“Come on, you bitch!” I growled at the blonde. “You want a piece of me? Bring it on!”
She leaped forward like she was on a spring. My eyes went wide, my courageous last stand suddenly not such a brilliant idea. But a split second later, she jerked back with a screech, her hand clawing at a small black arrow lodged in her shoulder. I heard an answering screech from the brunette and swung around in time to see her head snap back as an arrow pierced her eye.
What the hell?
There was a scuffling noise behind me that brought my head around in time to see the blonde struggling with a figure dressed in black fatigues and wearing a black ski mask. As I watched, he swung his fist, catching her jaw with a right hook, then slamming her chin with a left uppercut that knocked her on her ass. In the next instant, he had a knee on her chest and snatched from his ammo belt something that looked like a railroad stake. The blonde didn’t even have time to react as he drove it down into the center of her chest.
I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until it burst from me with a gasp. But my relief was short-lived. An arm came around my throat, cutting off my air. I drove my elbow into my attacker’s ribs, but it barely fazed her. I grabbed her arm and tucked my chin down to take some of the pressure from my esophagus, then drove the edge of my snow boot down along her exposed shin, making her howl in pain.
“Get down!”
My eyes darted toward the sound of the man’s voice. He stood over the body of the blonde, a small crossbow aimed at the brunette. I bit down on the vampire’s arm as hard as I could, drawing her tainted blood. When she roared with rage, her grip loosening for a fraction of a second, I dropped, rolling out of the way as the man in black fired the crossbow. The arrow struck the center of the woman’s chest. Her eyes went wide for a fraction of a second before she crumpled into a permanently dead heap.
So this was the infamous Spider . . .
I totally took back everything I’d said about the guy being no better than the criminals he brought down. He was my new BFF. I was tempted to see if he was a bit parched after the ass kicking he’d just doled out and maybe wanted to join me for a super stiff drink at Ever Afters, but then the mind-numbing pain in my wrist reminded me I probably had other business to tend to first.
Out of breath, I scooted myself back with my good arm until I could lean against one of the dumpsters. My adrenaline left me in a rush, and I was suddenly completely exhausted. I closed my eyes and let my head fall back.
“Are you hurt?”
My eyes snapped open, my stomach clenching painfully. There was something so familiar about that voice. . . . “What?”
My rescuer squatted down in front of me. “Are you all right?”
I blinked at him, suddenly experiencing a serious case of deja vu. The man’s tone was rough, clipped, and there was no hint of mischief or roguish charm. Still . . .
“My wrist is broken,” I said a little breathlessly. “But it’s already healing. I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
He gave me a tight nod and started to rise, but then seemed to reconsider and resumed his crouch before me. He studied me for a long moment, giving me a good glimpse of his eyes, but they were in shadow, obscuring the color, and he was completely on his guard. There was no way I was getting in.
“You did good, doll,” he said finally. “Made my job one helluva lot easier.”
I felt my cheeks going warm at the praise. “Thanks.”
His eyes narrowed, crinkling a little behind his ski mask and giving me the impression that he was grinning. “But you know, you shouldn’t be out here alone at night, even if you can kick ass,” he admonished. Then he reached up and twisted one of my ringlets around his gloved index finger and pulled gently before letting it spring back into place. “I’d hate to see harm come to a girl as pretty as you.”
My eyes went wide. Holy shit. “Nicky Blue?” I gasped. “You’re the Spider?” He jumped to his feet and took a few quick steps before I found my voice to cry out, “Wait! Nicky! It’s okay—I know you!”
He halted midstride and shook his head. “No, you don’t,” he said over his shoulder. “No one does. Not anymore.”
I scrambled awkwardly to my feet, my knees still shaky from my encounter with the vampires, but when I looked up again he was gone. I turned a full circle, searching for him in the shadows, but he had slipped away as silently and mysteriously as he’d come. I let out a disappointed sigh.
“You’re wrong, Nicky Blue,” I announced to the darkness. “Nobody knows you better than I do.”
Chapter Three
“How’s Red?” I asked Nate from my seat in the back of the ambulance as the FMA medic wrapped my wrist to help it finish healing properly.
“False alarm,” Nate told me, his relief easy to read in his voice in spite of his usual calm tone. “But they’re keeping her overnight for observation, just to be sure.”
I wiggled my fingers a little for the medic to show him I could still move them. “Sorry to drag you out again tonight, Nate. I know you’d rather be at her side.”
“Gran’s with her,” he said, neither confirming nor denying my supposition. “I’ll head back as soon as we’re finished here.”
I nodded, watching the FMA cleanup crew doing their thing for the second time tonight. Alex was running the show in Red’s absence, and doing a damned good job of it from what I could tell. He was just directing the photographers to pack it in and let the team bag the bodies when the sound of an approaching vehicle brought all of our heads around.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Nate mumbled.
I groaned, then offered my medic a tight smile and nod. “Thanks, Barry. That should do it.” Then, steeling myself, I hopped down from the back of the ambulance to go greet our visitor.
“There’s nothing for you here, Spalding,” I spat, my lack of enthusiasm at seeing the Ordinary punctuated by the throbbing in my wrist.
Ian Spalding offered me a patronizing grin as he slammed the door of his black Lincoln. “Well, if it isn’t Trish Muffet,” he drawled. “It’s been a long time.”
“Not long enough,” I snapped. “I thought we had an agreement.”
He gave me another smile, this one the style of smirk unique to those so completely confident of victory, it costs them nothing to be cordial. “The Agency stands by that agreement,” he assured me, inclining his head a little. “However, I’m afraid you’re the one overstepping bounds this time.”
I traded a glance with Nate. “What do you mean? These vampires are Tales, not Ordinaries.”
Ian raised his dark brows. “You sure about that?”
Well, no, actually I wasn’t. I’d told Red I sensed something strange about them when I’d read the dead man, and then seeing the vamps in person had confirmed my suspicions that something was decidedly off. In fact, the last time I’d seen a Tale signature like theirs, it had belonged to a little Ordinary boy who’d been raised from the dead by Sebille Fenwick’s flunkies. But there was no way in hell I was going to tell Ian Spalding that.
Ian was a member of a shadowy US government organization that helped police the unexplained of the Ordinary world. When tales of alien encounters really picked up in the fifties, these guys became known in modern folklore as Men in Black. But they referred to themselves simply as the Agency. And they’d existed well before any aliens—real or Tale—had entered the scene.
From what I understood, we’d had our first encounter with the Agency about five years before I came over, but thanks to Al Addin’s powers of persuasion—and a deal to keep them informed of anything we came across that wasn’t ours—they eventually agreed to leave us alone as long as we stayed out of trouble. Unfortunately, the werewolf murders perpetrated by Sebille Fenwick two years earlier had spilled out into their jurisdiction when an Ordinary named Molly O’Grady had become one of the victims. Al had had to do a lot of smooth talking to set things to rights again.
“As soon as I’m finished with the bodies, I’ll be happy to turn them over to you to experiment on,” I told Ian, not bothering to hide the disgust in my voice. “You guys are good at that from what I understand.”
