Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge

my chest, picking up speed with every single beat, and a bead of sweat trickled down the side of my face, despite the cold. I drew in a breath, trying to calm my nerves and quiet myself. Trying to go to that cold, dark, hard place that I’d been to so many times before—the shelter that had gotten me through so many terrible times in my life.
    Because this was the hit that truly, finally mattered. For my murdered family, for my baby sister, Bria, for me. It wouldn’t make things right, it wouldn’t erase all the horrible things I’d suffered through or the equally bad ones I’d done myself, but killing Mab would keep the people I loved safe. And I hoped it would bring me some kind of peace too.
    I hadn’t been able to stop Mab years ago, when she’d murdered my mother and older sister, but I could kill her now. Everything I’d ever done—living on the streets, becoming an assassin, honing my deadly skills—had been leading up to this one moment, this final confrontation.
    I let out my breath and pulled the trigger.

The softest snick sounded, and the barbed bolt zipped through the dining room on its deadly collision course with Mab’s eye.
    Too bad I missed.
    At the last possible second, at the very last
instant
, the giant who’d been standing beside Mab got tired of waiting and bent down in front of her, his melon-size head obscuring her face. The crossbow bolt punched through his left temple and out the other side of his skull, missing Mab entirely, before slamming into the wall behind him. The projectile stopped there, quivering from the force of its violent journey, blood and brain matter sluicing off it like water.
    For a moment, I just lay there on the snowy roof and cursed luck, that fickle, fickle bitch who’d screwed me over again—tonight, when it had mattered the most. Damn and double damn. And then some. All around me,the gray stones of the mansion cackled with insanity, as if they were pleased that their mistress was still alive. Fucking luck. Fucking stones. Fucking everything.
    I’d missed. I’d had my shot at Mab, taken it, and I’d
missed
.
    Some assassin I was. My mentor and foster father, Fletcher Lane, would have given me a sad, pointed look with his rheumy green eyes and shaken his head, telling me without a single word that I should have known better. That I should have waited just a few seconds more or at least until the giant had moved away from Mab for good. I was the Spider, after all. My rune was the symbol for patience, one of the defining emotions of my career, of my whole
existence
. But for once, I’d ignored Fletcher’s teachings. No, tonight I’d been stupid, impatient, sloppy even, and it had cost me—maybe everything.
    Nothing happened inside the dining room for half a second. Then the giant toppled forward, slammed into Mab, and sent them both crashing to the floor. I cursed again, because now there was no way that I could get to the Fire elemental. Hell, I couldn’t even
see
her, since she was trapped underneath the giant’s seven-foot-tall body.
    Another second ticked by, and it finally registered in everyone’s brain what had happened. That someone had just taken a shot at Mab—in her own mansion.
    Instead of screaming like normal businessmen and businesswomen would have, the majority of the people inside dropped to the floor. A few reached for the silverware that they’d been eyeing earlier, their hands curving around the knives, spoons, and forks with surprising familiarity. I also noticed that Ruth Gentry, the womanwho’d spoken to Mab, had draped herself over the young girl she was with, protecting her from potential harm. How considerate.
    I took all this in on the move. Even though I’d missed Mab, I had something even more important to think about right now—getting out of here. My hands were already slapping another silverstone bolt into the crossbow, even as I scrambled to my feet.
    “The window!” someone inside said. “That bolt came in through the window.”
    “Of course it came in through the window,” Mab’s muffled voice jumped into the mix. One of her arms flapped at the giant’s body on top of her. “Get her, you fools!”
    Everyone froze for another moment, looking first at each other, then at the window. A breeze gusted through the hole that I’d cut into the glass, making the black velvet drapes flutter together like a bat’s delicate wings.
    “Now!” Mab roared.
    My cue to leave. With one collective thought, the