Venom

  The vamp paused in the doorway a moment, her toffee eyes sweeping over the interior. Roslyn had come during the postlunch lull, so the waitresses that had been working were in the alley behind the restaurant taking a long smoke break and eating their own dinner. Several customers still sat at the tables and booths against the windows, finishing up their meals, lost in their own bubbles of conversation. When she realized no one was within earshot of Finn and me, she nodded, yanked the door shut behind her, and stomped over in our direction. The vampire’s high heels clattered against the floor like falling silverware.

  Roslyn slammed her small handbag down on the counter next to Finn, startling him and making him jiggle the spoonful of baked beans he’d been ready to shove into his mouth. The beans slipped off his spoon and splattered on his gray suit jacket, along with a healthy amount of barbecue sauce. Finn cursed and reached for a white paper napkin.

  But Roslyn didn’t care about Finn’s fashion emergency. The vamp only had eyes for me—eyes that flashed with hot anger.

  “What the fuck did you do to Elliot Slater last night?” she snarled.

  “Lovely to see you again too, Roslyn.” I marked my place in my book with a wayward credit card receipt and set it aside. “Care to take a seat?”

  Roslyn plopped down on the stool next to Finn’s, her back as tall and straight as the arrow in her rune pin. The vamp’s hot gaze never left my face.

  “I ask again,” she snapped in a low voice only the three of us could hear. “What did you do to Elliot Slater last night?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing much. Killed a couple of his men. I was going to do him too, but the bastard ducked out a window and ran away before I could get down to business with him.”

  My confession didn’t appease Roslyn. If anything, it made her angrier. I could tell by the way the vamp bared her pearl-white fangs at me. Finn gave Roslyn a sidelong glance and kept trying to rub the barbecue sauce out of his suit, more concerned about the stain setting in his jacket than the danger presented by the pissed-off vampire. He was rather impractical that way.

  “I take it there’s a problem with Slater?” I asked in a quiet tone. “Beyond what you told me yesterday?”

  Roslyn stared at me. I met her gaze with a calm one of my own. If anyone else had busted into my gin joint and bitched about the way I handled my bloody, dangerous business, I would have set her straight, perhaps with the point of my knife. But Roslyn was the victim in all this, had suffered so much because of me, I was going to be as gentle with her as I could. Even if gentle was something I didn’t really know how to do—or that I hadn’t been myself in a long, long time.

  After a few seconds, the vamp made a visible effort to get herself under control. Finn gave his stained jacket up as a lost cause. He sighed and tossed his crumpled napkin in the middle of his plate. Dinnertime was officially over.

  “Would you care for something to eat or drink?” I asked, trying to be the responsible hostess once more.

  “No,” Roslyn muttered.

  I ignored her curt answer and moved over to a glass cake stand resting on the counter against the back wall. I cut Roslyn a piece of the chocolate-chip pound cake and put the dessert in front of her, along with a tall glass of milk and a fork. Since no one liked warm milk, I wrapped my hand around the glass and reached for my Ice magic. A silver light glowed on my palm, centered on the spider rune scar embedded in my flesh. Ice crystals immediately formed on the surface of the mug, and a moment later, it was as cold and frosty as if I’d just taken it out of the freezer. Steam curled up from the lip of the glass.

  Not so long ago, doing something as simple as cooling a drink had been about the extent of my Ice magic. Now it wasn’t any harder than breathing. Jo-Jo Deveraux claimed that the silverstone metal melted into my palms had inhibited my Ice magic, since Ice elementals tended to release their power through their hands to make cubes, daggers, and other shapes—or just to blast someone with their cold magic.

  But I’d finally overcome the blockage during a desperate moment when I was facing off with another elemental, when my life had been on the line. Now, doing things with my Ice power was far easier than it had been before. I was getting stronger in it too. Jo-Jo claimed that my Ice magic would continue to grow until it was just as powerful as my Stone power, making me the rarest of elementals—someone who was equally strong in two elements.

  I wasn’t exactly comfortable with that idea for a variety of reasons. Mainly because I’d seen my mother, Eira’s, Ice magic let her down when she’d gone up against Mab Monroe. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to tempt fate by relying on my own Ice magic when Mab and I had our inevitable confrontation. Because it would be damned ironic if Mab killed me the exact same way she had my mother and older sister. Irony. Always out to get you.

  Roslyn eyed me some more, and I realized that I’d never done any kind of magic in front of the vamp before. That she hadn’t even known I was an elemental until now. The other customers were all still too busy with their food to notice my small magical display.

  I wasn’t worried about Roslyn telling anyone, though. She’d agreed to keep quiet after what had happened to Fletcher Lane, and she’d held up once already under Elliot Slater’s questioning. Her word was good.

  Roslyn opened her mouth to turn down the food I’d just shoved her way, but I cut her off.

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “Now, you want to tell me what’s going on? And why you decided to storm in here like Sherman marching through Atlanta? I know you’ve been around a while, but the Civil War ended a long time ago.”

  Roslyn sighed, and some of the angry fight sagged out of her slim shoulders. “Elliot called me last night, around three in the morning, demanding to know where I was, what I was doing, and if there was anyone with me.”

  I frowned. “Why would he want to know all that?”

  Finn snorted. “You mean besides the fact that the bastard’s obsessed with her? That he wants to know and control her every movement?”

  I ignored Finn’s snide comment. “What did Slater want?”

  Roslyn fiddled with the fork I’d set down in front of her. “He said he had some trouble with someone last night. That someone had come after him, and he was worried that they’d come after me in order to get to him.” Her mouth twisted. “Because everyone knew how much he cares about me. How fucking precious I am to him.”

  The vamp’s hand tightened around the fork, and her eyes darkened like she was wishing she could shove the silverware into Elliot Slater’s jugular. I admired her spirit, if not her practicality. Roslyn would have been much better off using a butter knife, if death by silverware was going to be her modus operandi.

  I filled Roslyn in on what had really happened last night. How Finn and I had been following Elliot Slater when we’d seen him get the order from Mab, get his goons together, and go after Bria.

  Roslyn frowned. “Why do you care if Elliot kills some new cop in town? Why interfere?”

  I wasn’t about to confess my familial connection to Bria to the vamp, so I gave her a flip answer. “I thought I could take him out right then and there and let the cop take credit for things. It worked once before, you know.”

  Roslyn grimaced. She knew what I was referring to—the night a couple of months ago when I’d killed Alexis James in the Ashland Rock Quarry. Roslyn had been there as one of Alexis’s hostages, along with Finn. Roslyn was the one who’d backed up Donovan Caine’s claim that he’d killed the Air elemental, instead of me.

  I thought about what Roslyn had said. So Elliot Slater thought I’d been there to off him last night, not to save Bria from getting dead. Not surprising. Like Mab Monroe, Slater didn’t strike me as someone who thought about other people—except what he wanted to take from them. Still, Finn had been right. Slater would be on his guard now, which would make him that much tougher to kill.

  “Anyway, whatever you did, Slater was worried about me. It was all I could do to convince him not to come over to the club and che
ck on me right then.” Roslyn shuddered. “Xavier was at the club with me. If Slater had come over, the mood he was in, he would have killed Xavier just for being there.”

  Finn and I nodded. We both knew that I’d pissed off Slater by killing his men last night, and he would have taken his anger out on Xavier—maybe even Roslyn too. Hell, the giant could do that at any time. Beat the vampire to death with his fists the way he’d almost done to me at the community college. That’s the kind of sick bastard he was. And why he needed to get dead as soon as possible.

  “So how did you keep Slater from coming over?” Finn asked.

  Roslyn grimaced again. “I told him that I’d go out with him tonight. Some charity gambling tournament on the Delta Queen.” She closed her eyes. “He said he wants to take me back to his place afterward. So we can finally… be together the way we should.”

  A shiver of fear rippled through the vamp’s body, and her hands trembled against the countertop. Roslyn didn’t have to tell me that the thought of seeing Elliot Slater, much less playing the part of his doting girlfriend, was enough to turn her stomach. Just the idea of the giant putting his hands on her or anyone else made me want to vomit. Not to mention what would happen when Slater got Roslyn back to his house—alone. The vicious ways he would brutalize her all night long.

  It wasn’t going to happen, I vowed. Elliot Slater wasn’t going to hurt Roslyn ever again. No matter what I had to do or who saw me do it.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “You’re not going to have to go back to Slater’s place tonight.”

  Roslyn’s eyes snapped open.

  I looked at Finn. “We needed an opening.”

  He frowned. “You can’t be serious, Gin. You can’t kill Elliot Slater on the Delta Queen in front of who knows how many witnesses. It’s a fucking riverboat, or have you forgotten?”

  “I haven’t forgotten, but it’s a place like any other,” I replied. “Don’t make it a challenge. You know how much I like those.”

  Finn rubbed his chest like he had a sudden case of heartburn. I didn’t think it was caused by the onions and grease he’d just eaten. The Delta Queen was something of an Ashland institution—a riverboat casino that slowly trolled up and down the muddy waters of the Aneirin River. A big, white behemoth straight out of, well, the Mark Twain novel I was reading.

  “Come on, Gin, think about it. Elliot’s sure to have some of his men with him,” Finn said. “And this tournament? It’s a big deal. Or at least the party of the month. All my clients at the bank are going, and all the other Ashland bigwigs are sure to be in attendance.”

  I sighed. “Look, I know it’s going to be tricky. I’m not denying that. But doing Slater on the riverboat does have some advantages.”

  “Name one,” Finn dared.

  “One, it’s a public place, which will be easier to get into than his heavily fortified mansion. Two, it will be crowded. Three, there will be alcohol on the premises, which means lots of people will be getting their load on. Drunks tend to be lousy witnesses. Four, and perhaps most important, I can dump Slater’s body over the side when I’m finished with him instead of trying to stuff him in a closet somewhere.” I ticked the points off on my fingers. “Shall I go on?”

  Finn rubbed his chest again. “Everything you say is true, but it’s still dangerous, Gin. Slater could scream or get away from you before you finish him off. And if he does, if his men or the casino guards hear him, you’re the one who won’t get off the boat alive.”

  “I know all that. But those are the same risks I would have with any job.”

  “So why are you so eager to take those chances?” he asked. “Why now that you’ve retired?”

  “Because I don’t want Roslyn to have to go home with that bastard,” I said in a quiet voice. “Understand?”

  I didn’t mention that it was because the whole situation was my fault to begin with. That Roslyn had suffered so much already because of me and that I wasn’t going to let her be hurt anymore.

  Finn could easily see the guilt in my eyes.

  Then his green gaze cut to Roslyn and the obvious strain in her eyes and face and clenched fists. Right now, the vamp resembled a life-size porcelain doll—one that would shatter if you so much as breathed on her. Finn realized what I had—that the vamp was on the edge. That she couldn’t take another night of being Elliot Slater’s plaything. Not again. Not without cracking and screaming and fighting back with everything she had—and then getting dead because of her defiance.

  “All right,” Finn said in a low voice. “All right. We’ll do it. But how are you going to get close to him? Like I said before, Slater’s sure to be on the lookout for any strange woman approaching him after what happened at Bria’s house last night. More important, the giant already knows you, Gin. Slater knows who you are, what you look like, and that you have a grudge against him. You won’t be able to sweet-talk him and get him alone like you did Tobias Dawson.”

  “I didn’t sweet-talk Dawson. I got knocked out and woke up in a coal mine. What part of that says sweet-talk to you?”

  Finn gave me a tiny grin, trying to lighten the mood. “Some guys are into that sort of thing.”

  I rolled my eyes. Finn was so much more disturbed than I was. All I did was kill people with my silverstone knives. Clean, simple, straightforward, to the point. Finn was the one who liked to dabble in the kinky stuff—with any woman who would have him.

  The front door of the restaurant opened. The bell chimed, interrupting my unwanted musings on Finn’s proclivities. I looked toward the door, grateful for the interruption, until I saw exactly who was standing in the Pork Pit—Detective Bria Coolidge.

  My baby sister was here in my gin joint, in my place of business. Bria stood in the doorway, surveying the restaurant much the same way Roslyn had done just minutes before. Blond hair, blue eyes, rosy skin. She looked no worse for wear, despite the fact that she’d been shot and almost killed last night. She sported a long, navy coat over a pair of dark jeans, a black turtleneck sweater, and stylish black boots. Her primrose rune gleamed a bright silver against the inky fabric of her sweater. Bria’s eyes flicked over the interior of the Pork Pit before settling on Finn, Roslyn, and me clustered together at the counter. She headed toward us.

  Finn shot me a troubled glance. I knew exactly what he was thinking, because it was the same thought spinning through my mind. What was Bria doing here? Had she somehow realized that we were the masked duo who’d saved her from Elliot Slater and his giants last night? Had she somehow, some way, tracked us back to the Pork Pit? Was she here to arrest us for killing the giants?

  Bria stepped up to the counter next to Roslyn. She looked at the vamp a moment, clearly surprised to see her here. Her cool gaze frosted over even more at the sight of Finn, who grinned at her. Finally, Bria turned her attention to me. “I’m looking for Gin Blanco.”

  “That would be me,” I replied. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  Bria reached into her coat and drew out a gold badge. She flashed it at me, then stuffed it back into her pocket. “I’m Detective Bria Coolidge with the Ashland Police Department. I’m here to ask you a few questions about the beating you took the other night. We met there, if you remember.”

  Some of the tension eased out of my body. So that’s why she was here. Following up about me getting almost beaten to death at the hands of Elliot Slater. Not because of what happened last night. Not because I was the mysterious, masked woman who’d saved her from being murdered in her own home. Not because she’d recognized me. Not because she’d realized that I was really her long-lost big sister, Genevieve Snow.

  “Ms. Phillips, why don’t you take your cake over to one of the booths so I can speak to the detective?” I asked in my most polite voice. “I’ll have the rest of your order ready in a jiffy.”

  Roslyn stared at me, then Bria. Curiosity filled the vamp’s face. She realized Bria was the cop I’d saved from Slater last night, but Roslyn knew better than to ask
questions or make a scene.

  “Of course. Take your time,” the vampire said, going along with me. She picked up the glass of milk and cake and walked over to a booth in the back of the restaurant.

  With Roslyn out of the way, Finn was free to turn around on his stool and give Bria the slow head-to-toe appraisal he reserved for women he was thinking about seducing. Finn smiled his approval. He liked what he saw.

  “What are you looking at?” Bria snapped.

  “Just you, detective.” Finn’s grin widened. “Just you.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but not before I saw a small spark of something flash in the blue depths—attraction. However unwanted it might be, Bria found Finn smug, but appealing. Couldn’t blame her for that. Especially since I’d slept with him myself back during my foolish teenage years. With his green eyes, solid figure, and devilish smile, Finn had seduced far more frosty and intimidating women than Detective Bria Coolidge.

  But Finn and Bria? That was another complication I didn’t need right now.

  “There’s not much to tell, detective,” I said, interrupting their heated staring contest. “Like I told you before, I fell down.”

  Bria looked at me. Her mouth flattened into a hard line. “You fell down? Original.”

  I gave her a bland smile. Now was not the time to be a smart-ass. Smart-asses were memorable for any number of reasons, and right now, I needed her to forget all about me. At least until after I’d killed Elliot Slater.

  Bria kept staring at me, her gaze sweeping over my features and down what she could see of my body—mainly, my grease-stained blue apron and long-sleeved black T-shirt. “Well, you seem to have healed nicely. Looks like your brother here did in fact get you to that Air elemental healer and the best medical treatment in Ashland.”