The Southtown hoods were much more efficient. They'd slit your throat, take your wallet, and be ready to do it again to someone else before you even hit the alley floor.

It took me about twenty minutes to wind my way from the downtown district out into the suburbs that lay northwest of the city. I drove past gated communities with cutesy names like Davis Square and Peachtree Acres and eventually turned onto a rutted, gravel road that wound up one of the ridges that slashed through the city.

I rode over the lumps and bumps in the road, used to the teeth-rattling sensation by now. Fletcher Lane had liked his privacy, which was why his house squatted on the side of a cliff so steep a mountain goat couldn't climb up it.

I steered the car through the skeletal remains of the trees that flanked what passed for the driveway. Thirty seconds later, the Benz left the bare, clutching branches behind. I crested a hill, and the house popped into sight.

In addition to leaving me the Pork Pit in his last will and testament, Fletcher Lane had also bequeathed me his house - a three-story clapboard structure that had been built before the Civil War. Various improvements and additions had been made to the house over the years, none of which matched. Gray stone, red clay, brown brick. All that and more could be seen on the house, along with a tin roof, black shutters, and blue eaves. The whole thing reminded me of a pincushion someone had haphazardly stuck a variety of implements into, with no thought for whether they actually belonged together or not.

I parked the Benz and ran my eyes over what I could see of the yard. It stretched out a hundred feet in front of the house before falling away in a series of jagged cliffs. Beyond the dropoff, the surrounding Appalachian Mountains were coal smudges in a night sky covered with a blanket of diamond stars and the gleaming crown of a half moon. Hell of a view, especially at night.

I got out of the car and stooped down behind the Benz, keeping it between myself and the sprawling house.

To a casual observer, it probably looked like I was tying my shoe. You would have had to look hard to see the glint of magic in my gray eyes or realize I had my hands pressed against the cold, wet gravel of the driveway.

The sounds of the trees, wind, and small, scurrying animals ran through the stones. Soft, comforting murmurs as familiar to me as a lullaby. No visitors today. I hadn't expected any, but it never hurt to double-check. I'd stayed alive this long, despite all the incredible odds and job hazards of my former profession. I wasn't going to get dead now because I'd made a rookie mistake, like not checking the gravel before I stepped into Fletcher's home.

Once I'd assured myself everything was as it should be, I grabbed my purse and headed for the house. But before I slid my key into the front door lock, I brushed my fingertips against the stone that framed and composed it.

Deep, rich, black granite so hard and solid even a giant would have a tough time pounding through it. Thin veins of silverstone glistened in the granite, adding to its dark beauty. But the magical metal served another purpose besides mere decoration. Silverstone could absorb any kind of elemental magic that came its way - Stone, Air, Fire, or Ice - as well as offshoots of the elements. Instead of being true elementals and being able to tap into one of the big four, as they were called, some folks were gifted in other areas, like metal, water, electricity, or even acid.

Regardless, the silverstone in the door would absorb quite a bit of power should anyone decide to use magic to force their way inside. I'd spent a fortune having the granite installed here and in other strategic places throughout the house, but it was worth it to make sure I was secure.

Helped me sleep easier.

The granite's hum was low and muted, just like the gravel in the driveway. Nobody had been near the door all day. Good. I'd had enough excitement already.

I unlocked the door and stepped inside. Given its unusual construction, the interior of the house resembled a rabbit's warren. Small rooms, short hallways, odd spaces here and there that doubled back and opened up into completely new areas. When I was living here as a kid, I'd had to draw myself a map just to get from my upstairs bedroom to the front door and back again. I threw my keys down into a bowl by the front door, kicked off my boots, and headed toward the back of the house, where the kitchen was.

Fletcher Lane had lived in this house seventy-seven years. He'd been born here, and he probably would have died here, if he hadn't been murdered by an Air elemental.

The old man had collected a lot of stuff in his time on this earth. Furniture, plates, tools, odd bits of metal, wood, glass. I hadn't had the heart to clean any of it out yet. The air stilled smelled faintly of him - like sugar, spice, and vinegar swirled together.

But the kitchen, the kitchen was mine. Always had been, from the moment I'd moved in as a homeless teenager to when I'd taken up residence again several weeks ago after Fletcher's funeral. I stepped inside and flipped on the light.

The kitchen was one of the largest rooms in the house, and a long, skinny island divided it from a small den that contained a television, stacks of books, a sofa, and a couple of recliners. Copper pots and pans hung from a metal rack over the island. A brand new, high-end stove, refrigerator, and freezer flanked half of the back wall, while a series of picture windows took up the other side. Several butcher blocks full of silverstone knives also populated the kitchen. On the island. On the counter. In the spice rack. Behind the microwave. You could never have too many knives lying around if you loved to cook like I did - or were a former assassin.

I poured myself a glass of lemonade, then wrapped my hand around the container and concentrated, reaching for the cool power deep inside myself. In addition to being a Stone elemental, I also had the rare talent of being able to manipulate another element - Ice. My Ice magic was far weaker, though. All I could really do with it was make small shapes, like cubes or chips. The occasional lock pick. A knife, when the need arose. But often it was the little things that saved you. A lesson I'd learned when battling Alexis James a few weeks ago. The Air elemental would have killed me, would have flayed me alive with her magic, if I hadn't formed a jagged icicle with my power and cut her throat with it.

I reached for my cool Ice magic, and a moment later, small, snowflake-shaped Ice crystals spread out from my palm and fingertips. They frosted up the side of the glass, arced over the lip, and ran down into the lemonade. Then I held my hand palm up and reached for my magic again.

A cold, silver light flickered there, centered in the spider rune scar embedded in my palm. After a moment, the light coalesced into a couple of Ice cubes, which I dropped into the tart beverage.

I took my lemonade into the den, plopped down in one of the recliners, and put my socked feet up on the scarred coffee table. As always, my eyes flicked to a series of framed drawings propped up on the mantel over the fireplace. Three pencil drawings I'd done for one of my community college classes and another, more recent, one.

The first three drawings depicted a series of runes - the symbols of my dead family. A snowflake, the rune for the Snow family, and my mother, Eira's, symbol, representing icy calm. A curling ivy vine for my older sister, Annabella, representing elegance. A delicate, intricate primrose for my younger sister, Bria, symbolizing beauty.

The fourth rune was shaped like a pig holding a platter of food. An exact rendering of the multicolored neon sign that hung over the entrance to the Pork Pit. Not a rune, not really, but I'd drawn it in honor of Fletcher Lane. The Pork Pit had been my home for the past seventeen years, since the murder of my mother and older sister. It and Fletcher were one and the same to me.

I held my lemonade up in a silent toast to the runes, to the family I'd lost long ago, and to Fletcher, whose death was still a raw, aching wound in my chest.

But the drawings on the mantel weren't the only runes to be found in the house. I had a rune as well. Two of them, actually - embedded in my flesh.

I put down my lemonade, uncurled my palms, and looked at the silverstone scars that decorated my skin. A small circle surrounded by eight thin rays, one on either hand. My rune, representing a spider, the symbol for patience.

The rune had once been a medallion, an innocent charm strung on a silverstone chain - until the Fire elemental who'd murdered my family had tortured me by duct-taping the rune in between my hands and making me hold on to the metal while she superheated it. The silverstone had eventually melted into my hands, forever marking me with the rune. Forever branding me as the Spider in more ways than one.

And I wasn't the only one who couldn't forget the past.

I leaned forward, picked up a thick folder from the coffee table, and plucked a picture out of the file. A woman stared up at me. A beautiful creature, with blond hair, cornflower blue eyes, and rosy skin. But her eyes were cold and hard, her mouth a tight slash in her face that detracted from her delicate features. A rune hung off a chain around her neck. A primrose. The symbol for beauty.

Bria. My baby sister.

For seventeen years, I'd thought Bria had died that night, along with our mother and older sister. Thought that she'd been crushed to death by the falling stones of our burning house. That I'd caused her death by using my Stone magic to collapse the house in order to try to escape my torturers and save her.

But Fletcher Lane had sent me a final gift from beyond the grave - Bria's photo. Proof that she was still alive somewhere out there in the world. The picture was the only nice thing in the folder. The rest of it dealt with my family's murder. Police reports, autopsy photos, and all the speculation that had followed the brutal, unexpected murder of the Snow family.

"Why did you do it, Fletcher?" I murmured. "Why leave me the information about my family? About their murder? Why the picture of Bria? Where is she? How did you find her? When were you going to tell me about her?"

Silence.

Fletcher had gone where I couldn't question him, and he was never coming back. All I had left was this folder of gruesome information and a single picture of Bria - neither of which had helped me locate my baby sister.

But Bria's photo hadn't been the only surprise in the folder. There had also been a slip of paper with a name on it. Mab Monroe, written and underlined twice in Fletcher's tight, controlled handwriting. That was all that had been on the paper. I still didn't know why Fletcher had written her name down and slipped it inside with the rest of the information. Was Mab Monroe the Fire elemental who'd killed my mother and older sister? If so, why? Why had she done it?

Mab Monroe might be powerful, but she'd also made a lot of enemies over the years. Back when I'd still been working as the assassin the Spider, Fletcher had gotten several requests a year from folks wanting her to be eliminated.

We'd both agreed it was an impossible job, that Mab had too many people around her, that she was just too strong in her magic to be taken down quietly by a single person. But that hadn't stopped Fletcher from compiling all the information he could on the Fire elemental, her minions, and her organization. It had always seemed to me like Fletcher Lane had some secret interest in wanting Mab Monroe dead. A desire I'd never been able to figure out - unless it had something to do with me and my family's murder.

It was all a great big circle of speculation. I just didn't know the answers to anything, and I'd been driving myself crazy trying to figure them out. Frustrated and disgusted once again, I threw the folder and Bria's picture down on the coffee table and got to my feet.

My sudden movements rattled the framed drawings on the mantel. Fletcher's drawing - the one of the pig sign over the Pork Pit - slid down. I stared at it a moment.

Then I sighed.

The old man had compiled the information about my family's murder for a reason. He just hadn't told me what it was before he'd been murdered. It wasn't his fault I wasn't smart enough to figure it out - or find Bria. Something I wasn't quite sure I even wanted to do. It had taken me years to put my family's murder behind me. I didn't know if I wanted to dig up the past again - or how Bria would react when she saw me and learned what I'd been doing all these years.

But nothing was going to be resolved tonight. Not tonight, maybe not ever. Fretting over it wouldn't help me unravel the mysteries Fletcher Lane had left behind.

Sighing, I went over and ran my fingers over each one of the four drawings, pushing Fletcher's crooked frame back up into its proper position. Then I turned and headed into the bathroom to wash off the day's grease, grime, and blood.

Chapter Four

"I'm going to kill this person," I said in a cold voice.

"Slowly. Painfully. Really make it hurt. Really make him feel it."

I slapped the morning edition of the Ashland Trumpet down onto the empty space beside the cash register.

There it was, on top of the B section. A story detailing the attempted robbery at the Pork Pit last night, along with a file shot of the outside of the restaurant. The headline read "Owner, cook thwart restaurant robbery" and ran all the way across the damn page in fifty-four-point type.

I drew in a breath, but the grease and spices that flavored the air from the morning's cooking didn't soothe me the way they usually did. I stared at the newspaper again, wondering how I'd been so sloppy as to get the Pork Pit plastered across the front of it.

Publicity was one thing I didn't need. The very last thing I needed. I hadn't advertised my services when I'd been a working assassin, and I certainly didn't want to broadcast my whereabouts now that I was retired. Not that anyone had any reason to suspect that Gin Blanco, restaurant owner and part-time college student, was actually the renowned assassin the Spider. But still I worried.

Paranoia was good. It had kept me alive this long. No reason to abandon it now.

"Come on, Gin. It's not that bad," a deep, male voice cut into my brooding. "At least he made you out to be the hero instead of the villain. How often does that happen?"