Elemental Assassin 01 - Spider's Bite

place—”
    I raised my knife up and slammed it into Brutus’s heart. The first time, he gasped in surprise and pain. The second time, his brown eyes bulged, and more blood trickled out of his mouth. By the third time I stabbed him, he was dead.
    “Arrogant prick,” I muttered, climbing to my feet. “You should have just shot me. Not talked yourself to death.”
    Brutus’s body spasmed a final time in agreement.
    I was already stepping over him and gathering up the weapons. Because Brutus was right about one thing. I had to save Gordon Giles’s life instead of taking it—if I had any hope of saving my own.
    I stuffed the crossbow back into the cello case, sprinted down the catwalk stairs, and shoved through the exit door. My wounded shoulder hit the doorjamb, and I hissed. Being shot, even just grazed, always felt like someone had shoved a red-hot metal poker into my flesh. Like a Fire elemental had put her hands on me and let loose with her incendiary magic. But I ignored the discomfort. Compartmentalizing pain, learning how to block it out and keep going no matter what, had been one of the first things Fletcher had taught me.
    Fletcher. My thoughts turned to him. He was in this, too. If Brutus’s client wanted me to take the fall for Gordon Giles’s death, killing Fletcher would be next on the to-do list. They couldn’t afford to leave him alive. Finnegan Lane either. I had to get to them. Soon.
    I hurried through the executive floor, dropped the cello case by the unlocked balcony door, and went on into the stairwell. I pounded down the stairs to the second floor. Intermission was still several minutes away. No one crowded into the hallway yet, and I had a clear path to Gordon Giles’s VIP box. I didn’t need people to start screaming when they realized a woman dressed in black was holding a bloody knife in one hand and an even bloodier barbed bolt in the other.
    Up ahead, a man pulled open the door to the box seats and stepped inside. Brutus’s backup. And I realized he wasn’t just going to kill Giles. A dead-end trail and no witnesses meant he’d have to take out Donovan Caine, too. Killing Giles and blaming me was one thing, but I didn’t need the heat of a dead cop on top of that. Especially an honest one like Caine, who was something of a folk hero in Ashland. The cops, even the crooked ones, would lean on everyone they knew to get Caine’s killer. The insatiable appetite of the press and public pressure would force them to. Donovan Caine and Gordon Giles definitely needed to keep breathing tonight.
    I quickened my pace and charged through the door. Gordon Giles squatted half in, half out of his seat, his blue eyes wide with panic and fear. Donovan Caine stood tall and erect. He just looked furious.
    The man with the gun turned at the sound of the door opening. I stepped forward and sucker-punched him. His nose crunched under my tight fist, and blood spattered onto the curtain-covered walls. The man cursed and stumbled back. I used his own momentum to spin him around, pull him toward me, and hook my right arm around his shoulder. My knife pressed into his throat.
    “Nobody moves or he dies!” I hissed.
    He was going to die anyway, but they didn’t need to know that. Gordon Giles didn’t move. Donovan Caine’s hand fluttered over the gun in the holster on his hip. Cowboy.
    The would-be assassin jerked against me, trying to break my hold. More hot pain blossomed in my shoulder, but I ground my teeth together and shut it out. I jabbed the knife tip into his throat to dissuade him from further movement.
    “Who are you working for?” I snarled in his ear.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sweat trickled down the back of his neck, mixing with my own. He stank of garlic.
    “Bullshit. You were assigned to kill Giles if I didn’t.”
    Giles gasped, and his ferretlike face paled. Donovan Caine’s hazel eyes narrowed, and his mouth flattened into a hard line.
    “Tell me who you’re working for, or I am going to cut your throat right here, right now. Brutus isn’t coming to help you.”
    The man stiffened at the mention of the other assassin’s name. For a moment, I thought he might tell me, might give me the information I needed, but he arched his back, and I knew he’d made the wrong decision.
    “Go to hell, bitch,” he spat out the words, along with a mouthful of blood.
    “You first.”
    I cut his throat. Hot, sticky blood spurted out onto my hands. The man gurgled