Elemental Assassin 01 - Spider's Bite

loose, and headed inside.
    The quarry was shaped like a deep, wide bowl that was over a mile wide. The walls of the quarry rose several hundred feet above my head. Bits of quartz flashed in the gray twilight, reminding me of cameras at a sporting event. For a moment, I felt like I was in some sort of ancient Roman coliseum. A gladiator forced to fight tigers and lions and other men just so I could see another sunrise. In a way, I supposed I’d been a gladiator since I was thirteen, always fighting to survive, and distancing myself from the ugly things I had to do in the process.
    I never realized how fucking tired I was of it until right now.
    I didn’t have to touch the stones to hear their vibrations. With so much of the raw element around me, the sound rang in my head, a low, steady drum, punctuated here and there by sudden beats of unease and anticipation. The stones knew something was wrong, that something had disturbed their slumber and the slow wear of the weather and years beyond the usual deer and squirrels and stupid, drunken kids who slipped from the high banks and fell to their deaths.
    A milky white glow arched out beyond a curve in the rock. I’d seen that light before, when Alexis had flipped out at Donovan Caine’s cabin. She’d grabbed on tight to her magic already. The only way to make her let go was to kill her. I hoped I was strong enough to do it—for Fletcher.
    I rounded the bend, and there she was.
    Alexis James.
    The Air elemental stood in the open about five hundred feet farther in the quarry, where the stone walls rose to their highest peak. The milky white light flickering on her palms bathed the bitch in an angelic glow she didn’t deserve.
    Alexis’s elegant cocktail dress was gone. Or at least covered up. Now she was wearing the same black cloak she’d sported outside Donovan Caine’s cabin the night she’d come to torture and kill him. I wondered if she’d worn the same thing when she’d murdered Fletcher. If my mentor’s blood was trapped in the fabric. The billowing material made Alexis look like some wannabe wizard out of a Harry Potter book. It didn’t really go with the pearls that ringed her neck—or the large jet tooth that hung in the middle of the gleaming strand. The same necklace she’d worn in the fishing photo Gordon Giles had hidden away.
    I eyed the rune. Power. Strength. Prosperity. The tooth was as big as my palm and polished to a high gloss. The rune was even bigger than the ruby sunburst Mab Monroe was so fond of wearing. Alexis James was showing off for me.
    And she wasn’t alone.
    My eyes went to Finn and Roslyn. They stood side by side, their hands tied behind their backs with silverstone cuffs. Finn sported a series of fresh cuts and bruises on his face. One of Roslyn’s cheeks was red and puffy. Their clothes were torn and bloody, but other than that, they looked no worse for wear. Better than I’d expected. Alexis had kept her word about one thing, at least.
    Three men with guns flanked Finn and Roslyn, forming a potential triangle of death around them. The same three men who’d gotten into the limo at the country club. Captain Wayne Stephenson. Charles Carlyle’s friend from the Cake Walk. The third anonymous flunkie. They must be all the men she had left. Otherwise, she would have brought them all here to kill me. Good to know I’d dispatched the rest of her troops already. That meant there’d be no one to talk after the fact.
    I wondered if Donovan Caine had circled around behind the three of them yet. If he could see his senior officer pointing a gun at Roslyn’s head.
    Finn nodded and gave me an encouraging smile. Roslyn pressed against him. Her fangs poked out of her lips. The vampire was ready to bite anyone who gave her the opportunity. Good for her.
    “Assassin, so good of you to finally join us,” Alexis James said, throwing back the hood of her cloak. 

28
    “So you’re the mysterious Spider.” Alexis James’s blue-green eyes flicked over me. “I thought you’d be taller.”
    I returned her cold stare with one of my own. “And I thought you’d have more taste than to wear that clichéd witch’s cloak. What are you? Twelve?”
    “Ouch,” she said. “Killer insult.”
    I didn’t respond.
    “You’ve caused me quite a bit of trouble, you know,” Alexis said.
    I shrugged. “Trouble has a habit of finding me. And I have a habit of dealing with it.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “As do I.”
    We stared at each other.