Elemental Assassin 01 - Spider's Bite

weren’t above leaving their friends twisting in the wind—or stuck on the edge of my blade.
    Jake licked his thick, chapped lips. “How much? How much is there?”
    Lance rifled through the green bills. “A little more than two hundred.”
    “That’s it? You’re holding out on me, bitch,” Jake snarled.
    I shrugged. “Monday’s a slow day. And not many people like to get out in this kind of cold weather, not even for barbecue.”
    The Fire elemental glared at me, debating my words and what he could do about them. I smiled back. He didn’t know what he’d gotten himself into—or who he was messing with.
    “Let’s just go, Jake,” Lance pleaded. “Some cops could come along any second.”
    Jake tightened his grip on his flaming knife. “No. Not until this bitch tells me what she did with the rest of the money. This is the most popular restaurant in the neighborhood. There had to be more than two hundred dollars in that cash register. So where did you hide it, bitch? You wearing a money belt underneath that greasy blue apron?”
    I shrugged. “Why don’t you come and find out, you pathetic fuck?”
    His eyes grew darker, redder, angrier, until I thought the sparking flames flickering inside might actually shoot out of his magic-tinted irises. Jake let out a furious growl. He shoved the girl away and charged at me, the knife held straight out.
    My smile widened. Finally. Time to play.
    I waited until he got in range, then stepped forward and turned my body into his. I slammed my elbow into his solar plexus and swept his feet out from under him. Jake coughed, stumbled, and did a header onto the floor. His temple clipped the side of one of the tables as he went down, and a resulting bit of blood spattered onto my jeans. The sharp blow was enough to make Jake lose his grip on his Fire magic. The prickling power washing off him vanished, and the flames snuffed out on the knife in his hand. The hot metal hissed and smoked as it came into contact with the cool floor.
    I looked to my right. The woman Jake had thrown across the room scrambled to her feet and prepared to launch herself at Lance. But Sophia grabbed the girl’s waist and pulled her back. The woman started to struggle, but the Goth dwarf shook her head and stepped forward, putting herself in front of the customer. Lance swallowed once and backed up, ready to turn and run. But Sophia was quicker. The dwarf punched him once in the stomach. Lance went down like an anvil had been dropped on him. He crumpled to the floor and didn’t move.
    One down, one to go.
    I turned my attention back to Jake, who’d rolled over onto his side. Blood dripped down the side of his head where he’d cut himself on the corner of the table. The half-giant saw me standing over him, curled halfway up, and slashed at me with his cooling knife. Idiot. He didn’t even come close to nicking me. After Jake made another flailing pass with the blade, I crouched down and grabbed his wrist, bending it back so he couldn’t move it. I eyed the weapon in his locked hand.
    “Fuck,” I said. “Get a real knife. You couldn’t even peel potatoes with that thing.”
    Then, I plucked the blade from his chapped fingers and snapped his thick wrist.
    Jake howled in pain, but the noise didn’t bother me. Hadn’t in years. I shoved him down onto his back, then straddled him, a knee on either side of his beefy chest, squeezing in and putting pressure on his ribs. Giants, even half-giants like Jake, hated it when they had trouble breathing. Most people did.
    I adjusted and tightened my grip on the knife, ready to drive it into his heart. A flimsy weapon, but it would do the job. Just about anything would, if you had enough strength and determination to put behind it. I had plenty of both.
    A small, choked sob sounded, drawing my attention away from Jake and his high-pitched, keening howls. My gray eyes flicked up. The girl huddled underneath a table a few feet away, her knees pulled up to her chest, her eyes as big as quarters in her face, tears sliding down her flushed cheeks.
    A position I’d been in, once upon a time.
    A couple of months ago, the girl and her tears wouldn’t have bothered me. I would have killed Jake and his friend, washed the blood off my hands, and asked Sophia to get rid of the bodies before I closed up the Pork Pit for the night.
    That’s what assassins did.
    And I was the Spider, one of the very best.
    But I’d had an epiphany of sorts two months ago, when