Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge

that.
    Finally, I looked at Bria. Our eyes met and held across the snowy distance, and I could see the pain and fear and desperation flashing in her blue gaze—pain at her own injuries and fear for me and what Mab was about to do to me.
    Jonah McAllister had also come to see me kick off to hell. The lawyer stood off to one side, a triumphant smile for once bringing a bit of emotion to his unnaturally smooth features. He wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Oh, yes, McAllister was especially smug because he was finally getting exactly what he wanted—Gin Blanco, his son’s murderer, fried extra crispy by his sadistic bitch of a boss.
    As I stood there, surrounded by my enemies on all sides, a cold calm filled me. The sort of black, emotionless void that Fletcher had taught me to pour into my heart and coat every little piece of my soul with. I embraced the darkness, welcomed it, relished it even. For the very last time.
    Because as soon as I’d stepped into this courtyard, I wasn’t Gin Blanco anymore. I wasn’t Genevieve Snow or the lost, terrified, thirteen-year-old girl I’d been the last time I was here.
    No, right now I was the Spider. And I was here to finally destroy my nemesis—once and for all.

Behind me, the bounty hunters closed ranks, their footsteps crunching on the snow. In less than a minute, I was surrounded on three sides by both the bounty hunters and the giants Mab had brought along with her, with the Fire elemental herself directly in front of me. At least fifteen men and women made up the loose semicircle around me, and there had to be even more, like Sydney, hidden in the rubble I couldn’t see.
    But that was okay. Because I wasn’t here alone, and I knew that my friends, my family, would back me up. They had come here tonight and put themselves on the line to give me a fighting chance. It was all that I could hope for. I’d do the rest myself—the way I always did.
    “So here we are,” Mab murmured, her silky voice slithering like a snake through the courtyard.
    Perhaps the stones of my ruined house sensed the Fire elemental’s opposing magic, or perhaps they knew she wasthe reason that I’d lashed out at them in the first place. Either way, the stones’ mutters grew harsher and sharper underneath my booted feet. The raging sound made me smile. It matched exactly how I felt.
    “Here we are.” I returned Mab’s de facto greeting.
    The two of us stood there, staring at each other. The Fire elemental was twenty feet away from me, with Bria tucked another twenty feet behind her. No, Mab wasn’t taking any chances that I could snatch my sister and escape with her.
    “Now that this moment has finally arrived, I have to say that I’m at a loss for words,” Mab admitted in a sly, satisfied voice.
    I arched an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t start crowing about your ultimate victory just yet. That’s a good way to get dead, especially when I’m around. Just ask Elektra LaFleur. Oh, that’s right. You can’t, because I killed her.”
    Mab’s eyes darkened, a bit of fire flashing in her black gaze. The sparks seemed to suck up even more of the dusky twilight, instead of reflecting back the faint light.
    “Your insolence is noted, little Genevieve, and it does not please me. Or have you forgotten that I have your sweet sister over here at my mercy? That I’ve had her at my mercy all day long already? I have to say, I’m actually glad things worked out this way. What fun I’ve had with her, especially in seeing how long and loud I could make her scream while I burned her with my magic. It’s been most entertaining. After I kill you, I think I’ll start on her face. Melt it right off and then put out her pretty little eyes with my thumbs. I might even let her live, keep her around as a sort of pet. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
    Rage filled me at her words—cold, black, unending rage. Whatever happened to me, Mab would not hurt my sister again. She would
not
.
    But I didn’t let any of what I was feeling show in my hard features, and I didn’t look at Bria. If I did that, if I saw the fear in her eyes again, I might come undone, which was something I couldn’t afford.
    “Oh, no, I haven’t forgotten that you have Bria. Kind of sad, though. That you needed a bargaining chip to catch me. But then again, you’re not as young as you used to be, are you, Mab?”
    Yeah, I was taunting her, but we both knew exactly how this was going to play out. Despite whatever empty promises