Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge

see what new danger might be waiting in the dark.
    Nothing. I saw and heard nothing.
    Maybe it had just been the wind rattling through the trees, a branch collapsing under the weight of the snow, or a wild animal drawn by the smell of fresh blood. But I didn’t believe that. Not really, not deep down in my gut where it mattered. Because Gentry was out there somewhere, with Sydney and her rifle. Nothing I could do about it now, though. Getting Finn and Bria out of the house was my first priority. I’d deal with everything else later—including Gentry, should she decide to show herself.
    The snow started to fall once more as I ducked down and slid into the tunnel.

Fletcher Lane’s escape tunnel reminded me of a coal mine that I’d been in not too long ago—low, squat, and round, with rough, uneven, earthen walls supported by thick wooden beams. The air smelled as old and musty as a dust-covered book long forgotten on a shelf. Dried-up leaves littered the entrance, and they crackled like cellophane under my boots as I moved farther inside.
    The leaves gave way to hard-packed dirt, worn smooth and shiny by the tread of countless feet across it over the years. Fletcher had told me that the tunnel had once been used by bootleggers back during Prohibition, a hiding place for them and their mountain moonshine to rest before continuing their journey. Even now, all these years later, the rocks underfoot muttered with worry, tension, and fear of discovery. The on-edge sound matched my own mood perfectly.
    I’d picked up one of the bounty hunters’ flashlights beforestepping inside so it was easy enough for me to make my way down the tunnel. Still, I sidestepped carefully to avoid disturbing the spiderwebs that stretched from one wooden beam to the next like wispy threads of silver silk. If any more of the bounty hunters discovered the tunnel, I didn’t want them to realize that I’d been in here—or that I’d taken Finn and Bria out this way.
    Ten minutes later, I reached the far end of the tunnel. I walked up a series of steep steps to a heavy metal door and banged on it three times with the flashlight, then three more times, then still three more times—a long-standing signal Fletcher had taught Finn and me should we ever need to get into the house this way.
    I’d barely finished tapping on the door when I heard the bolt screech back. A second later, the metal door opened, letting light from the house stream into the tunnel. I shielded my eyes against the glare and looked up to find Bria staring down at me, her gun pointed at my head. She wasn’t taking any chances. Good.
    “You all right?” I asked.
    Bria lowered her weapon and moved to one side so I could climb up out of the trapdoor that was set into the floor of Fletcher’s cluttered office, right behind the old man’s desk.
    “I’m fine,” she said.
    She looked no worse for wear—despite the fact that she didn’t have on a shirt and had just thrown her long wool coat on over a pale pink camisole and a pair of jeans. Her bare feet were stuffed into a pair of my sneakers. A missing shirt and socks. That must have been as far as Finn had gotten to undressing her before the two of them were interrupted.
    “Where’s Finn?”
    “A few rooms over still picking off bounty hunters,” Bria said.
    “Get him, and let’s get out of here,” I said. “I had to drop a couple of the more curious ones out in the woods already, and I want to be clear of here before the others start searching the area around the house and find their bodies and the entrance to the tunnel.”
    Bria nodded and left the room. Fletcher’s office stood in one of the front corners of the house, so I eased over to the window and peered out through the curtains and silverstone bars that covered the glass. The bounty hunters still ringed the front of the house.
    Every once in a while, one of them would take aim and fire off a couple of shots, even though the bullets did nothing more than catch in the thick, reinforced walls and the slabs of granite that covered the house like an armadillo’s layered, protective shell. Still, the bullets pinging into the granite had activated the runes that I’d traced into the stone with my magic. Small, tight, spiral curls—the symbol for protection. In addition to using them as symbols of their magic and allegiances, elementals could also imbue runes with power and make them perform specific functions.
    When I’d first moved back into