Tangled Webs

as much as you can, but hold what’s left of that curtain out of the way,” she said.
    “Surreal, maybe I should…” He looked at the paperweight and didn’t say anything more.
    “You wear Opal; I wear Gray.” And there was the simple fact that the Dea al Mon side of her heritage made her a lot stronger than she looked.
    “You’ve already taken a hit,” Rainier said.
    “Yeah.” And that was pissing her off because breathing still hurt like a wicked bitch.
    Not that far from the house to the wrought-iron fence. Fifteen paces at the most. She could throw a stone that far.
    She waited while Rainier fetched the poker from the brass stand on the hearth. Hooking some of the material, he pulled back the remains of the shredded curtain.
    She stared at the window. Dark outside now. She couldn’t see the fence or the street. Just her reflection in the glass. If she broke the glass…
    A sensation at the back of her neck, like delicate legs brushing, crawling.
    Letting instinct decide, she channeled her Gray power into her hand and then wrapped it around the bundle before she cocked her arm back and threw, using Craft to pass the bundle through the glass.
    Somewhere in the house, the gong sounded.
    “Did it get out?” Surreal asked, stepping closer to the glass. “Can you see if the bundle got past the fence?”
    Her reflection in the night-darkened glass. And then it wasn’t her reflection. Another woman’s face stared back at her and…
    The woman’s arm shot out of the glass. Her nails, shaped like dagger points, slashed at Surreal’s face.
    Surreal turned her face away and flung up an arm as an instinctive defense. And felt those nails tear through her jacket sleeve before Rainier yanked her out of reach.
    “Should have gone through the window,” the woman said, her voice a malevolent singsong. “Should-a, could-a, too late now. Find an exit and don’t use it, it’s gone forever. Gone gone gone. Like you’ll be. You’ll join me soon enough. And your face won’t look so pretty when you do.”
    “Who are you?” Surreal asked.
    “He paid me. And then he killed me. And then he chained me to this house. But he’s letting me play with all the tricks and traps. Don’t die too soon, Lady Bitch. Not until you’ve seen my best surprises.”
    “Who is he?”
    “You’ll find out.” The woman’s face began to fade. “When you’re chained to the house too.”
    Surreal stared at the window. Nothing in the glass now but her own reflection.
    “We could have gotten out,” she said. “Could have opened the window and climbed out.”
    “While trying to avoid the slashing nails?” Rainier countered.
    “I doubt she would have watched us leave.”
    “Assuming she wasn’t lying about that being an exit.” Surreal fingered the tear in her jacket. “What was she? Demon-dead? Illusion?”
    “Both?” Rainier released a breath in a grim sigh. “Did she cut you?”
    She shook her head. “Came close, though. And that wasn’t meant as a bit of fun.”
    “Agreed.” He hesitated. “Does this seem familiar?”
    “How so?” she asked warily.
    “Body in a closet. Clues.”
    They looked at each other.
    “Ah, shit,” Surreal said. “Someone set us up in a mystery? We’re the dumb characters who walk into the Bad Place?”
    “Looks like it.” Then Rainier added on a psychic thread, «And we helped by bringing victims with us. Fodder for the game.»
    «Then it’s time to stop thinking in terms of what we expected and really look at what we walked into.»

    Dropping down from the Black Wind, Daemon guided the Coach as it coasted the rest of the way to the landen village. It wasn’t hard to figure out where the spooky house was located. It was the only source of power pulsing through the village.
    He and Jaenelle hadn’t spoken since leaving their—her—bedroom. But as he settled the Coach gently on the opposite side of the street from the house, he’d had enough of her silence and her anger.
    She surged out of her seat and headed for the Coach door—and then stared at it when it didn’t open.
    Moving with lazy, predatory grace, he rose from the driver’s chair—and smiled at her. “Can’t get through a Black lock?” he asked, his voice laced with nasty pleasantness.
    “Open the door.”
    “Not until a few things get said.” He moved toward her but stopped out of arm’s reach. She was still a powerful Black Widow, and he had no desire to get pumped full of her venom by accident or