People milled around the entrance room, with some trailing down either side of the wide staircase. As befitting any elite arts function in Ashland, the attendees wore designer gowns in jewel tones, resplendent black tuxedos, and other appropriate finery that was just as sophisticated as the furnishings. Gems small, medium, and large flashed, winked, and glittered on throats, wrists, and fingers. The stones whispered proudly of their own beauty and elegance. Some people sipped champagne and mixed drinks, while others took chicken skewers, spring rolls, and other dainty, bite-size hors d'oeuvres from passing waiters. Conversation trilled through the air, punctuated with bass rumbles of laughter and sudden, sharp guffaws.

Since I looked like all the other musicians, the glitterati paid me about as much attention as they did the carpet, and I moved through the crush of people with ease, looking for my quarry.

Gasps surged through the crowd, and I searched for the source of the sudden disturbance. My gaze locked onto Mab Monroe. The Fire elemental swept through the lobby and walked up the grand staircase. Every eye turned to her, and conversation stopped, like a song cut off in mid-chorus. Mab had that effect on most people. Her softly curled red hair gleamed like a new penny, and she wore a gown of the darkest scarlet imaginable, cut low in the front to show off her creamy decolletage. Her eyes were black pools in her face. Fire and brimstone. That's what I thought about every time I saw Mab.

A flat gold necklace ringed the Fire elemental's delicate neck. My eyes caught on the centerpiece of the design: a circular ruby surrounded by several dozen wavy rays. The intricate diamond cutting on the gold made it seem as though the rays actually flickered. A sunburst. The symbol for fire. Mab's personal rune, used by her and her alone. Even across the room, I could hear the gemstone's vibrations. Instead of beauty and elegance, it whispered of raw, fiery power. The sound made my stomach clench.

Mab Monroe strolled through the crowd, laughing, talking, smiling, shaking hands. I eyed the elemental, once again thinking about how much money I'd turned down over the years to kill her. A shame, really. I didn't consider myself to be any sort of hero, but I wouldn't have minded giving the good citizens of Ashland a fighting chance by removing Mab's fist from around their throats. Bullies always made me eager to see how tough they really were-and knock them down a few pegs.

My gaze skipped over to her entourage. A burly man wearing a tuxedo stayed close to Mab, while two more circulated through the room at large. Elliot Slater wasn't among them tonight, but they were all giants like him, with thick necks, oversize fists, and big, buglike eyes. Perfect meat shields. Not that Mab really needed them. Her Fire elemental magic was more than enough to deal with any threat. The giants were for show, more than anything else.

Mab Monroe's current path was going to take her close to me, and I melted back into the shadows. But she and her guards swept by without a glance in my direction, and I continued searching for my prey for the evening-and any other players who might impact the drama about to unfold.

Haley James entered the lobby a few minutes later and headed for the stairs. Her skin was the color of fresh cream, and her strawberry-blonde hair was curled into ringlets piled on top of her head. She wore a short cocktail sheath dress done in sage green, which showed off her lush, curvy body. The emeralds in her chandelier earrings sparked and flashed like smoldering embers. The gems matched the blue-green of her eyes.

Alexis James followed her sister inside. Alexis was several inches taller, with the same light coloring, although her hair was cropped short. She wore a simple black cocktail dress. A string of pearls ringed her throat, while black gloves crawled up to her elbows. A pearl bracelet hung off her right wrist. Understated class, compared to Haley's emerald flash.

Haley James called out to Mab, and the two women paused to exchange meaningless pleasantries. Alexis stood off to one side, her face expressionless.

According to Fletcher's file, Haley James was the chief executive officer of Halo Industries, with Alexis serving as the head of marketing and public relations. The company had been in their family for years and dealt in a variety of areas, but the main focus was magical speculation, specifically harnessing Air elemental magic for a variety of medical and cosmetic products. The James sisters employed a whole staff of the elementals, but they weren't known to be magic types themselves.

I wondered if Haley James was the one who'd discovered Gordon Giles cooking the books. If she'd put the contract out on him to cover it up. To make an example of him.

Or to keep Mab Monroe from finding out she was getting bilked out of millions and avoid the Fire elemental's wrath. If Mab discovered Giles's embezzlement, she'd not only take her ire out on the accountant, but on the James sisters as well for letting themselves get bamboozled. There were any number of reasons Haley James could have decided to eliminate Giles.

But I put the conjecture out of my mind. It didn't matter to me who had put the hit out on Giles, as long as the rest of the money appeared in a timely fashion after the fact. If it didn't, well, then I'd get interested in who wanted Gordon Giles dead. But not before.

Speaking of Mr. Giles, he'd finally arrived. He shuffled through the lobby and up the grand staircase, just as Mab

Monroe had done, although with far less fanfare.

Gordon Giles wore a tuxedo that was just a bit too large for his small frame. He was so thin, his shoulder bones poked up through the fabric of his suit. His face was tight and pinched, as though the very act of breathing pained him. He continually dry-washed his hands, and his eyes flicked back and forth over the lobby, moving from Haley James to Alexis to Mab Monroe, through their sea of onlookers, and back again. Trying to see which direction the danger would come from. What shadow the bullet would whiz out of. But he wouldn't see it, wouldn't see me, until it was too late.

But really, it had been too late as soon as the client had contacted Fletcher. Because I was the Spider. I always followed through.

And I never, ever missed.

Chapter Four

People started drifting into their boxes to watch the performance. Gordon Giles slipped into a box marked A3, the one I'd been told was his.

I climbed back up to the top floor, created another pair of lock picks with my Ice magic, then used them to open the door to the stairs that led to the catwalk. I paused inside the door and stripped off my thick white shirt, revealing a long-sleeved black T-shirt underneath. The white garment got stuffed inside the cello case, and I pulled out a snug-fitting, black vest filled with my usual supplies: cash, disposable cell phone, credit cards, a couple of fake IDs. A black toboggan I'd had folded in my pocket went on my head, hiding my bleached blond hair.

I made my way up the steps and strode out onto the catwalk. It wasn't a true metal catwalk but a carpeted balcony, a narrow, walled strip ringing the entire opera house in a giant circle, just as the floors below did. The houselights had already gone down, and several spotlights focused on the stage, highlighting the gleaming instruments of the orchestra. The musicians sat silent on the wide, semicircular stage, waiting for the cue from the maestro.

I crept down the catwalk. From this high vantage point, I could look down over the entire complex-and straight into the second-floor VIP boxes, including the one that belonged to Gordon Giles.

Giles was already seated. He must not have found the program for the evening very interesting, because he'd rolled it up. Giles shook his hand, and the paper baton slapped against his knee in a rapid, staccato pattern. The nervous twitch of a man who knows he's in trouble.

The maestro cleared his throat and tapped his baton. The crowd sputtered, stilled, and hushed. The metal baton came down again, and the orchestra burst into song.

Energy. Emotion. Joy. I closed my eyes, listening to the swell of the orchestra, the perfect harmony the instruments created as they enunciated their complex patterns of notes and chords. All blending and melting together into a cacophony of supreme beauty.

I listened a few seconds more, reveling in the harmony. Then I tuned out the music and got to work. According to the timetable in Fletcher's file, the job had to be done before intermission. The client wanted to make a spectacle of Gordon Giles's untimely demise by having his body discovered then.

I opened my cello case and pulled out the plastic shell once more. Hidden in the compartment underneath was my weapon of choice for the evening-a crossbow.

The weapon looked like your typical crossbow, except for the powerful rifle scope mounted above the trigger and the barbed metal bolt already in firing position. The bow was the perfect weapon for mid-range jobs like this one. Since I didn't want to take a chance on Gordon Giles using his elemental Air magic against me, I'd decided to do this one from a distance. Pull the trigger and walk away. No muss, no fuss, no blood spattered on my clothes, for a change. The only real downside of my job.

I could have used a rifle, of course. Easier to get, cheaper to buy, same result in the end. But guns jammed too much for my liking. With a bow, you didn't run that risk.

The same reason I used silverstone knives on most of my jobs. Along with the crossbow, I had several knives secreted on my person tonight. Two tucked up my sleeves. One against the small of my back. Two stuffed inside my boots. My usual five-point arsenal. Just in case things didn't go exactly as planned, and I had to get up close and personal with someone.

The great thing about using silverstone knives was the fact that the magical metal was almost unbreakable, and the only jamming a blade ever did was when I shoved it too far into someone's chest and had trouble yanking it out again. By that time, well, it didn't much matter.

I grabbed the crossbow and placed it on the edge of the balcony wall. It was dark up here, and no one looked in my direction, but I'd still chosen to launch my attack from the deepest shadow. Same reason I'd ditched the white shirt. I didn't want some bored kid staring up and asking Mommy what the black figure with the scary weapon was doing way, way up in the rafters. I might be here to kill somebody, but there was no need to frighten the other people in attendance and ruin their evening out. And one scream could shatter my moment of opportunity. Given Gordon Giles's jumpy nature, I doubted I'd get another shot at him anytime soon. I was surprised he'd appeared at such a public function. If I'd been an accountant stealing millions from Mab Monroe, I would have been having my face lifted on a deserted island. Not taking in a performance at the local opera house.

The scope's magnification gave me an eagle-eyed view into the box. Which is why I was able to see a sliver of light as the door in the back cracked open. My gray eye widened in the scope, trying to determine the identity of the newcomer-and how much he was going to fuck up my plans.

Donovan Caine stepped into the box.

I knew Caine by sight-and reputation. Donovan Caine was one of the few honest cops in the city, raised to be so by his dearly departed detective daddy. According to Fletcher, Caine was the sort of man who didn't look the other way, no matter who was putting on the pressure. Didn't take bribes. Didn't do drugs. Hell, he didn't even smoke, according to Fletcher.

The detective had been assigned to investigate some of my previous Ashland jobs, although with little success. Unlike some of my fellow assassins, I wasn't stupid enough to sign my work. Some contract guys, especially the magic users, actually took the time to carve their own personal runes into the flesh of their victims or on the surrounding walls or floor. I'd even heard rumors of a certain vampire who liked to draw the rune with his victim's blood-after mixing it with his own. Idiots. Leaving a rune behind was as bad as leaving a fingerprint. Showing off with them was a one-way ticket to the electric chair. Folks in the South weren't shy about executing people, especially when such demonstrations were sanctioned by the government.

But Caine knew I existed, mainly because of my last assignment in the city a couple months ago-when I'd killed his partner.

Cliff Ingles hadn't been a bad cop-except for his off-duty tendency to beat up and rape hookers. In Ashland, that wasn't even enough to get him thrown off the force, much less warrant my particular brand of attention. Until Ingles had turned his forcible ways to the thirteen-year-old daughter of one of the hookers. The vampire knew enough to send a message asking for help in Fletcher's general direction. The old man didn't like rapists, especially those who targeted kids. I didn't either, so I'd done the job pro bono. Another public service. The mayor should give me a medal.

Caine had known his partner wasn't the cleanest guy around, but evidently he didn't realize the extent of Ingles's depravity. Because after I'd put a knife in Ingles's oversize gut and sliced off his balls, Donovan Caine had publicly vowed to bring his partner's killer to justice. Swore up one side and down the other to find the assassin responsible for his partner's painful, untimely demise and make her pay every which way he could. The investigation had stalled, but Caine hadn't given up. Every week or so, he sent out a new public service announcement to the local media outlets, pleading for info on the Ingles murder.

Oh, Caine didn't know it was specifically me, Gin Blanco, the Spider, who had killed his partner. All the detective knew was that an assassin had hit Cliff Ingles. If it had been a gangbanger or some other lowlife, he might have been stupid enough to brag about it, somebody would have snitched, and Caine probably would have found him by now. Either way, the detective wanted to hit back at whomever had murdered Ingles and get revenge for his dead partner.

Since then I'd taken an interest in the detective. His dogged determination amused me, however fruitless and misguided it was, and I had Fletcher compile a file on him.

I tracked Caine through the scope as he approached Giles. Thirty-two. Six foot one.

Cropped black hair. Hazel eyes. Strong chin. Square jaw. Bumpy, crooked nose. Lean body. Bronze skin that showed his Hispanic heritage.