Elemental Assassin 01 - Spider's Bite

picked up the night-vision goggles and peered through them. The driver’s side door opened, and the interior light winked on, showing me three guys. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy, not disabling that. I recognized two of the men. Charles Carlyle, the vampire who’d hit on coeds outside the Cake Walk today, and his friend who’d been reading the newspaper. Didn’t know the third guy, but he was dressed in a suit just like the other two.
    “Three more goons,” I murmured.
    The men got out of the sedan and talked to each other over the broad hood. A fourth figure remained shrouded in darkness in the backseat. My eyes narrowed, and the cold knot of rage in my chest tightened into a noose.
    Get out, I thought. Get out and show yourself, you sadistic bitch.
    “What about the Air elemental?” Donovan Caine asked. His breath brushed against my cheek.
    “She’s sitting in the backseat,” I replied.
    The leather-bound steering wheel creaked under Finn’s hands. “The one who—”
    “Yes.”
    I cut Finn off before he could say anything about Fletcher. Finn glared at me, but he pressed his lips together.
    I kept watching. Carlyle went around to the back of the vehicle and opened the door. He held out his hand, and the woman took it and stepped up and away from the sedan, as though she were some debutante exiting her limo at her coming-out party. Pretentious bitch.
    “Damn it,” I cursed. “She’s on the far side of the car with her back to me, and she’s wearing a long, black cloak. Who the fuck wears a cloak? This isn’t Dungeons & Dragons. The hood’s up. I can’t see a thing. Not her face, not her hair, not even her clothes. Nothing.”
    The steering wheel creaked again. “We could take her out, right here, right now,” Finn said. “They won’t be expecting us. They won’t be expecting you .”
    “No. I’m not taking on the elemental. Not tonight. She’d kill us all. And I’m not letting that happen to you.”
    “But—”
    “No, Finn,” I snapped. “Listen to me. You might think you know what an elemental can do, but you don’t. No matter what picture you saw. You don’t have a clue how vicious their magic can be. But I do.”
    The image of Fletcher’s body flashed through my mind, followed by the burned, smoldering remains of my mother and older sister. The familiar grief pressed down on my lungs, trying to smother me. The spider runes on my hands itched, as though they were the real creatures wiggling underneath my scarred flesh, instead of just ghastly memories.
    Donovan Caine’s hazel eyes flicked back and forth between us.
    “But—”
    Finn never got to finish his sentence. A gust of wind ripped out from the cabin, whistling like the swing of a death scythe. The blast of air flattened all the stunted pine trees in the yard before sweeping down the hill and rushing down the street like a miniature tornado. Trash cans overturned. Mailboxes ripped up out of the ground. One poor cat got picked up by the wind and tossed against the side of a pickup truck. It didn’t get back up.
    The Air elemental had found the first body crumpled by the front door, and she wasn’t happy about it.
    I squinted into the goggles, trying to get a glimpse of her face. The hood cast her face in shadow, but she’d pushed back the sleeves of her cloak. The ends of her fingers burned milky white with magic, as if each digit were an individual welder’s torch. The sort of concentrated power that would cause excruciating pain. The sort of magic that could strip flesh from bone. The sort of torture Fletcher had endured.
    Fletcher.
    The grief and guilt mixed with the rage in my chest, each one smashing into the other, until I wasn’t sure what I was feeling—besides pain. But I forced myself to think, to let my cold judgment temper my emotions. If it had just been me, I might have snuck back up to the cabin and had a go at the elemental and her crew. But I had Finn to think about. Donovan Caine, too.
    Besides, Fletcher had called me the Spider for a reason. I was at my cautious best when I was creeping in and out of the shadows. Spinning my own webs, making my own plans. Not being stupid and going out in a blaze of glory.
    I pointed. “See that light? That glow? That’s her magic. Do you want that to be us, Finn? Because I’m sure the Air elemental would be happy to show you exactly how pissed she is right now.”
    Finn thought about it. Weighing his desire to avenge his father’s death against what he knew