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.