Elemental Assassin 03 - Venom

kisser.”
    With those words, I stepped outside and shut the door behind me.
    Thirty minutes later, I turned off my Benz and clicked on a small flashlight that I kept in the glove compartment. Using the information in Finn’s file, I’d driven up into the most rugged section of the Appalachian Mountains that cut through Ashland, way up north, well above the genteel confines and estates of Northtown. Technically, I was still in the city, but there were more mountains up here than people.
    I’d parked the car to one side of a small gas station that lay at the foot of this particular ridge. My Benz hid between a rusted-out pickup truck that might have had green paint at one time and a white Dodge van propped up on cement blocks, its tires long since rotted away to bare rims. It was only seven thirty, but the station had already closed for the evening, probably due to the cold and hard bits of snow that continued to coast around on the night wind. The old, clapboard station reminded me of Warren T. Fox’s store, Country Daze, which wasn’t too far from here.
    I played my flashlight over the maps that Finn had compiled for me. Finnegan Lane might be a designer-suit-wearing, caffeine-addicted womanizer of the highest degree, but when he dug into someone, he got every single bit of dirt there was on them. Which is why the folder of information on Elliot Slater contained not only glossymagazine spreads of his mountain retreat but more useful topographical maps as well, along with the blueprints to Valhalla itself.
    I sat in the car, feeling the cold creep in through the doors and windows, and studied the maps, searching for the best way to slip into the mansion. First, though, I’d have to hike up the mountain. Only one road curved up the rugged hillside, and whatever guards Slater had posted would be able to see the headlights from any car a half mile from the mansion—something I couldn’t afford to have happen. Like so many of my other jobs over the years, the element of surprise was the key to my success, more so tonight than ever before, since the giant was holding Roslyn Phillips hostage and was doing or had already done who knew what to her.
    Depending on what kind of shape Roslyn was in, I might have to come back and drive the car up to get her, but flashing my headlights wouldn’t matter then, since I would have killed everyone in the mansion at that point.
    I’d just decided to follow a dry creek bed up to the mansion, when the headlights of another car appeared in front of the gas station. The car slowed, and I spotted Finn behind the wheel of his Aston Martin. I flicked my headlights on and off, so he’d know that I was already here. Finn parked his silver sports car on the other side of the rusted pickup truck. A minute later, he opened the door on the passenger’s side of my Benz and slid inside. He too carried a black duffel bag of supplies.
    “Your timing is impeccable,” I said. “I’ve only been here a couple minutes.”
    Finn grinned. “Isn’t it always?”
    His green eyes flicked to the maps and flashlight in my hands, and the smile dropped from his handsome face. “You found a way in yet?”
    “I’ve found a way up the mountain. We’ll worry about getting inside after we reach the mansion.”
    I showed Finn the creek bed that we’d be hiking up. He took the map from me and studied the terrain. But after a minute, he put the map down and stared up at the mountain before us. His fingers tapped out a staccato pattern on his thigh.
    “What are you thinking?” I asked.
    Finn sighed, and his hand stilled. “That I hate that it’s come to this. That it’s all my fault. I didn’t expect things to get so complicated. Not with Roslyn or Elliot Slater. If I’d known just how badly the giant was obsessed with her, how messy this whole situation was going to get, I never would have told Xavier that we’d help them. I would never risk you like that, Gin.”
    “I know,” I said in a soft voice.
    We didn’t speak for a few seconds.
    “We don’t have to do this,” Finn finally said. “
You
don’t have to do this. Roslyn left Jo-Jo’s of her own free will, even after you told her not to, even after you told her that you’d take care of Slater. The best-case scenario is that Slater has just beaten her. But we both know that Roslyn’s probably dead by now, that we could be risking ourselves for absolutely nothing.”
    Everything that Finn said was true, and he was only voicing the