Venom

12

“Knock, knock,” Finn called out as he opened the front door to Bria’s house. “Honey, I’m home—” He stopped at the sight of me kneeling over Bria’s inert body. “What happened to her?”

“She passed out from the pain and blood loss,” I said.

“Good thing,” Finn replied. “Seeing as how we have company.”

He stepped to one side, and Sophia and Jo-Jo Deveraux entered the living room. The two dwarven sisters stood in the doorway and surveyed the destruction and dead bodies in front of them. Sophia wore a pair of thick, black coveralls and heavy boots, while Jo-Jo was clad in a pink robe that looked fuzzier and softer than a baby’s blanket. The older dwarf had stuck her feet into a matching pair of house shoes. She wasn’t wearing socks, though, despite the chill of the December night.

Jo-Jo let out a low whistle. “Finn told Sophia that you’d made a mess, but I didn’t think it would be quite this bad, Gin.”

“You know me. I never do anything halfway,” I quipped. “Now, come over here and see to Bria before she gets any worse.”

Sophia pulled a pair of black rubber gloves out of one of the pockets on her coveralls and snapped them on with obvious relish. The Goth dwarf didn’t smile, not really, but there was definitely a sparkle in her black eyes and a lightness to her steps. She was eager, happy even, to get to her disposal work. At least I’d made someone’s night. Sophia dragged the bodies of the three dead giants over to the front door and flipped the couch back into its normal upright position. Then the Goth dwarf picked up Bria and put her on the sofa.

Jo-Jo found a chair that hadn’t been splintered and carried it over so she could sit down and examine my blood-covered sister. Finn grabbed a tall lamp out of a corner and plugged it in so Jo-Jo could have enough light to see exactly what she was doing while she healed Bria. I moved around the living room, righting overturned furniture, picking up broken pieces of glass, stuffing the other splintered, bloody debris into some trash bags that I’d found under the kitchen sink.

Sophia bent down, put one of the dead giants over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and got to her feet. The giant weighed several hundred pounds, but Sophia could have been carrying around a stuffed bunny rabbit for all the effort she seemed to be exerting.

Still, I thought I’d be polite and see what I could do to aid the Goth dwarf. “Do you need any help with them? Carrying them outside? Or doing whatever you’re going to do to them?”

Sophia gave me a flat look with her black eyes. “Nuhuh.” The dwarf’s grunt for no.

With the giant still slung over her shoulder, Sophia opened the front door and stepped out into the dark night. Despite my curiosity about what the Goth dwarf did with the many bodies she disposed of, I didn’t follow her outside. Even though I knew that Jo-Jo Deveraux was the best Air elemental healer in Ashland, I didn’t want to leave Bria’s side. Not until the bullet holes in her had been sealed shut, and she was sleeping peacefully.

“Nasty bit of business this is,” Jo-Jo murmured. “Bullet nicked one of her kidneys, among other things.”

The middle-aged dwarf had already unwrapped the crude afghan bandage I’d wound around Bria’s midsection. Blood stained most of the fabric a dark crimson. Jo-Jo reached for her Air elemental magic, and her eyes began to glow a milky white in her face. The dwarf held her palm over Bria’s midsection.

Air elementals could tap into all the natural gases in the air, including oxygen. That’s how they healed people — by forcing and circulating oxygen in, around, and through wounds, using all those helpful little air molecules to sew ripped, torn, and ruined flesh back together again.

Jo-Jo reached for her Air magic again, and her palm began to glow the same milky white color as her eyes. The dwarf’s power always felt like hot tingles washing over me, like part of me had fallen asleep and was just waking up. Tonight was no exception. I gritted my teeth at the odd sensation.

Jo-Jo’s magic didn’t cause me actual physical pain, not like being in the presence of Mab Monroe’s Fire power did. But it still made me uncomfortable. Air and Stone were opposing elements, just like Fire and Ice. Jo-Jo’s Air magic just felt strange to me, just like my Stone and Ice power would to her. The magical, elemental equivalent of nails on a chalkboard all the way around, as it were.

Jo-Jo’s magic also made the silverstone spider rune scars on my palms itch and burn. Silverstone was a very special metal, capable of absorbing all kinds of elemental magic. In a way, silverstone was hollow, empty, and hungering for enough magic to fill it up. Lots of elementals had charms or medallions made out of the metal, in which they stored bits and pieces of their power. Sort of like magical batteries. My mother had used her snowflake rune that way. I eyed the primrose medallion that rested in the hollow of Bria’s throat. I wondered if she had learned how to do that trick too, along with booby-trapping her freezer.

The primrose wasn’t the only silverstone Bria wore. I picked up her hand and looked at the three rings on her left index finger. They were nothing fancy, just three thin bands stacked on top of each other, although there seemed to be patterns in the metal. I squinted at the bands and realized that they had tiny runes carved into them. Small snowflakes ringed one of the bands, while ivy vines curled through another. The final ring, the top one on Bria’s finger, was stamped in the middle with a single spider rune — my rune.

My heart twisted. Baby sister wore a ring, a symbol, for each of us. My mother, Eira’s, snowflake. Our older sister, Annabella’s, ivy vine. And my spider rune. Somehow I knew she wore them all the time, just like she did her own primrose medallion. She still remembered us, still remembered me, all these years after that horrible night. She remembered what I wished I could forget. I let out a tired breath and gently put Bria’s hand down by her side.

Jo-Jo passed her hand over Bria’s midsection several times before releasing her grip on her magic. The milky white glow on her palm faded, and the dwarf’s eyes returned to their normal translucent color.

“There,” she said. “Good as new.”

I peered over the dwarf’s shoulder. Sure enough, the nasty hole in Bria’s side had vanished, replaced by smooth, pink skin. Jo-Jo had also taken the time to get rid of the scrapes and bruises that had dotted my baby sister’s arms, hands, and face.

“Thanks, Jo-Jo,” I said. “I’m sure Bria would tell you that too, if she were awake.”

“No problem, darling.” Jo-Jo reached over and tucked a lock of Bria’s blond hair behind her ear. “After all, she’s family now.”

For some reason, the dwarf’s soft words made me shiver.

By the time Sophia dragged the remaining bodies outside and the rest of us straightened up as much of the bloody mess as we could, it was well after midnight. I hauled another garbage bag outside and dumped it in the plastic pickup container. My eyes scanned the darkness, but I didn’t see anyone or anything moving in the black night. Bria’s house was more than a half mile from the others at the end of the street. At this late hour, everyone else in the immediate vicinity had long ago retired to their bedrooms. Only a few security lights mounted over garages and outbuildings broke through the night. Low, thick clouds obscured the moon and stars, and a metallic scent filled the air that told me snow was on the way.

But a couple inches of the white stuff wouldn’t be nearly enough to cover up the bloody bit of violence I’d done in Bria’s house tonight — and what I was planning to do to Elliot Slater as soon as I got the chance. I was going to make sure the giant got dead before he had the opportunity to hurt Bria or Roslyn Phillips again. And there were plenty of other people in Ashland who wouldn’t mind living in a world without Slater in it. All this pro bono work I was dabbling in really was turning into public service. The mayor so needed to give me a medal.

As I peered into the night, the front door opened and Jo-Jo Deveraux stepped outside. The dwarf settled herself on the steps that led up to the porch, draping her fuzzy pink housecoat over her knees. I stood at the base of the steps and leaned against the handrail.

“You did a good thing tonight, Gin,” Jo-Jo said. “Saving your sister like that.”

I shrugged. “It wasn’t so much a good thing as it was sheer luck. I had no idea Slater was coming here to kill her. If Finn and I hadn’t been following him…” My voice trailed off.

I didn’t want to think about how close I’d come to losing Bria again tonight. That I’d almost missed my chance to get to know her again before I’d even been ready to take it in the first place, to risk telling her who and what I really was. My sister might be a stranger to me now, but I couldn’t let go of the memory of the sweet little girl she’d once been — a girl that I would have done anything to protect. Back then and especially now.

Besides, Fletcher Lane had left me a photo of her for a reason. The old man had wanted me to find Bria, to get to know her again. Even if I hadn’t wanted to do those things on my own, I would have gone through with them just to honor Fletcher’s wishes. He’d done so much for me over the years. I was going to do everything I could for him now — even if he was cold, dead, and buried.

I shook my head and chased away my melancholy thoughts. Fletcher Lane was gone. Mooning about his murder once more wasn’t going to bring him back. Right now, I needed to focus on the problem in front of me — Elliot Slater and his amazing quickness. So I told Jo-Jo how fast the giant was and asked if perhaps Slater was using some sort of elemental magic that I couldn’t sense to help his fists connect with my ribs. The dwarf frowned for a few seconds, thinking.

“It’s possible,” Jo-Jo said. “But to do what you’re describing, Slater would have to be doing one of two things. One, he’d have to be an Air elemental and using his magic to affect the gases in the air. Air has weight, you know, even though we don’t usually realize that it does. Slater could be using his power to move the air, the molecules, out of his way so he has less resistance to go through when he swings his fists. Simple physics, really.”

“And two?” I asked.

“He’d have to be an Ice elemental and using his power to momentarily freeze his opponents. Using just enough magic to give himself that second’s advantage, that seeming bit of speed,” Jo-Jo said. “But I don’t think he’s an elemental.”

“Why not?”

Jo-Jo shrugged. “Because those are both very, very subtle skills that would take years to master. Elliot Slater doesn’t strike me as having that much patience. Besides, given your high sensitivity to elemental magic, Gin, you’d still be able to feel him using his power, even if there was only a teaspoon of it in his whole body. More than likely, Slater’s quickness is just a genetic quirk that he’s honed over the years. There are very few people who can use elemental magic without others sensing it.”

For a moment, a distant light flashed in the dwarf’s pale eyes, as though she was thinking about something that had happened a long time ago. Maybe it was the droop of her shoulders or the way Jo-Jo fingered her string of pearls, but something about the dwarf’s last words bothered me — and her too.

“Do you know anybody who can completely hide their elemental magic from others, even while they’re embracing or using it?” I asked in a soft voice.

Jo-Jo’s eyes cleared, and she gave me a small, sad smile. “Just one person. Although, I think you could do it too, Gin, if you really needed to.”

I blinked. “Me?”

Jo-Jo nodded. “You.”

The dwarf looked at me, a knowing light in her eyes, and I shifted on my feet. Jo-Jo Deveraux claimed that I was one of the strongest elementals she’d ever met, a notion that always made me uncomfortable. My mother had been an extremely strong Ice elemental, and yet all her magic hadn’t saved her from a horrible, fiery death at the hands of Mab Monroe. My sister Annabella’s magic hadn’t done her any good against Mab either. And Bria would have been dead, beaten to death by Elliot Slater, if Finn and I hadn’t intervened tonight.

So while Jo-Jo might claim that I was strong enough that my Stone and Ice magic would never fail me, I didn’t really believe the dwarf. Which is why I carried so many silverstone knives. Sure, blades might break, but they always left some sort of jagged edge behind that I could shove and twist into someone’s flesh.

Once you were out of magic, you were done for. Especially if the person you were fighting still had some juice left. Hence the fact that so many elementals died in duels. Elementals fought by flinging raw magic at each other — Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone — until somebody ran out of power, strength, will. When that happened, the other elemental’s magic washed over the loser. Lose an elemental duel, and you were going to get suffocated, burned, frozen, or perhaps even entombed in your own skin.

Either way, you got dead. Just like my mother and older sister had, thanks to Mab Monroe and her Fire power.

“Come on,” I said, pushing away my troubling thoughts. “It’s getting cold out here. Let’s go back inside.”

Jo-Jo got to her feet, and I opened the door for her. We stepped into the living room, and I stopped short. A few minutes ago, large, sticky patches of blood had covered the hardwood floor like a new coat of varnish. But now the golden wood looked pristine. Sophia Deveraux was down on her hands and knees, gloves off, scrubbing at one last spot. But instead of using a rag or brush, the Goth dwarf slowly moved her bare finger back and forth over the bloodstain, staring at the spot as though she could burn it away with her mind or some hidden magic deep inside her.

And that’s exactly what she was doing.

Sophia made one pass with her finger, and the blood under her hand dried. On the second pass, the stain looked brittle, as though it had been on the floor for years instead of just an hour. Sophia kept casting her finger back and forth over the stain with slow, precise movements. While I watched, the bloodstain underneath her hand turned a rusty brick color, then a pale pink. A minute later, the wood gleamed with its original golden hue as though the blood had never even been there at all.

I’d been right when I’d thought that the Goth dwarf had the same kind of Air elemental magic that her older sister Jo-Jo did. But instead of healing, instead of mending all those tiny molecules back together, Sophia used her power to tear them apart, to break them down and then slowly sandblast them away into nothingness. I imagined she could do the same to just about anything that crossed her path — blood, bones, bodies.

But the most amazing thing was that I didn’t feel her using the slightest bit of elemental magic.

Sophia’s black eyes didn’t spark and flash with power the way that so many elementals’ eyes did. The tip of her finger didn’t glow. Her skin didn’t become pale, chalky, or sweaty. Hell, she didn’t look like she was exerting any effort at all. Sophia’s Air elemental power was completely self-contained — and completely undetectable.

Sophia sat back on her heels and nodded, pleased by another job well done.

I looked at Sophia, then at Jo-Jo. “Just one person, huh?”

Jo-Jo’s lips turned up in that sad smile again. “Just one. A skill she learned out of necessity rather than by choice.”

I thought about asking Jo-Jo what she meant by that cryptic remark, but she went over to Sophia and patted her sister on the shoulder. Sophia glanced up, smiled, and squeezed her big sister’s hand. Some emotion passed between them that I couldn’t quite identify. Pride perhaps, tinged with sorrow. Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to interrupt it tonight.

The sisters always came when I needed them. That’s all that mattered, and that’s all I needed to know. They’d tell me the rest in time. When they were ready. Besides, I wasn’t exactly the most forthcoming person, especially when it came to my emotions.

I glanced to my right. Finn paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, his cell phone stuck to his ear. Bria rested on the couch, sleeping off the effects of being healed by Jo-Jo. My sister looked like an angel relaxing there on the sofa — despite the clumps of blood that had matted in her shaggy hair.

“I see. I owe you one. Thanks. Bye.” Finn snapped his phone shut and turned toward me. “Good news. One of my sources says that Elliot Slater’s gone home to lick his wounds for the rest of the night.”

“Wounds? The bastard didn’t have any wounds, as far as I could tell,” I muttered and rubbed my side. After she’d finished with Bria, Jo-Jo had used her Air magic to restore my ribs to their previously unbroken state.

Finn jerked his head at Bria. “Seems your sister winged him in the shoulder with her gun. Either way, he’s not coming back here tonight, according to my source.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And which source would this be?”

Finn grinned. “This would be Leslie, the lovely young lady who happens to be the daughter of one of the maids who works at Slater’s mansion. Evidently, Slater came home a while ago, went straight to his bedroom, and rang for an Air elemental healer to come force the bullet out of his shoulder.”

“Is this Leslie reliable?” I asked.

Finn’s grin widened. “In all sorts of ways.”

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t want to hear about more of Finn’s sexual conquests. Not tonight. So I focused on more important matters. “So Slater’s tucked himself in bed for the rest of the evening. Good. Did Leslie or any of your other sources say anything about why Mab sent the giant out here to kill Bria?”

Finn’s smile slid off his face. “No, but they didn’t have to. I already know.”

“How—” I started.

Finn crooked his finger at me. “Follow me. There’s something you need to see, Gin.”

Curious, I followed Finn down the hallway. Jo-Jo and Sophia stayed in the living room to keep an eye on Bria. Finn walked back to the kitchen, then climbed a set of stairs to the second floor of the house. More cardboard boxes lined the hallways up here, stacked so high that they formed another set of walls in some places. Looked like Bria had only gotten the downstairs part of her things unpacked.

“While you were busy cleaning up, I took the liberty of exploring the rest of the house,” Finn said.

“You mean you rifled through Bria’s stuff to satisfy your own rampant curiosity,” I corrected.

Finn looked over his shoulder at me, his green eyes as bright as Christmas lights in his ruddy face. “You’re just jealous you didn’t get around to it first.”

I shook my head. “Not really.”

“Anyway, your sister has some interesting quirks,” Finn replied.

I still couldn’t even bring myself to read the file of information that Finn had compiled on Bria. I certainly didn’t want to paw through her personal, private things like the cheapest kind of thief, especially when she was downstairs, unconscious on her own sofa, recovering from a gunshot wound.

Finnegan Lane had no such qualms. He loved finding out information about other people, ferreting out all their secret hobbies, habits, and vices — and using them to his own advantage if the situation called for it. To him, it was a grand game, one in which he always came out the winner. Groundhogs couldn’t dig as well as Finn could.

So I knew there was nothing I could do but sigh and go along with him. “What kind of quirks?”

He stopped in front of a box with open flaps, reached inside, and pulled out a frilly white negligee. “For starters, she likes girly underwear. Lace, ribbons, soft, feminine colors. The whole shebang. Expensive brands too.” Finn rubbed the silk between his fingers. “Makes me look forward to the future.”

“For what? When you try to seduce her?” I pulled the negligee out of his hand and put it back in the appropriate box.

“Of course,” he replied in a smug tone. “And it won’t be a matter of merely trying. No one can resist the charms of Finnegan Lane for long.”

Finn definitely wasn’t lacking in the self-confidence department. But as annoying as he was, he was also pretty good at figuring out what made people tick. Just like his father, Fletcher, had been.

“What else?” I asked.

Finn reached into another box and pulled out a small, round sphere. “For whatever reason, she collects snow globes. I’ve found three boxes of them so far.”

My breath caught in my throat, and I took the globe from his outstretched hand. A charming winter scene lay underneath the smooth, domed glass — a couple of tiny brown horses pulling two laughing young girls in a silver sleigh. Evergreen trees lined the back of the snowy sphere, surrounding a miniature house. But another image flashed in my mind — more globes just like this one, their glass shining like stars underneath a fading sunset.

“My mother used to collect snow globes too.” I shook the glass and watched the fake flakes of snow drift down and settle on top of the horses and two girls. “She had dozens of them all lined up on top of the fireplace mantel. Bria and I used to go down and shake them, trying to have the snow flying in all of them before the first one settled back down. A silly game we played. I’d almost forgotten about it.”

My voice dropped to a whisper, and my fingers tightened around the globe, threatening to punch through the thick glass.

“Are you okay, Gin?” Finn asked.

I shook my head, loosened my grip, and passed the globe back to him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

He just looked at me. I dropped my sad, gray gaze from his searching green one and gestured at the boxes.

“And what does all that tell you about her?”

A thoughtful light flared in Finn’s eyes. “That Bria Coolidge’s icy shell is merely a mask to hide the soft, warm, sentimental woman that she really is deep down.” He paused. “Kind of like you. Black and crunchy on the outside, marshmallow-soft on the inside.”

I gave him a hard stare. “I am not a fucking marshmallow. And I am especially not sentimental.”

“Of course not. That’s why you just hacked and slashed your way through several giants to save a long-lost sister you haven’t seen since you were thirteen.” Amusement colored his placating tone.

My eyes narrowed to slits, but Finn just grinned at me. My angry face had long ago lost its effect on him. Finn knew that I’d rather hurt myself before I did him.

“But come here, I’ve saved the best for last,” he said, gesturing for me to follow him once more. “What’s most interesting about Bria is this.”

Finn opened a door at the end of the hallway, and we stepped into Bria’s home office. Wooden desk, computer, stapler, sticky pads, lots of books and papers stacked everywhere. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary — until Finn snapped on the light. And there it was, pushed against the back wall.

An eight-by-ten picture of one of the spider rune scars on my palms.

The photo was stuck in the middle of the biggest dry-erase board I’d ever seen. And it wasn’t alone. There were more pictures, ones that I recognized from the file of information that Fletcher Lane had left me — autopsy photos of my mother and my older sister. The burned husks of their bodies. Mounted right next to the photo of my scar.

My stomach clenched, and that icy fist started squeezing my heart again.

“What the hell is this?” I whispered.

Still shocked, I moved closer to the dry-erase board. In addition to the photos, notes had been scribbled all over the surface in a variety of colors. Murdered, burned, bodies reduced to ash in red. Physical evidence in black. Possible suspects in navy blue. Motive? in a bright green.

“What the hell is this?” I repeated.

My eyes went up and down and all around the dry-erase board. Everywhere I looked there was another piece of information about the night my family had been killed, about the night that Mab Monroe had burned our house to the ground.

“I believe some folks call it a murder board. It’s a visual representation of all the evidence found in relation to a crime. Some cops use them to help connect the dots or keep track of leads.” Finn leaned against the doorjamb. “From the looks of it, I’d say Bria is investigating the murder of your family. Just like you started to, after Dad left you that file.”

“All right. I can understand her doing that, wanting to know the truth, who was behind the murders and why. But where did she get all this information?” I asked. “Especially that photo of the spider rune scar on my palm?”

I peered at the photo, wondering how I’d been so sloppy as to let someone take a picture of my hands. Oh, every once in a while, someone eating at the Pork Pit caught a glimpse of my scarred palms. But I was always able to pass the marks off as burns I’d gotten working in the restaurant. It wasn’t like I ever stopped, held them up for everyone to see, and posed for pictures—

And then I remembered. Fletcher Lane had bought a digital camera a few months before he died. He’d brought it to the Pork Pit one day to show it off to me. A fancy newfangled device, he’d called it in his gruff voice. The old man had started taking my photo, and I’d finally put my hand out in mock surrender to get him to stop. He’d snapped a final picture and smiled before putting the camera away.

“Fletcher,” I murmured. “He’s the one who took the photo.”

I told Finn about the camera incident and how I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time.

Finn’s green eyes drifted over the murder board. “That’s not all Dad did, is it? He sent Bria the same folder of information that he left you, Gin. He sent her the exact same file about Mab Monroe murdering your mother and older sister.”

“With a twist. Fletcher sent Bria a photo of my scar instead of the lovely headshot of her that he provided for me. Very thoughtful of him not to send her a glossy of my face.” I shook my head. “I can understand Fletcher leaving me the information. I’ve made my peace with that. But why would he send it to Bria too? What did he hope to accomplish?”

“I don’t know,” Finn murmured. “Maybe he wanted to see how she’d react to the knowledge that you were still alive. Maybe he wanted to bring Bria to Ashland on her own terms.”

I dropped my eyes from the board. “Doesn’t much matter now, does it? Fletcher’s gone, Bria’s in town, and Mab wants her dead. Whatever the old man started with Bria, she’s come to Ashland to finish it. If Mab doesn’t get to her first.”

“Speaking of finishing things, there’s one more thing you should see,” Finn said.

He moved to the right side of the board, put his hand on the top edge, and slowly turned it over. The board was constructed in such a way that it could be flipped over without moving the entire structure around. The back of the board was filled with just as many photos and scribblings as the front side. Only there was one distinct difference.

The back of the board dealt entirely with Mab Monroe and her organization. It was organized like a classic Mob pyramid. Mab’s picture sat alone on top of the board. Underneath her photo were shots of Elliot Slater and Jonah McAllister. Below them were even more pictures of the various goons that made up Mab’s organization. Bria had written notes beside each photo, with words like Indicted, Arrested, or Dead. There were more Dead notations than anything else. Not surprising, given Mab’s dislike for failure.

“I think we know why Mab sent Slater to kill your sister,” Finn said. “One of the reasons anyway. Looks like Bria’s set her sights on the Fire elemental.”

“Why?” I asked. “Because she wants to clean up Ashland? Or because she knows Mab murdered our mother and sister?”

Finn shrugged. “Does it really matter at this point?”

I rubbed the spider rune scar on first one palm, then the other one. Damn things were itching and burning again the way they always did when I thought about things that upset me, like my murdered family and crusading sister. “No, it doesn’t matter why Bria’s here or what she knows. All that matters now is keeping her safe — and away from Mab Monroe and her minions.”

Finn snorted. “Are you kidding? Based on all this, I’d say that Bria’s eager to get down and dirty with Mab. Maybe even more so than you are, Gin. Remember that scene in Northern Aggression last night? Bria looked like she’d be happy to put some bullets in Elliot Slater’s head.”

I stepped forward and turned the board back over to its original position. “Well, then, I guess I’m just going to have to get to Mab before Bria goes and does something stupid — like get herself killed.”

Finn sighed. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

I gave him a hard smile. “Come on, Finn. We both know going after Mab will be fun.”

“Oh, sure,” Finn replied in a dry tone. “It’ll be a barrel of laughs, right up until she kills us.”

Finn wasn’t entirely joking. He knew as well as I did that going after Mab would be tricky at best and most likely lethal. Even Fletcher Lane had never dared to take on the Fire elemental. For years the old man had compiled information on Mab, looking for any weaknesses, any sliver of opportunity he could take advantage of to kill her. But Mab always had too many people, too many guards around her. Even if I’d been able to get her alone, she could always kill me herself with her elemental power. Mab’s own strength was the real reason she’d survived all these years.

Still, I couldn’t help but stare at the photos on the board — the ones that showed the blackened husks that had been my mother and older sister before Mab had used her elemental Fire magic to burn them to ashes. And somehow, I knew that I was going to try to do the impossible — no matter what.

“Not if I kill her first,” I murmured. “Not if I kill the bitch first.”

Finn and I went back downstairs. Jo-Jo and Sophia had finished the last of the cleanup and stood by the front door ready to go. Bria was still asleep on the sofa. Once again, I was struck by how angelic she looked lying there, how calm and peaceful. You’d never guess that she spent her free time digging up dirt on the most dangerous woman in town.

“How long will she be out of it?” I asked Jo-Jo.

The dwarf stared at my sister. “That shot to the kidney took a lot out of her, but she should wake up within the hour. Two, at most.”

I eyed a clock on the wall. Just after two in the morning. Finn said Elliot Slater was busy getting patched up himself, which meant the giant wouldn’t be back for Bria. Not tonight, anyway.

“All right, we need to be gone before she wakes up,” I said. “So grab whatever supplies you brought in and leave. Finn, you help them, please. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Finn opened the front door, and Jo-Jo and Sophia gathered up their gear and went outside. Finn followed and shut the door behind the three of them.

I moved over to the sofa and stared down at Bria. Sleep eased out the sharp planes of her face, and a dewy pink color freshened up her cheeks, thanks to Jo-Jo’s healing elemental Air magic. At this moment, Bria didn’t look anything like the icy professional I’d seen that night at the community college or the calm cop holding a gun on Elliot Slater at Northern Aggression. She seemed younger, softer, like this. More like a grown-up version of the sweet little girl that I’d once known.

And she was going to stay this way, I vowed. I was going to lullaby Elliot Slater very, very soon. Once the giant was removed, I’d go after Mab Monroe. The time for keeping to the shadows like a tiny spider had passed. It was time to show Mab and her minions that I had some bite — and that they were next on my fucking to-do list.

I looked at Bria a moment longer, then turned away.

“Sweet dreams, baby sister,” I murmured before walking out the front door.