Chap­ter One

“My name is Gin, and I kill people.”

Nor­mally, my con­fes­sion would have elicited gasps of sur­prise. Pale faces. Ner­vous sweat. Sti­fled screams. An over­turned chair or two as peo­ple scram­bled to get away before I buried a knife in their heart—or back. A suck­ing wound was a suck­ing wound. I wasn’t picky about where I caused it.

“Hi, Gin,” four peo­ple cho­rused back to me in per­fect, dull, monot­one unison.

But not in this place. Within the walled con­fines of Ash­land Asy­lum, my con­fes­sion, true though it might be, didn’t even merit a raised eye­brow, much less shock and fright­ened awe. I was rel­a­tively nor­mal com­pared to the freaks of nature and magic who pop­u­lated the grounds. Like Jack­son, the seven-foot-tall albino giant seated to my left who drooled worse than a mas­tiff and gur­gled like a three-month-old child.

A long string of clear, glis­ten­ing spit­tle dripped out of his over­size lips, but Jack­son was too busy coo­ing non­sense to the crude daisy tat­tooed on the back of his hand to pay atten­tion. Or do some­thing sane and hygienic, like wipe his mouth. I shifted away from him so I wouldn’t come in con­tact with the ooz­ing mucus.

Dis­gust­ing. But Jack­son was typ­i­cal of the sorts of folks in the asy­lum. Asy­lum. The word always made me smile. Such a pretty name for a hellhole.

It was bad enough I’d been stuck here for almost a week. But what really set me on edge was the noise—and hav­ing to lis­ten to the build­ing around me. The screams of the damned and deranged had long ago sunk into the gran­ite walls and floors of the asy­lum, the way all emo­tions and actions do over time. Being a Stone ele­men­tal, I could feel the vibra­tions in the rock and hear the con­stant, insane chat­ter even through the indus­trial car­pet and my white, cot­ton socks.

When I’d first got­ten here, I’d tried to reach out to the stone, to use my own magic to bring it a bit of com­fort. Or at least quiet the screams so I could get some sleep at night. But it had been no use. The stones were too far gone to lis­ten or respond to my magic. Just like the poor souls who shuf­fled along on top of them.

Now, I just blocked out the damn noise—the way I did so many other things.

A woman at the head of the cir­cle of plas­tic chairs leaned for­ward. She was directly across from me, so it was easy for her light eyes to find mine. “Now, Gin, you’ve made this claim before. We’ve dis­cussed this. You only think you’re an assas­sin. You are most cer­tainly not one.”

Eve­lyn Edwards. The shrink who was sup­posed to cure all the cra­zies in this mag­i­cal nut­house. She radi­ated pro­fes­sional cool and con­fi­dence in her tight black pantsuit, ivory blouse, and kit­ten heels. Square black glasses hung on the end of her pointed nose, high­light­ing her green­ish eyes, and her sandy hair was cropped into a short, tou­sled bob. Eve­lyn was pretty enough, but a hun­gry look pinched her pasty face—a look I rec­og­nized. The hard gaze of a sly predator.

The rea­son I was here today.

“I most cer­tainly am not a mere assas­sin,” I coun­tered. “I’m the Spi­der. Surely, you’ve heard of me.”

Eve­lyn rolled her eyes and looked at the tall orderly stand­ing just beyond the ring of chairs. He snick­ered, then raised his fin­ger to his tem­ple and made a circle.

“Of course I’ve heard of the Spi­der,” Eve­lyn said, attempt­ing to be patient. “Everybody’s heard of the Spi­der. But you are cer­tainly not him.”

“Her,” I corrected.

The orderly snick­ered again. I raised an eye­brow in dis­plea­sure. The joke was on him because that laugh had just cost him his life. I didn’t care to be mocked, even if I’d spent the last few days mas­querad­ing as a loon.

In order to kill peo­ple, you have to get close to them. Put your­self in their world. Make their likes your likes. Their habits your habits. Their thoughts your thoughts.

For this job, putting myself in Eve­lyn Edwards’s world had meant get­ting tossed into Ash­land Asy­lum. To Eve­lyn and her orderly under­lings, I was just another schizo dragged off the streets, dri­ven crazy by ele­men­tal magic, drugs, or a com­bi­na­tion of the two. Another poor, lost ward of the state who wasn’t worth their time, atten­tion, con­sid­er­a­tion, or sympathy.

I’d spent the last few days locked up in the asy­lum con­vinc­ing Eve­lyn and the oth­ers I was just as June-bug crazy as the rest of the bab­bling psy­chos. Spout­ing non­sense about being an assas­sin. Drool­ing. Finger-painting with the moldy peas they served for lunch. I’d even hacked off gobs of my long, bleached blond hair dur­ing craft time to keep up the pre­tense. The order­lies on call had taken the scis­sors away from me, but not before I’d used them to pry a screw loose from the rec room table.

The same screw I’d sharp­ened to a two-inch-long, dart­like point. The same screw I had palmed in my hand. The same screw I was going to shove into Evelyn’s throat. The weapon rested on my palm, and the steel felt rough against my scarred skin. Hard. Sub­stan­tial. Cold. Comforting.

Of course, I didn’t really need a weapon to kill the shrink. I could have offed Eve­lyn with my Stone magic. Could have reached for the ele­men­tal power flow­ing through my veins. Could have tapped into the acres of gran­ite the asy­lum was con­structed out of and made the whole build­ing come crash­ing down on her head. Using my Stone magic was eas­ier than breathing.

Call it pro­fes­sional pride, but I didn’t use my ele­men­tal power to kill unless I absolutely had to, unless there was no other way to get the job done. Just too easy oth­er­wise. But even more impor­tant, magic got you noticed in these parts. Espe­cially ele­men­tal magic. If I started col­laps­ing build­ings on peo­ple or brain­ing them with bricks, the police and other, more unsa­vory char­ac­ters would be sure to take note—and an unhealthy inter­est in me. I’d made more than my share of ene­mies over the years, and the only rea­son I’d stayed alive this long was by keep­ing to the shad­ows. By creep­ing in and out of places com­pletely unno­ticed, just the way my name­sake did.

Besides, there were plenty of ways to make some­one quit breath­ing. I didn’t need my magic to help me with that.

“The Spi­der.” Evelyn’s scar­let lips twitched, and she allowed her­self a small tit­ter. “As if some­one like you could be some­one like that. The most feared assas­sin in the South.”

“East of the Mis­sis­sippi,” I cor­rected her again. “And I most cer­tainly am the Spi­der. In fact, I’m going to kill you, Eve­lyn. T-minus three min­utes and counting.”

Maybe it was the calm way I stared at her, my gray eyes steady and level. Or per­haps it was the com­plete lack of emo­tion in my tone. But the laugh­ter caught and died in Evelyn’s throat like an ani­mal in a trap. She wouldn’t be too far behind.

I got to my feet and stretched my arms over my head, mov­ing the screw into a bet­ter posi­tion in my hand. The long-sleeved, white T-shirt I wore rode up over my match­ing pajama pants, expos­ing my flat stom­ach. The tall orderly licked his lips, his eyes locked on my crotch. Dead man walking.

“But enough about me,” I said, drop­ping into my chair once more. “Let’s talk about you, Eve­lyn.”

She shook her head. “Now, Gin, you know that’s against the rules. Ther­a­pists aren’t allowed to talk to patients about themselves.”

“Why not? You’ve been ask­ing me ques­tions for days now. Try­ing to get me to open up about my past. To talk about my feel­ings. To come to grips with the fact I’m cold and emo­tion­ally unavail­able. Turn­about, you know. Besides, you did plenty of talk­ing to Ricky Jordan.”

Her eyes widened behind her glasses. “Where—where did you hear that name?”

I ignored her ques­tion. “Ricky Robert Jor­dan. Age sev­en­teen. An Air ele­men­tal with a seri­ous bipo­lar dis­or­der. A sweet but con­fused kid, from all accounts. You really shouldn’t have got­ten involved with him, Evelyn.”

The shrink’s hand tight­ened around her long, gold pen until her knuck­les cracked from the pres­sure. The orderly frowned, and his eyes flicked back and forth between us, as though Eve­lyn and I were play­ing a game of ver­bal ten­nis. Jack­son and the three other patients sit­ting around me kept drool­ing, gur­gling, and mur­mur­ing non­sense, locked in their own twisted worlds.

“Cor­rec­tion,” I con­tin­ued. “You shouldn’t have used him as your psy­cho ward boy toy. Did you panic when he real­ized you weren’t really leav­ing your hus­band for him? Did he threaten to tell his par­ents how you seduced him the way you do all the hand­some young men put into your care? Is that why you pumped him full of hal­lu­cino­gens and sent him home to his family?”

Evelyn’s breath puffed out of her mouth in short gasps. The pulse in her throat flut­tered like a hummingbird’s del­i­cate wings.

I leaned for­ward, cap­tur­ing her pan­icked gaze. “Mommy and Daddy Jor­dan didn’t appre­ci­ate it when Ricky had a psy­chotic break and hung him­self in his own closet, Eve­lyn. But before he died, he wrote them a let­ter, telling them how he just couldn’t go on with­out you.”

Nor­mally, I wouldn’t have both­ered with the whole assassin’s expo­si­tion. Such a cliché. I would have infil­trated the asy­lum, killed Eve­lyn, and escaped before any­one knew she was dead. But let­ting Eve­lyn Edwards know exactly why she was dying had been part of the job require­ment. And was net­ting me an extra half mil­lion dollars.

“That’s why I’m here, Eve­lyn. That’s why you’re going to die. You fucked with the wrong boy.”

“Guard!” Eve­lyn screamed.

Last word she ever said. I flicked my wrist, and the sharp point of the screw zipped across the room and sank into her throat, punc­tur­ing her wind­pipe. Ace. Evelyn’s scream turned into a whistling wheeze. She slid from her plas­tic chair and hit the floor. Her hand wrapped around the screw, and she pulled it free. Blood spat­tered onto the car­pet, look­ing like an abstract Rorschach pat­tern. Stu­pid of her. She might have lived another minute if she’d left it in her throat.

The orderly cursed and raced for­ward, but I was faster. I snatched the shrink’s gold pen from the floor where it had fallen, stood up, and rammed it into his heart.

“And you,” I mur­mured in his ear as he jerked and flailed against me, “I’m not get­ting paid for you. But con­sid­er­ing how you get your kicks by rap­ing female patients, I’ll con­sider it a pub­lic ser­vice. Pro-fucking-bono.”

I yanked the pen out of his chest and stabbed him twice more. Once in the stom­ach, and once in the balls. The flick­er­ing, lech­er­ous light in the orderly’s eyes dimmed and died. I let go, and he thumped to the floor.

In less than thirty sec­onds, it was over. Game, set, match. Too easy. I wasn’t even winded.

My gray eyes flicked to the four other peo­ple in the room. Jack­son still drooled at noth­ing. The other two men stared at the floor as if some­thing was wrong, but they weren’t sure what it was. The fourth per­son, a woman, had already got­ten down on her hands and knees. She dipped her fin­gers into Evelyn’s black­en­ing blood, then licked it off like it was the sweet­est honey. Vam­pires. They really would eat anything.

The gran­ite floor’s insane mur­murs inten­si­fied, fueled by the fresh coat of blood seep­ing through the loose weave in the car­pet and drip­ping onto the stone. The harsh dis­cord made me grind my teeth together. I would be glad to leave this place and that noise behind. Far, far behind.

I yanked the pen out of the orderly’s groin and picked up my screw. Wit­nesses were bad, espe­cially in my line of work, and I con­sid­ered killing Jack­son and the oth­ers. But I wasn’t here for them. And I didn’t slaugh­ter inno­cents, not even these pathetic souls who would be bet­ter off dead and free of their cracked mor­tal shells.

So I pock­eted my still bloody weapons and headed toward the door. Before I stepped out into the hall­way, I glanced over my shoul­der at Eve­lyn Edwards’s life­less body. Her face and eyes were wide open in a look of shocked sur­prise. An expres­sion I’d seen more than once over the years. No mat­ter how bad peo­ple were, no mat­ter what evil they com­mit­ted, or who they fucked over, nobody ever really believed death was com­ing for them, cour­tesy of an assas­sin like me.

Until it was too late.