Haints and Hobwebs: An Elemental Assassin Story by Jennifer Estep

Author:Jennifer Estep [Estep, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jennifer Estep
Published: 2018-11-27T00:00:00+00:00

Jo-Jo gave me directions to Homer Graves’s place. I grabbed a bag of tools that I kept stashed in her house for just these sorts of situation, got into my car, and headed out. Normally, I would have been more cautious, would have waited to do some recon at the very least before going in knives slashing. But there was no time. Not with Bria sniffing around. She’d do the right thing, the cop thing, and go get a warrant before she went to question Graves. I already knew Graves was a murderer who liked to torture his victims. I didn’t want my baby sister anywhere near him – especially if he was the soul sucker that Jo-Jo thought he was.

Besides, Tess had waited so long already. I figured she was anxious to get on with things. Even a haint could only be so patient.

I got as close to Graves’s rugged, remote property as I could, then pulled my car off the side of the road, shouldered my bag of supplies, and hiked the rest of the way in on foot. Tess floated beside me the whole time, her face tight with worry, her hands fisting in the ghostly folds of her gingham dress. I didn’t know why. I was the one sticking my neck out here – hers had already been cut long ago by Graves. Still, her concern touched me.

According to Jo-Jo, Graves lived at the top of a holler in the mountains above Ashland. I followed her directions up a faint hiking trail, then stopped when I crested a forested ridge and spotted Graves’s house through a screen of trees. Above me, the bare skeleton branches creaked and cracked back and forth as the wind tangled through them. The faint whispers almost seemed to be warning me. Stay away . . . stay away . . . stay away . . .

I pushed my unease aside and used the binoculars I’d brought along to peer at the house in front of me. It could have been a replica of a hundred others I’d seen in hollers like this one – cheap white clapboard that had long ago turned dingy with age, a porch with warped, weathered, sagging boards and a dull tin roof dotted here and there with black mold. Charming.

Whatever else he was, Graves definitely didn’t care what kind of disrepair his property fell into. Still, his neglect would make my job easier. It was only about three in the afternoon, and he would have easily seen me creeping through his yard if the grass hadn’t been as high as my waist and choked with winter weeds and black briars.

Once again, that feeling of unease crept up on me. Maybe it was because the area was so completely lifeless. No birds fluttered in the trees, no rabbits scurried through the fallen leaves, nothing moved at all but the wind with its relentless whistle of cold air.

“OK, Tess,” I whispered, turning to the haint. “Time to earn my pro bono services as the Spider.

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