[English] HEART OF VENOM

Author :Lexi Ryan

I grew up wishing on stars.


My father taught me to believe…in destiny, in magic, in happily ever after. Dreams were my scripture and the starry night sky was my temple. Then Mom stopped believing, left him, and took us with her. At the age of sixteen, I cashed in my dreams to pay the rent, pawned my destiny to keep my sisters together.


Now, seven years later, I’m returning home, grieving the death of my mother, and settling my sisters back into the life Mom threw away. I never intended to stay. I don’t want to deal with my father, who is so invested in the spiritual world he forgets the physical. I don’t want to face William Bailey, whose eyes remind me of the girl I was, the things I’ve done, and the future I lost.


This would all be easier if Will hated me. As it is, I have to hold my secrets close so they won’t hurt him more than they’ve already hurt me. But he wants to be in my life. He wants what I can’t bring myself to confess I sold. He wants me.


I find myself looking to my stars again...wondering if I dare one more wish.


Seven Years Ago


CALLY TILTS her face to the starless night sky as if waiting for its kiss. “I can’t see the stars.” She squints, trying to make them out through the thick storm clouds hanging over us.


I turn her face to mine and trail whisper-soft kisses beneath her ear and along her jaw until she relaxes in my arms. “We don’t need them tonight,” I promise, though I know it’s only true for me. Cally always needed the reassurance of wishes and destiny—a byproduct of abination of ****ty home life and odd-duck father. Tonight, she needs all that more than ever.


“She’s being so selfish, taking us away from our life here. Taking me away from you.”


We’ve...

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Chapter One

"What do you mean, I can't come?"

I jerked my head down at the heavy weight swinging between us. "Do you really want to talk about this right now?"

"I can't think of a better time," he replied, then dropped his half of the load onto the ground.

I let go of my half of the weight, put my hands on my hips, and rolled my eyes at the whiny, petulant tone in my foster brother's voice. "You can't come because it's a girls' day at the salon. No guys allowed. That includes you."

Finnegan Lane sniffed, straightened up to his full six-foot-plus height, and carefully adjusted the expensive silk tie knotted around his neck. "Yes, but I am not just any guy."

More eye-rolling on my part, but Finn ignored me.

His ego was pretty much bulletproof, and my derisive looks wouldn't so much as scratch his own highfalutin opinion of himself.

"Besides," he continued, "I'd get more enjoyment out of a spa day than you would."

"True," I agreed. "I don't particularly care how shiny my nails are or how well con***ioned my hair is."

Finn held out his manicured nails, studying them with a critical eye, before reaching up and gently patting his coif of walnut-colored hair. "My nails are good, but I could use a trim. Wouldn't want to get any split ends."

"Oh, no," I muttered. "We wouldn't want such a horror as that."

With his artfully styled hair, designer suit, and glossy wing tips, Finn looked like he'd just stepped out of the pages of some high-end fashion magazine. Add his intense green eyes, chiseled features, and toned, muscled body to that, and he was as handsome as any movie star.

The only thing that ruined his sleek, polished look was the blood spattered all over his white shirt and gray suit jacket - and the body lying at his feet.

"come on," I said. "This guy isn't getting any lighter."

The two of us were standing in the alley behind the

Pork Pit, the barbecue restaurant that I ran in downtown Ashland. A series of old, battered metal Dumpsters crouched on either side of the restaurant's back door, all reeking of cumin, cayenne, black pepper, and the other spices that I cooked with, along with all of the food scraps and other garbage that had spoiled out there in the July heat. A breeze whistled in between the backs of the buildings, bringing some temporary relief from the sticky humi***y and making several crumpled-up white paper bags bearing the Pork Pit's pig logo skip down the oil-slicked surface of the alley.

I ignored the low, scraping, skittering noises of the bags and concentrated on the sound of the stones around me.

People's actions, thoughts, and feelings last longer and have more of an impact than most folks realize, since all of those actions and feelings resonate with emotional vibrations that especially sink into the stone around them.

As a Stone elemental, I have magic that lets me hear and interpret all of the whispers of the element around me, whether it's a jackhammer brutally punching through a concrete foundation, rain and snow slowly wearing away at a roadside marker, or the collective frets of harried commuters scurrying into an office building, hoping that their bosses won't yell at them for being late again.

Behind me, the brick wall of the Pork Pit let out low, sluggish, contented sighs, much the way the diners inside did after finishing a hot, greasy barbecue sandwich, baked beans, and all of the other Southern treats that I served up on a daily basis. A few sharp notes of violence trilled here and there in the brick, but they were as familiar to me as the sighs were, and I wasn't concerned by them. This wasn't the first person I'd had to kill inside the restaurant, and it wouldn't be the last.

"come on," I repeated. "We've had our body-moving break. You grab his shoulders again, and I'll get his feet. I want to get this guy into that Dumpster in the next alley over before someone sees us."

"Dumpster? You mean the refrigerated cooler that Sophia hauled in just so you could keep bodies on ice close to the restaurant with at least a modicum of plausible de-niability," Finn corrected me.

I shrugged. "It was her idea, not mine. But since she's the one who gets rid of most of the bodies, it was her call."

"And why isn't Sophia here tonight to help us with this guy?"

I shrugged again. "Because there was some James Bond film festival that she wanted to go to, so she took the night off. Now, come on. Enough stalling. Let's go."

"Why do I have to grab his shoulders?" Finn whined again. "That's where all the blood is."

I eyed his ruined jacket and shirt. "At this point, I don't think it much matters, do you?"

Finn glanced down at the smears of red on his chest.

"No, I suppose it doesn't."

He grumbled and let out a few put-upon sighs, but he eventually leaned down and took hold of the dead guy's shoulders, while I grabbed his ankles. So far, we'd moved the guy from the storefront of the Pork Pit, through the rear of the restaurant, and outside. This time, we slowly shuffled away from the back door of the Pit and down the alley.

Finn and I had moved bodies before, but the fact that this dead guy was a seven-foot-tall giant with a strong, muscled figure made him a little heavier than most, and we stopped at the end of the alley to take another break.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead and stared down at the dead guy.

Half an hour ago, the giant had been sitting in a booth in the restaurant, chowing down on a double bacon cheeseburger, sweet potato fries, and a big piece of apple pie and talking to the friend he'd brought along. The two giants had been my last customers, and I'd been waiting for them to leave before I closed the restaurant for the night. The first guy had paid his bill and left without incident, but the second one had swaggered over to the cash register and handed me a fistful of one-dollar bills.

I'd counted the bills, and the second my eyes dropped to the cash register, he'd taken a swing at me with his massive fist.

Please. As if no one had ever tried that trick before.

But such were the job hazards of an assassin. Yep, me, Gin Blanco. Restaurant owner by day. Notorious assassin the Spider by night. Well, actually, it was more like I was the Spider all the time now. Ever since I'd killed Mab Monroe, the powerful Fire elemental who'd owned a good chunk of the crime in Ashland, everyone who was anyone in the underworld had been gunning for me. I was a wild card in the city's power structure, and lots of folks thought that arranging my murder would prove their mettle to everyone else. Tonight's giant was just the latest in a long line of folks who'd eaten in my restaurant with the intention of murdering me right after sopping up the last bit of barbecue sauce on their plates.

Since Finn had been sitting on a stool close to the cash register, he'd pulled a gun out from underneath his suit jacket and tried to put a couple of bullets into the other man, but the giant had slapped Finn's gun away. The two of them had been grappling when I'd come around the counter, palmed one of my silverstone knives, and repeatedly, brutally punched the blade into the giant's back, sides, and chest until he was dead. Hence the blood that had spattered all over Finn - and me, too, although my long-sleeved black T-shirt and dark jeans hid most of it.

"All right," Finn said. "Let's lug this guy the rest of the way. I need to go home and get cleaned up before my date with Bria tonight."

I'd just started to bend down and take hold of the giant's ankles again when a mutter of unease rippled through the stone wall beside me - a dark whisper full of malicious intent.

I stopped and scanned the alley in front of us. Sophia's rusty cooler stood at the far end, although several more Dumpsters and smaller trash cans crouched in between like tin soldiers lined up against the walls. It was after nine now, and what little lavender twilight remained was quickly being swallowed up by the shadows creeping up the walls.

Another breeze whistled down the alley, bringing the scents of cooked cabbage, grilled chicken, and spicy peanut sauce with it from the Thai restaurant down the block.

Finn noticed my hesitation. "What's wrong?"

I kept scanning the shadows. "I think we have company."

He adjusted his tie again, but his eyes were flicking left and right just as mine were. "Any clue who it might be?"

I shrugged. "Probably our dead friend's dinner companion."

Finn shook his head. "But he left before the giant attacked you. Even if they were partners, once he saw what happened to his buddy, the second guy would have high - tailed it out of here as fast as he could if he had even the smallest shred of common sense - "

A bit of silver stuck out from behind a Dumpster off to my right. I immediately lunged forward and threw my body on top of Finn's, forcing us both to the ground.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The bullets sailed over our heads, but I still reached for my Stone magic and used it to harden my skin into an impenetrable shell. I also tried to cover as much of Finn's body as I could with my own. I might be bulletproof when I used my magic, but he wasn't.

Footsteps scuffed...

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Click.

Empty. Well, too bad for him. Fatal for him, actually.

I scrambled to my feet, raised my knife high, and threw myself forward, but the giant was anticipating the move.

He caught my arm in his hand. Given his enormous strength, it was easy for him to keep me from plunging my knife into his chest a second time. So I brought my free hand up, curved my fingers, and clawed at his face.

The giant let go of my arm and craned his neck back, trying to protect his eyes from my prying fingers.

"Gin! Down!" I heard Finn yell behind me.

I immediately stopped my attack on the giant and dropped to the ground.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Bullets punched through the air where I'd been standing, and the familiar acrid burn of gunpowder mixed with the stench of garbage in the alley. A second later, the

giant's body hit the ground with a dull thud. knife still in my hand, I got to my feet and hurried over to him, but there was no need. Finn had put a couple of bullets through the giant's right eye and up into his brain. His body had already shut down; he wasn't even twitching.

I turned to look at Finn, who had a gun clenched in one hand. With his other hand, he was picking a piece of wilted cabbage off his jacket sleeve. He tossed the cabbage aside with a disgusted expression and moved over to me.

"You okay?" I asked.

Finn nodded. "You?"

I nodded back and gingerly touched my side. "I'll have some bruises from where he played kick-the-can with my ribs, but I'll stop by Jo-Jo's on the way home and get her to patch me up. No worries."

"Speaking of Jo-Jo's, I still say that I should get to come to your little soiree," Finn said. "Especially after I was so helpful here tonight."

I narrowed my eyes. "You start up with that again, and

I'll be dealing with three bodies instead of just two."

Finn gave me a wounded look, but after a moment, he sighed and holstered his gun. "Well, at least this one's already halfway to the cooler," he grumbled.

I grinned at him. "See? We're nothing if not efficient."

Finn muttered some choice words under his breath, but he reached down and took hold of the dead giant's shoulders, and I grabbed his ankles again. We lugged the two men over to the cooler to await Sophia and her body disposal skills.

Not the first body dump we'd done - and certainly not the last.

Chapter Two

Two days later, Saturday, the dead giants were still on ice in the cooler, but I found myself in much nicer, warmer confines: a beauty salon.

The salon took up the back half of an old plantation house, and the area had a homey and welcoming, if cluttered, feel. Tubs of nail polish and lipstick sat on a counter, along with bottles of hair dye, shampoo, and con***ioner.

Nestled in between the tubs and bottles were brushes, combs, curlers, rollers, scissors, and every other item you could think of that would untangle, tease, straighten, curl, kink, or cut your hair. Stacks of beauty magazines covered the small tables scattered here and there in the room, the models on the slick, glossy covers beaming as if they approved of all the beauty ministrations that could be had there.

I was relaxing in one of the cherry-red salon chairs when something warm, wet, and slightly rough touched my foot. I leaned to one side, and Rosco, Jo-Jo's basset hound, licked my toes again, then gave me a hopeful woof . I stretched out my foot and rubbed it against his side. Rosco let out a loud, contented sigh and collapsed in a wrinkled puddle of black and brown fur, perfectly happy to let me rub his round tummy for as long as I would.

"Hold still, darling," Jo-Jo drawled as she put another coat of paint on my fingernails. "I'm almost done."

Rosco and the salon were the pride and joy of Jolene

"Jo-Jo" Deveraux, the dwarven Air elemental who healed me whenever I got banged up or almost shot, stabbed, beaten, or magicked to death as the Spider. Given my current notoriety in the Ashland underworld and the legion of would-be murderers targeting me, I was over here more days than not. Then again, I would have been over here anyway, since Jo-Jo was a mother figure to me and part of my extended family.

Since we were having a girls' day at the salon, I'd forgone my usual long sleeves, jeans, and boots in favor of a red tank top, some white cutoff shorts, and a pair of black sandals that immediately got kicked off over into the corner when I'd first arrived an hour earlier. Jo-Jo, however, enjoyed dressing up, and she had on one of her prettiest

pink dresses, along with her usual strand of pearls. Her

white-blond hair was curled just so, her soft, understated

makeup would have put any beauty queen to shame, and

her bare feet showed off the perfect raspberry pedicure

that she'd just given herself.

"You know, you really don't have to give me a manicure," I said. "You should be relaxing today too."

Jo-Jo raised her head and gave me an amused look.

Laugh lines fanned out from the corners of her clear, almost colorless eyes. "You did all the cooking, darling.

That's more work than this is. Besides, I like pampering you, Gin. You don't take nearly enough time for yourself.

Especially not these days."

"I know, I know," I said. "But it's a shame that you're doing up my nails so neat and pretty when they'll probably be chipped by this time tomorrow. Or probably before I leave here today. I never seem to be able to keep the polish on them for very long."

I held up my hand. Jo-Jo had painted my short nails a deep, dark red that was definitely my color. If nothing else, it would help hide the blood that was sure to get on my hands the next time some idiot tried to murder me.

"Well, I have to agree with Jo-Jo," a light, lilting voice chimed in. "I'd rather have your cooking than a manicure any day. This dark chocolate mousse pie is to die for, Gin."

I looked to my right where my baby sister was eagerly digging her fork into a piece of said pie. Like me, Detective Bria coolidge had dressed down today, in a pale blue T-shirt, gray cargo shorts, and brown sandals, although she was still beautiful, with her blond hair, rosy skin, and cornflower blue eyes. But just because Bria was off the clock didn't mean that she wasn't armed. I knew that her gun and her gold detective's badge were stuffed into the oversize straw bag that she'd brought along, just like my knives were laid out on the buffet table within easy reach.

Bria took another big bite of the pie and made the same sigh of contentment that Rosco had a minute ago.

"What all did you make besides the pie?" she asked, her eyes going from one covered dish on the table to the next.

"Well, since it's girls only today, I decided to go all out," I replied. "There's the dark chocolate mousse pie you are currently enjoying, along with some chocolate truffles, double-chocolate-chip cookies, and dark-and milk-chocolate-dipped strawberries, kiwis, pineapples, and mangoes."

Bria gave me a wry grin. "I'm sensing a chocolate theme."

I returned her grin with one of my own. "You might say that. But there's some real food too, in case we get tired of dessert. Plus, Roslyn is bringing some fresh veggies from her garden."

Jo-Jo glanced at the clock on the wall, which was shaped like a puffy cloud, her rune and the symbol for her Air magic. "Where is Roslyn?"

Roslyn Phillips, another one of our friends, was also supposed to come to the salon today, along with Sophia

Deveraux, Jo-Jo's younger sister.

Bria waved her fork in the air. "She called me this morning and said that she'd be a little late, that we should go ahead and start without her."

"And you went for the food first. You're picking up some of Finn's bad habits," I teased. "How was your date with him the other night?"

Bria's fiery blush told me everything that I needed to know. "I plead the Fifth," she murmured, and took another bite of pie.

"Well, when you're finished with that, come over here, darling, and tell me what color you want on your nails," Jo-Jo said.

My sister nodded, but her eyes were fixed on the glass cake stand that was filled with the chocolate-dipped fruit.

Bria turned her attention back to the buffet, while Jo-Jo put the cap on the polish she'd used on my nails. She had started to lean over and put the bottle back into a tub with the others when she paused and frowned. She stared at the bottles of nail polish, but her eyes were cloudy and unfocused, as though she wasn't really seeing what she was looking at.

"Jo-Jo?" I asked. "Is something wrong?"

The dwarf used her magic to heal wounds, but her power also gave her a bit of precognition, as it did with most Air elementals. While the stones whispered to me of all the things that people had done in a certain spot, the breeze whistled in Jo-Jo's ear about all the things that folks might do in the future.

Jo-Jo shook her head, making her soft, springy curls bounce around before they settled back into place. The cloudy, vacant look vanished from her eyes, although she put her hand up against her right temple and started massaging a small spot there, as if she suddenly had a head - ache.

"I can't put my finger...

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I looked away from the patch of wall that I'd been aimlessly staring at and down at my plate of food, which I'd set on the table. "I'm thinking that I should have put some more kosher salt on the potato chips."

Bria shook her head, causing her blond hair to glimmer like strands of spun gold in the sunlight streaming in through the windows. "No, you're not. You're thinking about something else, something important. What happened at Briartop? Or is it Owen?"

I grimaced at the mention of Owen Grayson, my, well, I didn't know exactly what Owen and I were these days.

Not together but not as far apart as we'd been. Owen had brought Jillian to the museum for Mab's gala. She'd been his friend and business associate and had wanted to be more, although Owen had told me that he didn't think of her like that. Either way, Jillian had still ended up dead because of me - the second woman associated with Owen to meet that particular fate in a matter of weeks.

Bria laid a hand on my arm. "You know you can talk to me, right? About anything?"

I nodded. I did know that, although it always amazed me. After years of thinking that Bria was dead, she'd reappeared in my life several months ago. It wasn't easy, her being a cop and my being an assassin, but we were making it work, and we were closer now than ever before.

"I know, and I appreciate it. What can I say? I like to

brood over my food."

Bria laughed, but then her face turned serious, as if she wanted to ask me something. She started toying with the silverstone pendant around her throat. A primrose, the symbol for beauty, her rune.

Watching her fiddle with her necklace made my fingers curl into my palms, touching the scars on my skin there, a small circle on either hand, each mark surrounded by eight thin rays. The same symbol was also stamped into the middle of the silverstone ring that I wore on my right index finger. My rune, a spider rune, the symbol for patience - and so many other things to me.

It too had once been a necklace, until Mab had used her Fire magic *****perheat the silverstone and melt the pendant into my hands, her brutal, effective way of torturing me and marking me in more ways than either one of us had known at the time.

"Gin?" Bria asked.

I snapped out of my memories. "I'm sorry. I spaced out there for a minute. Was there something that you wanted to ask me?"

Bria drew in a breath, but before she could tell me whatever was on her mind, the sound of a door banging open at the front of the house cut her off. A moment later, footsteps sounded. I recognized the heavy tread as belonging to Sophia, but the odd thing was that it didn't sound like she was walking normally. Instead, a series of scrape-scrape-scrapes screeched across the hardwood floor, as if Sophia was dragging one of her feet yet moving fast at the same time. Before I could puzzle out why she would be walking that way, she appeared in the salon doorway.

Jo-Jo might be a sweet Southern lady with her pink dresses, polish, and pearls, but Sophia had a different style altogether: Goth. Today, as usual, she wore black from head to toe - boots, jeans, and a T-shirt with a big pair of puckered crimson lips on it. A crimson leather collar spiked with silverstone ringed her throat, and her lipstick was a flat black that matched her hair.

Normally, I found Sophia's style to be dark but also cool, quirky, and funky. The problem now was that her black clothes kept me from noticing the blood on her arm and leg for several crucial seconds.

"Sophia?" I asked.

Her black eyes met mine, and I saw something there

I'd never seen before: fear.

"Run," Sophia rasped in her low, broken voice.

Then she collapsed without another word.

Chapter Three

"Sophia?" Jo-Jo said. "Sophia!"

Jo-Jo dropped the bottle of nail polish she'd been holding. The glass shattered on the floor, splattering the bright, glossy, strawberry liquid everywhere, but Jo-Jo didn't notice as she ran past us to where Sophia lay. Bria and I started forward too, but we'd only taken two steps when the front door banged open again, as though someone had kicked it wildly and sent it flying into the wall. A second later, more footsteps, multiple sets, all heavy, loud, and determined, all headed our way.

Whatever trouble Sophia had gotten into had followed her home.

Bria and I glanced at each other, then both lunged for the buffet table. Bria went for the gun in her straw bag underneath the table, while I reached for my silverstone knives atop its far end. But before we could get to our weapons, six men burst into the salon, all carrying guns.

Two of the men grabbed Jo-Jo and hauled her away from Sophia. The dwarf tried to fight back, but the men were strong, and they easily lifted her off her feet and pinned her against the closest wall. Two more men stood over Sophia, pointing their guns down at her, while another stepped forward, dug his hand into Bria's golden hair, and yanked her up against his body. The sixth man grabbed my left arm and leered at me, but he didn't drag me away from the buffet table. His first mistake - and his last.

If it had just been me, I would have instantly gone on the attack, grabbing my knives and using them to cut into the men until there was nothing left of them but bloody chunks. But I couldn't do that, not while they were holding guns on Bria, Jo-Jo, and Sophia. My Stone magic would let me survive being shot in the chest, but Bria's Ice and the Deveraux sisters' Air power wouldn't.

No, I'd have to be smart about things and wait for the right time to strike. Maybe I'd even keep one of the men alive long enough to question him. Because I wanted to know whom these bastards worked for and who'd sent them after me. That was the only reason I could think of for why they'd stormed into Jo-Jo's salon: because they knew that the Spider was here, and their boss wanted my head as a prize.

I coldly eyed the men. They were of varying shapes, sizes, and coloring, but they were all fit, trim, and tanned, as though they spent a lot of time outdoors. My gaze dropped to their hands, which were also rough, tan, and callused. Whoever they were, these guys were used to hard physical labor, which seemed at odds with the formality of their dress. They all wore old-fashioned brown suits, along with starched white shirts, heavy brown boots, and matching brown fedoras. All put together, they reminded me of some sort of Roaring Twenties gang, the kind that ran mountain moonshine back during Prohibition.

My gaze dropped to the gun the man holding me had shoved into my side, an old-fashioned revolver. The sort of large, sturdy hand cannon that would put a good-size hole in anyone - dwarf, giant, vampire, elemental. They weren't messing around when it came to their weapons.

Good for them.

Bad for them that they'd used the guns to burst into Jo-Jo's salon. It was one thing to attack me at the Pork Pit or even at Fletcher's house. I expected that these days. But my friends, my family, were off limits - period. Perhaps I'd let one of the men live long enough to crawl back to his boss and tell him that. Or maybe I'd deliver the message in person - along with the men's bodies.

One of the guys standing over Sophia turned and yelled over his shoulder. "We've got 'em, boss! It's all clear now!"

So the boss was here too. Good. That would save me the effort of tracking him down later or letting any of his men live.

This time, instead of banging against the wall, the door at the front of the house slowly creaked open. More footsteps sounded - slow, deliberate, and cautious - and another man stepped through the doorway and into the salon.

He was six feet tall, and his body was so dense it looked like it was carved out of granite. His muscles rolled with every breath he took, while his broad chest seemed solid enough to bounce a quarter off. He wasn't tall enough to be considered a giant, and his body had the stocky, sturdy construction that was associated with dwarves. Unless I missed my guess, he had both races' blood in his family tree, giving him the best of both worlds, a giant's size and a dwarf's tough musculature.

Unlike the other men, he was wearing a snazzy gray suit with a pair of red suspenders that peeked out from beneath his jacket. A gray fedora with a fluffy red feather tucked into the brim topped his head, casting his face in a bit of sinister shadow. Smoothly, he swept off his hat, revealing thinning black hair that was slicked back in a vain attempt to hide a burgeoning bald spot. His eyes were dark brown, and his skin was dusky olive. Lines furrowed his forehead and grooved around his mouth, but I couldn't get a real sense of his age. He could have been fifty. He could have been a hundred and fifty, or older, depending on how much dwarven blood he might have.

But the most disturbing thing was the fact that he was giving off magic.

Dozens of small, hot bubbles started bursting against my skin the second the man stepped into the salon, like matches being lit close to and then stabbed out on my bare arms. The annoying, burning sensation told me that he was probably quite strong in his Fire power, given the way the hot bubbles kept on popping and popping against my flesh. I ground my teeth together to keep from snarling at the horrible feel of his magic.

The leader surveyed his men. He nodded, apparently satisfied with how they'd taken control of the situation.

Then he stepped...

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Even more hate burned in Jo-Jo's eyes, making it look like she had two chunks of white quartz glowing in her face. "You're no friend of mine, Harley Grimes. You never were, and you never will be. So get out of my house. You weren't welcome back then, and you sure as hell aren't welcome now."

I kept my face blank, but my mind was spinning at the man's identity. Harley Grimes. I'd heard that name before, when Jo-Jo had told me how he'd kidnapped and tortured Sophia years ago. Grimes had even forced Sophia to breathe in elemental Fire, ruining her vocal cords.

My gaze snapped to Sophia, who was still lying on the floor. She stared back at me, and once again, I saw the fear in her eyes - fear not just for herself but for all of us.

She knew what Harley Grimes was capable of better than anyone.

So I turned my attention to the men surrounding us, looking for any weaknesses that I could exploit. A few seconds of inattention, a tremor in a gun hand, something, anything, that would give me an opening to attack - or at least let me put myself between Grimes and everyone else.

Grimes smiled again and let out a soft, sinister laugh.

"Of course I'll leave you in peace, Ms. Deveraux. I'm not a monster, after all. Besides, I've finally gotten what I came for - what you and Mr. Lane took from me all those years ago."

He turned away from Jo-Jo and jerked his head at the two men guarding Sophia. They reached down and hauled the Goth dwarf to her feet. Sophia winced and clutched a hand to her left thigh. Blood had soaked into her black jeans there, and more blood trickled out of the gunshot wound on her left arm, which peeked out from beneath her T-shirt sleeve. Grimes, Hazel, and their men must have jumped her somewhere, maybe in the alley behind the Pork Pit, and put a couple of bullets into her, trying *****bdue her so they could kidnap her. Sophia must have managed to escape and had come to warn Jo-Jo. But Grimes had known exactly where she would go, and he'd followed her to finish what he'd started.

"Oh, Sophia," Grimes purred. "How I've missed you."

He stretched out a hand, as though he were going to caress her cheek, but Sophia snapped out, trying to bite off his fingers. Grimes snatched his hand back at the last second, his face full of disbelief, as though he didn't understand why she wouldn't welcome his touch after he'd had her shot and threatened her sister. He regarded her for a moment, then casually flung his hand out and slapped her across the face.

The sharp crack reverberated through the room like a clap of thunder, and the hard, brutal impact made Sophia stagger back, along with the two men holding her. Oh, yes. Grimes was definitely strong, thanks to his giant and dwarven blood.

But even worse, he put a bit of his Fire magic into the blow, and flames flashed between them as his skin touched hers. The stench of burning flesh filled the salon.

After a moment, Sophia slowly raised her head. The imprint of Grimes's hand had been seared into her left cheek like a brand.

Even more Fire magic flickered in his eyes, making them burn a dark, dangerous brown. "I'd hoped that we would start out on better terms this time, but I'm going to enjoy teaching you to mind your manners around me once again. It seems that you've forgotten."

Sophia's nostrils flared with rage, but that was her only response.

The man holding on to my arm winced at Grimes's threat, as though he'd been on the receiving end of his leader's wrath in the past. He was so busy staring at Grimes that he didn't notice when I eased my right hand behind me, reaching back toward the buffet table. My fingers slid across the smooth surface until I felt something cold, hard, and metal. I stretched back a bit more, hooking a fingertip on the edge of the metal and dragging it toward me.

My hand closed around my knife a second later. I tightened my grip, feeling the spider rune stamped into the hilt pressing against the larger, matching scar on my palm. Owen had made this knife for me, and I was going to enjoy putting it to good use on Grimes, Hazel, and their band of miscreants.

"You leave her alone, Grimes," Jo-Jo snarled. "Sophia doesn't belong to you. She never has, and she never will."

Grimes turned to face her again. "It seems that you've forgotten something too, Ms. Deveraux. That I take whatever I want, and that whatever I want is mine. And I've been missing Sophia for a very long time now."

"You aren't leaving here with her," Jo-Jo snarled again.

"Not as long as I'm still breathing."

Grimes regarded her for a long moment. "Well, I have to admire your protective instincts, if nothing else. But this problem has a very simple, very easy solution."

"And what would that be?" Jo-Jo asked.

He smiled, showing off his perfect teeth again. I knew what he was going to do, but before I could move, before I could react, before I could ****ing stop it, Grimes reached into his suit jacket, pulled out a gun, and shot Jo-Jo in the chest.

Chapter Four

The bullet punching into Jo-Jo's body tore her loose from the men who'd been holding her. She gasped in pain, and her head snapped back against the wall, but she didn't go down.

So Grimes shot her again.

This time, Jo-Jo's bare feet slid out from under her, and she crumpled to the salon floor.

Bria, Sophia, and I all surged forward, struggling to get free of the men who were guarding us, but a ball of Fire magic flashed to life in Hazel's hand. She spun around in the middle of the salon, laughing, the skirt of her red dress rippling out around her like waves of blood.

"Give me a reason," she said, smiling at us all in turn, her magic making her eyes gleam with a dark, sadistic light. "Any reason at all."

I looked at Sophia, but she shook her head at me. She didn't want Bria or me to get shot - or worse, if Hazel had her way. I ground my teeth together in frustration, but I stopped fighting. I had my family to think about, and there was too much danger of Hazel burning Bria or

Sophia to death before I could kill her. Not to mention the fact that Grimes and the rest of his men could open fire on us at any second.

Sophia realized that I was standing down - for now - and she carefully pointed her right index finger at Jo-Jo, then raised her black eyebrows at me in a silent question.

She wanted me to save her big sister, no matter what happened to her in the meantime. Sophia was willing to sacrifice herself for the rest of us. She knew that the sooner Grimes and his men left with her, the sooner Bria and I could help Jo-Jo. My heart squeezed tightly, but I nodded back at her, telling her that I understood.

Grimes stared down at Jo-Jo, his face perfectly calm and composed. She was slumped against the wall, her skirt up over her knees, her legs sprawled out at an awkward angle. Her breath puffed out in short, painful, ragged gasps, and her hands pressed tightly over the two gunshot wounds in her chest. Blood oozed out between her fingers, dripping down and painting ugly crimson roses on her pretty pink dress. Scarlet specks also covered the white pearls around her throat.

I hoped that she might reach for her Air magic and heal herself with it, but I realized that I didn't know if she could actually do that. Even if she could, maybe the pain was simply too great for her to concentrate on her magic, or maybe using her Air power now would sap what little strength - and life - she had left.

When Grimes was sure that Jo-Jo wasn't going to get up, he gestured at some of his men. "You four, stay behind and make sure that Ms. Deveraux dies, then follow us back in the second car. I'm rather tired of knowing that she's alive."

His gaze focused on me, then on Bria, and he smiled again. "There's no hurry, though. I got what I came for, so take a few minutes to amuse yourself with these two, if you want. Just be sure they won't be able to speak to anyone about it after the fact."

The four men let out dark, delighted chuckles at the thought of raping and killing Bria and me, but they weren't nearly as cold and sinister as the black rage beating in my heart. I ignored the men and looked at Bria.

My sister's blue eyes blazed with anger. I nodded at her, and she nodded back. We knew what we had to do now.

Grimes stuffed his gun back under his suit jacket, then gallantly flipped his gray fedora back up onto his head.

He leaned forward and mockingly tipped his hat at Jo-Jo. She glared at him as best she could, but her eyes were glassy and slightly unfocused with pain.

"I would say until we meet again, but we both know that's not going to happen," Grimes said. "But don't you worry, Ms. Deveraux. I'll take real good care of Sophia for you. Just like I did before. In fact, I plan to give her my full attention in the days and weeks ahead. After all, we've got a lot of lost time to make up for."

Jo-Jo made a strangled sound, but Grimes had already turned his back on her.

He stepped through the salon doorway and crooked his finger at the two men still holding Sophia, who tightened their grip on her and started dragging her toward the doorway. Hazel stood to the side and watched, that ball of Fire magic still burning in her hand.

But Sophia wasn't going without a fight. She grabbed on to one side of the doorframe, holding on with one hand and stretching the other out to her...

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I hated to leave her in the middle of a fight, but she was right. We had to save Sophia.

I nodded at Bria. "Now!" I screamed.

We both rose from behind the salon chairs. The men raised their weapons to fire at us again, but Bria reared back and threw her Ice magic at them, causing them to duck down out of the way of the chilly blast. She followed that up by raising her own gun and firing it at the men while I sprinted for the doorway.

Hazel and the other two men had already managed to drag Sophia outside. knives in hand, I sprinted through the house and ran out the open front door. I leaped down\ off the porch and hurried across the lawn, my bare feet squashing the grass.

A large white van sat in the driveway, parked at a haphazard angle behind Sophia's classic convertible and a beige sedan that I didn't recognize. Hazel had already gotten into the driver's seat of the van and had cranked the engine. Sophia was still struggling with the two men at the back of the vehicle as Grimes looked on, apparently unwilling to get his suit or his hands dirty. I didn't bother screaming at the men to let go of Sophia. They'd do that as soon as I killed them - and Grimes and Hazel too.

Grimes must have seen me racing toward him out of the corner of his eye, because he turned in my direction.

He frowned and considered me a moment as though he were surprised that I'd managed to get past his men and make it all the way outside.

Then he threw his Fire magic at me.

The flames streaked through the air, seeming to burn hotter and brighter as they zoomed across the lawn. I didn't have time to duck them, not if I wanted to save Sophia, so I used my Stone magic to harden my skin as the elemental Fire engulfed me.

The searing strength of the heat stopped me in my tracks, and it took all my concentration to keep holding on to my own power so I wouldn't be incinerated. Grimes wasn't quite as strong as Mab had been, but his magic still packed a hell of a wallop.

I didn't want to waste precious seconds dropping to the ground and rolling around to smother the flames, so being one of the rare elementals who was gifted in not one but two areas, this time, I grabbed hold of my Ice power. I sent out a blast of magic and used my cold power to douse the Fire trying to scorch my skin. The flames immediately froze into weird twisted shapes, cracked off my body, and plummeted to the ground like icicles falling off a roof. The cold Ice hissed as it came into contact with the hot embers and smoldering grass underfoot. I darted forward again.

Apparently impatient with his men's lack of progress, Grimes was now wrestling with Sophia himself. He didn't bother to look at me to see if I was still standing. He seemed confident enough in his magic to believe that one fiery burst was enough to toast me to ashes. Fool.

Grimes grabbed Sophia and rammed her head into the side of the van. She kept fighting him, so he slammed her head into the metal again, hard enough to leave a dent behind. She collapsed on the driveway, unconscious.

Grimes easily picked her up and tossed her into the back of the van.

"Stop!" I screamed, trying to distract him long enough for me to get to Sophia. "Stop!"

He glanced over his shoulder at me and frowned again, as though I were some bothersome bug he thought he'd already swatted away. He gestured at his men, and they moved from the driveway over to the edge of the lawn in front of the house. I headed toward Grimes, but his men put themselves in between the two of us, and I had no choice but to go through them to get to him.

So I tightened my grip on my knives and threw myself into the fight.

The men pulled out their weapons, but I didn't give them the chance to fire. I sliced one of my knives into the gun hand of the man on my right, then pivoted and did the same thing to the second man. They both grunted with pain and surprise, but they snapped their hands up, ready to beat me to death. I didn't care. I moved back and forth between them, whirling this way and that, cutting into the first man, then the second, until they resembled a couple of pinatas, only with blood and guts pouring out instead of candy.

I finally managed to cut down one of the men in front of me. The other followed a moment later, giving me a clear path to the van and Sophia trapped inside.

"Sophia!" I screamed, running toward the vehicle."Sophia!"

Hazel threw the van into gear and whipped it into a U-turn right in the middle of Jo-Jo's lawn. The tires threw up grass and dirt, and the van fishtailed, but Hazel managed to get it under control. She gave me an evil grin before flooring it.

I dropped my knives and chased after the van, throwing myself forward, trying to use my speed and momen - tum to latch onto one of the rear door handles, but I just wasn't quick enough to catch the vehicle, and my fingers missed the handles by several inches.

I fell flat on my face instead.

My Stone magic softened the landing, but I still felt the jarring, bruising impact through my whole body.

Still, I pushed the pain away, rolled forward, and surged back up onto my feet. I wasn't giving up yet - But I was too late.

The van zoomed down the driveway, screeched through a hard right turn, and raced out of sight - taking my friend along with it.

Chapter Five

I sucked down a breath and started running again.

Maybe I could catch them before they got out of the subdivision - "Gin!"

I pulled up short and whirled around. Bria stood on the front porch, covered with blood.

"It's Jo-Jo!" she screamed again. "Get in here! Quick!"

I looked over my shoulder. By this point, the van was gone. I couldn't catch Grimes and Hazel, and I couldn't save Sophia.

I couldn't save her.

"Gin!" Bria yelled again.

My heart burned with rage and guilt and shame, but there was nothing I could do about that right now. So I sucked in another breath, grabbed my knives from where they had fallen on the driveway, and ran back toward the house.

Once Bria realized that I was headed in her direction, she darted back inside. Dread tied my stomach into tight, aching knots, and I forced myself to move even faster. I\ leaped up onto the porch, raced down the hallway, and burst into the salon. Bria was already crouched down by

Jo-Jo's side. Rosco was there too, his furry head resting in the dwarf's lap. He must have come back inside while I'd been chasing after Sophia. He let out a low, plaintive whine when he saw me, begging me to help the mistress he loved so much.

Jo-Jo was in the same spot as before, slumped against the wall, her head lolling to one side, her clear eyes open, blood all over her chest.

Fear, guilt, and grief roared to life inside my chest, bubbling up like lava about to erupt from a volcano. My knives slipped from my numb fingers and clattered to the floor. I bent over double from the cruel, searing pain, from the thought that Jo-Jo was gone, dead, murdered - that I'd failed her just like I had failed Fletcher when I hadn't been able to save him from being tortured to death inside the Pork Pit.

Then Jo-Jo slowly turned her head in my direction and looked up at me, her eyes bright and cloudy with pain, confusion, and fear - for her sister.

"Sophia . . ." Jo-Jo whispered, her voice faint and weak.

"Grimes . . ."

Relief surged through me, so sharp, cold, and bittersweet that it took my breath away. My knees buckled, and I stumbled down onto the floor beside her.

"Don't you worry about that right now," I finally said in a rough, ragged tone. "Just try to relax."

I peered at Jo-Jo's wounds, and my relief vanished, replaced once more by that hot, churning wad of fear, guilt, and grief. Grimes had shot her twice, and he'd made both bullets count. Two ugly holes marred her flesh, close to her heart. Each one a kill shot. The only reason Jo-Jo was still alive was that she was a dwarf, and her dense muscles had kept the bullets from tearing into her heart. But she was losing blood with every shallow breath that she drew in, and it wouldn't be long until she ran out of it entirely.

Bria picked up a towel she'd grabbed from somewhere and pressed it against Jo-Jo's wounds, trying to stem the blood loss. I got back up onto my feet, stepped over the dead men, and started rummaging through all of the pink plastic tubs on the counter, knocking bottles of shampoo, tubes of lipstick, and bags of pink sponge curlers off the surface in my hurried, desperate frenzy to find something that would help Jo-Jo. Finally, my fingers closed over a small metal tin, with a puffy cloud rune painted on the top in white and outlined in a deep, vibrant blue.

I popped the lid off the tin and dropped down beside Jo-Jo again. "Here," I told Bria. "This will help."

She pulled the towel away from the wounds, picked up Rosco, and moved him out of the way. I grabbed one of my knives from the floor and used it to cut open Jo-Jo's dress so I could have better access to her injuries. Then I dipped my bloody fingers into the tin, which was full of a clear ointment that had a soft, soothing vanilla scent.

I leaned forward and carefully smeared the substance all over Jo-Jo's chest, trying not to cause her any more pain than was absolutely necessary, but she still winced with every brush of my fingers against her skin.

Not only could Air elementals heal folks with their magic, but they could also imbue things...

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Then we pulled her across the Ice.

Bria had been right. With the slick surface, we were able to move farther and faster than if we'd still been trying to carry Jo-Jo. Rosco trotted along beside us, his black toenails digging into the Ice for traction.

We were still careful, though, trying not to jostle her any more than necessary. I hated doing this to Jo-Jo, dragging her along like she was just another body that I needed to dispose of, but we didn't have a choice, not if we wanted to get her to cooper before it was too late.

Jo-Jo didn't utter a sound the whole time, although I knew how much pain she had to be in, not only from her wounds but also at the thought of what Grimes would do to Sophia. Instead, she fixed her gaze on the ceiling. The clouds that had been painted up there matched the white mist that filled her eyes.

But what made my stomach clench were the scarlet smears left behind on the Ice, like long, thin talons trying to tear into the crystals. I couldn't tell if the stains were from all of the blood that covered Jo-Jo's clothes or if her wounds had started bleeding again. It didn't much matter, since I couldn't do a damn thing about it either way.

Not one damn thing.

Jo-Jo wasn't going to die, I vowed. I wasn't going to let her. I'd already lost my mom; my older sister, Annabella; and Fletcher. I wasn't going to lose Jo-Jo too. Not like this and not to a piece of scum as twisted, dirty, and rotten as Harley Grimes.

When we reached the end of the hallway, Bria bent down and sent another wave of Ice crystals rolling out in front of her, coating the front porch.

We had managed to tug Jo-Jo out onto the porch and started to pick her up again to carry her down the stairs when a car pulled up the driveway and stopped in front of the house. I tensed, thinking that maybe Grimes and Hazel had come back for their men, after all, or maybe even for Bria and me. But after a moment, I recognized the silver Audi and realized who it belonged to.

A woman opened the driver's-side door, got out, and stepped around the car. Like Bria and me, she was dressed down, in a black T-shirt, khaki shorts, and black strappy sandals, but the simple clothes only seemed to enhance the generous swell of her breasts, her toned legs, and all of the lush, lovely curves in between. She pushed her sunglasses up onto her head to hold back her black hair. The bright morning sun brought out the rich color of her toffee skin and eyes, further enhancing her beauty.

Roslyn Phillips gave us a happy wave and headed toward the porch, somehow not noticing the two dead men lying in the grass off to her left.

"What are y'all doing out here?" she called out. "I thought that y'all would be back in the salon where it was cool - "

What she did finally notice was the blood on Bria and me and the fact that Jo-Jo was lying on the porch between us. The smile slipped off her face, her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open in surprise and growing horror.

"Gin?" Roslyn asked in a hesitant voice.

"Open your car door!" I yelled at her. "Now!"

Roslyn didn't ask any questions as she hurried around the car, yanked open the back passenger door, and pulled out the basket of vegetables that had been sitting there.

Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and more tumbled out of the container and rolled across the driveway. Once that was done, she ran over to the porch. Bria and I started to lean forward to grab Jo-Jo's shoulders and ankles again, but Roslyn waved us away.

"Don't worry," Roslyn said. "I've got her."

She crouched down and scooped up Jo-Jo like the dwarf didn't weigh any more than a small child. It was bizarre, seeing svelte Roslyn holding stocky Jo-Jo in her arms, but it wasn't entirely unexpected. Roslyn wasn't an elemental, not like Bria and I were, but she was something that was even better in this situation: a vampire.

My eyes narrowed. "You've been drinking Xavier's 2 blood."

Like all vampires, Roslyn had to drink blood to live, but she got more than just vitamins and nutrients from it. Depending on whose blood she was chugging down, a vampire could absorb everything from an elemental's Fire magic to a dwarf's toughness from a frosty glass of O-negative. Even regular old human blood was enough to give most vamps enhanced senses and above-average strength. Since Xavier, Roslyn's significant other, was a giant, it only made sense that she was strong enough to pick up Jo-Jo.

Roslyn nodded. "Xavier says that my drinking his blood makes him feel better about me working at the club so late. He figures that if I have his strength, or at least a portion of it, then it's the next-best thing to him being there on nights when he's out working the police beat with Bria."

"Remind me to thank him for that," I murmured.

Roslyn quickly carried Jo-Jo over to her car and ma - neuvered her into the backseat, while Bria raced back inside the house. I climbed in beside Jo-Jo, and Rosco squeezed into the footwell, covering my bare feet with his warm, plump body. A few seconds later, Bria reappeared and slid into the front passenger seat, her arms full of towels.

"Where to?" Roslyn asked as she jumped into the driver's seat.

"Cooper Stills's place," I said. "Start heading north. I'll give you directions as we go along."

"You got it."

I took Jo-Jo's bloody hand in mine as Roslyn threw the car into gear, backed up, turned around, and zoomed down the long driveway.

Chapter Six

While we raced toward cooper's place, Bria passed me the towels that she'd grabbed from the salon. I used the cloth to keep steady pressure on Jo-Jo's wounds, which had started bleeding again, despite the healing ointment that I'd slathered on them.

"Who did this?" Roslyn asked, smoothly zooming her car around a sharp curve. "And why?"

Bria shook her head. "I don't know. We were in the salon, eating and talking, when these guys burst into the house. It looked like they'd followed Sophia there.

They took her and shot Jo-Jo. Gin and I killed some of the men in the salon . . ." She looked over her shoulder at me.

"And I took out two more outside the house," I said, finishing the story. "But they still managed to get away with Sophia."

Roslyn eyed me in the rearview mirror. "Gin?"

"His name is Harley Grimes," I snarled. "And he's a ****ing dead man."

I didn't say anything else, but Roslyn and Bria exchanged a glance. They had heard the vengeance in my voice, and they knew exactly what it meant.

At the sound of Grimes's name, Jo-Jo let out a low moan and weakly thrashed against me. I put a bloody hand on her forehead and smoothed back a few strands of her hair, trying to calm her down. Despite the violence that she'd suffered, her white-blond curls were still as perfect and springy as ever. So was her makeup, except for the drops of blood on her face.

"Shh," I said. "It's okay. Don't try to talk. We're on our way to cooper's right now. He'll be able to heal you."

At least, that was my hope. The only thing I'd ever heard of cooper doing with his magic was using it to help him build weapons, sculptures, and fountains in his blacksmith's forge. But he had Air magic, and he was Jo-Jo's best chance of making it through this alive.

Her only chance.

Jo-Jo let out another low moan, but the clouds that were still drifting through her eyes slowly parted, and she fixed her gaze on me.

"Gri . . . Grimes . . ." she whispered. "It was . . . him.

He's finally . . . come back . . ."

I smoothed back another one of her many curls, this one stiff and matted with blood. "Shh. Don't worry. I remember what you told me about Grimes. I'm going to get you settled at cooper's, and then I'm going to go get Sophia back, lickety-split. Believe me when I tell you that Grimes will wish that he'd stayed away."

"Prom . . . promise?" Jo-Jo rasped, her voice sounding eerily like Sophia's.

I bent down so she could see the cold determination in my wintry gray gaze. "Promise."

Jo-Jo nodded, and her eyes fluttered closed, as though that one simple word had solved all of her problems, including the bullets in her chest.

Roslyn steered around the curvy mountain roads with all the skill and speed of a race-car driver, and we made it to cooper's faster than I thought we would. Good thing, since every minute, every second, counted for Jo-Jo - and Sophia too.

Roslyn turned off the road and eased the car onto a driveway, which was really little more than a bumpy dirt track that seemed to lead to nowhere in particular. Roslyn slowed down, crawling up the hill, but the car still rocked from side to side. I grabbed hold of Jo-Jo and tried to keep her from jostling around too much. Rosco whined at my feet. He didn't like the roller-coaster ride either.

Finally, Roslyn rounded a curve, and a large, sprawling house came into view. It was a beautiful structure, made out of smooth gray river rock and topped with a coal-black A-line roof. To my surprise, a car was parked in front of the house, a silver Audi that could have been a twin to the one we were riding in. It looked like cooper had a visitor. Odd, given how far up in the mountains we were and how much the dwarf liked his privacy....

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"You can do it, coop," Phillip said in a hearty, cheery voice, clapping him on the back. "I know you can."

He didn't add that cooper simply had to figure out a way to make his magic work if Jo-Jo were *****rvive. We all knew that.

Some of the worry and uncertainty smoothed out of cooper's lined features at the vote of confidence. He gave Phillip a grateful wink. Then he tightened his grip on Jo-Jo's hand and leaned forward.

"Well," cooper murmured. "Here we go. Ready or not."

His eyes began to glow a bright copper as he reached for his Air magic.

I just hoped it would be enough.

Chapter Seven

Cooper's Air power surged through the kitchen, ruffling my hair and sliding across my bare arms before settling over Jo-Jo.

Even though his magic wasn't directed at me, it still felt like there were dozens of tiny invisible needles stabbing into my skin, and I gritted my teeth to keep from snarling at the uncomfortable sensation. Two elements always complemented each other, like Air and Fire, and two elements always opposed each other, like Fire and Ice. With cooper's Air magic being the antithesis of my own Stone power, it simply felt wrong to me, the way that fingernails screeching down a chalkboard drove some folks plumb crazy. Bria grimaced too. She didn't like the sensation of cooper's Air magic any more than I did.

For the longest time, all I was aware of were the uncomfortable pricks of cooper's magic, the coppery glow of his eyes, and the steady tick-tick-tick of the clock on the wall. One after another, the minutes slipped by, but we were all frozen in place, not daring to move or even speak for fear of breaking cooper's concentration.

I stood right behind the dwarf, while Bria and Roslyn were on the other side of the table next to the sink. Phillip leaned against a cabinet full of mismatched dishes in the corner, his arms crossed over his muscled chest, his jaw clenched so tightly that I could see the muscles standing out in his neck. Rosco lay at Phillip's feet, his blood - smeared head resting on one of Phillip's black leather wing tips.

Still, as I stared down at Jo-Jo, I couldn't help but think back to another place, another time, and another woman lying so very still . . .

The dwarf was totally weird.

That was the thought that kept running through my mind as Sophia closed down the Pork Pit for the night. Fletcher had left me in his restaurant an hour ago, saying that he had some business to take care of.

In other words, he had to go kill someone.

That's what Fletcher did as the assassin the Tin Man, and that's what he was going to teach me how to do too. I hadn't been staying with Fletcher long, just a couple of months, but he'd already showed me lots of ways to defend myself. He said that I was making good progress, mastering the basics. I didn't really think it was all that difficult. All you had to do was hit your enemy hard and long enough, and he'd eventually go down. All Fletcher was really teaching me to do was to find those weak spots and exploit them to the fullest.

I was disappointed that he'd had a job, especially since he'd promised me that he'd start showing me how to fight with weapons soon, including knives. That was what I was most interested in, since Fletcher used silverstone knives on most of his jobs, and I wanted to be just like him. I had been hoping that this was finally the night, but it hadn't turned out that way.

So there I was, sitting behind the counter, my schoolbooks spread out in front of me, even though I'd already finished my homework, watching Sophia mop the floor. The last customer had left thirty minutes before, and Sophia had pulled out a radio that Fletcher kept in a slot under the cash register and flipped it on. The radio was tuned to some oldies station, and she swiveled her hips in time to the snappy, upbeat music as she pushed the wet mop across the faded blue and pink pig tracks on the floor and then underneath the matching vinyl booths in front of the windows.

Sophia was dressed completely in black, from her boots to her jeans to her long-sleeved T-shirt. Even her lipstick was black. The only bit of color on her was the grinning white pi-rate skull in the middle of her shirt, which featured crimson flames shooting out of its eye sockets.

Someone took the whole Goth look a little too seriously, if you asked me. Oh, yeah. She was totally weird.

"So," I said when the song ended and some boring com mercials came on. "What do you and Jo-Jo like to do at night for fun? Cook? Watch TV? Play board games?"

Since Fletcher was out on a job, I was going home with Sophia and spending the night at Jo-Jo's house.

Sophia let out a soft snort at my question. I rolled my eyes. Okay, okay, so the dwarves were probably a little old for board games, but I was just trying to make conversation. It wasn't like I knew a lot about them, especially not Sophia.

Sure, she worked at the Pork Pit, but she never seemed to pay much attention to me, except to pick me up and move me out of her way whenever I got between her and the stoves. Literally, Sophia would put her hands under my armpits, hoist me up into the air, carry me around the counter, and plop me down on a stool, like I was some dumb kid who didn't know any better than to touch a hot stove or put my hand in the french fryer when the grease inside it was bubbling away.

Whatever. I was thirteen, not a complete idiot.

"You don't talk much, do you?" I asked.

Sophia looked at me out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't even deign to answer me with so much as a grunt this time. She kept right on mopping as if I hadn't said a word.

I huffed, letting her know how much she annoyed me, but I gave up trying to talk to her. Instead, I cracked open the book of fairy tales that Fletcher had given me and started reading.

Twenty minutes later, I had finished the first two stories.

Why did giants and witches always get such a raw deal? They were just defending themselves from bratty kids who wanted to steal their stuff and eat their property. If someone tried to swipe my golden goose or nosh on a piece of my gingerbread house, well, I'd unleash some of my wicked new self-defense moves on them and show them what was what. And so would everyone else in Ashland. Nobody took kindly to thieves in this city, especially not the folks over in Southtown.

Thinking about gingerbread houses made my stomach rumble, so I slid off my stool and went over to the cake stand sitting in the middle of the counter. I'd helped Fletcher make

some sugar cookies earlier. There were only five left, and I

knew that he wouldn't mind me eating them.

I lifted the glass top, set it aside, and grabbed one of the cookies. The sugary, buttery concoction melted on my tongue, bringing with it the sharp, sweet tang of the almond extract that added extra flavor to the dough. I sighed with contentment and reached for another one -

The bell over the front door chimed, signaling that we had a customer. I quickly chewed and swallowed the rest of my cookie, then wiped the c umbs off my hands, ready to tell the person that the restaurant was closed for the night.

But there was no need, since Jo-Jo stepped inside.

The dwarf was wearing a long pink coat, and her pearls peeked out from underneath the collar. Gloves the same cotton-candy color as her coat covered her hands, and a matching, fuzzy hat perched on top of her head, hiding most of her white-blond curls from sight.

At the sound of the door chime, Sophia came out of the bathroom, which she'd been cleaning. "Problem?" she rasped.

Jo-Jo shook her head. "I've got to go get Finn. The boy's at some party over in Southtown. Apparently, he decided to flirt with the girlfriend of the guy who brought him, and now he doesn't have a ride home."

Sophia snorted. Me too. With Finn, there was almost always some girl involved.

"Anyway, I thought I'd stop and see if you needed anything before I headed in that direction."

Sophia shook her head. Jo-Jo turned her clear gaze to me.

"What about you, Gin?" she asked. "I've got to swing by the grocery store on the way home. How about I get you some of that spearmint hard candy that you like so much, since you'll be spending the night with us?"

"Sure," I said in a soft, hesitant voice. "If it's not too much trouble."

"No trouble at all, darling."

Jo-Jo smiled at me, causing the laugh lines around her mouth to deepen and making her face look that much

warmer and more inviting. I found myself grinning back at her. Jo-Jo was one of those folks you couldn't help but like.

Sophia, not so much. Especially since she was frowning at me - again. She probably didn't like Jo-Jo bringing me a treat. Then again, Sophia didn't seem to like

anything about me.

Well, the feeling was definitely mutual.

"Actually, before I forget, Finn said that he left his coat in the back of the restaurant," Jo-Jo said. "He asked me to bring it to him. Gin, can you go get it for me, please?"

"Sure."

I pushed through the double doors and went into the back.

It took me longer to find the coat than it should have, but then again, I didn't know why it was in one of the walk-in freezers to start with. Maybe Finn had been in there making out with one of the college-age waitresses. You'd think those girls were old...

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She reached out and gently put a hand on the kid's scrawny shoulder. He was so thin that his collarbone jutted up against the top of his ratty T-shirt. The kid flinched at

Sophia's touch, and her mouth turned down, as though she were suddenly sad for some reason.

"Gin, get a cloth. Clean up."

I knew that it was for the kid, to wash the blood off his face, but I eyed the dwarf, wondering at the sudden change in her. I'd never seen Sophia go from being so gruff to so angry to so sad before, all in the matter of a minute.

But I went into the back, got a clean dish rag, and wet it with warm water. By the time I returned, Sophia had sat the kid down at one of the tables and had put the rest of the sugar cookies on a plate for him to eat, and he was gulping them down as fast as he could. Annoyance spurted through me, but he looked like he could use the calories more than I could, so I shrugged it off. Besides, I knew exactly what it felt like to be that hungry.

I handed Sophia the rag, and she managed to get the kid to stop eating cookies long enough for her to start wiping off his face. Once again, I stared at Sophia, amazed at how tender she was being and the care she took in dealing with him. She certainly wasn't that gentle with me whenever she picked me up and moved me out of her way. Then again, I didn't look like I'd just had my face run through the bottom of a blender either.

"More," she said a minute later, holding the dirty rag to me.

The kid used the lull to stuff another cookie into his mouth.

I rolled my eyes at her command, but I took the dirty rag, went into the back, exchanged it for a new, clean one, and soaked it with warm water. I had started to push through the double doors to step back out into the storefront when the bell over the front door chimed - and two giants burst into the restaurant.

"There he is!" one of the men screamed, stabbing his finger at the boy. "You dirty little thief!"

Sophia surged up onto her feet, stepping in front of the kid and trying to protect him, but the first giant was in a rage, and he rammed right into her, driving her all the way across the restaurant and back up against the counter.

I gasped, my hand strangling the warm rag that I was still holding.

The boy let out a frightened squeak. He got up to run, but the second giant snatched him by the back of his neck and drove a fist into his ribs. The boy dropped like a stone to the floor.

Sophia let out a bellow of rage at the sight. She snapped first one fist, then the other, up into the giant's chin, driving him back. And she didn't stop there. She threw punch after punch at the giant, driving her fists, fingers, and even her elbows into his chest, throat, and groin.

My mouth fell open a little more at her quick, brutal, efficient assault. I knew that Sophia was strong - she was a dwarf, after all - but I had no idea that she was such a total badass too. I wondered if this was a result of the training that Jo-Jo said that Fletcher had given her.

Sophia threw another punch at the giant, but this time, he managed to catch her hand in his. He squeezed her fingers, and I heard her bones pop from the brutal pressure. Sophia grunted with pain, and the giant slammed his fist into her face. She staggered back, her legs going out from under her and her head snapping against the counter. She too fell to the floor, unconscious.

The giant loomed over her, but when a minute passed and she didn't stir, he glanced over his shoulder at his buddy.

"What do we do now, Mason?" he asked.

The giant who'd hit the boy, Mason, grinned back at him.

"I say we see how much is in the cash register, grab everything we can from the back of the restaurant, and then dump their bodies outside on our way out the back door. What do you say, Zeke?"

The other giant returned his friend's evil grin with one of his own. "Sounds like a plan to me."

Mason grabbed the kid's leg and dragged him over to where Sophia lay, while Zeke went around the counter and started messing with the cash register.

I held my position behind the door and tried to think how I could stop them.

Because I was going to stop them.

Sure, Sophia might not be my favorite person, but she was Jo-Jo's sister, and Jo-Jo dearly loved her. Besides, I couldn't let the men kill her, much less a kid they'd already beaten and tortured, without trying to stop them. That would go against everything that Fletcher was teaching me about how to protect myself and especially the people that I cared about.

Through the door window, I risked another glance into the storefront, but the men were still busy with the cash register. My gaze kept going back to their massive fists. There was no way that I was a match for their strength. No, I needed a weapon if I had any chance of taking them down - I needed a knife.

I turned away from the door and ran back toward the storage room where Fletcher kept the extra vegetable knives, wondering if I could really do it, if I could really save Sophia, or if I'd end up being beaten to death along with her and the kid -

A soft thunk snapped me out of my memories.

One second, I was running through the restaurant on that night so long ago. The next, I was back in cooper's kitchen, the stench of Jo-Jo's blood saturating the air like the foulest sort of perfume.

cooper reached down and picked up something small and metal off the table. He held it up so we could all see the bloody bullet that he'd fished out of Jo-Jo's chest.

"One down," he murmured, setting it back down on the table. "One to go."

A few minutes later, another thunk sounded as cooper used his magic to pull the second bullet out of Jo-Jo.

"Now comes the hard part," he muttered.

cooper reached for even more of his Air magic, so much of it that a strong, steady breeze gusted through the kitchen, whipping up the sketches that he'd shoved onto the floor and whirling them around and around like a tornado. cooper let go of Jo-Jo's hand and held his palm up over her chest, right above the two bullet holes, his hand and fingers glowing a rich, warm bronze.

Slowly, very, very slowly, he started moving his hand back and forth over the wounds. And slowly, very, very slowly, the ugly black holes in Jo-Jo's skin started to pucker up and draw in on themselves. Several minutes later, her injuries had sealed up completely.

If Jo-Jo had been healing someone, his or her skin would have smoothed out, as though that person had never been shot in the first place. But the marks on Jo-Jo's chest remained red and puffy, like two large, angry blisters on her skin. cooper strained and strained with his magic, causing more and more Air currents to whip through the kitchen, but he couldn't get the wounds to fade out. Maybe he couldn't figure out how to do it, or maybe that level of finesse was simply beyond him.

Finally, cooper let go of his magic.

"There," he said, letting out a breath and wiping a sheen of sweat off his forehead. "That's the best that I can do."

"Will she live?" I asked in a low voice.

He kept staring at her, exhaustion and uncertainty etching deep lines into his face. "I got the bullets out, but she lost a lot of blood, and there was a lot of damage inside her that I didn't know how to fix. That I was afraid to try to fix, in case I ended up making everything worse instead. So I don't know. I just . . . I don't know."

He stepped back and staggered as his feet went out from under him. He would have fallen to the floor if Phillip hadn't stepped forward and grabbed him. Roslyn hurried to take cooper's other arm, and together they led him into the den so he could sit down and rest. He'd used up all of his Air magic, all of his great dwarven strength, trying to heal Jo-Jo - and it still might not have been enough to save her.

Bria moved over and gave my arm a sympathetic

squeeze before following the others into the den, leaving me alone with Jo-Jo. Well, Rosco and me. The basset hound got to his feet, walked over, and plopped down

beside the table, guarding his mistress once again. Normally, the dog spent most of his time snoozing in his basket in the salon, only deigning to get up for treats and tummy rubs. I couldn't ever remember seeing him this active. Then again, this was anything but an ordinary day. In the den, the low murmur of voices sounded. No doubt Bria was filling cooper and Phillip in on what had happened at the salon.

I carefully took Jo-Jo's hand in mine. Normally, she had the softest, warmest, gentlest hands of any person I knew, but right now, her skin was cool and clammy to the touch. Still, her breathing came easily enough, her chest rising and falling in a slow but steady rhythm. I slid my fingers down against her wrist, searching for her pulse. It too was slow but steady. The tight, tense pain that had pinched her brow had vanished, and her features were slack and relaxed.

I leaned down and put my mouth close to her ear.

"You rest easy, sweetheart. Because now that you're safe, I'm going to go get Sophia back - and put Harley Grimes in the ground for good."

I didn't know if Jo-Jo could hear me or not, but I'd made my promise to her, and I was going to keep it, no matter what.

But I couldn't do it standing there waiting for her to wake up. She wouldn't want that anyway. No, she'd want me to go after Sophia as soon as I could.

So I leaned down and...

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"Oh, no," I sniped. "Probably just some cracked ribs from the looks of that."

"I don't think they're cracked," she said in a defensive voice. "They weren't even bothering me until a few minutes ago."

"That's because the adrenaline hasn't completely worn off yet. Believe me, even if they're not cracked, they're still going to be plenty sore soon enough. Now, come over here, and sit down."

Bria grumbled, but she let me guide her over to a blue recliner in the corner and sank down onto it. She winced again. If that simple motion hurt, it wouldn't be long before her bruised body stiffened up more, and she wouldn't be able to do anything without feeling the pain of the fight.

"You're staying here," I said. "You're in no con***ion to fight, especially not against someone like Grimes."

Bria's face scrunched up with mulish determination, and she opened her mouth to argue, but I cut her off.

"Please?" I asked in a soft voice. "Sophia's already gone, and I almost lost Jo-Jo. I don't want to lose you too."

Her lips flattened out into a thin line, but she reluctantly nodded. That alone told me how much she was already hurting. "All right, all right," she said. "What do you want me to do?"

"call Finn, and tell him what happened, then stay here and watch over Jo-Jo. I don't think that Grimes will come after her again, but I don't know that he won't either."

Bria nodded, and she squeezed my hand. "Just promise me that you'll be careful."

I squeezed back. "I promise."

"I'll stay too," Roslyn volunteered. "And I'll call Xavier and let him know what's going on."

"Thank you. And I need one more favor from you."

"Name it."

I looked at Roslyn. "can I borrow your car?"

She reached into her shorts pocket, pulled out her keys, and tossed them over to me. "Only if you promise to ram it over the bastard who took Sophia."

I grinned. "consider it done."

I didn't tell Roslyn that running over Harley Grimes with her car was too good, too quick, and far too merciful a death for him. Oh, no. I was going to give Mr. Grimes my personal brand of attention - Spider-style.

The others agreed to stay put, keep an eye on Jo-Jo, and hold down the fort in case Grimes or any of his men showed up at cooper's. It was a long shot that they would, but I hadn't thought armed men would burst into the salon this morning either.

I headed outside, but I wasn't alone. Phillip followed me. He matched me stride for stride as I stepped off the patio and started around the house.

"What do you want, Phillip?"

"I want to go with you."

I stopped and gave him a flat look. "Not going to happen. Jo-Jo's not out of the woods, cooper's exhausted, and Bria's injured. Someone needs to stay here and help Roslyn with them, and that someone is going to be you."

"And you need someone to watch your back," Phillip

countered. "Look at you. You're a bloody mess right now.

Hell, you don't even have any shoes on."

I glanced down, my toes curling into the soft grass.

He was right. I'd been so focused on getting Jo-Jo out of the salon that I hadn't even stopped to grab my sandals on the way out. I shrugged and started walking again.

"What do you think you're going to do?" Phillip continued, moving with me. "Get a couple of knives, go up to Grimes's camp, and take him out?"

"That's exactly what I'm going to do," I said. "Except that I'm not going to be so nice as to merely kill him. No, after I get there, I plan on carving up Harley Grimes like a Thanksgiving turkey and leaving pieces of him all over the mountain for the buzzards to find. If they can stomach the likes of him."

Phillip didn't bat an eye at the cold promise of violence in my voice. "I can't say that I disapprove, but Grimes is a bad, bad guy, Gin. He's someone that even I would think twice about taking on. I didn't tell you half of the things I've heard about him."

"Like what?"

"Well, for starters, he's ruthless."

"And I'm not?"

Phillip ignored my snide comment. "Grimes kills anyone who tries to cut in on his gun-running market in the slightest way. Mab herself used to get weapons for her giants from him, and even she paid what Grimes asked for them. A couple of the Southtown gangs made moves against him in the past, but he killed them all - and their family members. Mothers, sisters, brothers, cousins." He hesitated. "Apparently, Grimes also fancies himself a ladies' man. And if he sees a lady he likes - "

"He takes her," I finished. "No matter who gets in his way. Yeah, I knew that already. I got a close-up view of Mr. Grimes doing that in the salon."

Sophia! Jo-Jo! Sophia! Jo-Jo!

The Deveraux sisters' screams echoed in my head, and the memory of Sophia hanging on to that doorframe, stretching one hand out to Jo-Jo, rose in my mind, blocking out everything else. I blinked, and the image vanished. But left in its place was my dark desire to end Harley Grimes's miserable existence. Once again, that cold, black rage pulsed through my body, beating along like an ominous song keeping time with my heart.

I rounded the front of the house, stalked over to Roslyn's car, and wrenched open the driver's-side door.

"Gin?"

I turned to face Phillip. concern darkened his blue eyes, and his golden eyebrows were drawn together, as if he was still trying to think of some way to talk me out of this. His hands were curled into fists, and I got the distinct impression that he was considering tackling me to keep me from leaving. But nothing short of death would stop me, and if I had to hurt Phillip to make my point, well, I wouldn't like it, but I'd do it, the way I had done so many other terrible things over the years.

Phillip must have sensed my thoughts, because he made himself loosen his fists and step back, although his jaw was still clenched so tightly it made his chiseled cheekbones stand out like arrows pushing against his skin.

Phillip and I weren't friends, not exactly, but he was trying to look out for me in his own way. So I decided to put his mind at ease - so to speak.

"You're forgetting one thing, Phillip."

"And what's that?"

"Harley Grimes might be a bad, bad guy, but I happen to be a bad, bad bitch. And this bastard has hurt my family for the second time. He's not just going to pay for that - he's going to die for that. Believe me when I tell you that nothing you do or say is going to stop me from going up to his camp and killing anyone and anything that looks at me cross-eyed."

Phillip's lips pinched tight with frustration. "Well, if you won't let me go with you, at least let me call Owen."

"No. No way. Absolutely not. This doesn't have anything to do with him."

Phillip snorted. "You're involved in it, which means that he is too. He'll never forgive me if I let you go off and get yourself killed. He loves you, Gin. He always has, despite what happened with Salina."

What happened was that I'd killed Owen's ex-fiancee, Salina Dubois, even though he'd asked me not to. Of course, Salina had been trying to kill me and a whole bunch of other people at the time, but Owen had still had a hard time dealing with her death, especially since it had been at my hand. Needless to say, our relationship hadn't exactly been a bed of roses since then.

Still, Owen and I weren't as estranged as we had been.

Since seeing each other at the Briartop museum, he'd come into the Pork Pit a few times to have lunch. We were still dancing around each other, though, still trying to figure out how or even if we could move forward. That was frustrating enough, but I didn't want Owen involved in this.

"Gin?" Phillip asked. "Did you hear what I said?"

"Owen and Salina have nothing to do with this," I snapped. "Jo-Jo and Sophia are my family, and nobody - no damn body - hurts my family. Ever. Hell, even if they weren't my family, I wouldn't leave anyone to the likes of Harley Grimes. Not after what I saw him do this morning."

Phillip hesitated again, like he wanted to tell me something else, but I didn't let him.

"Look," I said. "The best thing that you can do for me right now is see to cooper. Make sure that he's resting and getting his strength back. I don't know how well his magic worked on Jo-Jo, and he might need to try to heal her again. He knows that you believe in him. That will give him more confidence that he can save Jo-Jo if she takes a turn for the worse. And I'm also asking you believe in me . Because I didn't earn my reputation as the Spider by chance."

"I know," Phillip said. "But you shouldn't have to do it alone."

I gave him a grim smile. "I appreciate the concern, but in the end, we're all alone - especially me."

"Just . . . be careful, okay, Gin? I don't fancy getting an ass-kicking from Owen over you."

"Why, Philly," I drawled, using Eva Grayson's childhood...