’d learned how to do with ic-the one that had helped me kill Elektra LaFleur when she’d tried to shock ic had been a bit of a fluke, as it wasn’t one of the four main areas-Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone-that ifted in, that you had to be able to tap into to be considered a true eleic could take e ways, and ifted in other areas, offshoots of the four main elements Like water was an offshoot of Ice, and electricity was one of Air The mechanics behind it all had never really concerned lad I was still alive-and that LaFleur was rotting in whatever shallow, pauper’s grave Mab had dumped her in

I’d only beaten LaFleur because I was the rarest of elementals-someone who could control not only one but two elements Ice and Stone, in my case Connected powers, but each with their own unique quirks

My Stonethat I wanted to with the element, like hear the whispered vibrations in the rocks around me, make bricks fly out of a solid wall, or even turn my own skin into the equivalent of human marble

My Ice poas different, in that it actually let me create elemental Ice with my bare hands-Ice that I could turn into all sorts of shapes, like cubes, crystals, and the occasional knife My Ice ic also letthat I was doing right now just to stay upright Hell, maybe it would slow the blood loss too I wasn’t familiar with all the ins and outs of this particular trick just yet Maybe Jo-Jo could tell ot to her before I bled to death

It was after ht now, and the Ashland streets were deserted Not surprising, given the icy conditions Ashland was the southern ed corner of the world where the Appalachian Mountains cut through Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia From a distance, Ashland looked like a jewel-toned paradise, surrounded by emerald forests and sapphire rivers with a silver diarandeur But anyone who’d ever spent any tiritty place it really was The horrible, despicable things that only happened on the darkest, dingiest streets in other cities occurred on Ashland’s ht

The city was divided into two sections-Northtown and Southtown-held together by the rough circle of the don area and flanked on either side by suburbs full of soccer moms, spoiled kids, and other middle-class folks Northtoas the rich part of Ashland, where the city’s social, enerally tried to screw each other over every which way they could All sorts of evil lurked inside the sultan-size mansions in Northtown, made even roomed lawns Mab Monroe, of course, lived in the heart of Northtown in the biggest iven the fact that she was the queen bee of the Ashland underworld