Elemental Assassin 01 - Spider's Bite

trance. The memories were always worse during the fall. That’s when my mother and Annabella had been killed by the Fire elemental, their bodies reduced to ash. Bria had escaped that fate, only to be buried alive by the crumbling remains of our house. All I’d found of my baby sister had been a splash of blood on the stone foundation.
    The clear, crisp tang in the air. The bright, cerulean blue of the sky. The rich, damp smell of the earth turning. The way the approaching winter chill slowed the murmur of the stones underfoot. It all reminded me of them, even now, seventeen years later.
    But the runes on my mantel weren’t going to bring my family back. Nothing could do that. I didn’t know why I’d done the damn drawings in the first place. I really did need a vacation. Or perhaps Fletcher’s talk of retirement had unsettled me more than I’d realized.
    My fingers tightened around the folder in my hand. I pulled my eyes away from the drawings, went into the bedroom, and closed the door, cutting off my view of the runes.
    Out of sight, almost out of mind.
    At eight o’clock the next evening, I stood outside on the topmost balcony of the Ashland Opera House, a massive building constructed of gray granite and glistening white marble. An old-fashioned architectural gem, the opera house spread over three downtown blocks. A slender turret marked each one of the building’s three wings, which always made it seem like an elaborate dollhouse to me. Black flags embossed with silver music notes—the opera’s rune—fluttered on top of each turret in the listless September breeze.
    Twenty minutes ago, I’d walked through the front door of the opera house. With my white shirt, black pants, low-heeled boots, and cello case, I looked like any one of the dozens of musicians here for tonight’s performance. No one had glanced twice at me as I’d strolled through the lobby, walked up the grand staircase, and climbed up several more flights. I’d used my Ice magic to create a pair of long, slender lock picks, which I’d used to jimmy the door that led out to the balcony. I might have come in through the front, but after the job was done, I was making my escape out the back. So to speak.
    While the front of the opera house faced one of Ashland’s busy downtown streets, the back side of the building squatted on top of a series of jagged cliffs, which fell away to the Aneirin River. Cliffs I was going to rappel down in another hour or so.
    Staying in the shadows, I opened my cello case and pulled out the plastic shell that resembled the classical instrument. Hidden beneath was a secret compartment with my supplies for the evening, including two hundred feet of climbing rope. I anchored the rope to a brass flagpole planted in the low balcony wall and threw the length of it down the side of the cliffs. The gray rope blended into the uneven stones below, and you wouldn’t spot it unless you knew it was there. Still, I grabbed a few crumpled brown leaves from the balcony floor and spread them over the base of the flagpole, obscuring the rope. It was unlikely anyone would venture out here, given the activity and excitement inside the building, but you never knew who might wander this way for a quick cigarette or a quicker fuck. Better not to take unnecessary chances.
    As I worked, my hands brushed the stone of the building. The granite sang under my fingertips. The music from the orchestra’s performances had long ago permeated the rock and now ran through it like a vein of ore. I closed my eyes and flattened both hands against the rough stone. The sound was so rich, so pure, so beautiful, after the insane discord of the asylum, that I reached for my magic.
    I sent a trickle of my power through the stone, giving it a subtle command. The separate seams of the granite dipped and rose in a small wave, one after another, as though I were running my fingers up and down a piano keyboard. The seams settled back into place, and I allowed myself a small smile. Elemental magic could be amusing as well as deadly.
    My work here done, I grabbed my cello case, opened the balcony door, and slid back inside.
    The balcony was an extension of the topmost floor of the opera house, a gray, featureless space where the executive and administrative offices were located. The area was deserted, with only the low house lights on for illumination. I slipped into the emergency stairwell and walked down several flights of stairs, before emerging onto