Elemental Assassin 03 - Venom

I was suitably cowed this time, McAllister let go. I flopped back onto the ground.
    “Let’s get out of here,” the lawyer growled. “The bitch dripped blood all over my coat.”
    Jonah McAllister stepped over my prone body and disappeared into the darkness. Elliot Slater and the other two giants followed him. But Mab Monroe stayed where she was and studied me with her dark gaze. Her power washed over me again, the invisible, fiery needles pricking my bloody skin. I bit back another groan.
    “I do hope you’ve learned your lesson this time, Ms. Blanco,” Mab said in a pleasant voice. “Because Jonah’s right. Next time you cross one of us—any of us—you will die. And I promise you that it will be far more excruciating than what you’ve experienced here tonight.”
    A bit of black fire flashed in her eyes, backing up her deadly promise. Mab Monroe smiled at me a moment longer, then turned on her boot heel and vanished into the cold night.

2

    After Mab left, I must have passed out from the pain. Because the next thing I knew, a pair of scuffed black boots were planted on the ground in front of me. Whether they belonged to friend or foe, well, I didn’t much care at the moment. I just lay there, too beaten, bloody, and bruised to move. The cold blades of grass dug into my throbbing cheek like miniature icicles. The frosty chill felt good against my feverish skin.
    A walkie-talkie squawked above my head, and someone started speaking. It took me a moment to focus on the clipped words.
    “… a body on the southwest quad between the English and history buildings…”
    A body? Didn’t he realize I wasn’t dead yet? He probably hadn’t even checked for a pulse. Probably hadn’t wanted to touch me, given all the blood. Couldn’t blame him for that. Besides, this quad was close to Southtown, the partof Ashland where the homeless bums, junkies, vampire prostitutes, and other rough types lived. Mine wouldn’t have been the first body to bleed out on the community college campus. Still, if I’d felt like it, I would have rolled my eyes. I wasn’t dead-dead. Just halfway there.
    I craned up my neck so I could see my would-be rescuer. One of the community college’s rent-a-cops stood above me, a black walkie-talkie clipped to his shoulder like he was a real officer. He let go of a red button on the device, and another squawk sounded. I couldn’t make out the first few garbled words, but I caught the gist of the conversation.
    “… cops on their way…”
    Jonah McAllister had warned me not to call the police, and I’d been planning on following his wishes. Not because I was afraid of the lawyer and what he might do to me, but because I intended to take care of McAllister myself—with no help and no outside interference. But it looked like the po-po were coming whether I wanted them to or not. Nothing I could do about it now.
    So I put my head back down on the grass and closed my eyes. I already looked the part. Might as well play dead and rest up until the cops got here.
    I wasn’t sure how long I lay there on the ground, drifting in and out of consciousness, but the lights pulled me up out of the soft blackness I was swimming in. Red and blue lights swirled around and around far above my head. I squinted into the glare. Someone had parked a dark SUV on the grass a few feet away from me. The vehicle doors opened, and two pairs of boots hit the ground. Oneset definitely belonged to a man, a giant judging from the size. The shoes were almost as long as my arm. The other pair of boots were decidedly feminine, smaller and smartly cut with a low, sensible heel.
    The boots crunched on the frosty grass and headed in my direction, joining the ones of the security guard. I got the sense the three of them were staring down at me.
    “Is this how you found her? Just lying there like that?” The woman spoke in a voice that was as light and high and delicate as a set of wind chimes. It would have been a pure, lovely sound if not for the cold, flat resignation in her tone. Mine wasn’t the first body she’d seen. Maybe not even the first one today.
    “Yes, ma’am,” the security guard replied. “I was making my usual rounds and called you guys right away.”
    Well, now that I had a proper audience, it was time for Gin Blanco to come back from the dead, so to speak. I pulled in a breath and rolled over onto my back. The dull wave of pain I’d been surfing on surged into a tidal wave that threatened to