A few minutes later, I crested the top of the hill andhunkered down behind a large boulder at the edge of the woods. The trail I’d been on before ran out of the trees and snaked through an overgrown field choked with tall grasses, winter wildflowers, and other vegetation before ending at a small mowed yard that surrounded the barn.
I studied the structure, but it looked like any other barn in the Ashland countryside—a two-story building that hadprobably been painted a bright, glossy red at one time but whose color had slowly faded to a dull, rusty brown. The double doors on the front were closed, and shades had been pulled down over the windows, but a faint, steady hum sounded in the distance. Probably a generator to power the lights and pump some heat into the barn.
The double doors were the only way in on the ground level that I couldsee, so I looked up at the second story, which featured a couple of windows, along with a large single door that probably led to a hayloft. No shades covered the glass on the second-story windows, and I didn’t see anyone moving around up there.
Fletcher had always said it was better to come at your enemies from an unexpected angle, and the old man’s words of wisdom were especially true in thiscase, when Owen was trapped inside the barn with who knew how many giants. So I started looking for a way to get up to the second level, and my gaze locked onto a drainpipe at one corner of the building. Perfect.
I didn’t want to waste time turning my phone on, so I pulled the dead giant’s phone out of my pocket and texted Sophia, telling her where I was and what was going on. I also sent thesame message to Finn and Bria, even though I doubted they had switched their phones back on yet. Once that was done, I slid the device back into my pocket.
I looked around again, but the barn remained silent and shut up, so I surged to my feet, plowed my way through the overgrown field, crossed the mowed yard, and plastered myself up against the side of the building. I drew in quick, steady breathsthrough my nose, trying to listen above the roar of my heart, but no shouts sounded, and no one seemed to have spotted me.
I took hold of the drainpipe and gave it a hard, sharp tug to determine if it would hold my weight. The dull gray pipe looked as old and run-down as the rest of the barn, but it didn’t budge, squeak, or protest, so I wrapped both hands around it and started climbing.
I dugmy boots into the wood on either side of the drainpipe, using my feet to help support me as I reached higher and higher and shimmied up the pipe. The metal was so cold that it burned my hands, but I didn’t dare use my Stone magic to harden my skin.
If an elemental was inside the barn, they might sense me using my magic and come outside to investigate. I didn’t want that. Not until Owen was safe.Then I would take on anybody here who had an ounce of magic, along with everyone who didn’t.
As an assassin, I’d done my fair share of spidery climbing, and it didn’t take me long to reach the second level. One of the windows was right beside the drainpipe, so I grabbed hold of the wooden frame. I was only mildly surprised when it easily slid up. People thought that locking the doors and windowson the first floor was enough to keep out bad folks. And it usually was, but most folks weren’t the Spider, and I was just about the baddest of them all.
I slid the window up as high as it would go, then grabbed the bottom of the frame with both hands, pulled myself forward, and slithered through the opening. I went headfirst, and I ended up sliding down into a loose mound of old, moldy hay.Ugh. The hay scratched my face and tickled my nose, and I had to swallow down a sneeze. I waited a moment, lying there, but no shouts or alarms sounded, so I slowly sat up.
I was in a hayloft, surrounded by, you guessed it, hay. Several bales were stacked up along the walls, while more loose hay covered the floor, including the spot where I was sitting. The inside of the barn looked just as decrepitas the outside, and several of the wooden floorboards were cracked or missing, while others sagged underneath the weight of the bales.
The only good thing about the loft was that it didn’t look like anyone had been up there in ages, given the thick layer of dust that coated everything. Even more dust motes swirled through the air like mosquitoes, and I had to swallow down another sneeze.
I reachedout and closed the open window behind me. Then I palmed a knife and slowly, carefully, quietly crawled out of the hay.
The loft was shaped like a giant U, with a set of stairs in the middle leading down to the ground. I crept over to the wooden railing that cordoned off the right side of the loft and peered down at the first floor.
I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting. Some old, forgotten farmequipment slowly rusting away. Maybe an old junker car with flat tires that had been stripped for parts and left to rot. Maybe even some barn cats sleeping in the dusty piles of hay.
What I didn’t expect were the thick brown leather couches arranged around low tables full of laptops, monitors, keyboards, gaming consoles, and other high-tech computer equipment. A couple of refrigerators linedone of the walls, with cases of beer piled on top of them, along with bags of potato chips, pretzels, candy bars, and other snacks. Several bales of hay were also scattered around, with swords, daggers, spears, and other sharp, pointy, medieval weapons sticking out of them, as though the bales were oversize pincushions.
But the centerpiece of the first floor was a long, wide table covered withbright green felt that held an enormous diorama of a medieval landscape. Miniature gray stone castles, green paper mountains with painted white peaks, blue-tinted water in little rivers that snaked across the landscape, even dwarves, giants, sorcerers, and other metal figurines clutching small silver swords, shields, and magic wands. The diorama featured all that and more, and it was an impressive,museum-quality display.
Several cushioned chairs were spaced around the diorama, along with smaller tables covered with pens, notepads, and plastic containers filled with neon-colored, multi-sided dice. Still more tables bristled with bottles of paint, brushes, colored paper, and other art supplies.
This wasn’t a barn—it was a ren-faire, role-playing, model-making gamer’s paradise.
Definitelynotwhat I had expected, and the jumble of items only made me more confused. Who owned all this stuff? And why keep it in a decrepit old barn? And what did any of this have to do with kidnapping Owen?
The low murmur of voices sounded down below, and a door creaked open somewhere in the back of the first floor, out of my line of sight. Then the distinctiveslap-slap-slap-slapof boots againstconcrete rang out.
A few seconds later, Pirate Queen Celeste strolled into view. She was still wearing her red leather costume, along with her two ruby-studded swords, and that silver tiara still glinted on her head.
And she wasn’t alone.
Four black-leather-clad giants followed her into the front part of the barn. Two of the men sat down next to each other and started typing on two separatelaptops that were perched at one end of the diorama table. For a moment, I thought they were booting up some game, but rows of text and numbers filled their screens, not bright, flashy graphics. The other two giants lounged on one of the couches.
“Did anyone follow you?” Celeste asked. “Or try to stop you?”
One of the giants on the couch shook his head. “Nope. I waited until Grayson took a breakfrom the forge, then bashed him upside the head just like you told me to. The boys helped me carry him through the park. We told everyone that he was drunk and played it for laughs, and they all thought it was part of the show. We walked right through the crowd, and no one batted an eye.”
Celeste nodded her approval.
“What about Blanco?” another giant piped up.
Celeste shrugged. “Lancelot tookcare of her. We’re free and clear.”
I let out a quiet sigh of relief. Apparently, Celeste had believed my fake text claiming that Lancelot and his friends had eliminated me. Good. That at least gave me the small advantage of surprise.
“But it’s a shame that Lancelot got to kill her instead of me. After all this work and training, I wanted to go a few rounds with the infamous Spider.” Celestestuck out her red lips in an exaggerated pout.
My hand tightened around my knife. She didn’t realize it yet, but she was going to get her wish to tangle with me—and she was going to bleed out all over that concrete floor.
“All right, then,” Celeste said. “Let’s get on with it.”
She turned to the giants on the couch and made a sharp, sweeping motion with her hand, as though she really was aqueen telling her minions to scuttle away. The giants nodded, got to their feet, and disappeared into the back of the barn. A few seconds later, they reappeared, carrying a third man between them.
Owen.
