Spider Game (GhostWalkers, #12)
Christine Feehan
For Manuela Barth, for all the help you give me with my community welcoming new members and answering questions when I’m so immersed in my writing, I forget everything else. I appreciate you more than words can say!
For My Readers
Be sure to go to christinefeehan.com/members/ to sign up for my PRIVATE book announcement list and download the FREE ebook of Dark Desserts. Join my community and get firsthand news, enter the book discussions, ask your questions and chat with me. Please feel free to email me at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you. Each year, the last weekend of February, I would love for you to join me at my annual FAN event, an exclusive weekend with an intimate number of readers for lots of fun, fabulous gifts and a wonderful time. Look for more information at fanconvention.net.
Acknowledgments
With any book there are many people to thank.
In this case, the usual suspects: Domini, for her research and help; my power hours group, who always make certain I’m up at the crack of dawn working; and of course Brian Feehan, who I can call anytime and brainstorm with so I don’t lose a single hour. I absolutely need to give a shout-out of thanks to Neil Benson, owner of Pearl River Eco Swamp Tours. He graciously took me out into the swamp several times on both day and night tours and patiently answered every question I asked. I’ve been to New Orleans many, many times and learned more from him than I had in all my other visits put together. I will be using his information in many upcoming works.
The GhostWalker Symbol Details
The GhostWalker Creed
We are the GhostWalkers, we live in the shadows The sea, the earth, and the air are our domain No fallen comrade will be left behind
We are loyalty and honor bound
We are invisible to our enemies
and we destroy them where we find them
We believe in justice and we protect our country and those unable to protect themselves
What goes unseen, unheard, and unknown
are GhostWalkers
There is honor in the shadows and it is us We move in complete silence whether
in jungle or desert
We walk among our enemy unseen and unheard Striking without sound and scatter to the winds before they have knowledge of our existence We gather information and wait with endless patience for that perfect moment to deliver swift justice We are both merciful and merciless
We are relentless and implacable in our resolve We are the GhostWalkers and the night is ours
CHAPTER 1
Trap Dawkins sighed as he tilted his chair on two legs, automatically calculating the precise angle and vector he could tip before he fell over. He was bored out of his f*cking mind. This was the fifth night in a row he’d come to the Huracan Club, a Cajun bar out in the middle of the f*cking swamp, for God’s sake. Peanut husks covered the bar and round, handmade wooden tables with a crude variety of chairs covered the floor. The bar was constructed of simple planks of wood set on sawhorses surrounded by high stools also hand carved.
To the left of the bar was a shiny, beautifully kept baby grand piano. In the bar that was mostly a shack out in the middle of nowhere, the piano looked totally out of place. The lid was open and there wasn’t a dust spot – or a scratch – on the instrument. It was also completely in tune. The piano sat on a raised dais with two long steps made of hardwood leading up to it. There were no peanut husks on the platform or on the stairs. Everyone who frequented the bar knew not to touch the piano unless they really knew how to play. No one would dare. The piano had gone unscathed through hundreds of bar fights that included knives and broken bottles.
Trap glanced at the piano. He supposed he could play. Sometimes that helped his mind stay calm when it needed action. He couldn’t take sitting for hours doing nothing. How did these people do it? That question had occupied his brain for all of two minutes. He didn’t really care why they did it, or how, it was just plain a waste of time. He wasn’t certain he could take much more of this, but on the other hand, what alternative was there?
He’d come looking for her. Cayenne. In spite of the fact that no one could accurately describe her, Trap knew she frequented the bar. This was where she chose her victims. The robberies in the swamp were only rumors, whispers, the men too embarrassed to say much. They were always drunk. Always on their way home. They were men with bad reputations, men others steered clear of. She would choose those men and they wouldn’t be able to resist her. Not her looks. Not her voice. Not the lure she used.
He sighed again and glanced toward the bar, wishing he had another beer, but seriously, it was nearly one in the morning. She wasn’t coming. He would have to endure this nightmare again.
“Fuck,” he whispered crudely, under his breath. He had discipline and control in abundance. But he couldn’t stop himself from the destructive path he was set on. He had to find her, and that meant coming to this hellhole every night until he did.
“How you doin’, Trap?” Wyatt Fontenot asked, as he put a fresh bottle of beer on the very rickety table in front of his fellow GhostWalker and toed a chair out so he could straddle it. “You ready to leave? You’re lookin’ like you might be startin’ a fight any minute.”
Trap would never, under any circumstances start a fight. But he’d finish it, and he’d do that in a very permanent way. That was why half their team came to the bar with him.