Venom

  And that’s when the show really started.

  More cars carrying more cops arrived on the scene, swarming over the mansion like ants on a crust of honey-covered bread. Spotlights were erected, along with yards of yellow crime scene tape. It wasn’t long before a news van pulled up and parked in the driveway. Then another, then another. I smiled. So far, everything was going according to plan.

  Standing in the bloody wreckage of Elliot Slater’s living room, I’d told Roslyn everything—about my murdered family, about Bria, but most especially about my plan to take down Mab Monroe—or die trying.

  The vamp had studied me for several seconds before shaking her head. “You’re one crazy bitch, you know that.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m suicidal,” I’d replied. “So are you in or out?”

  “In.” Roslyn gave me a small smile.

  And just like that, we were partners. Hell, maybe even friends too.

  As I watched the scene before me, I crunched a couple of aspirin between my teeth and shifted the ice pack that I’d strapped onto my broken wrist before leaving the mansion. I had one more thing to do before I could slip away and go have Jo-Jo Deveraux heal me. Finn was already in the dwarf’s capable hands, getting his many injuries taken care of.

  Forty-five minutes after Bria and Xavier first arrived, a long, black limo pulled up to the very top of the driveway. Finally she was here. The limo driver got out and rushed to open the back door. A moment later, Mab Monroe stepped into view. The Fire elemental looked like she’d been out on the town. I could see the gleam of sequins on her forest green dress even from this distance. Her red hair looked like dull copper underneath the whirling, red and blue police lights, and her sunburst rune necklace flashed like a ring of golden fire around her neck, surrounding the bloody ruby in the center of the design.

  At the sight of Mab, one of the cops, a senior captain whose name escaped me, walked over to her, bent down, and began speaking into the Fire elemental’s ear. I made a mental note to tell Finn to get me the guy’s name, since he was so obviously in Mab’s pocket. He might be worth paying a visit to sometime in the near future.

  Mab’s face remained as smooth and expressionless as ever, but her eyes blackened, sucking in all the available light, instead of reflecting it back. The Fire elemental was pissed. The captain finished briefing Mab and stepped back, dry-washing his hands in nervousness. But instead of frying him on the spot, Mab looked across the driveway, where Roslyn sat, still wrapped in a blanket in the back of the police car. Then the Fire elemental stared at the cluster of media folks gathered behind the yellow crime scene tape. They were already screaming at the cops to tell them what was going on.

  Which meant that it was time for me to make my presence known.

  With my good hand, I pulled a small detonator out of my pocket and pressed the blue button on top. A second later, a silvery light flashed, bright enough to fill the whole mountaintop. Everyone screamed and shouted, except for Mab Monroe. She just shielded her eyes against the light and looked for the source of it. After a few seconds, the initial burst of light flared down into a shape burning with silver fire in the stone of Elliot Slater’s mansion.

  A circle surrounded by eight thin rays. A spider rune. The symbol for patience.

  I’d never left my rune, my symbol, at the scene of the crime before. Assassins who did that were stupid and bound to be caught, sooner rather than later. But this was my plan, the crazy one that I’d told Finn, Sophia, and Jo-Jo about. My way to take the heat off Roslyn Phillips for Elliot Slater’s messy demise. My way to protect Bria from being killed by one of Mab Monroe’s henchmen. My way to get the Fire elemental to focus all her attention on me.

  My way to finally declare war on Mab Monroe.

  The spider rune continued to burn. I’d poured every last bit of magic that I’d had left into making the rune. Some small explosives from my duffel bag of supplies had helped me put enough juice in it to really make a statement. It looked just as large and ominous as I’d hoped.

  My eyes sought out Bria in the crowd. My sister stood a little apart from the other cops, just staring up at the rune on the wall of the house, her mouth open in a combination of surprise and something else that I couldn’t quite define or explain. Her eyes dropped to the rune-stamped rings on her finger, and she started twisting one of them around and around. I didn’t have to guess which one.

  After a few seconds, I pulled my gaze away from Bria. Right now, I needed to make sure that my message had been delivered.

  So I reached into my pocket, pulled out my cell phone, and punched in the number that Finn had been gracious enough to provide for me. It rang twice before she picked it up.

  “What?” Mab Monroe’s silky voice barked in my ear.

  “Enjoying the show?” I asked, using a bright, cheery tone to help disguise my voice. “I think it’s quite something myself. But then again, I might be a little biased, since I’m the one who orchestrated the whole thing.”

  “Who the fuck is this? What the hell are you talking about?” Mab snarled.

  “I’m talking about that very large rune you’re looking at right now. I’m talking about me waltzing into Elliot Slater’s little vista up here, putting a shotgun to his head, and pulling the trigger enough times so that his own mother wouldn’t recognize the pulpy remains.”

  As I talked, I watched Mab. The Fire elemental’s face didn’t change, but her hand tightened around the phone. I hoped she didn’t make it spontaneously combust before I was through talking with her. That would rather defeat the point of my little display here tonight.

  “Who are you?” Mab asked, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous rasp in my ear. “You might as well tell me now, because I’m going to find you, bitch. And when I do, you’re going to pay dearly for this stunt you’ve pulled.”

  “We’ve actually met before,” I replied. “I have to say I’m rather crushed that you don’t remember me. After all, I did proposition you in your own bathroom.”

  “Candy, the hooker,” Mab said, referring to the trashy name that I’d used that night. “You’re that blond hooker from my party. The one who killed Jake McAllister and buried Tobias Dawson in his own coal mine.”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  Silence. Below me, Mab paced back and forth in the driveway, thinking hard.

  “What do you want?” she finally asked. “What’s the point of this—this display? Why kill Elliot?”

  “Because he was a rapist and a serial killer and deserved to be put down,” I replied. “Because he got in my way. Because I was bored. Because I wanted to hurt you. Does it really matter? He’s dead. He’s not coming back. I made sure of that.”

  “And the others?” Mab asked. “Jake McAllister, Tobias Dawson. Did they get in your way too?”

  “Something like that,” I replied. “You can interpret my actions any way you like. I don’t fucking care what conclusions you draw.”

  “Who’s paying you to do this?” Mab’s voice seethed with rage. “Is it Benson? Weston? Phillip Kincaid?”

  I recognized the names that she spat out. More of Ashland’s underworld power players, each of whom had his own problems with Mab Monroe. Each of whom would be delighted to see her dead so he could take over her piece of the Ashland pie.

  “That’s the beauty of this whole thing,” I replied. “Most assassins are subcontractors, but me? I’m completely self-employed.”

  “So you have some grudge against me then, some vendetta, some score you want to settle. How tiresome. Why don’t you just show yourself, and we can get on with things? There’s no need to involve others in your drama.”

  I laughed. “Funny. And let your police buddies shoot me down? I don’t think so. Now listen up, because I’m only going to say this once. This call is the only warning that you’re going to get. You’re finished in this town, Mab. You and all your cronies and minions. I’m putting you on notice. I’m going to take down your organization one piece, one player at a time
, until you’re the only one left. And then I’m coming for you.”

  Mab laughed. Even up here on the ridge, I could hear the deadly mirth in her voice. “I’m so going to enjoy hunting you down and killing you.”

  I rolled my eyes. That’s what they all said.

  “At least do me the courtesy of telling me what I did to you,” Mab replied. “Because once I get my hands on you, Candy, you’re not going to be in any position to speak, much less answer questions.”

  I smiled into the darkness. “Promises, promises, sugar. As for what you did to me, well, you helped make me what I am. So really, you’ve got no one but yourself to blame for the cold, cold wrath that I am about to rain down on you and yours.”

  “I’ll find you, and when I do, you’re going to die,” Mab snarled. “Slowly. Painfully.”

  “That’s another bit of beauty about being self-employed,” I replied. “It’s only me on my crusade. There’s no one else to talk to. No one else to squeal, to bribe, to threaten. And I’m very, very good at being invisible. You won’t find me until I want you to. But I did do you the courtesy of leaving my calling card, so to speak.”

  “That fucking spider rune?” Mab asked. “Why a spider rune? It’s so simple, so weak.”

  I hesitated. Didn’t she remember my spider rune medallion? How she’d tortured me with it all those years ago? Didn’t she realize that I was Genevieve Snow, back from the dead?

  Maybe not, I thought. After all, it had been seventeen years ago, and Mab had killed scores of people in the meantime. Hard to keep track of everyone, especially since I’d just been a weak, helpless kid back then. Besides, Mab had been concerned with Bria and my mother that night—not me. Hell, I probably wasn’t the only person the Fire elemental had tortured who’d used a spider rune. It wasn’t the most common symbol out there, but it wasn’t unheard of either.

  Maybe Mab had forgotten me. Maybe she just couldn’t be bothered to remember right now, given the ugly surprise of Elliot Slater’s death. Maybe she’d put it together later. Maybe she did remember and was just screwing with me. Didn’t much matter at the moment. All that did matter was making sure my message was delivered loud and clear.

  “Why a spider rune? Because it’s the symbol for patience,” I replied. “And I can wait however long I have to until I get you. So look at the rune, Mab, memorize it and remember it well. Because you’ll be seeing it again real soon, sugar. Including the second before you die.”

  “You stupid, arrogant bitch—” she started.

  I shut my phone. I’d said everything that I needed to. But evidently, Mab didn’t like the way the conversation ended. Down in the driveway, the Fire elemental stared at her cell phone, a look of disbelief on her face. A second later, a ball of fire erupted in her hand, toasting the phone and flashing up into the night sky. The cops in front of the mansion immediately turned, hands going to their guns, wondering if this was some new threat. A few of the reporters screamed at the unexpected blast, and everyone took a few steps back.

  I counted off the seconds in my head. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Forty-five… The fire snuffed out of Mab’s hand, and her fingers curled into a tight fist. After a moment, she took a breath, opened her fist, and clapped a bit of ash off her hands. Then the Fire elemental turned on her heel and got back into her waiting limo. Message received.

  A cold smile curved my lips before I turned and slipped off into the dark woods.

  And now, promises to keep. Promises to keep.

  30

  “Broken wrist, cracked ribs, and more cuts and bruises than I can count.” Jo-Jo ticked off my many injuries one by one.

  I shrugged. “It was a slow night.”

  I lay in one of the cherry red chairs at Jo-Jo Deveraux’s beauty salon. After hiking back down the mountain, I’d driven myself over to the dwarf’s house so she could heal me up once more. Sophia had already positioned herself above me. The Goth dwarf had her hands clamped on my arms, ready to hold me down so Jo-Jo could pour her healing Air elemental magic into my battered body.

  In the next chair over, the already healed Finn murmured a quiet good-bye and snapped his cell phone shut.

  “That was Xavier, checking in,” he said. “Roslyn’s given her statement to the cops. She said exactly what you told her too, Gin. She told the police that Elliot Slater kidnapped her from Northern Aggression and took her up to his mansion because of what she said about him on the riverboat. That he beat her before leaving her tied to the bed. They also found the clothes and mementoes of his other victims in that closet you rifled through, the other women that he raped and murdered.”

  I nodded. That was the cover story we’d gone with, a way for Roslyn to be the victim that she really was in all this, instead of a twisted scapegoat to cover up Slater’s many crimes.

  Finn drew in a breath. “Roslyn told them the rest of it too. That she heard lots of noise, lots of screaming, and then several gunshots. That a masked figure, a woman, came into the bedroom where she was at and untied her. That the woman told Roslyn that she was the Spider and to tell everyone in Ashland what she had done to Slater and his men. Then the woman vanished into the night. Roslyn passed out, and the next thing she knew, the cops were everywhere.”

  Finn stared at me, his eyes bright and green in his ruddy face. “It’s already all over the news. They’ve dubbed you a vigilante, some sort of modern day Robin Hood. Except, of course, you kill people instead of just stealing from them.”

  I nodded again. That’s exactly what I’d wanted to happen. To set myself up as a larger-than-life legend, to distract people from the fact that I was just as human and mortal as the rest of them. People looking for legends tended to ignore the mundane, like someone who owned a barbecue joint and took classes at the local community college.

  “I’m proud of you, Gin,” Jo-Jo said in a soft voice.

  “Proud,” Sophia echoed in her raspy voice.

  “Why?” I replied. “For setting myself up as a target for Mab Monroe? According to Finn, she’s already got her people trying to figure out who I am and what I really want from her. She thinks I’m working for someone who’s trying to muscle in on her territory. One of her many enemies.”

  Jo-Jo shook her head. “No. For saving Roslyn Phillips, for putting the blame on yourself instead of on her.”

  I shrugged. “It was my fault Elliot Slater fixated on her in the first place. I owe her more than I can ever repay for that alone. Besides, there was just no other way to work it out. Otherwise, Mab would have come after Roslyn, even though she knew that the giant was stalking the vampire.”

  “Still,” Jo-Jo said. “It’s something that Fletcher Lane would have done. I’m sure wherever he is, he’s looking down and smiling at you, Gin.”

  I thought of the old man, of the file of information that he’d left me on my murdered family, about the fact that he’d gotten Bria to come back to Ashland to look for me. Jo-Jo was right. I felt like I was following in Fletcher’s footsteps in a weird sort of way. The old man had done pro bono jobs for folks. Now I was doing one for the whole city of Ashland.

  “You know what?” I replied. “I think you’re right.”

  I dropped my head back down against the headrest. “Now, use your mojo to get me up and around again. I need to go see a man about some swords.”

  Jo-Jo smiled. “With pleasure, darling. With pleasure.”

  I knocked on Owen Grayson’s front door just as the sun rose over the eastern mountains. I’d just let go of the hammer knocker and stepped back when he threw open the door and stuck his head outside. Owen wore a baby blue shirt that made his eyes seem more blue than violet in the gray dawn. His clothes were rumpled, as if he’d spent the night in them.

  Owen’s eyes widened at the sight of me, and his violet gaze took in my disheveled appearance, bloody clothes, and the two swords that I held out in front of me. After Jo-Jo healed me, I could have gone home, changed, and showered. Probably should have.

  But the blood was part o
f me, part of who I was and what I did. If things were going to work between Owen and me, he had to realize what being with me really meant—and he had to accept me for who and what I was. Donovan Caine hadn’t been able to do that. Now I was going to see if Owen Grayson ever could.

  “Hi there,” I said in a low voice.

  “Hi yourself,” Owen replied. He looked at my bloody clothes once more before his eyes lifted to my face. “Long night?”

  I shrugged. “You could say that. I wanted to come by and apologize. I think I might have scared Eva a little last night when I came over. But there was an emergency, and I didn’t have time to explain things to her. I also brought your swords back.”

  I held out the weapons to him. They were just as bloody as my clothes. So I stood there, and I waited. Because now it was Owen’s turn to make a decision.

  He stared at me again, taking in my bloody black clothes before he slowly reached forward and took the swords out of my hand. Owen looked at first one weapon, then the other. Dried blood gleamed like dull red ink on both of the blades, making it ever so obvious what I’d done with them during the long night. That I’d used them to cut and hurt and wound and kill. It was one thing to make weapons. Quite another to see their brutal application in the harsh light of a new day.

  For a moment I thought that Owen would turn around, go inside, and shut and lock the door on me. That’s what Donovan Caine had done, only he’d been the one to leave instead of me. But to my surprise, Owen nodded his head, then looked up and gave me a small smile.

  “Come on,” he said in a low voice. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  Owen stepped forward, slipped his warm hand into my cold one, and pulled me inside.

  He led me back to his study, where he laid the weapons inside the door. Then, his hand still in mine, he walked us down another hallway. He opened a door, and I stepped into what was obviously his bedroom. My stomach tightened with anticipation.