Deadly Sting (21 page)

22

I rounded the bend and was reminded of something else that Briartop was known for: its statues.

A dozen stone statues lined either side of the path, all shaped like Civil War soldiers, all with their rifles held high, as if they were about to pull the triggers and give me a twenty-one-gun salute. Well, twenty-four, in this case. From what I remembered, one row of statues was Union soldiers, while the others represented the Confederacy. Even more soldier statues perched behind the front lines, the figures all forming a sort of stone battlefield in the middle of the lush greenery. Supposedly, back during the war, some battle had been fought for control of Briartop. And here I was, fighting Clementine for it tonight.

I slowed my steps, staring at each one of the figures, wondering if perhaps Clementine, Opal, or Dixon was hiding somewhere among all the stone arms and legs, preparing an ambush like I’d wanted to. But it seemed the giants were nowhere in sight.

I’d started to move past the statues, when the moon slid out from behind a cloud, highlighting the soldier closest to me. Maybe it was the way the light reflected off that particular statue, but it made me think of another place, another time, another enemy . . .

I crept through Peter Delov’s mansion as quiet as the proverbial mouse, searching for the giant.

I’d left Fletcher in a library on the third floor five minutes ago. I’d helped the old man hide underneath a desk, then grabbed a tin of Jo-Jo’s healing from my vest. I’d ripped Fletcher’s shirt open and spread it over his wound. The bullet hole in his chest wasn’t immediately fatal, and Jo-Jo’s salve would help stop the bleeding, but that was all. Fletcher was in no shape to do anything more strenuous than breathe right now. So it was up to me to find and kill Delov as quickly as I could—before he found us.

I tiptoed through the hallways, eased up to the doorways, and looked in every room I passed, repeating the evaluation process Fletcher and I had used to find the giant in the first place. But Delov was nowhere to be seen. Had he somehow gotten past me already? Or was he watching me right now from some dark corner, getting ready to strike? I didn’t know, and every second that passed ratcheted up my tension—

Scrape-scrape
.
Scrape-scrape
.

The sound came from around the corner. I froze, my cold fingers tightening around the knife in my hand.

Scrape-scrape
.
Scrape-scrape
.

The sound came again, moving faster now, heading right toward me. I sucked in a breath and got ready to fight. As soon as Delov stepped into view, I was going to leap forward and plunge Fletcher’s knife into his chest. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it would have to do, even if I knew deep down inside that there was no way I could kill the giant face-to-face, not given how big and strong he was. But I had to try, if only to protect Fletcher—

Peaches, the Pomeranian, rounded the corner, looking all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and I sagged against the wall in surprised, sweaty relief. The dog. It was just the dog.

I drew in a breath and pushed away from the wall, determined to keep searching for Delov, even if I didn’t really believe I could take him out like I was supposed to, like Fletcher
needed
me to.

But Peaches had other ideas. The dog fell into step beside me as I moved down the hallway, his nails
click-click-click
ing
and sounding as loud as trumpets on the polished hardwood floor. I might as well have raised a bullhorn to my lips and shouted my position to Delov. That’s how much noise it seemed like the dog was making.

“Go away!” I hissed, and made a shooing motion with my hand.

But Peaches only gave me a goofy grin and kept right on following me like we were playing the best game ever. Finally, I stopped, leaned down and petted the dog’s head, hoping that might appease him. But the Pomeranian just perked up more and started dancing in circles around my feet, apparently deciding that I was his new best friend.

Click-click-click. Click-click-click.

Again and again, Peaches’ nails scraped against the floor, the sound seeming to intensify with every happy wag of the dog’s bushy tail. I stood there, a wave of frustration washing over me. There was no way I could hope to sneak up on Delov, not with my pesky little shadow skipping along beside me, and I couldn’t kill the dog to make him be quiet—I just
couldn’t
.

I supposed I could lock Peaches in a room or a closet somewhere, but that would probably just make him start barking and reveal my location before I could scurry away. Delov would hear the noise and come running, ready to beat me to death with his massive fists—

Click-click-click. Click-click-click.

Peaches circled me again, wondering why I’d stopped petting him. I shook my head in frustration. I had to find a way to get the dog to stop making so much noise—

Noise.

My eyes narrowed in thought. Peaches wasn’t going to be quiet—it wasn’t in his nature. But maybe I didn’t need the dog to be quiet. Maybe I needed him to make as much noise as possible.

As fast as I could, I crept back to the kitchen, where Fletcher and Delov had had their earlier fight. I stepped inside, my gaze sweeping over the appliances and other furnishings until I found what I wanted: a glass container of gourmet dog biscuits on one of the counters.

I went over, opened the container, and pulled out several of the biscuits. Peaches’ black nose quivered with anticipation. I had his complete attention now.

“You want one of these, boy?” I whispered to the fluffball.

The Pomeranian pranced around, letting out hopeful, squeaky yips. I winced at the noise and quickly fed the dog one of the biscuits to quiet him down. I might not need him to be dead silent, but I needed to get the critter and myself in place before Peaches started yapping again.

I held out another dog biscuit, waving it over Peaches’ fluffy head. “Come on, boy,” I whispered again. “Follow me for your treat.”

Keeping an eye out for Delov, I hurried back toward the library, where I’d left Fletcher. I stopped outside the entrance and took a moment to crumble the dog biscuits into small, bite-size pieces. I scattered some of the biscuits around the library entrance, then tossed a few more deeper into the room. They didn’t make a sound as they tumbled over the thick Persian rugs.

Peaches hesitated a moment, not sure whether he wanted to stay with me or sniff out the food I’d promised him. After a second, the dog decided on the treats and moved toward the library. I slid back into the shadows and crouched down beside a table on the opposite side of the hall about fifteen feet away from the library entrance.

The Pomeranian quickly gobbled up all the biscuits around the door, then ventured into the library and lapped up those treats too. But instead of coming back to me for more food, the dog caught a new scent and headed even deeper into the library—toward Fletcher.

Just like I’d wanted him to.

Peaches discovered Fletcher’s hiding place underneath the desk and let out a loud, delighted bark, as if he’d just found some secret treasure. I could hear the old man trying to shush the dog, but that only made Peaches bark louder, until it seemed like the high-pitched
yip-yip-yip
s
echoed through the entire floor.

Just like I’d wanted them to.

Maybe it was wrong of me to use Fletcher like this, but I couldn’t think of another way that I could kill Delov. Going toe-to-toe with the giant was out of the question. He’d take my knife away and then beat me to death at his leisure—or worse.

I needed something to distract the giant, so that’s why I’d sicced the dog on Fletcher. I was hoping Delov would focus on the two of them instead of wondering where I might be lurking. This way, at least I had a fighting chance of sneaking up on the giant and taking him down.

Of course, if I didn’t kill Delov, not only would I be dead, but so would Fletcher, since I’d just signed the old man’s death warrant by leading the giant straight to him—

A mourning dove
coo-coo-co
o
ed out a sad wail somewhere in the gardens, and I shook away the rest of the memory. Maybe I’d taken too many blows to the head tonight, because this was not the time to be lollygagging around, thinking about some old job. No, right now, I needed to focus on Clementine and how I could save Eva and kill the giant. Nothing else.

So I tightened my grip on my knife, gave the soldiers a respectful nod, and hurried on my way.

* * *

This part of the island curved to a sharp tip, almost like the end of a hook, and the boathouse perched on this last bit of land, as though it were a fish that had been caught. The boathouse was made out of the same gray marble and built on the same grand scale as the rest of the museum. Instead of a simple shack, it was as big as any Northtown mansion. Tall, slender columns supported the domed roof, giving the structure an elegant, open-air design.

The Aneirin River rippled by on either side of the wide path, the water constantly churning back and forth and sucking at the cattails on the muddy banks. Water lilies bobbed up and down on the surface of the river, the strong currents spinning them around and around in endless circles and ultimately taking them nowhere.

The good thing about meeting Clementine down here was that there was no way she could ambush me, since there weren’t any trees for her to hide behind. No thickets of brambles for her to crouch down in. No high spots for her to snipe at me from. Just the stone path, the boathouse, and water, water everywhere.

The bad thing was that I was out in the open for everyone to see. No cover for Clementine meant there was no place for me to retreat to either when things went to hell, as they most surely would.

By this point, I was fifty feet away from the boathouse. My gaze locked onto the entrance, but I didn’t spot Clementine, Opal, Dixon, or, more important, Eva. All I could see ahead of me were darkness and shadows—a metaphor for my life if ever there was one. But this was the path I’d chosen, in more ways than one, and there was nothing to do now but see it through to the end.

So I stepped forward and went to meet my enemy.

23

As I neared the boathouse, I thought about reaching for my Stone magic and using it to harden my skin. If I was Clementine, I would have ordered Opal and Dixon to shoot first and search my body later.

But in the end, I decided not to use my magic. I’d already depleted some of my power fighting the other giants, and I had a sneaking suspicion that I’d need every scrap of magic I had left to take out Clementine. Besides, with any luck, she would want to make sure that I actually had Mab’s will on me first before she killed me.

I hoped so, since I was betting my life on it.

I walked slowly down the path, scanning the shadows in front of me for any hint of movement, any sign that one of the giants was going to pop out and start shooting at me. The closer I got to the boathouse, the more I felt like there was a target on my chest. Then again, this was nothing new. There was always a target on me these days, a big red bull’s-eye I’d put there myself just by killing Mab, just by being the Spider.

But like I’d told Owen before, I had to do this. And not just because my friends were being held hostage inside the museum or the fact that Eva was in danger out here now. An innocent woman was dead when I should have been instead, and Clementine had to pay for her mistake, simple as that.

I kept walking until I reached the front of the boathouse. I waited a moment, but Clementine didn’t call out to me, so I stepped inside.

Moonlight sliced in through the gaps between the columns, painting the inside of the boathouse a soft silver and letting me see that it was like a museum unto itself. No paintings decorated the interior, but each of the marble columns had been carved with intricate designs of fish, birds, and flowers, all of which peeped out at me from among the curling clutches of the museum’s briar rune. Several statues also stood inside, although I could clearly see only the one closest to me. An old man with his pants rolled up to his knees, hefting a spear as if he were about to lean forward, toss it into the river, and stab a fish.

Maybe it was the sly grin on the fisherman’s face, but the statue reminded me of Fletcher.

Thinking about my mentor calmed me, and once again, I let the cold, black rage well up out of the deepest part of my soul and seep through me, until there was nothing left but my dark desire to kill Clementine.

I looked away from the statue and took another step forward.

“That’s far enough,” Clementine called out.

A second later, a soft
click
sounded. I tensed, expecting a burst of orange gunfire to erupt from the shadows, but lights blazed on instead. I squinted and blinked rapidly, trying to get my vision to adjust to the sudden brightness.

Just like the rotunda, the boathouse was shaped like a giant circle. Alternating columns and statues ringed the path that ran all the way around the outer rim. Two more walkways cut through the interior, one going from left to right and the other running front to back, creating a capital T in the middle of the circle. Water ran between each one of the two main paths, forming three large pools, while metal gates set into the walkways could be hoisted up to let the boats move from one pool to another and then out into the river itself. Short metal poles had been pounded into the marble paths at intervals, and red, white, and blue paddleboats bobbed silently up and down on the river. The currents made the boats’ fiberglass hulls bump into the stone docking stations, causing the ropes that secured them to creak faintly, almost like there were crickets nesting inside them.

I was standing on the main path, with Clementine about twenty feet in front of me. The other two giants were about twenty feet behind her in the very center of the boathouse, where the two walkways met. Opal was on the far right, having flipped a light switch on one of the columns, while Dixon hovered off to the left, one hand clenched around Eva’s arm. All of the giants had guns.

My eyes met Eva’s, and she drew in a surprised gasp. Shock filled her pale face. For a moment, I wondered why, and then I remembered—she thought I was dead.

Eva wasn’t the only one who was stunned by my appearance. Clementine blinked and blinked, as if she didn’t believe what she was seeing. No doubt, she’d expected someone clad in black from head to toe, someone suave and confident, someone who looked more like a cat burglar, rather than the victim of some bloody, horrific accident, like I did right now. Her eyes widened as she realized exactly who and what I was.

“You!” she hissed.

“Hello, Clementine,” I drawled.

“You’re supposed to be dead!” she hissed again, then turned and fixed her cold, angry glare on Dixon.

He stared at me in horrified shock for a moment before his gaze snapped over to Clementine. I hadn’t thought it possible, given how much self-tanner had soaked into his skin, but his orange face actually paled and took on a sickly, sallow tint. He swallowed once, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down like a fishing lure that was stuck in his throat.

“But—but you saw her!” he sputtered. “I killed her! I killed the Spider! I blew her face off!”

“No,” I snapped. “You killed a woman who had on the same dress as I did. Nothing more. Her name was Jillian, and she didn’t deserve to die like that.”

Eva sucked in another breath at the revelation of Jillian’s fate. Apparently, so much had been going on in the rotunda that Eva hadn’t realized that Jillian wasn’t there, just like Owen hadn’t.

“She was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I said, for Eva’s benefit. Then I stared at Clementine. “Your nephew there was just too dumb to realize that he’d killed the wrong woman. Maybe if he hadn’t shot her in the face so many times, he would’ve seen his mistake before now—and you would have too.”

Anger stained Clementine’s cheeks, her hazel eyes narrowed, and even her hair seemed to curl tighter with wrath, but she didn’t respond to my taunts. Instead, she stared at me for the better part of a minute, her sharp gaze taking in my hacked-off ball gown, the belt around my hips, the black boots on my feet, the blood spattered all over me.

“You look like you’ve been rode hard and put up wet,” she said. “Not what I expected from the mighty Spider.”

I shrugged. “Well, I do aim to please, but as you know, my plans for this evening were interrupted. I’ll give you this, you don’t do anything halfway. Robbing the entire Briartop museum and holding Ashland’s finest at gunpoint at the same time is no small feat. You should give yourself a pat on the back. You’ve earned it.”

Clementine grinned. “My mama always said, why steal one million, when you can steal two. Or a hundred, in this case.”

I snorted. “Give it a rest. You’re not stealing a hundred million.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, why is that?”

“Because you’re planning to blow all of that pretty art to smithereens.”

Dixon blinked. “How do you know that?”

I stared at him. “Because in addition to the one I stole from the bridge, I also found a bomb hidden underneath one of the moving trucks. My guess is that the three of you were going to load all of that art and all of the other giants onto those trucks, then blow them all sky-high when they crossed the bridge. That way, all your men would be dead, and everyone would think that the three of you were too.”

Clementine kept staring at me, but Opal and Dixon shared a nervous glance behind her back, confirming that I was right.

“No, the only things the three of you ever planned on leaving here with were that tube from the vault and all of the jewelry you took off the hostages,” I said. “Pry the gems out of their settings, and they’re a lot easier to fence than well-known pieces of art. Since the jewelry wasn’t in the moving trucks, I’m willing to bet that it’s down here somewhere.”

Opal’s head snapped to the right. I followed her gaze and realized that there was something else tied up to one of the slips in the very back: a small speedboat. I could just see the glint of a silverstone case that had been propped up in one of the seats.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Nobody said anything, and the only sound was the steady rush of the river flowing around us. Finally, Clementine barked out a laugh.

“Well, maybe I was wrong to be so hasty in my previous judgment about you being so disappointing,” she said. “Because you certainly are clever.”

“I do try.”

Yeah, I was preening a little bit, but only so I could give Owen as much time as possible to get into position to rescue Eva. I didn’t want the giants to remember that he was out here somewhere and realize that all my blustering was just a ploy to distract them from his rescue attempt.

Clementine’s face hardened. “Enough talk. Why don’t you hand over the tube before I tell Dixon to blow the girl’s head off?”

Dixon grinned and waggled his gun at me. I looked at him a moment longer, not giving any hint about the waterlogged figure I saw climb up one of the ladders at the very back of the boathouse, sneak over to the outer circular path, and head in his direction.

Since I had a knife in my right hand, I reached down with my left and slowly slid the ebony tube out of the pouch on my belt. I held the tube up high and then slowly turned it around, making sure that Clementine saw the flash of Mab’s sunburst rune on the smooth wood.

Her eyes narrowed, and she studied me a moment
longer.

“Put it on the ground, and roll it over here,” she said. “Real easy-like. Or the girl dies.”

I slowly bent down and did as she asked. The tube hopped and skipped across the stone, heading toward her. Clementine raised her foot, then brought her boot down gently on top of the tube, stopping it. Still keeping her eyes and her gun on me, she bent down and picked up the tube.

“Opal, you keep your gun on her,” Clementine said. “You too, Dixon. I want to make sure that Ms. Blanco gave us what she promised she would.”

I gave her a bright, carefree smile. “Why, Clementine, would I lie?”

“Certainly,” she replied. “I would.”

Apparently, Clementine was more familiar with the tube than I was. Instead of taking a moment to figure out how to open it, she immediately pressed on the ruby in the middle of the sunburst rune. Interesting, that she would know to do that.

Clementine slid the paper out of the hollow tube, unrolled it, and read the sheet. Opal and Dixon kept their guns trained on me, and I stayed perfectly still, not wanting to give them any reason to shoot me or, worse, Eva.

Clementine scanned the sheet for the better part of two minutes before she was satisfied. I kept my eyes on Dixon—and the shadow that was creeping closer and closer to him. Another minute, two tops, and Owen would be ready to make his move, as would Bria and Xavier in the rotunda.

When she finished reading, Clementine rolled the paper up, slid it back into the tube, and stuffed the whole thing into her pants pocket. Then she looked at me again.

“You know, I’m rather surprised that you gave it back to me just like that.”

I shrugged. “It’s just Mab’s will. What do I care about that? It’s not like she left me anything. Although I am curious about why you want it so badly. Care to share? After all, you’re just going to kill me anyway.”

“You’d better fucking believe it,” Clementine agreed. “But I’m not dumb enough to tell you anything, especially while you’ve got that radio clipped to your belt. Why, who knows who might be listening in?”

Well, it had been worth a shot. More important, though, Owen had crept closer to Dixon. He was now standing on the outer circular path behind the column nearest and parallel to the giant. He couldn’t move any closer for fear that Dixon or Opal would spot him, but he was well within striking distance. All I had to do now was distract the giants until the right moment.

“You know, you and I are a lot alike, Gin,” Clementine said.

“Really? How so?”

She stared at me. “We both do whatever we have to in order to survive. In fact, I rather admire you. Why, to hear the rumors, you’re the most heartless, ruthless bitch this town has ever seen.”

“My, my, my,” I drawled. “What a lovely compliment. Especially coming from someone like you.”

“I mean it,” she continued in a genuine voice. “The things
you’ve managed to do as the Spider, the folks you’ve taken
down these past several months. I’ve heard about them, you
know. Tobias Dawson. Elliot Slater. Elektra LaFleur. And then of course the biggie, Mab Monroe herself.”