Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge

do my makeup, she’d given me several containers of just such an ointment, in case Mab got a few licks in on me before I killed her. I was grateful for the gift.
    The lids of the tins all featured Jo-Jo’s puffy cloud rune, painted on the tops in a vivid blue. I cracked one of them open, dipped my fingers into the ointment, and slathered it all over my hands and arms. The soothing smell of vanilla wafted up to me, and warm tingles spread throughout the blistered areas, just like they did when Jo-Jo was around in person to work her Air magic on me. I sighed with relief as the pulsing pain of the burns lessened. The ointment wasn’t as good as Jo-Jo healing me herself, but it would keep me together long enough for me to get to Fletcher’s house and see what trouble waited for me there.
    Owen hung up with Eva, and I popped open anothertin and passed it to him. He smeared the ointment onto his face. The salve soaked into his skin, and Jo-Jo’s magic made short work of the cuts and bruises that marred his features.
    I moved over to the sedan that Owen had parked beside. I didn’t bother trying to finesse the lock with a couple of elemental Ice picks. Instead, I used Owen’s hammer to smash in one of the back windows, then unlocked the front door, slid inside, and stripped the wires under the dash like Finn had shown me how to do. A few seconds later, the engine purred to life. I climbed out of the car and laid the hammer on the front passenger’s seat of Owen’s BMW.
    By this point, Owen had finished with the salve, and the two of us were ready to get on with things—and split up. We stared at each other across the roof of his car.
    “I’ll see you soon,” Owen said, a hard promise in his voice.
    I nodded. “Count on it.”
    Owen got back into his battered BMW and raced out of the parking lot. I wasn’t too worried about his getting to Eva and Violet in time, since his mansion wasn’t that far away. Besides, Mab would be focused on me right now and my immediate family—Finn, the Deveraux sisters, and most especially Bria. It wouldn’t be long before the Fire elemental sent her men after Owen, but the lapse should give him enough of a head start to get the girls to the safe house.
    There was no time to waste, so I slid back into the driver’s seat of the sedan and steered the car out of the lot. While I drove toward Fletcher’s house, I pulled outthe spare cell phone that had been among the supplies in Owen’s trunk and dialed Finn’s number again. Once more, it went straight to voice mail.
    I growled in frustration. Where was
he
? What was happening with him and Bria? When I got my hands on Finn, I was going to find out. And, depending on what kind of shape he was in, I might not ask nicely. Because if Finn and Bria were busy knocking boots instead of not answering my calls telling them that they were in mortal danger, well, I was going to be a little pissed.
    In between trying Finn, I also called Jo-Jo back. The dwarf told me she’d managed to reach Xavier and Roslyn, and that the two of them were on their way to the safe house. Roslyn’s sister, Lisa, and young niece, Catherine, were out of town visiting relatives, and Jo-Jo told me that Roslyn was calling them and telling them to check into a hotel under an assumed name. Jo-Jo had also managed to reach Warren Fox. The old coot had been reluctant to leave his warm, comfortable bed, but he’d seen the need after the dwarf explained the situation. Warren would meet everyone else at the safe house as soon as he could.
    That just left Finn and Bria twisting in the wind—and my stomach tightening into more and more knots.
    I drove as fast as I could on the slippery roads and not skid the car into a ditch, but it still took me thirty minutes to reach the road that ran by Fletcher’s house. Of course, I could have barreled the stolen vehicle right on up the driveway to the old house itself, if not for the possibility that Mab’s giants or bounty hunters were here already. I might not have killed the Fire elemental tonight, but I wasn’t going to get dead myself by doingsomething so reckless. The old man had trained me too well for that.
    I pulled the car into a cluster of trees just off the road about a quarter mile from the driveway entrance. Five seconds later, I was out of the vehicle, in the woods, and hiking up the ridge to the house.
    It was a long, hard climb, made even more so by the injuries that I’d gotten fighting Mab. Jo-Jo’s salve