By a Thread

by Jennifer Estep

  7

  Eventually, the lights around the pool dimmed, the band packed up their instruments, and the bar closed down. The swimmers, dancers, and other stragglers went back inside the hotel to finish their nights with a shower, a fresh drink, and perhaps a quick fuck or two in their soft, comfortable beds.

  I stepped back inside the suite, closing and locking the glass doors behind me. Before I went to bed, I walked through the suite, familiarizing myself with the locations of everything from the light switches to the coffee tables to the butcher’s block full of knives on the kitchen counter.

  Given what had happened earlier at the Sea Breeze, there were things I would do now if I were Randall Dekes, things that were best taken care of in the dark of the night, and I wanted to be prepared just in case the vampire or his men decided to act accordingly. Paranoid? Perhaps. But I hadn’t lived this long by not being ready for the bad guys when they decided to come calling.

  The last thing I did was open the front door and ease my head outside. There was no one in the long, wide hallway, although someone had left a large brass luggage cart next to the elevator. I stepped out and studied the wall that fronted the suite. The Blue Sands was made out of solid white stone, but instead of plastering over the stacks of bricks, the designers had left many of the interior walls rough and exposed, giving the hotel an elegant but sturdy air.

  I leaned forward and ran my fingers across the rough stone, listening once again to the sunbaked murmurs and whispers of the waves. Then I reached for my Stone magic. For a moment, I relished the cool flow of magic running through my veins before focusing and pushing the power up into my hand. A silver light flickered on the end of my index finger, hissing like a small blowtorch. I used the magic to trace a series of runes into the stone around the door. Small, tight, spiral curls—the symbol for protection. The curls shimmered with the silver glow of my magic before sinking into the stone wall and disappearing from sight.

  In addition to using runes to identify themselves and their interests, elementals could also imbue the symbols with magic, get that power to spark to life, and make the runes perform certain functions. Elemental magic was great for creating everything from bombs to magical trip wires to alarms. Now, if someone tried to force his way inside the suite tonight, my magic would trigger the hidden runes, and the stones would shriek out a warning to me—one that would be loud enough to wake me from the deepest, deadest sleep.

  Satisfied, I went back into the suite and shut and locked the door behind me. Then I crawled into bed, closed my eyes, and waited for the dreams to come.

  Ever since Fletcher’s murder several months ago, I’d been plagued by vivid, vivid dreams—nightmares, really. But the twisted thing was that the images that haunted me weren’t really dreams at all, but instead flashes of my past, memories I desperately wanted to forget.

  Mostly, the memories had to do with all the horrible things that had happened the night Mab had murdered my mother and older sister. Watching them die, reliving the Fire elemental’s torture, hearing Bria scream, lashing out with my Ice and Stone magic, collapsing our mansion, thinking that I’d accidentally killed Bria with my power, that she’d been crushed to death by the falling stones of our house.

  But ever since I’d killed Mab, the dreams had changed, offering me other glimpses into my past, letting me remember other horrors I’d endured, other trials I’d faced by design, chance, choice, or something else. Like tonight . . .

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why did we come all the way out here?”

  Here was deep in the forests high above Ashland, since the city was located in the woodsy corner of the world where Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina met in the Appalachian Mountains. Early this morning, Fletcher had roused me out of bed, handed me a backpack of supplies, ushered me out to the car, and started driving north. I’d fallen asleep and had only woken up when Fletcher stopped the car at the base of what he called Bone Mountain, a large, ominous-looking peak whose craggy ridges seemed to stretch all the way up to the gray clouds that darkened the sky. That had been several hours ago, and we’d been hiking up the mountain ever since.

  I had no idea where we were or how far we’d come, but I didn’t mind the long trek. I enjoyed walking through the forest, listening to the sound of the wind whistling through the trees and watching rabbits and chipmunks dart through the thick underbrush. Most of all, I liked being with Fletcher, just the two of us, without Finn lurking around, glaring at me and making snide comments whenever he thought his dad wouldn’t hear him. Finn didn’t like me much, and the feeling was definitely mutual. I thought he was a spoiled brat who took his father for granted.

  Fletcher looked at me. His green eyes were as bright as the leaves on the spring trees, while his walnut-colored hair blended in with the rest of the landscape, despite the silver threads that glinted here and there in his thick locks. He wore his usual blue work clothes, along with a pair of sturdy boots, and carried a backpack that was even bigger and heavier than mine.

  “I told you. We’re looking for wild strawberries. Ain’t nothing better than wild strawberry preserves on a hot buttermilk biscuit. I’ll get Jo-Jo to teach you how to make them both.”

  He swung the tin pail he’d brought along, as if to confirm his story. “Come on. It’s not too much farther now to the strawberry patch.”

  He set off through the trees, and I fell in step behind him, taking care to watch where I was going so I wouldn’t trip on a rock or put my foot in a hole hidden by leaves.

  I’d been living with Fletcher for several months now, and he often brought me into the forest to look for herbs, pick berries, or skin the bark off trees. Fletcher had lived in the mountains all his life, and he had a keen interest in natural folk remedies, like putting honey on burns or making natural teas and salves from barks and berries to fight colds and coughs. The last time we’d gone hiking, he’d shown me how to use a spiderweb to pack a wound and slow the bleeding in case I didn’t have anything else on hand to use as a bandage.

  It was a neat idea, but one I doubted I’d ever use. Even though Fletcher was training me to be an assassin like he was, I didn’t think I’d ever be that desperate. Besides, most folks that Fletcher got paid to kill lived in big fancy mansions in Northtown, not out in the woods. Anyway, I was going to be a good assassin, just as good as Fletcher was as the Tin Man. I wasn’t ever going to be taken by surprise or put in a situation I couldn’t handle. It was a vow I’d made to myself after my family had been murdered. I was always going to be in control from now on, and Fletcher was going to teach me how. That was the whole reason I wanted to be an assassin in the first place—so that no one would ever be able to hurt me again.

  We kept walking, winding our way up the mountain. Eventually, we came to a fork in the trail. Fletcher pointed to the path that veered off to the right.

  “The strawberry patch is about a mile up that way. You can’t miss it. Why don’t you go on ahead? This old man has to answer the call of mother nature. Too much coffee this morning.” Fletcher gave me a sheepish grin. “I’ll catch up to you in a few minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  Fletcher moved off into the trees, and I turned and started walking up the trail, enjoying the shades of green, brown, and gray that streaked the landscape. Still, despite the peace and quiet, something about our hike was bothering me, some nagging little thing that I couldn’t put my finger on. I kept thinking about the dented tin pail swinging from Fletcher’s brown, speckled hand. It took me ten minutes of walking, but eventually I realized what was wrong.

  “But it’s too early for strawberries,” I said to the trees around me. “It’s only April. Strawberries aren’t really in season until the summer, May at the very earliest, especially the ones out here in the wild.”

  I frowned, wondering why Fletcher would bring me up here to pick strawberries that weren’t even ripe yet. Then I realized something else—I hadn’t heard a whisper of movement behind me. No branches crac
king, no twigs snapping, no leaves crunching underfoot. I hadn’t been walking all that fast, and Fletcher should have caught up to me by now. So where was he? Could he have gotten into some sort of trouble? Maybe stumbled and twisted his ankle? But if he’d done that, then why wasn’t he calling out for me? For help. Why did it seem like I was here on the mountain by myself now?

  Panic filled me then, and I turned and ran back down the trail the way I’d come.

  “Fletcher!” I yelled in between breaths. “Fletcher!”

  He didn’t answer me.

  I made it all the way back down to the fork where we’d split up, but there was no sign of him, his tin pail, or his backpack. It was like he’d never even been here to start with. My head whipped left, then right, then left again—and that’s when I saw the note.

  A white piece of paper had been tacked to one of the trees right by the trail, with the name GIN written on it in big black block letters. The panic pulsing through my body slowly turned to fear, and a sick, sick feeling filled my stomach. Somehow, I knew what the note was going to say even before I yanked it off the tree and opened it with trembling hands.

  “I’m sorry,” the note said in Fletcher’s distinctive handwriting. “This isn’t working out. I can’t have you hanging around anymore. You’re on your own now. Fletcher.”

  That was it. There was nothing else. Just a few simple sentences to explain the fact that Fletcher had dumped me out here in the middle of nowhere. I felt like a puppy someone had left in a cardboard box by the side of the road—alone, abandoned, unwanted. But mostly, I didn’t understand why. Why bring me all the way out here when just kicking me out of the house and telling me to stay away from the Pork Pit would have been so much simpler?

  I couldn’t help but wonder what I’d done that was so wrong. What had been so horrible about having me around that the old man had gone to such extreme lengths to get rid of me?

  “Fletcher?” I whispered, panic filling me once again. “Fletcher! Where are you? Come back! Please!”

  But he didn’t answer me. He was already gone, leaving me alone on the mountain, all alone—

  The sharp shriek of magic snapped me out of my dream. It took me half a second to realize what the sound was—the spiral protection runes in the stone of the outer wall of the suite surging to life and warning me that someone was trying to get inside.

  I glanced at the clock by the bed: 11:33. They’d shown up sooner than I’d expected them to. I would have waited until much closer to dawn myself. Harder for people to rouse themselves from sleep then.

  I pulled a silverstone knife from under my pillow, got up off the bed, and nestled it against the small of my back. Then I grabbed two more weapons off the nightstand, enjoying the cold, comforting feel of the blades in my hands before sliding one of the knives up my sleeve. I’d been wearing a long robe when I’d been out on the patio, talking to Bria; but after my sister had gone to bed, I’d changed into my usual ensemble of black jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt. I’d gone to sleep with my boots on, with my final two knives resting in the side of either shoe.

  I’d wanted to be prepared in case Dekes decided to send me a message for roughing up his two goons, and it looked like the vampire’s men were knocking on my door. The poor bastards should have walked away when they’d had the chance—because I wasn’t giving them a second one.

  8

  I eased out of my bedroom and tiptoed across the dark suite, using the mental map that I’d made earlier to skirt around the couches, tables, and other furniture. I stepped up to the door, careful to keep away from the glass peephole so that whoever was lurking around outside wouldn’t realize I was awake and already waiting for them.

  I looked across the suite at the closed door that led to Bria’s bedroom. As an elemental, she’d be able to hear the stone’s cries too, although they wouldn’t resonate as loudly with her, since she had Ice magic and not Stone like I did. I waited a moment, wondering whether she’d heard my alarm and would come out and investigate, but her door remained closed. Looked like I’d have to deal with our visitors myself. Not a problem.

  I blocked out the stone’s wails, put my ear close to the door, and listened. Right next to me, the brass doorknob softly turned and rattled.

  “Sorry,” someone muttered on the other side of the door. “Wrong key. It’s this one, I think. The third time’s the charm, right?”

  So he’d tried two wrong keys already, and that’s what had triggered the protection runes in the stone. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. If he’d used the right key the first time, he might have avoided tripping my silent alarm.

  “You’d better do more than think,” a familiar voice growled. “That bitch skewered my hand like it was a fucking kebab, and I plan on doing the same to her—and worse.”

  So Pete Procter, the guy I’d stabbed earlier at the Sea Breeze, was outside, along with his friend with the keys. But neither one of them were elementals, otherwise they would have heard my alarm and realized they were walking into a trap. Too bad for them.

  “And Ron, one of the night clerks, told me that sweet little blond piece of ass is in there with her too,” Pete continued. “We’ll have fun taking turns with her. Maybe both of them, all of us, at the same time. There’ll be enough for everyone.”

  Pete laughed at his ugly promise, and I heard a few more sly chuckles chime in with his. Make that more than one friend outside. I smiled in the darkness like an animal baring its fangs. Good. I’d hate to get out of bed just for Pete.

  “There,” the second guy said. “I told you I had the right key. Get ready.”

  A soft snick sounded as the door unlocked. I eased away from it and stepped behind a fake palm tree in a brass pot in the front corner of the suite.

  The door opened a crack, and a pair of bolt cutters slid through the narrow space and caught on the security chain. From my hiding spot, I saw a hand squeeze down on the cutters, which easily sliced through the flimsy metal. Trent, the giant, I thought. He’d have the strength to use the cutters with one hand, and he was probably as pissed at me as Pete was for busting him up earlier. That made at least three guys outside. I wondered how many more Dekes had sent, or if they’d decided to do this on their lonesome. Didn’t much matter. They were all getting dead.

  “Quiet now,” Pete whispered. “I don’t want those bitches to know what hit them. Maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll still catch them in bed and make it that much easier for us. We’ll do the two of them tonight, then go out to the restaurant tomorrow and do the same thing to Reyes.”

  More dark chuckles filled the air, but they weren’t nearly as black as the cold rage that slowly seeped into my body. It was one thing to threaten me—that was part of my job description as the Spider. But nobody—nobody—came after my baby sister and lived to tell about it. Randall Dekes and his men had just made this fight very, very personal.

  The door whispered opened, and light spilled in from the hallway outside. I stayed where I was, hidden behind the potted palm, and let my eyes adjust to the growing brightness. The door opened all the way, and Pete stepped inside the suite. He had on the same garish shirt he’d worn earlier at the Sea Breeze, and his right hand was heavily bandaged where I’d rammed my knife through his palm. That wouldn’t be the only cut he got tonight—not by a long shot.

  Another guy, a short human, slipped in behind him holding a large ring of keys that went jingle-jingle-jingle together.

  “Quiet!” Pete hissed.

  The guy stuffed the keys into his pants pocket. He wore the white linen uniform I’d noticed on the valets earlier, which meant that he worked here at the Blue Sands. Of course he did. Callie had said that Dekes owned the hotel. No doubt the vamp had several folks on staff he could call on for occasions just like this one.

  A giant I didn’t recognize crept in behind the valet, and Trent, the giant I’d beaten down before at the restaurant, brought up the rear. The four men eased down the three stone steps into the living room, and there
was a whispered conversation as they debated which of the bedrooms to search first.

  I stayed where I was, waiting to see if anyone else would follow the men inside, but no one else appeared, and I didn’t hear any soft scuffles of footsteps on the carpet or see any shadows in the hall. Four of them, one of me. Bad odds for them.

  The worst fucking odds of their lives.

  “There’s no way they’re getting past us,” Pete whispered. “Charlie, turn on the lights so we can see what the fuck we’re doing.”

  Charlie, the valet with the key ring, trotted back up the steps and obligingly flipped the switch on the far wall. The second the lights came on, I stepped out from behind the potted tree and kicked the door shut behind me. Didn’t want to be a bad guest and wake the neighbors with the screams that were sure to come.

  The door thumped into place, making Charlie, the guy closest to me, whirl around in surprise.

  “What the hell—”

  That’s all he got out before my knife rammed into his heart, and a crimson stain blossomed like a tropical flower on his white shirt. Charlie was dead before I yanked out the blade and let his body thump to the floor. For a second, the other three men looked at me, eyes wide, mouths open, as if they couldn’t believe that I was up, ready, and waiting for them.

  “Get that bitch!” Pete screamed, all pretense of being quiet and sneaky gone. “Now!”

  And the fight was on.

  Pete rushed at me first. I waited until he was on the stairs, then stepped forward and slammed my fist into his face. He stumbled back, falling off the stairs and hitting a wooden coffee table before rolling off the side and landing on his ass. Before I could follow and finish him off, the two giants came at me.

  Swing-swing-swing.

  Trent and the other giant worked in tandem, leaping up the steps and lashing out with their fists, trying to pin me against the door, where they could take their time beating me to death. But I slid to one side and scooted back behind the potted tree. The second giant reached through the leaves, trying to grab hold of me, but I ducked around the other side.