Benson screamed, but I clamped my hand over his bloody mouth, cutting off the sound.

“Now, what was it you told Troy the night you murdered him? Oh, yeah. Don’t be frightened. It’ll only hurt for a minute. Well, you’re right about that. Because I’m not like you. I don’t torture people. I’ve already killed you with that one blow.”

I leaned forward so that he could see my eyes—eyes that were a lot colder than the elemental Ice that I’d encased him with. Benson’s panicked blue gaze locked with my calm gray one.

“You wanted me to share my emotions with you. Well, do you know what I’m feeling right now?” I purred. “I’m sure you can sense it with your magic. There’s only one word for it, really: satisfaction.”

I removed my hand from his mouth and ripped the knife out of his chest. The vamp arched his back, but he couldn’t break free of my Ice and Stone shackles, and he didn’t even have the energy left to scream. Instead, he sputtered and sputtered, as if he couldn’t believe that the same thing was being done to him that he’d done to me and countless others.

Slowly, his body grew still, and his breath came in ragged gasps, flecks of foamy blood spewing out of his lips and coating his glasses.

“And now your body is shutting down from the massive trauma that I just inflicted on it—and you. And that chill you’re feeling? That’s not my Ice magic. It’s my emotions—and your own death, taking hold of you breath by breath.”

Benson almost seemed to nod his head in agreement. Then his body relaxed, his head lolled to the side, and his gaze fixed on something that only he could see.

The bastard was dead.

Good riddance.

28

I watched the blood dribble off Benson’s chest and start pooling in the spiderweb cracks in the pavement. All around me, the stone of the street, sidewalks, and buildings chattered with the violence that the vampire and I had just dished out to each other. But I didn’t mind the shocked sounds. They told me that I’d made it through another battle and had killed another enemy who had threatened me and mine.

But as I got to my feet and turned around, I wondered how much more trouble I’d just caused for myself.

Because folks stood two and three deep on the sidewalks in places, and everyone was staring at me—the curious gawkers, Benson’s guards, Silvio, my friends. The silence grew and grew, and my gaze swept from one face in the crowd to another. People whispered to one another, their low muttering sounding remarkably like that of the blood-spattered stone under my feet.

“Um, Gin?” Finn said in my ear. “This might be a good time for you to say something.”

“You think?” I murmured back.

I stepped forward. Several folks in the crowd gasped and backed away from me, probably thinking that I was going to do the same thing to them with my knife that I had done to Benson. Some of them probably deserved it. The pimps who beat their hookers just because they felt like it. The dealers who sold drugs to kids just to make a few extra bucks. The gangbangers who hurt innocent people just because they’d had the misfortune to get in the way of their turf wars. These were not nice people gathered around me.

Then again, I wasn’t particularly nice either.

Still, for the most part, I had a live-and-let-live policy. As long as you didn’t come after me, I wasn’t going to go after you. So I decided to make that clear to everyone within spitting distance.

I stabbed my bloody knife toward Benson’s body. “The so-called king of Southtown is dead.”

“Long live the queen!” someone shouted in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Finn’s.

“I’m not the damn queen of anything,” I growled.

My angry glare was enough to get the crowd to shut up again, so I continued with my impromptu speech.

“Benson terrorized everyone who came into contact with him. Not because he needed to but because he wanted to. Because he liked it.”

Several people nodded in agreement, including many of Benson’s own guards.

“But I’m not Benson. I’m the Spider.”

Once again, the crowd gasped.

“I’m the Spider,” I repeated. “And despite the rumors you might have heard, I don’t treat people like shit just because I can. I don’t hurt or torture or kill them just because it amuses me.”

“So what are you saying, lady?” another voice called out.

“I’m saying that y’all are free to do as you please after I leave.” I stabbed my finger at Benson’s mansion. “I’m going in there, but when I come back out, it’s yours. Loot it. Cover it with graffiti. Burn it to the ground for all I care.”

A couple of folks in the back of the crowd starting high-fiving each other, already thinking about all of the shiny things they could spirit away from the mansion.

“I don’t want Benson’s mansion, and I sure as hell don’t want to take his place.”

“You’re just going to leave us alone?” someone else called out. “Really?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

I started to walk away, but then I looked back over my shoulder, causing the crowd to tense up again. They were as used to double-crosses as I was.

I stabbed my bloody knife in their direction. “One word of warning. You cross me or you mess with me and mine in any way, and you’ll be like Benson there. You won’t know what hit you until you’re bleeding out on the pavement. Do we understand each other?”

Silence.

“Do we understand each other?”

I sent a little surge of Stone magic into the pavement at my feet, making the blacktop ripple, crack, and splinter in several places.

“Yes!”

“Oh, yeah!”

“Loud and clear, lady!”

“Good,” I said. “Don’t make this crazy assassin bitch come back down here and tell you again.”

Then I turned and walked away, leaving Benson’s bloody body shackled in the middle of the street for all to see.

•

I grabbed the knives I’d dropped earlier, then walked over to the two guards who still had Silvio propped up between them. The guards look at me, then at each other, as if they were thinking about dropping Silvio in order to attack me.

“Really?” I asked. “Did you not just see what I did to your boss?”

They winced, knowing that I had an excellent point.

“Put Silvio down gently, then leave. Tell the rest of the men to do the same, if they want to live.”

This time, the two men didn’t hesitate. They eased Silvio to the ground, propping him up against the stone wall that marked the edge of Benson’s property, then scurried away as fast as they could to deliver my message. I stared down the other guards, but one by one, they all tucked their guns under their jackets, tiptoed past me, and disappeared into the still milling crowd.

Bria, Xavier, and Owen rushed over to me, each one hugging me in turn. A minute later, Finn and Phillip appeared at the end of the block and headed in our direction.

“Aw, man,” Finn said, coming up to stand beside me, a black duffel bag dangling from his hand. “I didn’t even get to shoot anybody.”

“Well, look on the bright side,” I drawled. “Your clothes didn’t get messed up. Neither did your hair.”

Finn perked up at my reasoning.

I crouched down next to Silvio, who was still slumped against the wall. His dull gray eyes slowly fixed on me.

“Catalina?” he croaked.

“She’s fine,” I said. “And you will be too. There’s an Air elemental healer we know. We’ll get you over to her lickety-split. But I need to ask you something first.”

“Anything.”

“Where did Benson keep his notes? The ones on his experiments?”

“Most of it was in the ledger I gave you,” Silvio rasped. “But there’s more. In the safe. In the lab.”

I grimaced, but I listened as he told me the combination to the safe. I got to my feet and stepped back, while Xavier bent down and gently picked up Silvio, cradling the vampire in his massive arms as if he weighed no more than a child. He probably didn’t, given all the blood and emotions Benson had drained out of his body.

Owen touched my arm. “We’ll be back soon.”

“Okay.”

He hugged me again, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead, and then he, Xavier, and Phillip got into the sedan and left with Silvio.

Finn rubbed his hands together in unrestrained glee. “Oh, boy. It’s looting time.”

I rolled my eyes. “Go on in if you want to. Go see what else Benson had in his safe.”

Finn jerked his head at Bria, who was standing over the vampire’s body. “What about you guys?”

“We’ll be there in a minute.”

Finn nodded, hopped over the wall, and crossed the lawn, heading for the mansion. I went over to Bria.

My sister stared down at Benson, her gaze moving from his frostbitten face to the crude shackles on his arms and legs to the blood that had filled in all the cracks around him. Her features were blank, but she kept rubbing her fingers over the gold detective’s badge on her black belt.

“Are you sorry that it went down like this?” I asked. “That you weren’t able to arrest him?”

She chewed her lip a moment. “Yes and no. Part of me wanted to bring him in, to do things my way.”

“But?”

“But after seeing what he did to you, knowing how he tortured you . . .” She sighed. “Part of me just wanted him dead. And now he is, thanks to you.”

Bria fixed her gaze on me. “But most of all, I’m glad that you’re okay, Gin. I hope that you can forgive me for dragging you into my war with Benson.”

“There’s nothing to forgive. It was my war too. It has been for months now, ever since the underworld bosses started trying to kill me. I just finally decided to do something about it.”

She nodded, then reached out and hugged me, so tightly that I felt the primrose rune around her neck press into my collarbone. I hugged her back even tighter, telling myself that the cold, hard touch of the silverstone symbol against my skin was what was making me blink back tears. Yeah. Right.

“C’mon,” I said, pulling back. “Let’s go see what’s in the safe before Finn steals it all for himself.”

Bria nodded and linked her arm through mine. Together, we turned and walked away, leaving Beauregard Benson behind for good.

•

Bria and I entered the mansion, which was eerily quiet, and headed down to the basement. The drug den was empty of the addicts I’d seen before, although those thick wads of incense still burned in the corners of the room. I didn’t know where all the people had gone, if Benson had gotten rid of them or if they’d left on their own. But wherever they were, I hoped they got some help.

Bria and I walked through the basement and into the lab. Everything looked the same as I remembered it—the refrigerators in the back, the metal table with its vials of powders and scientific instruments, the chair sitting in the middle of it all like a giant white spider.

Sweat beaded on my forehead as I stared at the chair with its shackles, and I could have sworn that I could hear my own screams echoing through the room. But those were just my memories. I’d survived the chair, I’d survived Benson, and I’d survive my memories too, along with the nightmares they were sure to bring with them.

But I had to move forward, because things weren’t over yet—not between me and the person who had supplied Benson with his Burn pills.

So I moved past the chair and went over to Finn and Bria, who were standing in front of the safe. Finn ran his hands over the metal and let out a low whistle of appreciation.

“Benson wasn’t messing around when it came to this,” he said. “I’m glad you got the combination from Silvio, or we’d be here the rest of the afternoon trying to crack this sucker.”

I rattled off the numbers, and Finn spun the dial, opening the safe. The first thing he pulled out was a brick of cash. He let out another whistle, this one more cheerful than before.

“Nice,” Finn purred, and he tossed the cash into his open duffel bag on the floor.

I looked at Bria. “See what I mean?”

She laughed.

Money, guns, drugs. We found all that and more in the safe, along with dozens of notepads. Only these didn’t contain Benson’s formulas, his clients, or the money he had coming in and going out. They were records of all his twisted experiments on people, including elementals like me.

Finn let out another low whistle, then showed me the entry that Benson had made in his notepad yesterday, after he’d forced that Burn pill down my throat.

Shows immediate, violent reaction to drug. Indicative of subject’s own extreme elemental power, Benson had written in an elegant script. Subject experiencing effects of drug in rapid, accelerated succession. Further tests are definitely needed to test limits of subject’s tolerance and endurance of this and other formulas.

My stomach twisted as I thought of all the pain I’d experienced because of the drug. Once again, my own screams echoed in my ears, but I squashed the phantom sounds. This was the reason I’d asked Silvio where Benson’s notes were. I hadn’t wanted anyone to find the vamp’s observations about me. I didn’t want anyone to know my weaknesses.

And especially not my fears.

So I ripped those pages out of the notepad and handed it back to Finn. He took it without a word and put it with the others he’d collected.

We finished cleaning out the safe, stuffing all the contents into Finn’s duffel bag. Then the two of us headed over to Bria, who had opened all of the refrigerators in the back of the lab. My sister had her hands on her h*ps and a pensive look on her face as she stared at the racks full of pills, powders, and other illegal substances.