Kicking It(80)

Her tongue slipped out from between the mandibles that were distorting her speech. It was black as night, but surprisingly human in shape. It was a wonder she didn’t cut it on her teeth.

“Do you like games?” she asked.

Ariadne did, if I remembered my mythology right. That’s what had gotten her arachnified to begin with—or rather, given spiders their classification name, since she’d owned it first—Athena’s insult that Arachne would dare think herself exceptional enough to challenge the goddess with her weaving.

“Um, sure, as long as it’s a fair contest and the stakes are right.”

“What do you say to a life for a life?”

Fear scrabbled at my heart, gripping hard, squeezing until I could barely breathe. I’d sent Apollo into her lair. If anything happened to him, it would be all my fault.

She cocked her head at my reaction. I wished I could read her eyes. “Ah, I see, you thought I meant the Olympian. Yes, I knew who he was the second he reached out. Be assured, little gorgon, he is still playing my game. He hasn’t yet lost and so is not yet subject to my rules. However, his luck has just taken a turn for the worse. He will be mine soon enough. You see, in my Parlor, the house always wins. No, gorgon girl. I’ve had you checked out, as I do all new employees. I know who you are and that you’re here for the scientist—Athena’s own. His blood will be all the sweeter because of it, but he is hardly sporting. Now, you, my love”—she chucked me fondly under the chin, and it was all I could do not to recoil—“you, unless I’m very much mistaken, are a fighter.”

I glared at her, feeling those sunglasses like a barrier that even my screw you look couldn’t penetrate. A deal . . . my life for Gareth’s. As if I had a real decision to make. Without me, he had no chance. Still, it was a far cry from putting myself into Apollo’s debt for some guy I didn’t even know to giving my life for him. Hell, except for my retainer, I hadn’t even been paid for the job, and here I was facing death to finish it. Because I was pretty sure that’s what she was suggesting.

She watched avidly as all of this flitted across my face and stopped me with a raised hand just as I would have given her my answer. “But wait. I have just realized that I hold all of the cards. The scientist, the gorgon, and, soon, the god. I have no reason to give any of you up.”

“I’m not yours to hold. None of us are.”

“My dear, possession is nine-tenths of the law.” She gave me a shake, hard enough to make my teeth rattle. “And right now, I am in possession. So, we will make it double or nothing. Triple, even. If you survive, you all go free. If not . . .”

The alarm klaxons weren’t just screaming. They were about to shake apart. The house always wins. I strongly suspected that Ariadne liked to stack the deck. If she thought even for a moment that I would survive, she would never have made the offer.

“I can’t speak for Apollo,” I said, feeling him from a room away or more. He was aware of my distress. How could he miss it? And his own worry was creating a feedback loop I could barely stand. But we couldn’t read each other’s minds, and I couldn’t warn him or tell him to shut it, no matter how much I might want to.

“I don’t see that you have a choice,” she said with a truly scary smile.

She whipped off the glasses with a flourish and I flinched from her compound eyes and the million visions of my doom.

Red tore through the curtain just then, ready to hit something. He stopped cold when he saw me locked in Ariadne’s grasp, and a sick smile spread across his face.

“The Pit?” he asked, completely unsurprised by the sight of Ariadne exposed.

Ariadne continued to stare me down. “What will it be, my dear? Will you champion your companions or shall I arrange the scientist’s sudden death?”

As if there was a choice.

Red grabbed me and began to pull me away as Ariadne called to a minion unseen, perhaps on one of the many cameras she’d mentioned, “Rally the troops and tell them to place their bets. Challenge in ten!”

Ten minutes? Who were the troops? Her minions? Those betting on the outcome of the battle? How frequent an occurrence was this that she could pull it all together so quickly? Even though I was facing my own doom, the questions wouldn’t stop. Or the urge to investigate.

Red swept me into a freight elevator, and thick metal doors closed ominously behind us. He patted me down, stealing my only weapons—the pepper spray, lock picks, and even my hidden dagger. Once he’d secured them all on his own person, he took a key from his pants pocket and inserted it into a slot on the elevator panel, which opened up to reveal a second set of buttons. He pressed the button for the basement, I assumed—and my heart sank as we started to descend. My precog had gone past high alert and onto overload. My head rang like the inside of a bell, and the reverb shot all-points bulletins to my extremities and everywhere in between.