Elemental Assassin 01 - Spider's Bite

cold that just wouldn’t leave my body or the exhaustion slowing my movements. I just hit him—over and over and over, smashing my tight knuckles into his face until the skin on my hands broke and bled.
    It felt good to hurt him. So fucking good .
    The man moaned and mumbled with pain. I forced myself to stop before I killed him. Not yet. I drew in a ragged breath. The metallic scent of his blood pooled in my mouth like saliva, making me hunger for more. I yanked my knife out of the man’s arm. He snarled. I leaned forward and pressed my forearm against his throat, cutting off his oxygen.
    I brought the bloody tip up where he could see it. “You will tell me everything that happened in this room tonight. You will tell me who you’re working for, what her plans are. You will tell me anything I want to know and be glad to do it.”
    “And why … is that … bitch?” the man spat out.
    I leaned forward until my gray eyes were directly over his.
    “Because the first cut won’t kill you,” I said in a calm, dead voice. “Nor the second, nor the third, nor even the tenth. But you will wish to all the spirits you pray to that they had.” 

7
    I didn’t get a specific name or much useful information out of him. I was too angry and in too much of a hurry to use the finesse needed for those sorts of things. Besides, he was just the help, dispatched to do one final check to see if I’d show up at the restaurant. He’d seen the open back door and followed me inside. But the man confirmed my suspicion—Finnegan was next. Which meant I had to move if I had any hope of saving him.
    As much as it hurt, I left Fletcher’s body where it was behind the counter. Sophia Deveraux, the dwarven cook who came in early every morning to bake the sourdough bread for the day’s sandwiches, would find Fletcher. She’d call the cops. Given the debris and overturned cash register, the police would think it was a robbery gone wrong. That’s what they thought every crime was in Ashland. Fletcher would be just another statistic, another case file, another unsolved murder among hundreds every year.
    Before I left the restaurant, I washed the blood off my hands and face, along with my tears. I also dragged the dead man’s body to the cold storage room and dumped him in one of the empty freezers. I taped a pink sticky note to the top of the appliance to catch Sophia’s eye. She’d know what to do with the body. The dwarf was Fletcher’s go-to gal for disposal work.
    I reached behind a different freezer and pulled out a black duffel bag, one of several I had stashed in various spots throughout the city. Money, cell phones, credit cards, weapons, fake IDs, makeup, a few clothes. Everything I needed to make a quick getaway, change my appearance, or do an unexpected, dirty job.
    I stepped back into the front of the restaurant and crouched beside Fletcher. A few more tears gathered in my eyes as I looked at his still, brutalized form. I let the stinging, salty wetness trickle down my face. There wasn’t time to properly mourn Fletcher, to let myself grieve. The time to do that would come later—when the bitch who’d killed him was as dead as he was.
    Cold comfort. Because no matter what I did to her, no matter how much I tortured her, no matter how slowly I killed her, it wouldn’t bring Fletcher back. Nothing would do that.
    “Good-bye, Fletcher.” My voice cracked on the words.
    A tear dripped off my cheek and mixed with the blood and burns on his face. I straightened and wiped the rest of the moisture away, composing myself once more. Then I smashed the glass and lock on the front door, stepped outside, and walked away.
    It took me twenty minutes to reach Finnegan Lane’s place. Like me, Finn lived in an apartment building near the restaurant. Except his place made mine look like a hobo’s wet cardboard box. The metal behemoth towered twelve stories into the air, topped by an elegant spire, like it was a real skyscraper instead of a piss-poor southern substitute.
    I headed around to the side entrance for the tenants, tastefully hidden behind two tall magnolia trees. A minute and two Ice picks later, the door opened, and I slid inside. Despite the late hour, folks still prowled the halls, as the businesspeople who lived in the building brought their nightly conquests back for a few more drinks and some alcohol-fueled fumbling and fucking in the dark.
    I got into one of the elevators on its way up. A man in his eighties