Elemental Assassin 03 - Venom

the ninety-second mark, when another small rustle drifted to my ears. Dead leaves scraping together in the underbrush. Finn pretending that he was trying to be quiet when he was really hoping to attract attention. But the guards on the patio didn’t move, still didn’t take the bait that Finn was teasing them with.
    So I stayed where I was, quiet and hidden in the shadows. Nobody ever got dead by waiting. That’s what Fletcher Lane always said, when he was teaching me how to be patient enough to wait out whatever enemy or danger I was facing. The old man’s advice had kept me alive over the years—no reason to doubt it now.
    I did, however, palm a pair of my silverstone knives. Always better to be armed while you waited out the enemy.
    Another minute passed before I spotted a flash of silver light through the dense trees. Just a little glint, but it was more than enough to give away Finn’s position. And now I saw him, a shadowy figure easing from tree to tree, creeping forward. The glint came from the gunin his hand. Finn kept up the charade of moving cautiously, not rushing to put his feet down, even though he was purposefully making even more rustling and cracking noises now.
    I glanced back down at the patio. The two giants guards stayed at their posts on the patio, unwilling to investigate or unconcerned about the noise. I frowned. Something about their nonchalant stance bothered me. But since I couldn’t put my finger on it or do anything about it, I turned my attention back to Finn, who reached the edge of the tree line. A moment later, he broke free of the clutching branches—
    The sharp whine of a bullet caught me by surprise.
    And then it was on.

25

    The bullet slammed into the tree trunk next to Finn’s ear. He dived back behind the tree and returned fire, his muzzle flash giving away his exact location. My head snapped down to the patio. The two guards stood in the same spot as before, only this time they clutched guns in their beefy fists. Guns that were pointed up at the tree line. Guns that they were firing at will. And I finally realized what had bothered me about them a few seconds ago—the fact that I couldn’t see the third man anywhere.
    The guard dropping his cigarette must have been some sort of signal to the man inside, who’d slipped off and sounded the alarm, while the two men on the patio had pulled weapons from some hidden spot on their bodies and started shooting. Who knew how many more men Elliot Slater had inside his mountain mansion? However many were inside, in seconds they’d be crawling up the mountainside, closing in on Finn.
    And I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
    Click-click-click.
    The giants on the patio ran out of bullets. One of the men stopped to reload, while the other charged up the hill, fighting up the steep slope to get to Finn.
    “Move, damn it,” I whispered through clenched teeth. “Move, Finn.”
    Finn couldn’t have possibly have heard me, so his own sense of self preservation must have kicked in. He reloaded his gun, threw down some cover fire, and scurried into the trees, heading back down the mountain. I knew Finn could run fast. Real fast when he put his mind to it. Like when his pants were down, and he was faced with an angry husband. Maybe he’d be able to slip away without getting captured. Then at least he would be safe when I went inside after Roslyn.
    The giant who’d been on the patio surged over the top of the hill and crashed into the trees. I glanced down the slope, but his buddy with the gun wasn’t making any move to follow him. Instead, he stood against the patio door, out of sight of Finn’s original position, although not mine. Smart, not sending all your men into the woods. Exactly the sort of thing I’d expect from Slater.
    I waited a few more seconds, but the guard made no move to struggle up the slope like his predecessor had done. But instead of slipping down the hillside and coming up behind him, I palmed another knife and went after the giant who was chasing Finn. It might have been Finn’s plan to lure out the giants so I could kill them up here, but I would have followed him anyway. Because despite what I’d told him before, I wasn’t going to leave Finntwisting in the wind by himself. Finnegan Lane wasn’t dying out here in the woods, even if he was supposed to be a bloody distraction. Not if I could help it.
    The giant made no effort to be quiet or conceal his trail, instead crashing through the leaves