Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge

nodded.
    “And you’ll help me?” she asked. “And my mom?”
    I nodded again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sophia shake her head. I turned my head and winked at her. The dwarf grumbled something under her breath, but her lips turned up into a smile.
    Meanwhile, the girl sat there and stared at me, the briefest glimmer of hope swimming up in the dark depths of her eyes. “But how will you help me? What can you do?”
    I palmed one of my silverstone knifes and laid it on the counter in front of her. The girl’s eyes widened in surprise, and maybe a touch of fear too, but I just grinned at her.
    “My name is Gin, and I kill people.”

Turn the page for a sneak peek at the next book in the Elemental Assassin series,
    BY A THREAD
    Jennifer Estep
    Coming soon from Pocket Books

“You need a vacation.”
    I looked up from the tomato I was slicing and stared across the counter at Finnegan Lane, my foster brother and partner in so many murderous schemes over the years.
    “Vacation? I hardly ever take vacations,” I said. “I have a barbecue restaurant to run, in case you’ve forgotten.”
    I gestured with the knife out at the Pork Pit. Most people wouldn’t consider the restaurant much to look at with its blue and pink vinyl booths and matching, peeling pig tracks on the floor that led to the men’s and women’s restrooms. The long counter that ran along the back wall was older than I was, as were most of the cups, dishes, and stainless-steel appliances. But everything was clean and polished, from the tables and chairs to the framed, slightly bloody copy of
Where the Red Fern Grows
that hung on one wall. The Pit might not be some fancy,highfalutin place, but it was my gin joint, my home, and I was damned proud of it.
    “A vacation,” Finn repeated, as if I hadn’t said a word. “Somewhere warm, somewhere sandy, somewhere where nobody knows your name, either as Gin Blanco or as the Spider.”
    Finn’s voice wasn’t that loud, but when he said
the Spider
, the words echoed like gunshots through the storefront. The folks sitting at the tables behind Finn immediately froze, their thick, juicy, barbecue beef and pork sandwiches halfway between their plates and lips. Conversation dried up like a puddle in the desert, and everyone’s eyes cut to me, wondering how I would react to the sound of that name.
    My assassin name. The one I’d gone by for the last seventeen years, when I was out late at night killing people for money and eventually other, more noble reasons.
    My hand tightened around the long, serrated tomato knife. Not for the first time, I wished I could use it to cut out Finn’s tongue—or at least get him to think before he opened his mouth. An elderly woman sitting two stools down from Finn noticed my death grip on the blade. Her face paled, and her hand clutched at her white silk blouse like she was about three seconds away from having a heart attack.
    Sighing, I made myself relax and put the blade down on the counter. Fuck. I hated being notorious.
    After a lifetime of being invisible, I was suddenly the most well-known person in Ashland. Several weeks ago, I’d done the unthinkable—I’d killed Mab Monroe, the Fire elemental who’d been the head of the city’sunderworld for years. Mab had murdered my mother and older sister when I was thirteen, and her death had been a long time coming, as far as I was concerned. I didn’t know anyone who’d shed any tears over the Fire elemental’s messy demise.
    But now, everyone wanted their pound of flesh—from
me
.
    Mab’s death had left a vacuum among Ashland’s legit and not-so-legit power players, and they were all scrambling to stake their various claims and position themselves as the city’s next top dog.
    Some of them thought the best way to accomplish that feat was by killing me.
    Idiot after idiot had come to the Pork Pit in the last few weeks, either singularly or in small groups, all with one thing on their minds—taking out the Spider. The elementals came at me straight on, challenging me to duels and wanting to test their magic against my own Ice and Stone power. The humans, vampires, giants, and dwarves, well, most of them were content to try to get the drop on me when I was either opening up or closing down the restaurant.
    Whatever their method, it always ended the same way—with the challengers dead and me calling Sophia Deveraux to come dispose of their bodies. I’d killed more people in the last month than I had