Crack! Crack! Crack!
More gunshots rang out, along with something that sounded like rusted metal creaking, although the noise was mostly drowned out by the whine of the bullets. I'd almost reached the entrance when I heard voices-loud voices with a distinctive southern twang. Knives still in my hands, I paused behind a tree and peered around the ice-crusted trunk.
Ahead of me, two women and a man stood in the middle of the woods-right in front of the opening of the tunnel.
Somehow, they'd found it in the snow. They'd even been bright enough to pull back the metal hatch to reveal the dark hole leading down into the ground, which was no doubt the creaking sound that I'd heard. Fuck. I'd wanted to do this quick, clean, and quiet, and get Finn and Bria out of the house before the bounty hunters even realized that they were gone. Probably not going to happen now. Oh, it didn't bother me, the thought of killing the three people in front of me, but it meant more precious seconds wasted, more precious time when Finn and Bria were in danger of being overrun by the other bounty hunters.
"What do you think it is, Liza?" one of the women asked, shining a flashlight into the dark space.
"What do you think it is, Celia? Because it looks like some kind of tunnel to me, genius," Liza sniped.
"See?" The guy grinned. "I told you that an assassin like the Spider was sure to have some sort of escape hatch from that ugly-ass house of hers."
"Yeah, Connor," the first woman, Celia, chimed in again. "But we don't even know that the Spider's in the house. According to that info bulletin that went out, the last time anyone saw her, she was still at the country club."
"Well, someone's in that house, and they're picking off the other hunters like flies," Connor replied. "If the Spider is as good as everyone says she is, then I'm sure that the shooters have plenty of ammo to spare. Besides, did you see all that silverstone in the doors and the matching bars over the windows? They could hold that house for a week. We go through this tunnel here, we can come up in the house behind them and surprise them. They'll never even know what hit them."
The two women stared at the tunnel, then at each other. Liza shrugged.
"Might as well see where it goes," Liza said. "Connor's right-we're not getting in through the front door. At least not until someone gets the bright idea of trying to burn them out. Even then, someone would have to get close to the house to do that. I don't think that whoever is inside is going to let that happen."
No, Finn knew better than to let anyone breach the house, especially anyone carrying a flaming torch or a can of gasoline.
I scanned the rest of the area, but I didn't see any more bounty hunters in the shadows. If I was lucky, these three were the only ones who'd given up on a full-scale frontal assault and had decided to go poking around in the woods. But I doubted it. For one thing, my luck could never be that good. For another, I hadn't noticed Ruth Gentry or Sydney among the crowd circling the house. If the old bounty hunter had received the same kind of bulletin that the others had, she was sure to be lurking around here somewhere with her apprentice in tow.
Right now, though, I had a more immediate problem-the three people in front of me and how to kill them as quickly and quietly as possible.
The man, Connor, had a gun like all the other bounty hunters, but the two women had gone in for more exotic weapons. Celia had a sword strapped to her belt, while a leather whip coiled around Liza's waist. I grimaced. That whip was going to hurt, especially since Mab had already blasted my skin with her Fire magic tonight. Nothing I could about it now, though, which meant that it was time to get on with things-
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Another barrage of shots echoed through the trees, as Finn mowed down whichever fool had been stupid enough to step out from behind his vehicle.
Knives in my hands, I moved forward. By this point, snow crusted my boots an inch thick in places, so my footsteps made little noise. I crept up until I stood at a right angle with the three bounty hunters, who were dickering about who should lead the way into the tunnel. Despite their weapons, none of them wanted to come face-to-face with the Spider in her own house.
They just didn't realize that it was too late for that already. Way too late.
The three bounty hunters continued to mill around the tunnel entrance, still arguing. When it was apparent that they couldn't come to a decision by themselves, they held out their hands and decided to go rock-paper-scissors for it. They slapped their hands together, and I used the noise to tiptoe even closer to them. I stood in the woods and waited, but all three of them picked paper, so they had to do it again.
I rolled my eyes. And these were the people that Mab was promising millions of dollars to if they found, captured, or killed me. At least Elektra LaFleur had been smart and strong enough to be a real challenge. Mab was wasting her money on these amateurs.
Finally, their hands smacked down for the final time, and the two women grinned, because they'd both picked paper again, while Connor had chosen rock, which meant that he'd lost.
"Fine," he grumbled. "I'll go first since you ladies are so afraid to-"
The silverstone knife I'd just thrown sank into his right eye, and he fell to the snow without a sound. For a moment, the two women stood there-stunned-and stared down at their fallen comrade, mouths open, their brains not quite catching on as to what was happening.
And that's when I made my move.
I palmed another knife, darted out of the shelter of the trees, and raced toward them. Connor had been the only one with a gun, which is why I'd dropped him first. My focus was on keeping the noise to a minimum-not letting Connor shoot up the woods and give away my location. Besides, if I couldn't take out two chicks with only a sword and a whip between them, then I wasn't the Spider, wasn't half the assassin Fletcher had trained me to be.
After another second, the women snapped back to reality and realized that there was someone else in the clearing, someone who was an immediate threat to them-me. Celia reached down, fumbling at her sword, trying to get it free of the loop on her belt.
I didn't give her the chance.
My first knife punched into chest, rupturing her heart. Her hot blood painted my hands a steaming crimson, spattering onto the snow like scarlet teardrops. Celia opened her mouth to scream, but I used my second knife to cut her throat before she could utter so much as a whimper. I pushed her dying body away and turned to face the other woman-
Her whip snapped against my neck.
I hissed in pain and staggered back, my blood mixing with that of the other bounty hunters' on the snow. In front of me, Liza flicked her whip over the ground, making it writhe like a rattlesnake. She also backed up out of the range of my knives. Smart. Just not smart enough.