I hit the stairs, stuffed one knife into my bag and grabbed the railing with my now-free hand, pulling myself up as much with my arm as with my legs, which had once more turned to jelly. I got to the top of the stairs and bent at the waist to catch my breath. A quick glance over my shoulder proved I’d thought wrong about the spider’s supposed limitations. Those long, hairy black legs were following me.

“Gran, you never warned me about this!” I yelled to myself as I moved with speed down the streets that would lead me back to East Perry. I had to believe Corb was still at the loft. Or Sarge.

Something splooshed into the building that I’d just circled around. I looked back at the oozing hunk of what had to be web stuck to the old brick building. Only it wasn’t light and airy, but thick like mucus spit.

I stuck my head around the corner to glare at the still oncoming spider. “Seriously? You’re spitting at me?”

The spider let out a snarl—yes, a snarl!—and opened its mouth. I squeaked and ran all the way to the Colonial cemetery, which was just kitty corner from Corb’s loft. I ran with all I had, which left me once more sweating and red-faced. I didn’t care. I stumbled into the park and tucked down behind one of the larger tombstones. My legs were done, my heart was done, I couldn’t go any further even though I had probably a block left at best. I slid down, still clutching one of the daggers. What the hell was I going to do with it anyway? The stupid spider was right, I didn’t even know how to . . . the sound of a rumbling bike engine snapped my head to the left.

Not exactly a knight in shining armor, but I’d take Sarge in a heartbeat.

A dog on a hog.

Laughing hysterically, I burst out from my crappy hiding spot (okay, burst is maybe a bit of an oversell; more like crawled quickly, stumbling as I tried to look behind me) and headed across the grass, between a pair of tourists who scrambled away from the crazy lady holding an oversized dagger and laughing like a maniac.

“Sarge!” I hollered for all I was worth, and thank God, he heard me. He stopped, turned, and then just stared at me as I crawled toward him. The fence was in the way, which meant I had to pull myself over it. I did manage to get my dagger back into my bag first, so I didn’t end up impaling myself on the tip.

Why wasn’t he helping me? I got caught up on one of the sharp points, my shirt tore, and I fell to a heap on the other side of the fence, my bag clutched to my body. I landed on it, and the items within the depths of the bag did nothing to soften my fall. I was pretty sure I could feel the point of Gran’s book jab against one of my ribs. A scattering of applause rose from behind me from the tourists. I twisted around, totally expecting to see the spider waiting there to scoop me up.

Nope, just Robert, watching me go, and a few tourists shaking their heads as they stared at me. How the hell was no one else seeing him? I lifted a hand and waved, and he waved back.

The tourists cringed as if I had yellow fever.

Sarge crouched beside me. “Do I dare ask what that is all about?”

I blew out a breath. “Do I get a pass on tonight’s training seeing as I just ran for my life from a giant spider?”

Sarge squinted one eye. “How did you piss off Jinx?”

“You know the giant spider of which I speak?” I pushed to my feet, Sarge holding me under one elbow as I limped over to his bike. He got on, and I slid on behind him with a whimper.

“She’s a trickster. She wouldn’t have really hurt you,” he said. “She likes to tease those who can see her.”

Maybe it was the kick to her lady box that had pissed her off. “She said she was allowed to eat those who could see her.”

That seemed to give him pause. “No, she was just teasing.”

“I don’t like her teasing.” I wrapped my arms around his solid body and held on as the bike rumbled forward. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about the big spider. If she was a trickster, what would it be like to face down something that actually wanted to eat me? I mean, it had been a long time since I’d seen any of the monsters in the shadows and . . .

“There weren’t many monsters in the shadows in Seattle.” I shouted to be heard over the whoosh of air around us. Even when I’d been still seeing them, they had been few and far between.

“You don’t have to shout, my ears are good,” Sarge said. “And the answer is simple. There aren’t many monsters in Seattle. Not of the supernatural kind, anyway. Certain places hold a bit of a lure for the shadowed ones.”

Shadowed ones. That name rang a loud bell in my head. Gran used to say that, she used to say that the shadowed ones weren’t all good, they weren’t all bad, but a whole lot of gray, just like people.

“And Savannah is one of those places?” That felt right too, again like something Gran had said.

“New Orleans too, Salem, Gettysburg, Chicago, just to name a few. Lots of bloodshed, lots of suffering. Makes for good breeding grounds for a lot of the monsters out there.”

I had nothing to say to that. My mind wouldn’t shut off, though. All those places had monsters lurking in the shadows like Savannah did. Really?

Sarge drove us back toward the cemetery where this had all started. It was hard to believe the interview had been the night before. Felt like a week at least.

Maybe Eammon would give me the night off, maybe I’d get a break.

Yeah, I didn’t think so either.

12

Sarge pulled up to the cemetery with the address 696 Hollows Road stamped on top of the gate. Night had just started to creep up on the horizon, and it made some of the gravestones almost glow with that last bit of the sun kissing their tops.

The gate opened wide by means unknown and Sarge drove us through. At least we didn’t have to walk all the way to the entrance to the . . . “What do you call this place?”

“A cemetery.”

Under my hands his body shook. Laugh at me, will you? I grabbed a bit of flesh over his abs and twisted it. “You know what I mean. Do we call it the lair, the training grounds, palace of death, Hogwarts 2.0?”

He smacked my hand away. “The Hollows, that’s what we call it.”

Great. Everything was called the Hollows. The group. The training place. The road it was on. Lack of imagination if you asked me. Which of course, no one had.

Two minutes later, we were once more underground in the main room of the Hollows’s training area.

We were the last to arrive, and everyone watched as I stumbled in after Sarge. Corb’s jaw hung open. “What the hell happened to you?”

“I left her behind to get . . . some girl things.” Sarge grimaced. “She had a run-in with Jinx. And she spent all her money on books and clothes, so she has no weapons. Good luck with that, Eammon.”

Eammon took one look at me and motioned for me to sit next to him. I started to lower myself but then saw that no one else was sitting. Damn it. “I’ll stand, thanks. And I have a weapon. Two, actually.”

I patted my bag and the two daggers clinked.

Sarge snorted. Then sniffed the air. “Wait a minute, where have you been?”

I’d sat behind him on the bike, but it occurred to me that he wouldn’t have smelled me then, with my butt sitting behind him. I grinned. “You tell me.”

Eammon clapped his hands together. “Enough, both of you. Training begins now. Put on your working clothes, get your weapons on, and start with three laps of the graveyard.”

My turn for my jaw to drop. “I just ran across half of downtown with a giant bug chasing me!” I spluttered.

“Then you’re all warmed up.” Eammon’s green eyes twinkled at me. Yes, I knew eyes were not supposed to twinkle, but they did, and I wanted to smack him for it.

Damn leprechaun.

I glanced at the other trainees and laughed to myself when I saw that they were all standing there, not moving.

The girl put her hand up. “I didn’t buy any clothes. I just bought weapons.”

Corb gave her a push. “Then put them on and get running.”

I, on the other hand, stripped to my underwear where I stood and pulled on the new clothes Gerry had made for me. The soft, supple leather clung to every curve, but wasn’t hard to get on. Some subtle netting strips ran down the legs of the pants, which would help with cooling me off—a necessity not only for the heat, but for the fact that I was going to sweat like crazy. The top was actually a snug-fitting jacket that I reluctantly pulled on over my tank top, buckles cinching it shut.

“Gerry does nice work,” Eammon said. “Expensive, but the best.”

I nodded. “I like her.”

Then I pulled my two knives and the leather strapping out of my bag. “Can you help me with this? I’m not sure how it goes on exactly.” I held it out to Eammon, and he recoiled as if I were offering him a snake. “What?”

“Where did you get that?” His finger shook as he pointed at the worn black leather. “And those!” Now he pointed at the two short knives I held in my other hand.

I put the knives on the ground and started fiddling with the straps, trying not to freak out along with Eammon. “I got them from a vendor.”

He put his hand to his head. “I should never have sent Sarge with you. He just let you run off, didn’t he?”

“Probably not.” I shrugged. “But I got a better deal on these—”

“No, you probably didn’t. What did you sign?” Eammon helped me get the harness across my hips, attaching the straps for the sheaths around my upper thighs.

“Nothing.”

“What?” That slowed him down. “Feish didn’t make you sign anything?”

“See, you knew exactly where I got these.” I patted the leather, bent with a small groan, and picked up the daggers. I slid them into the sheaths and there was a soft click, like they’d locked in place. Nice. I put the turquoise one in the right sheath, and the silver in the left.

“Feish never lets anyone out without signing a contract.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t deal with Feish. I dealt with Crash directly.”