Venom

10

I dropped the night-vision goggles, grabbed my ski mask from the dashboard, and yanked the black fabric down over my head, hiding my pale face and brown hair from sight.

“Gin—”

Finn said something, probably telling me to wait for him or slow down, but I couldn’t make out what it was. I was already out of the car and sprinting toward the house.

Elliot Slater and his giants had a good head start on me — almost a quarter of a mile. I saw the five of them slip through the trees that circled the back side of the house. Another few seconds and they’d be at the back door and surging inside. An icy fist squeezed my heart and lungs, making it hard to breathe. I’d just found my sister again, and now Slater and his men were here to kill her. Why else would they be sneaking around Bria’s house this close to midnight?

Run, run, run, run… The thought drummed through my head as my boots slapped against the pavement. I chugged past the parked Hummer, leaped over the concrete curb, and ran through the frost-covered grass. The tiny blades crackled like glass under my smashing feet. If Slater and his giants bothered to stop and listen, they’d hear me coming for sure. But I didn’t care. All that mattered was getting to Bria before she got dead.

I broke through the line of spindly pecan trees, and Bria’s house rose up in front of me, two stories of charming gray brick. I blocked out the blood roaring through my ears and reached out with my Stone magic. But the house was freshly constructed, and the stones were too new to tell me anything about Bria — or what might be happening inside.

I was a hundred feet away from the back door when lights flashed and a series of pop-pop-pops sounded. The distinctive sights and sounds of someone firing a handgun. A window shattered, and a series of loud curses spilled out into the night air. Bria was putting up more of a fight than the giants had expected.

A few seconds later, an intense, bluish white glow filled the downstairs windows and burst through the open back door. Even though I was outside, I could still feel the cold caress of Ice magic surging through the house. A sensation so like my own Stone and Ice power that it made me want to weep. Not surprising, even if it was something that I hadn’t thought about in years. Because Bria was an Ice elemental, of course. Just like our mother, Eira, and older sister, Annabella, had been. I was the only one who’d inherited our father, Tristan’s, Stone magic as well. I just hoped Bria had enough juice to hold off Elliot Slater and his men until I could even the odds.

The Ice magic flowed around me a second longer before snuffing out like a candle. Either Bria didn’t have much power or something had broken her concentration — like a fist to her face or a bullet to her gut.

The brass hinges of the back door barely clung to the stone frame. One of the giants must have just shouldered his way through it, rather than bother with the pretense of knocking. Although my heart screamed at me to keep running, to get to Bria as quickly as possible, I slowed my steps and paused just outside the door. Me barging into whatever fight was going on inside wouldn’t help Bria. That’s not how I’d operated as the assassin the Spider, and I wasn’t going to do it now. Besides, there was always the off chance that Bria could mistake me for one of the giants and turn on me. Being killed by one’s own sister would be a shitty way to die.

So I stood there and listened. Another series of pop-pop-pops sounded, followed by three more shots. Two people exchanging gunfire.

“Fuck!” A sharp, masculine cry. One of the giants had been hit.

Then silence.

I crept a few feet inside the door, taking care to be exceptionally quiet. The back door opened up into a kitchen, and the white tile floor and countertops gleamed like they were made of ivory. The fight had started in here, judging from the black splashes of blood on the floor. Sharp, melting pieces of elemental Ice also littered the tile underfoot like a wet carpet.

But what was most surprising was the refrigerator. The top door had been blown off, and a rune shimmered with a bluish white light inside the frosty depths of the freezer. The symbol zigzagged up and down like the teeth of a saw. That’s what it was called — the saw. Symbolizing pure, biting force. In addition to using runes to identify themselves, elementals could also imbue runes with magic. In other words, make the symbols come to life and perform some specific function.

The saw was a defensive rune that could be used by any elemental and was especially popular as a sort of magic trip wire and bomb rolled into one. Since Bria was an Ice elemental, she’d drawn the saw symbol in her freezer, using the rune and appliance to contain her frosty magic. When the giants had broken into her house tonight, she’d most likely sent a burst of her Ice power into the freezer, triggering the explosive saw rune inside. And then—boom! The freezer door had blown open, spraying the giants with sharp, jagged icicles. Hence the blood on the floor.

I recognized the trick. I’d done it myself with stone a time or two. Baby sister had booby-trapped her own freezer. Despite the situation, I found myself grinning underneath my ski mask. Nice.

I saw all this in the three seconds it took me to creep to the opposite side of the kitchen. I crouched down and peered around the doorjamb. A long hallway stretched out before opening up into the front of the house. Rooms branched off either side of the hallway, which was now littered with debris. A couple of porcelain vases had been shattered, chairs overturned, a table splintered, a mirror knocked off the wall and broken. More blood glistened on the wooden floor, and a couple of bullets had punched into and blackened the walls. I started forward—

“Give it up, Coolidge!” Elliot Slater’s voice rumbled through the house like thunder. “We’ve got you surrounded, and it’s only a matter of time before you run out of ammo. We’ll kill you quick, I promise.”

“Fuck you, Slater,” Bria snarled.

Not the most original of retorts, but it was hard to be witty under pressure. Still, I frowned. Despite her bravado, Bria’s voice had sounded high and thin, like she was in pain or injured. But she was still breathing. As long as she kept doing that, Jo-Jo Deveraux could fix the rest of the damage. From the sound of things, Elliot and his men had Bria trapped somewhere in the front of the house. Which meant they wouldn’t be expecting a sneak attack from the rear. Excellent.

I tiptoed down the hallway, a silverstone knife in each hand. Although I still wanted to charge forward, I moved slowly, calmly, carefully. Just because I thought Slater and his men were at the end of the hall didn’t mean that he hadn’t left someone behind to guard their rear. Slater had worked for Mab Monroe for a long time. He wasn’t dumb by any stretch of the imagination. So I checked every room that branched off the hallway, looking for trouble.

Two doors up from the kitchen, I found some. A giant slouched over a sink in a small bathroom. Judging from the long, needlelike bits of elemental Ice sticking out of his face, it looked like he’d been the one who’d taken the brunt of the blast from the booby-trapped freezer. The giant held a white towel up over his eye socket. At least, the towel had been white at one point. Blood had turned the cotton fabric a dull crimson. The giant had also been shot a couple times in the chest, and a tight cluster of wounds just above his heart oozed blood. Baby sister was a good shot. She just hadn’t had time to finish him off before the other giants had rushed her.

Good thing her big sis Gin was here to take care of that.

I drew in a breath, then burst into the bathroom. My sudden appearance startled the giant so much that he dropped his towel, giving me a good look at the icicle that had skewered his right eye like a toothpick through an olive. The wounded giant opened his mouth to yell for his friends just as my silverstone knife slammed into his throat. The scream turned into a coughing, choking wheeze. My other knife ripped into the giant’s stomach. His warm blood splashed all over my ski mask and dark clothes.

But the giant wasn’t down for the count just yet. The bastard lashed out at me, flailing wildly with his fists. One clipped my shoulder. The other hit my left kidney. Even weakened, the solid blows still hurt. Being an elemental, I could have reached for my Stone magic and used it to harden my skin into an impenetrable shell. Almost nothing could hurt me when I did that. But I didn’t know if Elliot Slater or one of his other men had any elemental power, and I didn’t want to tip them off to my presence just yet. Besides, I reserved my magic for the main event. This barely qualified as the warm-up bout.

So I just stood there, slashing the giant with my knives. By the time I’d made my third pass with the silverstone weapons, the giant’s pink guts could be seen through the ripped fabric of his shirt. Not to mention the fact that his throat was open almost to his spine. He quit fighting, and his one good eye glazed over. I lowered his heavy body to the floor and tiptoed back to the door.

“What was that?” one of the giants muttered.

“I don’t know—” Another man started to respond when another series of pop-pop-pops shattered the quiet.

Someone else returned fire, and I used the noise and distraction to slip out of the bathroom and forward to the end of the hallway. It opened up into a large, square living room that looked like a tornado had ripped through the area. Broken lamps, overturned furniture, shattered knickknacks, cardboard packing boxes that had been split open from things falling on top of them.

To my surprise, a giant lay dead just inside the doorway. He slumped against the wall, staring up at the ceiling. I spotted a couple of bullet wounds clustered in the middle of his chest, but that wasn’t what had killed him — it was the Ice. The giant’s face looked blue and brittle, an inch of white frost had gathered in his hair, and his eyes resembled frozen marbles. Large icicles hung off his nose and chin, and his mouth was open in a silent scream.

The human body is mostly water. Flash-freeze that water using elemental Ice magic, and, well, you’ve got yourself a human Popsicle. Not a pretty way to die, but an effective method of dealing with an enemy who’s bigger and stronger than you. That bluish white flash I’d seen before must have been Bria laying her Ice whammy on the giant. The temperature was also at least ten degrees colder in here than in the rest of the house, due to Bria using her Ice power. My breath frosted in the air.

But the Iced giant was the only person I saw. A short wall ran out into the middle of the room, hiding the other half from sight. Pop-pop-pop. Bria and the giants were still exchanging gunfire, and the stench of cordite hung in the air, along with my frosty breath. I crept over to the wall and peered around it. Elliot Slater and his two remaining goons crouched behind an overturned couch about fifteen feet in front of me. Only one of the giants had a gun. Slater and the other man just huddled there, waiting for an opening.

I looked past the couch. Through a tangle of upended tables and chairs, I spotted an oversize stone fireplace. Bria had taken refuge inside the hollow space. I could just see her toes peeking out from behind the stone. She was trapped. Slater had been right. It was only a matter of time before she ran out of ammo. Then the three giants could just charge her and rip her apart with their bare hands. From the smile on Elliot Slater’s face and the way he kept flexing his hands, he seemed to be looking forward to that prospect.

A hard smile curved my own lips. Just like I was looking forward to gutting the giant. For Roslyn Phillips, and now for Bria too.

The shooting stopped, and I heard a hollow click. Bria let out a soft curse. She was out of bullets, which meant it was time for me to make my move. A knife in either hand, I stepped around the short wall and let out a low whistle. The giant closest to me turned at the sound, and I threw one of my knives at him. The weapon sank into his left shoulder socket. He growled in pain, and the gun he’d been holding slipped out of his numb fingers. Slater and the other man whirled around in surprise.

“Who the fuck are you?” Slater snapped, his eyes flicking over my blood-spattered clothes and ski mask.

I grinned and grabbed another knife from the small of my back. “Your worst nightmare.”

His hazel eyes narrowed. “We’ll see about that, bitch.”

Slater started toward me, but the giant I’d winged had other ideas. He pulled my silverstone knife out of his shoulder and stepped in front of his boss. Slater stopped and pointed over his shoulder at the fireplace where Bria was still hiding.

“Get the cop!” Slater roared at the third man. “Get Coolidge before she gets away! Now!”

The other giant nodded and turned toward the fireplace. I threw one of my knives at him. The weapon sank into the giant’s back, and he grunted. From the way he moved, I knew I hadn’t done any major damage, but maybe it would slow him down enough for me to take care of Elliot Slater and the other man coming toward me.

The giant I’d winged crossed over to me in three steps and slashed at me with my own knife. I ducked the wide blow. Even as I lunged down, I slashed his femoral artery on his right leg. Black, arterial blood sprayed in my face, but I ignored the warm, stinging sensation and grabbed a fourth knife out of one of my boots. As I came up, I used that weapon to open up the artery on his left leg. The giant howled again and staggered back. I slammed my boot into one of his knees. The change of tactics surprised him, and he stumbled away and flipped over the lopsided couch. He wasn’t dead yet, but he’d bleed out quick, especially if he kept thrashing around.

Meanwhile, Bria had crept out of the fireplace. She grabbed one of the long, metal pokers and held it out in front of her like a sword. I could see blood on her face and clothes, but I couldn’t tell how badly she was injured. The giant I’d thrown my weapon at reached around, pulled the knife out of his own back, and advanced on her. I scurried to one side to go help Bria, when a flash of movement caught my eye. I instinctively threw myself to the left. Elliot Slater’s ham-size fist whistled past my cheek, and I turned to face the quick giant.

Slater regarded me with his cold hazel eyes. “You know you’re going to die for interfering with me.”

“Really? Tell that to your two buddies that I’ve killed — so far,” I mocked.

Slater regarded me another moment, then snapped his hand up. I’d been expecting the punch and jerked back, but he still managed a glancing blow to my stomach that forced some of the air from my lungs. It was bad enough that Slater had a giant’s inherent strength and toughness. Why did he have to be so fucking quick too? That just wasn’t fair. Slater came at me again, and I was too busy dodging his blows to lament the fact that he was so much faster than me.

Another flash of motion caught my eye. On the other side of the room, the front door swung open, and a figure dressed in dark clothes stepped inside. The figure paused a moment, taking in me fighting with Elliot Slater and Bria swinging her fireplace poker at the other giant.

“Hey, buddy,” the figure called out. “You want some help with her?”

The giant turned, and Finn shot him in the face four times. Fletcher Lane might not have trained his son to be an assassin like me, but the old man had taught Finn everything he knew about weapons — including how to shoot a gun. Hell, Finn was a better shot than I was. Which is why Finn’s first bullet went through the giant’s right eye and up into his skull. The giant’s head snapped back, and he was already on his way to dead when Finn’s next three bullets shattered his face. Bria flinched as the giant’s blood, bone, and brain tissue splattered on her face and body. But she didn’t scream. For some reason, that made me even prouder of her than the freezer trick.

And then there was one — Elliot Slater.

The giant looked over his shoulder at his dead minions and Finn, who was rapidly advancing on us. I wouldn’t have thought him capable of it, but Slater actually did the smart thing.

He ran.

I surged forward, wanting to kill him right here, right now, and take care of Roslyn Phillips’s problem. But once again, Elliot Slater was quicker than I was. The giant slammed his fist into my stomach again and shoved me out of the way. Then, he dove headfirst through the nearest window and out into the dark night.