Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge

really no choice in the matter, Mab.” The woman’s voice was low, pleasant, friendly even, as though she were talking to some stranger on the street and not the most dangerous person in Ashland. “Not with the generous payout that you were offering. I’m surprised that more people didn’t show up to try to collect.”
    The others in the room nodded their agreement. My eyes narrowed. Payout, for what? And how were they going to collect? Was this some kind of business deal? Or something else… something more sinister? Something to do with the Spider perhaps?
    It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Not too long ago, Mab had hired an assassin named Elektra LaFleur to come to Ashland, hunt me down, and kill me. Of course, I’d taken care of LaFleur instead. Still, ever since then, I’d been waiting for the Fire elemental to do something, anything, to try to find the Spider again. Mab wasn’t the type of person to give up, especially when I’d been offing her men, thwarting her best-laid plans, and generally thumbing my nose at her for months.
    But everything had been quiet since I’d killed LaFleur in the city’s old train yard. Even Finn and his many spies hadn’t heard a whisper of what Mab might be planning, which worried me more than if I knew that the Fire elemental had dispatched every man at her disposal to track me down.
    Somehow, though, I felt that the quiet was about to end tonight—in a big, big way.
    “And you would be?” Mab asked, staring down her nose at her guest.
    The other woman bowed her head respectfully, although she never took her eyes off the Fire elemental. “Ruth Gentry, at your service.”
    “Ah, yes, Gentry. Well, I appreciate your honesty,” Mab said, returning the thin woman’s pleasant tone. “You have a stellar reputation, as does everyone else in the room. Which, of course, is why I asked you all here tonight.”
    The Fire elemental had peaked my curiosity with her strange words, and I paused, wanting to find out exactly who the mystery people were. Curiosity was often an emotion that got the best of me, but for once, I forced it aside. I was here to do one thing—kill Mab. Everything else could wait.
    “I hope you all had a pleasant journey,” Mab said, looking at her guests. “As you can see, we’ll be dining on the various dishes that my chef has prepared…”
    I tuned out the Fire elemental and lifted my eye away from the rifle scope. Slowly, I reached forward until my fingers closed around a tiny, clear, almost invisible suction cup on the window in front of me. I gently pulled on the cup, and a small circular piece slid out of the window. A glass cutter was among the tools I’d brought with me tonight, tucked away in the zippered pocket on my silverstone vest. Earlier, I’d used it to carve an opening in the window. I wanted a clear shot at Mab and not one that might be distorted by my crossbow bolt punching through the glass.
    I put the glass down beside me on the snowy roof. Then I slid my crossbow forward, until the tip of it, the end with the bolt, just protruded through the hole in the window—aimed right at Mab.
    One of Mab’s giant bodyguards, who was pulling double duty as a waiter tonight, came over to stand beside her, as though he had an important message for her. The Fire elemental ignored him and kept talking to her guests about how they’d discuss business after dinner. Too bad she wasn’t going to even make it to the soup course.
    I waited a few seconds to be sure that the giant wasn’t going to interrupt or step in front of Mab, then scooted forward even more and put my eye next to the rifle scope once more. The Fire elemental wasn’t that far away from me, maybe fifty feet, but the scope gave me a crystal clear view of her face.
    I aimed for her right eye, which looked blacker than ink. I’d only get one shot at her, and I didn’t want to waste it on a chest wound that might not put her down for good. Mab might have more magic than any other elemental in Ashland, but even she wouldn’t be able to survive a crossbow bolt through her eye, especially since the silverstone projectile would keep on going until it blasted out of the back of her skull. Hard to recover when half your brain matter was missing.
    Despite all the people I’d killed over the years, all the blood I’d spilled, all the sudden, violent, brutal deaths I’d caused, my finger trembled just a bit as I set it on the crossbow’s trigger. My heart raced in