Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge

surrounded by eight thin rays. The symbol was stitched in glossy black thread on the left side of Mab’s crimson catsuit—right where her heart would be, if she even had one and not just a gaping maw in her chest.
    Mab had taken the costume one step further. A pair of knives glinted in the black leather belt that circled her waist. Truth be told, they were fairly accurate versions of my own weapons—the ones that I wanted to reach for right now.
    Anger burned in my heart at her blatant mockery of me, and my vision went red with rage. Once again, just for a second, I let myself feel the emotion, let the anger pump through my veins, let the thumping roar of it drown out everything else.
    And then I put it aside—pushed it down into the pit of my stomach where it would continue to smolder but not consume me. This was a trap, after all, and the costume was just another piece of it, something else to lure me in, to make me lose control. To make me careless, something that I would not allow to happen. Not tonight.
    So I stared at my enemy again, this time with narrowed eyes and a cold, calm heart.
    “Are those real silverstone knives she’s wearing?” I murmured to Owen.
    He cocked his head to one side, and his violet eyes began to glow ever so slightly. Owen was using his magic, reaching out with his elemental talent for metal.
    “They are,” he murmured back. “High-end ones too. Made of almost pure silverstone.”
    We watched as Mab shook hands with a dwarf dressed like a miniature version of Jack Frost.
    “What do you want to do, Gin?” Owen asked.
    “Nothing,” I said. “She’s got too many people around her right now, and she’s probably expecting me to strike immediately. Let’s give her a chance to settle in and get good and bored waiting for me to make my move.”
    Owen nodded, and we moved off into the crowd.
    But Mab wasn’t the only enemy that I had here tonight, because she’d brought someone with her—Jonah McAllister.
    McAllister was Mab’s lawyer, the number-two man in her organization who was responsible for burying the Fire elemental’s foes in so much legal red tape that they choked on it. Usually, McAllister wore a suit that was as slick and sharp as he was, but tonight the lawyer had forgonethe ball’s Fire and Ice theme in favor of dressing up like a pirate.
Yargh
.
    A black patch covered one of his cold brown eyes, although he hadn’t bothered putting a bandana over his styled coif of thick silver hair. A loose white shirt stretched across his chest, topped off by a red sash that was patterned with Mab’s sunburst rune. The shirt and sash tucked into a pair of black breeches, which themselves tucked into a pair of matching boots. McAllister also had a curved scimitar strapped to his waist, made out of the same kind of silverstone as Mab’s faux Spider knives, from the looks of it.
    Despite his sixty-something years, McAllister’s face was as smooth as glass underneath his eye patch. The lawyer was one of those who used Air elemental facials to fight the ravages of time. In fact, he was more vain about keeping his face wrinkle-free than most women.
    Jonah McAllister had an active desire to see me dead, ever since I’d killed his son, Jake, a few months ago. Jake had come into the Pork Pit one night and tried to rob my gin joint. When I’d put Jake in his place, he and his father had gotten a little upset about it, threatening to run me out of business, among other, more unpleasant things.
    A few days later, Jake had confronted me at a party at Mab’s mansion with the intention of raping and murdering me. After he got done spouting his threats, I’d stabbed him to death with one of my knives and left his body in the Fire elemental’s bathtub.
    As I’d been in disguise at the party, Jonah McAllister had no real proof that I’d killed his son. But since I, as Gin Blanco, was one of the few people who’d ever daredto stand up to his kid, McAllister had rightly assumed that I’d had something to do with Jake’s death. He just couldn’t prove it. Still, he’d been keeping an eye on me ever since, waiting for his chance to strike.
    Maybe if things went well with Mab tonight, I’d take out Jonah too. A little reward to myself for a job well done.
    McAllister saw me staring at him. His nostrils flared with anger, and his mouth puckered into a cold frown that didn’t register at all on the rest of his tight, ageless face. Since I was on Owen’s arm tonight, there was