Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge

Phoenix, author of
Black Heart Loa
    “A sexy and edgy thriller that keeps you turning the pages. In
Spider’s Bite
, Jennifer Estep turns up the heat and suspense with Gin Blanco, an assassin whose wit is as sharp as her silverstone knives…. Leaves you dying for more.”
    —Lisa Shearin, national bestselling author of
Con & Conjure

PREVIOUS BOOKS IN
THE ELEMENTAL ASSASSIN SERIES
BY JENNIFER ESTEP
    Spider’s Bite
Web of Lies
Venom
Tangled Threads
    Available from Pocket Books



Pocket Books
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    This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
    Copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Estep
    All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
    First Pocket Books paperback edition October 2011
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    Cover design and illustration by Tony Mauro
    Manufactured in the United States of America
    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
    ISBN 978-1-4391-9264-1
    ISBN 978-1-4391-9266-5 (ebook)

To my mom, grandma, and Andre—for everything
.
    And to all the readers out there—this one’s for you
.

Once again, my heartfelt thanks goes to all the folks who help turn my words into a book.
    Thanks to my super agent, Annelise Robey, and wonderful editors, Megan McKeever and Lauren McKenna, for all their helpful advice, support, and encouragement.
    Thanks to Tony Mauro for designing another fantastic cover.
    And finally, a big thanks to all the readers. There are many great books out there and it’s always humbling to realize that folks choose to read my books. I’m glad that you are all enjoying Gin and her adventures.
    I appreciate you all more than you will ever know.
    Happy reading!



Old habits die hard for assassins.
    And I planned on murdering someone before the night was through.
    That’s what I did. Me. Gin Blanco. The assassin known as the Spider. I killed people, something that I was very, very good at.
    Tonight I had my sights set on my most dangerous target ever—Mab Monroe, the Fire elemental who’d murdered my family when I was thirteen.
    I’d been plotting the hit for weeks. Where to do it, how to get past security, what weapon to use, how to get away after the fact. Now, on this cold, cold night, I’d finally decided to carry out my deadly plan.
    I’d been on the prowl for hours. Three hours, to be exact. Each one spent out in the bitter February frost, including climbing my way up the side of a fifteen-story mansion one icy foot at a time. Hard bits of snow peltedmy body as I tried to keep the shrieking wind from tearing me off the side of the building. It wasn’t the most comfortable that I’d ever been during one of my hits, but it was necessary.
    Too bad Mab knew that I was coming for her.
    Oh, I hadn’t expected it to be
easy
, but slipping past the massive net of security, first in the snowy woods around Mab’s mansion, and then closer to the house itself, was a bit more problematic than I’d expected. The whole area was teeming with the giants that the Fire elemental employed as her personal bodyguards, not to mention nasty land mines and other traps strung through the trees like invisible spiderwebs. Of course, I could have dropped the giants, killing them one by one as I went along, but that would have resulted in the alarm being raised, and the security net tightening that much more.
    So instead I’d opted for a silent, nonlethal approach—at least for now. It had taken me an hour to work my way through the woods, then another one to get close enough to the mansion to slither up the stairs to a second-floor balcony and then heave myself up onto part of the roof that sloped down there. After that, things had gotten easier, since there were no sensors, alarms, or giants posted on the roofs that covered the various parts of the massive structure.