Elemental Assassin 03 - Venom

most.”
    I eyed a clock on the wall. Just after two in the morning. Finn said Elliot Slater was busy getting patched up himself, which meant the giant wouldn’t be back for Bria. Not tonight, anyway.
    “All right, we need to be gone before she wakes up,” I said. “So grab whatever supplies you brought in and leave. Finn, you help them, please. I’ll be out in a minute.”
    Finn opened the front door, and Jo-Jo and Sophia gathered up their gear and went outside. Finn followed and shut the door behind the three of them.
    I moved over to the sofa and stared down at Bria. Sleep eased out the sharp planes of her face, and a dewy pink color freshened up her cheeks, thanks to Jo-Jo’s healing elemental Air magic. At this moment, Bria didn’t look anything like the icy professional I’d seen that night at the community college or the calm cop holding a gun on Elliot Slater at Northern Aggression. She seemed younger, softer, like this. More like a grown-up version of the sweet little girl that I’d once known.
    And she was going to stay this way, I vowed. I was going to lullaby Elliot Slater very, very soon. Once the giant was removed, I’d go after Mab Monroe. The time for keeping to the shadows like a tiny spider had passed. It was time to show Mab and her minions that I had some bite—and that they were next on my fucking to-do list.
    I looked at Bria a moment longer, then turned away.
    “Sweet dreams, baby sister,” I murmured before walking out the front door.

13

    The next day it was business as usual at the Pork Pit. Crowds of customers. Harried waitresses. The hiss, spit, and sizzle of the grill. The spicy smells of baked beans and barbecue sauce flavoring the air. Sophia Deveraux cooking up a storm.
    And me plotting someone’s demise.
    “I just don’t see how you’re going to do it,” Finn said, wiping a bit of barbecue sauce off his mouth. “Elliot Slater’s sure to be on his guard now. Not only against you, but Bria too. You could try to snipe him from a distance, but as big and strong and tough as he is, you’d probably have to put several bullets or arrows in him in just the right places. Which you probably wouldn’t have time to do before he started ducking for cover.”
    I nodded my head, agreeing with him. I’d killed people with rifles and crossbows before, but I preferred using my silverstone knives. It was just easier to make sure someone got good and dead that way.
    “As for something more personal, which we both know you prefer anyway, he’ll be looking suspiciously at any woman who’s trying to get close to him in a dark alley, in a dark room, in a dark car. Anywhere dark, basically,” Finn continued. “Which is where you do your best work, Gin.”
    It was after three the next afternoon. The lunch crowd had already come and gone, and it wasn’t quite time for the dinner rush yet. Which is why Finnegan Lane sat on a stool beside the cash register shooting the breeze with me. In between scarfing down two hot dogs loaded with spicy chili, onions, shredded Cheddar cheese, and sweet honey mustard, along with baked beans and a big slice of my still-warm chocolate-chip pound cake.
    I looked up from my copy of
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
and stared at my partner in crime. “Don’t worry. You’ll find an opening for me. You’re my handler now. It’s what you do, remember?”
    “I
am
the best,” Finn said in a not-so-modest voice. He chewed another bite of his hot dog. “But even I can’t make you invisible, Gin. And that’s what it’s going to take to get close to Elliot Slater right now.”
    “I’m good at being invisible, remember?”
    “True,” Finn agreed. “But people tend to notice pesky little things like screams and bloodstains. Especially when there’s a body to go along with them.”
    I rolled my eyes and went back to my book. Finn had come over for an early dinner and to help me brainstorm how I could get close enough to Elliot Slater to bury my silverstone knives in his broad back. So far, all Finn had done was eat my food and muse about how difficult itwas going to be making sure the giant got dead before he killed Roslyn Phillips—or Bria. Finn’s defeatist attitude wasn’t helping, and since I hadn’t come up with any bright ideas of my own, I’d turned to Huck in hopes that something would spring to mind while I was reading about someone else’s adventures. But nothing had so far—
    The front door opened, causing the bell to chime. I