Elemental Assassin 01 - Spider's Bite

the opera house. Being chased by Donovan Caine. Swan dive into the river. Making my way first to the Pork Pit, then to his apartment.
    “They also sent a guy back to the restaurant in case I showed up,” I added.
    “And what did you do to him?”
    I gave Finn a flat look.
    “What you do best,” he murmured. “Thank you for that, Gin.”
    I shrugged. “Fletcher was like a father to me. It was the least I could do. I only wish I’d had more time with the bastard.”
    More time to slash and wound and kill—more time to act and less time to think about what I’d lost tonight.
    And how much it fucking hurt. 

9
    Despite the darkness, a noticeable change swept over the city streets as I drove farther away from the Pork Pit. The Civil War might have been over, but a battle of another kind still raged in Ashland—between Northtown and Southtown.
    The two sections of the city took their names from their respective geographic locations and were joined together by the sprawling, circular confines of the downtown area. But that was where the similarity ended. Southtown was the rough, raw part of town, where the working poor and blue-collar folks lived in run-down public housing units among the vampire hookers, junkies, and other white trash. The Pork Pit and my apartment were located downtown, close to the Southtown border.
    Northtown was a dewy debutante in comparison, home to the city’s white-collar yuppies and monetary, social, and magical elite. The area featured themed subdivisions with cutesy names like Tara Heights and Lee’s Lament, along with sprawling, plantation-style mansions and estates. But the old-fashioned, antebellum elegance didn’t make that side of town any better. In Northtown people called you sugar to your face while they stabbed you in the back. At least in Southtown the decor matched the danger.
    Jo-Jo made her home in Northtown, as befitting an Air elemental of her power, wealth, status, and social connections. I made the turn into the Tara Heights subdivision, coasted onto a street marked Magnolia Lane, and steered the Benz up a circular driveway paved with white cobblestones. They gleamed like bleached bones under the pale moonlight.
    A three-story plantation house resplendent with rows of white columns perched at the top of a grassy knoll, a diamond queen on her emerald throne. Three steps led up to the wraparound porch, partially obscured by a trellis covered with curled kudzu vines and bare rose bushes. A lone bulb burned on the porch, making the shadows around the house seem a little less sinister.
    I helped Finn out of the car and up the steps to the porch. A flimsy screen door fronted a heavier wooden one. I pulled the screen open, then reached forward and banged the knocker against the interior door. The knocker was shaped like a puffy cloud—Jo-Jo’s personal Air elemental rune.
    A dog barked once somewhere inside the house. Rosco, Jo-Jo’s fat, lazy basset hound. Heavy, familiar footsteps sounded, and I could smell her Chantilly perfume even out here. The door opened, and a woman stuck her face outside.
    “What do y’all want this late?”
    Even though it was close to midnight, Jolene “Jo-Jo” Deveraux looked like she was ready to go to Sunday church. A flowered dress covered her stocky, muscular figure, and a string of pearls hung from her short neck. Her feet were bare, although flirty pink polish covered her stubby toenails. The color matched her lipstick and eye shadow. Jo-Jo’s bleached blond-white hair was coiffed into its usual, helmetlike tower of ever-tightening curls, although her black roots were starting to show. At an even five feet, she was tall for a dwarf, and her hair only added to her height. But I still had a good seven inches on her.
    “Hey, Jo-Jo.” I dragged Finn forward into the light. “It’s Gin. My boy here could use some help.”
    The dwarf’s eyes were almost colorless, except for the pinprick of black at their center. Her pale gaze flicked over Finn’s battered face, and the blood spatters that coated both of us like strips of wet wallpaper. The crow’s feet and laugh lines that grooved her middle-aged face deepened with worry.
    “Hell’s bells and panther trails,” Jo-Jo drawled in a voice as light and sweet as apricot syrup. “Come in, come in. Take him in the back. You know where.”
    I half-dragged Finn inside and through a long, narrow hallway that opened up into a large room that took up the back half of the house. It