Elemental Assassin 03 - Venom

Stone—until somebody ran out of power, strength, will. When that happened, the other elemental’s magic washed over the loser. Lose an elemental duel, and you were going to get suffocated, burned, frozen, or perhaps even entombed in your own skin.
    Either way, you got dead. Just like my mother and older sister had, thanks to Mab Monroe and her Fire power.
    “Come on,” I said, pushing away my troubling thoughts. “It’s getting cold out here. Let’s go back inside.”
    Jo-Jo got to her feet, and I opened the door for her. We stepped into the living room, and I stopped short. A few minutes ago, large, sticky patches of blood had covered the hardwood floor like a new coat of varnish. But now the golden wood looked pristine. Sophia Deveraux was down on her hands and knees, gloves off, scrubbingat one last spot. But instead of using a rag or brush, the Goth dwarf slowly moved her bare finger back and forth over the bloodstain, staring at the spot as though she could burn it away with her mind or some hidden magic deep inside her.
    And that’s exactly what she was doing.
    Sophia made one pass with her finger, and the blood under her hand dried. On the second pass, the stain looked brittle, as though it had been on the floor for years instead of just an hour. Sophia kept casting her finger back and forth over the stain with slow, precise movements. While I watched, the bloodstain underneath her hand turned a rusty brick color, then a pale pink. A minute later, the wood gleamed with its original golden hue as though the blood had never even been there at all.
    I’d been right when I’d thought that the Goth dwarf had the same kind of Air elemental magic that her older sister Jo-Jo did. But instead of healing, instead of mending all those tiny molecules back together, Sophia used her power to tear them apart, to break them down and then slowly sandblast them away into nothingness. I imagined she could do the same to just about anything that crossed her path—blood, bones, bodies.
    But the most amazing thing was that I didn’t feel her using the slightest bit of elemental magic.
    Sophia’s black eyes didn’t spark and flash with power the way that so many elementals’ eyes did. The tip of her finger didn’t glow. Her skin didn’t become pale, chalky, or sweaty. Hell, she didn’t look like she was exerting any effort at all. Sophia’s Air elemental power was completely self-contained—and completely undetectable.
    Sophia sat back on her heels and nodded, pleased by another job well done.
    I looked at Sophia, then at Jo-Jo. “Just one person, huh?”
    Jo-Jo’s lips turned up in that sad smile again. “Just one. A skill she learned out of necessity rather than by choice.”
    I thought about asking Jo-Jo what she meant by that cryptic remark, but she went over to Sophia and patted her sister on the shoulder. Sophia glanced up, smiled, and squeezed her big sister’s hand. Some emotion passed between them that I couldn’t quite identify. Pride perhaps, tinged with sorrow. Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to interrupt it tonight.
    The sisters always came when I needed them. That’s all that mattered, and that’s all I needed to know. They’d tell me the rest in time. When they were ready. Besides, I wasn’t exactly the most forthcoming person, especially when it came to my emotions.
    I glanced to my right. Finn paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, his cell phone stuck to his ear. Bria rested on the couch, sleeping off the effects of being healed by Jo-Jo. My sister looked like an angel relaxing there on the sofa—despite the clumps of blood that had matted in her shaggy hair.
    “I see. I owe you one. Thanks. Bye.” Finn snapped his phone shut and turned toward me. “Good news. One of my sources says that Elliot Slater’s gone home to lick his wounds for the rest of the night.”
    “Wounds? The bastard didn’t have any wounds, as far as I could tell,” I muttered and rubbed my side. Aftershe’d finished with Bria, Jo-Jo had used her Air magic to restore my ribs to their previously unbroken state.
    Finn jerked his head at Bria. “Seems your sister winged him in the shoulder with her gun. Either way, he’s not coming back here tonight, according to my source.”
    I raised an eyebrow. “And which source would this be?”
    Finn grinned. “This would be Leslie, the lovely young lady who happens to be the daughter of one of the maids who works at Slater’s mansion. Evidently, Slater