She lifted a leg and pointed it at me. “You like Charlotte’s Web?”

“It makes me cry,” I said. That was honest, even if I’d lied about actually reading it the night before.

“The spider dies at the end; you like that part?” She growled. Let me tell you, a spider growling is not a cool thing.

Oh . . . shoot. “No, that’s the part that makes me cry.”

“Liar!” She opened her mouth and I dodged to the side as she spat web at me. What the hell? I’d thought telling her that I liked the book would soften her toward me. I pinned myself to the side of the building as she took a swing for me, lunging forward. I ducked down and she hit her face on the brick wall. I scooted out, made myself grab a leg and yanked it hard.

She was over six feet tall at the back and had legs that spread in all directions. I’d expected her to have some weight behind her, so it caught me off guard when I easily spun her off to the side and pretty much smashed her into the wall. She lay there stunned and I used the moment to hurry my ass up.

I’d promised Feish something to go with tea, and I wasn’t going to disappoint. “Enough of this, Jinx,” I snapped. “Seriously, I didn’t bother you. I don’t know why you’re bothering me.”

“Job,” she whispered, pushing herself up. Her seven legs wobbled, and she kept the injured one lifted. “You’re a jerk.”

I glared at her. “What do you mean by job?”

“My job to scare people. That’s my job.”

“Well, knock it off. Scare someone else.” I wanted to run, but I also knew that turning my back on a large predator was a bad idea. Very bad idea. So, I went sideways around her, keeping her in my sights.

I still couldn’t believe how light she’d felt when I’d grabbed her leg. Her bristling, furry leg against my palm, ugh, it was like I could still feel it there. I suppressed a shiver as I continued on down the path. A memory attempted to surface in my mind but didn’t quite emerge. Something from Gran’s book. There’d been something important about her, beyond the Charlotte’s Web stuff. About . . . her hair? I blinked a few times and the world did a funny little wobble thing that had me on my knees like I’d had one glass too many of that really lovely Pinot Grigio I’d had that one time at that one restaurant with Himself.

My brain grappled for the information as I leaned against the brick wall of the alley and slid down, so I was no longer standing, but in a semi-crouch, my head leaned back and my hand throbbing.

A long black leg slid into my vision. I blinked up at the fangs and multiple eyes staring down at me. That long black leg shimmered and shifted into a naked human leg. A woman with hair as black as any I’d ever seen leaned over me, her mouth wide and fangs that made me think of her spider form bared to me.

“You are way too big,” I said, and my words were slurring hard. So hard. “Big furry spider.” As I flopped my hand at her, a hand shot forward that was not my own and clamped around my wrist. Webbed fingers, greenish-yellow skin, and then Jinx was gone, just like that.

I rolled my head toward Feish. “Hey, you saved me.”

“Her spines are in your finger. Slivers. Makes people sick.” Feish clicked her tongue several times and then she was dragging me back the way we’d come.

The heels of my boots caught on the cobblestones here and there, and my head lolled back, almost touching the ground, which meant I was looking up at the bridges and some of the tourists looking down. I smiled and waved. No one waved back, except for one little boy who waved and frantically tugged on the adult next to him, trying to get his father to see me. But the man didn’t seem to recognize that anything out of the usual was happening. I wondered if he could see Feish at all.

“Good kid,” I mumbled. And he was a good kid, trying to help some lady being dragged along by her fish friend. My mumble turned into a laugh, and then I was being dragged through the narrow opening into 66 Factors Row.

As soon as we stepped—okay, Feish stepped and I was dragged—out of the open, the sound of hammering metal on metal rang through the air. Loud, rhythmic, and loud . . . did I mention loud? How could you not hear that from the outside?

“Loud,” I mumbled the word.

“Boss help,” Feish said, dropping me in the middle of the floor. I stared up at the ceiling, the timbers of the building clearly visible, the age on them even more so. They probably still smelled like saltwater. So often the timbers used to construct the buildings on the waterfront were pulled off old ships. I lifted a hand as if I could touch the wood and still feel the cool saltwater.

The hand that I lifted was the one I’d used to grab Jinx. Lines ran from my fingertips and palm, creeping down my wrist toward my elbow in a pattern that looked suspiciously like a spider web.

“Cool.” I turned my hand over, but suddenly a figure was blocking the light. The hammering noise was gone, and when I looked up, Crash was staring down at me. “I grabbed Jinx.” As if that would explain everything.

He took me by the wrist and pulled me up to my feet with little effort. “You have some of her spines still in you.”

I closed my eyes and tried, with great effort on my part, not to giggle. “I don’t feel anything. I just feel a little . . . tipsy.” A giggle might have slipped out at the end, I’m not sure. I went from standing to being carried all the way to a hard bed that I tried to roll out of, and almost succeeded.

Hands grabbed me. “You need to hold her down,” Crash said.

“Okay,” I answered. “What’s wrong with her? Who do I need to hold down?”

Feish clucked her tongue. “Why is she reacting like this to Jinx?”

“I don’t know. But I think it might be an allergic reaction.” Crash leaned on my forearm and pinned it to the table, which meant it was pressed against his side. The heat of his body was intense. I rolled my head to see a knife in his hand, poised over my fingers. “Hey, don’t be poking me with that. I thought I was holding Feish down for you.”

Confusion reigned and then the knife was poking my skin. I yelped and tried to buck, but there was a weight across my legs and lower body. I would have turned my head, but it was feeling heavier by the second.

“That hurts,” I said, only I’m not sure whether I said it out loud. “Why are you even helping me?”

“The gods only know,” Crash muttered.

“Because you are my friend,” Feish said quietly, and with so much sincerity that my throat tightened a little.

“But I’m old,” I whimpered the words, “and out of shape, and I can only remember some of the things my gran taught me, and no one thinks I can do anything! Over the hill, no good for anything!” The words turned into a wail of despair.

“Hush.” Crash put a hand over my mouth. “Just hush.”

The sobs continued, tears spilling out of my eyes and sliding back into my hair. Probably all my grays were showing anyway, so what did it matter if I was a mess?

“She is slipping,” Feish said. “Please hurry!”

Crash’s eyes had locked on mine, and he seemed to struggle to pull away. He slid his hand off my mouth. “Be quiet while we get these hairs out.”

The tip of his knife pressed against my hand. There was a tiny pop, and a pressure I hadn’t felt building in my hand eased off a little. Another pop, and another, and with each one the coiling tension that had been gathering in my muscles slid away, and so did everything else. My worry about my age. The fact that Crash was lovely to look at but would never look at me, even with the fancy fae makeup. The knowledge that Eric was waiting for me at my grandmother’s house and was in great danger even there.

I closed my eyes, drifted off, and passed out.

19

Warmth surrounded me, and I snuggled deeper into the covers that smelled of fire and metal and something else. I arched my back as I stretched, muscles looser than they had been in the last two weeks. That arching put my butt up against a very hard body that was exceptionally warm. A large hand settled on my hip, tugging me closer to the body it was attached to.

I didn’t know where I was—I only knew I didn’t particularly want to leave. I rolled and slid my arms around a wide chest and pressed my face against pecs that . . . wait . . . I opened my eyes, found myself staring at a chest that I’d seen before. Hell, I’d seen his bare ass before.

Startled, I sat up, breathing hard. “What happened?”

Crash grumbled something in his sleep, and I remembered how badly he reacted when woken. What the hell time was it? How long had I been out? I lifted my hand that had grabbed Jinx to see there were still red spots here and there, like tiny little stings all over my palm and fingers. But there was no swelling, no pulsing pus pockets.

That hand on my hip dug in harder, pulling me closer to him. “Go back to sleep,” he mumbled.

He pulled me down to the bed, tucking my hip in close to him, and threw a leg over mine as if to pin me there. A part of me loved it, I mean . . . he was built like a Greek god and had saved my life. The least I could give him was a nooner. I twisted around to see a clock on the bedside table. Hours had slid by while I’d been out cold. Hours we didn’t have.

But Eric was waiting, and I’d not brought food back to him as I’d promised, and what if the people hunting him had found him? Hell, I hadn’t even grabbed Gran’s book yet, and I didn’t have time now!

“Crap!” I pushed Crash off me and scrambled from the bed. Only then did I really notice that I was wearing next to nothing. Panties. That was it. Even my bra was missing. “Where are my clothes?”

The room was dim, lit by candles as it had been on my first visit, and I searched around until I found my leather pants. I yanked them on, found my bra and shirt, and was dressed in a matter of seconds. Socks, boots, bag were next. I pulled out my leather sheaths for the two knives and got those on too.

Crash mumbled something under his breath, and I couldn’t resist. I ran to his side, turned his face to me, and kissed him—on the forehead. “Thanks. For getting the hairs out.”