Well, it had been worth a shot. More important, though, Owen had crept closer to Dixon. He was now standing on the outer circular path behind the column nearest and parallel to the giant. He couldn’t move any closer for fear that Dixon or Opal would spot him, but he was well within striking distance. All I had to do now was distract the giants until the right moment.

“You know, you and I are a lot alike, Gin,” Clementine said.

“Really? How so?”

She stared at me. “We both do whatever we have to in order to survive. In fact, I rather admire you. Why, to hear the rumors, you’re the most heartless, ruthless bitch this town has ever seen.”

“My, my, my,” I drawled. “What a lovely compliment. Especially coming from someone like you.”

“I mean it,” she continued in a genuine voice. “The things you’ve managed to do as the Spider, the folks you’ve taken down these past several months. I’ve heard about them, you know. Tobias Dawson. Elliot Slater. Elektra LaFleur. And then of course the biggie, Mab Monroe herself.”

I shrugged. “What can I say? I don’t like bullies. That’s what all of them were—just like you.”

Her eyes glittered in her face, but her voice was calm, friendly even, when she spoke again. “Actually, you killing Mab has made life better for a lot of folks, including me. My boys and I have had a lot of fun with that Fire elemental bitch out of the picture. My protection business has been booming. Of course, what the idiots who hire me don’t realize is that there’s no one around anymore to keep me from taking whatever I want, whenever I want it, especially from them.”

“Well, I’m happy that I could help a small business succeed.”

“But the problem is that a lot of other people have had the exact same idea,” she continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “In some ways, things are even worse than before. At least, with Mab around, you knew where you stood: below her. Now everybody’s fighting everybody else. It makes things . . . messy for us all. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been thinking about getting out of town for a while now. Too much damn drama going on these days.”

“Pardon me if I don’t shed any tears for the trials and tribulations of Ashland’s criminal element,” I said. “I’ve got my own problems with them, in case you haven’t heard.”

Clementine grinned. “Oh, I’ve heard, all right. Did you know there’s a huge betting pool about who will kill you and when they’ll do it? Last time I’d heard, the pot was more than a million bucks.”