Elemental Assassin 03 - Venom

like a taut bowstring finally being loosened. This cold, great, terrible power filled me. More power, more magic than I had ever felt before. And then I started to scream.
    I screamed for everything that had happened tonight. Everything that I had lost. Everything that had been done to me and my family. The power poured out of me the way my tears and sweat had a moment ago.
    And it felt good … right somehow.
    I kept screaming, pushing everything that I had left into that one echoing sound. All my pain. All my hurt and fear and rage and desperation and helplessness.
    I felt the stones respond to me. Felt my magic rip throughthem like lightning, shocking them awake from their long, sonorous slumber, shattering them like they were made of the most fragile crystal. A deep rumble began in the earth below my feet, pushing upward, pushing outward. I couldn’t control the power, the raw magic flowing out of me, and I didn’t really want to. I just wanted to hurt someone, wanted to lash out at anyone who was left, hurt them like the Fire elemental had me and my family.
    One by one, the stones above my head began to crumble and fall. My Stone magic spread outward, until the rest of the house’s stones were just as unstable. I felt the stones in the other rooms begin to crack, fall, and slip from the ceilings and walls. Once it started, I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t stop them. I knew the stones would bring the rest of the smoking house down with them, down on top of the Fire elemental and all her men.
    I screamed again, this time in cruel, dark pleasure at the cold, awesome power that I was wielding—
    “Are you ready?” Finn asked, cutting into one of my darkest memories.
    “Yeah,” I replied, staring up at the rune before me on the stone wall. “I’m ready.”
    An hour later, Detective Bria Coolidge was the first one to arrive on the scene. Her city-issued gray sedan skidded to a stop in front of Elliot Slater’s mountain mansion. Bria jumped out of the driver’s seat. Xavier got out on the other side. Guns drawn, the two cops rushed to the front door, which I’d conveniently left open in anticipation of their arrival.
    Five minutes later, Xavier came outside, cradling Roslynin his massive arms. The giant had wrapped a blanket over her, and he gently placed her inside the back of the sedan. Xavier started to pull away, but Roslyn grabbed his hand. After a moment, Xavier knelt beside her. He didn’t leave her side after that, and I knew that he wouldn’t for the rest of the night. Maybe for the rest of their lives.
    Bria also came back outside, her cell phone clamped to her ear. I couldn’t hear her exact words, but the urgency of her tone drifted up to my hiding spot on top of the ridge overlooking the mansion, just inside the tree line. The same spot that I’d been in when Finn and I had first hiked up the mountain.
    And that’s when the show really started.
    More cars carrying more cops arrived on the scene, swarming over the mansion like ants on a crust of honey-covered bread. Spotlights were erected, along with yards of yellow crime scene tape. It wasn’t long before a news van pulled up and parked in the driveway. Then another, then another. I smiled. So far, everything was going according to plan.
    Standing in the bloody wreckage of Elliot Slater’s living room, I’d told Roslyn everything—about my murdered family, about Bria, but most especially about my plan to take down Mab Monroe—or die trying.
    The vamp had studied me for several seconds before shaking her head. “You’re one crazy bitch, you know that.”
    “Yeah, yeah, I’m suicidal,” I’d replied. “So are you in or out?”
    “In.” Roslyn gave me a small smile.
    And just like that, we were partners. Hell, maybe even friends too.
    As I watched the scene before me, I crunched a couple of aspirin between my teeth and shifted the ice pack that I’d strapped onto my broken wrist before leaving the mansion. I had one more thing to do before I could slip away and go have Jo-Jo Deveraux heal me. Finn was already in the dwarf’s capable hands, getting his many injuries taken care of.
    Forty-five minutes after Bria and Xavier first arrived, a long, black limo pulled up to the very top of the driveway. Finally she was here. The limo driver got out and rushed to open the back door. A moment later, Mab Monroe stepped into view. The Fire elemental looked like she’d been out on the town. I could see the gleam of sequins on her