"You're telling me," I said in a slow voice, "that Mab is going to this costume party dressed like an assassin?"

Finn nodded. "That's the rumor I've heard."

"And what, do tell, will this particular assassin costume look like?"

He shrugged. "From what I hear, Mab's interpretation will involve lots of skin-tight red leather and knives. Of course, we both know that you prefer to wear black to hide the bloodstains, but Mab's putting her own spin on things."

Cold anger filled me at the Fire elemental's audacity; that she had the nerve to openly mock me in such a fashion, especially after I'd killed so many of her men, especially after the other night, when I'd almost killed her. But Mab wasn't doing anything to me that I hadn't already done to her. The Fire elemental was trying to get under my skin just like I'd already wormed my way under hers.

So I put my anger aside, sat there, and thought about things. First, Mab had hired bounty hunters to come to Ashland to flush me out. Then she'd upped the ante and put a bounty on Bria's head. And now, after I'd been a second away from killing her, from ending her miserable existence, she was going to dress up and be seen in public as, well, me.

"It's got to be a trap," I murmured. "There's just no other explanation for it."

Owen frowned. "What do you mean?"

I looked at him. "I mean that there's no other reason for Mab to leave the safety of her estate right now, not with her bounty hunters doing her dirty work. And why would she ever want to dress up like me? There's just no reason for it, unless she specifically wants me to know she'll be out in the open. The costume is just her way of mocking me that much more, of making sure I put in an appearance at the ball. She probably put the word out about that herself."

Worry tightened Finn's face. "That's what I'm afraid of too-that it's all just an elaborate trap. But you said you wanted to know what Mab was doing, so there it is."

The three of us fell silent. Owen pushed away his plate as though he'd lost his appetite, even though he hadn't finished his sandwich. Couldn't blame him for that. This whole thing made me sick too, but in a different sort of way.

"Well," I finally said. "If Mab's going to mock me with her little costume, then I should be there in person to see it, don't you think?"

Finn sighed. "Don't even think about it, Gin. The country club will be crawling with Mab's giants and probably some of the bounty hunters too. Slipping onto her estate was bad enough. They didn't know you were coming then. But the country club? They know you'll be tempted to make another run at Mab there tonight."

I shrugged. "So you'll find me a way. You always do."

"I'm going with you," Owen cut in.

This time, I sighed. "Owen-"

"No," he said, staring at me with his violet eyes-eyes that were just as hard, cold, and determined as mine had been a moment ago. "I'm not letting you do this alone, Gin. You promised me that you'd take some backup along the next time you went after Mab. Well, I'm volunteering to be it, no matter how dangerous it is."

I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off again.

"Besides, it'll look better anyway, the two of us at the ball. We're a couple, remember? That's the kind of thing couples do. You're going to need some excuse to be at the ball. You just being Gin Blanco isn't going to cut it. Not this time. Call me crazy, but I don't think your name is on the guest list."

I wanted to argue with his logic-but I couldn't. I just couldn't. He was right. Alone, I'd be spotted sooner rather than later. With Owen, I would at least have a chance to get close to Mab, even if the whole thing was a trap.

So I tried another tactic. "You don't have to do this, Owen," I said in a soft voice. "You don't have to put yourself out there on the hook with me. Think of Eva. Think of how devastated she'd be to lose you."

Owen's face darkened, filling up with stormy emotion. "I'm also thinking of my parents, and how Mab killed them, how she burned them to death in their own house with her Fire magic, just as she did your family, Gin. I'm thinking about all the nights that Eva and I were cold and hungry living on the streets. I've already talked things over with Eva, and she agrees with me. I'm going with you to the country club, and I'm watching your back whether you like it or not."

In that moment, without a doubt, I knew that I loved Owen-loved him with every bent piece and warped shard of my heart, black, brittle, and broken though they might be. The knowledge left me dizzy and breathless, and I had to grip the counter to keep from falling off my stool.

Owen's mouth crooked up into a grin. "Besides," he rumbled, not noticing my reaction to his words, "it'll give you an excuse to wear some sexy little costume, which I will be all too happy to help you slip out of later."

The hot promise in his eyes took away what little breath I had left, and heat exploded in my stomach like fireworks streaking up into the night sky. Mmm. Sounded like a plan to me. Provided, of course, that I managed to slip through the swarm of giants sure to be at the country club. That I could corner Mab in the first place. That I could somehow survive the Fire elemental's incendiary magic. And the dozen or so other things that could go wrong.

But Owen's absolute, unwavering trust in me made me trust in myself. I could do this. I had to do this. I had to kill Mab. For me, for Bria, for Owen, for everyone else that I cared about.

"All right," I said, giving in. "You can be my date for the evening. But if things go bad, you are getting the hell out of there-immediately, no matter what I'm doing or how much trouble I'm in. Understand?"

After a moment, Owen nodded.

"As for you," I said, stabbing my finger at Finn. "You will go to Fletcher's house and stay with Bria tonight. Just in case any of our bounty hunters decide to show up there for whatever reason."

Owen going with me to the party would be bad enough. I didn't want Finn in the line of fire too. I couldn't bear it if anything happened to either one of them, but I'd already failed to save Fletcher from being brutally tortured and murdered in this very restaurant. I didn't want Finn to meet the same bad fate that his father had.

Finn grinned at me. "It will be my pleasure to keep tabs on sweet, sweet Bria."

His lecherous tone made me sigh once more. "I do hope that the two of you can keep your hands off each other, at least until after I kill Mab."

"It will be tough," Finn admitted. "Given how crazy your sister is about me."

I snorted. "You mean given how much she'd like to slap that smug smile off your face."

"Every woman I meet wants to do that at one point or another, but most of them get over it pretty quick," Finn said, dismissing my concern with an airy, arrogant wave of his hand.

I shook my head. Owen laughed, but there was a hollow note in his chuckle, just the way there was in mine. All three of us knew that we were about to undertake the Spider's most dangerous mission yet-to kill Mab Monroe in a room full of people and get away with it. I didn't know if I could do it, if I could kill Mab, but I was sure as hell going to try.

And probably die later on tonight for my trouble.

Chapter 15

Finn and Owen finished their food and left to start getting things ready, but I stayed at the Pork Pit with Sophia. I kept right on working-cooking, dishing up food, waiting tables, wiping them down after customers left. But my mind was already focused on tonight and the things that I would need to do to get close enough to Mab to kill her-and then get away clean afterward. Assuming, of course, that the Fire elemental didn't just blast me straight to hell with her magic. But at this point, I was determined to at least try to think positive.

I recognized what I was doing, of course. The mindset that I was getting into. It was something Fletcher had taught me-how to leave myself, Gin Blanco, completely behind and morph into the cold, hard entity known as the Spider, whose only desire was getting to her target and whose aim was always deadly and true. Tonight, I knew that I'd need that separation, that mental toughness, more than I ever had before. Especially if I wanted to live to see the dawn.

Around six o'clock, though, I got the first of what would turn out to be many nasty little surprises during the night-when Ruth Gentry and Sydney strolled into the Pork Pit.

The door opened, making the bell chime, and I looked up from my paperback copy of Medea. The two of them stepped inside, and Sydney pulled the door shut behind them, cutting off the cold air that blasted into the restaurant. How polite of her.

While the girl fiddled with the door, Gentry's pale blue eyes scanned the Pit, taking in everything from the clean, worn booths to the blue and pink pig tracks that covered the shiny floor. There was nothing overtly threatening in Gentry's gaze, but I got the sense that she was making a mental checklist. Doors, windows, number of people inside, who might make trouble, who might make a good meat shield. It was probably the same little ritual that she did whenever she went somewhere new. Just like I did.

Gentry was the only one of the bounty hunters who'd seen me and lived to tell the tale, but I wasn't worried about being recognized or Gentry identifying my voice. I'd been wearing a ski mask the last time we'd met in the dark, snowy woods that ringed Mab's mansion, and we'd spent more time fighting than talking. Hell, if Gentry could somehow connect that person to Gin Blanco as I was now in my jeans, long-sleeved T-shirt, and blue work apron, then the bounty hunter deserved to nab me. Still, I wasn't going to be so foolish as to not keep an eye on her.

"Code red," I murmured to Sophia, walking past her to get some menus. "Bounty hunters at two o'clock. The ones who winged me the other night."

Sophia grunted, and her black eyes cut in their direction, but the dwarf didn't stop ladling up bowls full of baked beans for the current crop of customers. Still, I knew that Sophia had my back. If Gentry had come here looking for trouble, then the bounty hunter was going to get more of it than she'd ever dreamed of.

Menus in hand, I plastered my best, biggest, friendliest, most charming southern smile on my face and headed toward them. "Hi, there. Y'all want something good and hot to eat?"

Gentry looked at me and the menus in my hand, sizing me up just the way she had the other folks in the Pit. "Sure."

I led the two of them over to one of the booths that looked out through the storefront windows, put the menus down on the table, and stepped back, taking my order pad and pen out of the back pocket of my jeans.

"So, what'll it be?" I asked, as if they were just another pair of anonymous customers who'd walked in off the street instead of a couple of bounty hunters who'd love nothing more than to drag me off by my hair and dump me at Mab's feet.

"I'll have a cheeseburger, fries, and a raspberry lemonade," Gentry said, glancing over the menu.

"The same," the girl said in a soft voice.

I scribbled down their orders, collected the menus, and went to the back counter where Sophia was dishing up the latest order of baked beans.

"Trouble?" the Goth dwarf asked in her raspy, broken voice.

"We'll see. I can handle those two. You keep an eye out for any others who might come strolling in."

She nodded. We fixed their food, and ten minutes later, I put everything on the table in front of them.

Sydney immediately reached for her cheeseburger and sank her teeth into it. She chewed, swallowed, and let out a little sigh of happiness. Despite the bulky sweater that covered her frame, I could see how painfully thin she was. Her big, hazel eyes were sunken into her face, and the high, sharp edges of her cheekbones would have made a model jealous. The girl put down her burger long enough to push her sleeves back, revealing wrist bones that stuck out like doorknobs.

I knew the look and what it meant-that Sydney hadn't been eating well lately. For a while, probably. I wondered exactly what she was doing with Gentry and why the two of them were here in the Pork Pit to start with. I had a feeling that it just wasn't for the food, no matter how much the girl seemed to be enjoying hers.

"Can I ask you a question?" Gentry said, looking up at me instead of digging into her food.

"Sure."

She reached into the pocket of her quilted jacket, which looked just as old and well worn as the dress she'd sported at Mab's dinner party. A lesser woman, a lesser assassin, would have tensed at the suspicious movement, but not me.

Instead of that pearl-handled revolver that I'd seen her with before, Gentry drew a slim piece of paper out of her pocket. She held it out to me, and I took it from her. I wasn't too surprised to see that it was a head-and-shoulders shot of Detective Bria Coolidge, probably taken off the Ashland Police Department's website. So that's what Gentry was doing here, trolling for clues as to Bria's whereabouts. Smart, very, very smart.

"You ever seen that woman in here before?" she asked. "She's a detective. Name's Bria Coolidge. I hear that she likes to come in here with her partner, a giant named Xavier. The two of them usually eat lunch over at the counter, right next to that old cash register of yours."

Damn and double damn. Not only did Gentry know that Bria came in here on a regular basis, but she also knew where my baby sister liked to sit. The bounty hunter had done her homework. So much so that I wondered how much trouble it would be to lure Gentry into the alley behind the restaurant and introduce her to the sharp ends of my silverstone knives. My eyes cut to Sydney, who was still eating her cheeseburger. But then, I'd have the girl to deal with, and that was a line even I wouldn't cross.