Venom (Page 78)

I smiled into the darkness. "Promises, promises, sugar. As for what you did to me, well, you helped make me what I am. So really, you’ve got no one but yourself to blame for the cold, cold wrath that I am about to rain down on you and yours."

"I’ll find you, and when I do, you’re going to die," Mab snarled. "Slowly. Painfully."

"That’s another bit of beauty about being self-employed," I replied. "It’s only me on my crusade. There’s no one else to talk to. No one else to squeal, to bribe, to threaten. And I’m very, very good at being invisible. You won’t find me until I want you to. But I did do you the courtesy of leaving my calling card, so to speak."

"That f**king spider rune?" Mab asked. "Why a spider rune? It’s so simple, so weak."

I hesitated. Didn’t she remember my spider rune medallion? How she’d tortured me with it all those years ago? Didn’t she realize that I was Genevieve Snow, back from the dead?

Maybe not, I thought. After all, it had been seventeen years ago, and Mab had killed scores of people in the meantime. Hard to keep track of everyone, especially since I’d just been a weak, helpless kid back then. Besides, Mab had been concerned with Bria and my mother that night-not me. Hell, I probably wasn’t the only person the Fire elemental had tortured who’d used a spider rune. It wasn’t the most common symbol out there, but it wasn’t unheard of either.

Maybe Mab had forgotten me. Maybe she just couldn’t be bothered to remember right now, given the ugly surprise of Elliot Slater’s death. Maybe she’d put it together later. Maybe she did remember and was just screwing with me. Didn’t much matter at the moment. All that did matter was making sure my message was delivered loud and clear.

"Why a spider rune? Because it’s the symbol for patience," I replied. "And I can wait however long I have to until I get you. So look at the rune, Mab, memorize it and remember it well. Because you’ll be seeing it again real soon, sugar. Including the second before you die."

"You stupid, arrogant bitch-" she started.

I shut my phone. I’d said everything that I needed to. But evidently, Mab didn’t like the way the conversation ended. Down in the driveway, the Fire elemental stared at her cell phone, a look of disbelief on her face. A second later, a ball of fire erupted in her hand, toasting the phone and flashing up into the night sky. The cops in front of the mansion immediately turned, hands going to their guns, wondering if this was some new threat. A few of the reporters screamed at the unexpected blast, and everyone took a few steps back.

I counted off the seconds in my head. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Forty-five… The fire snuffed out of Mab’s hand, and her fingers curled into a tight fist. After a moment, she took a breath, opened her fist, and clapped a bit of ash off her hands. Then the Fire elemental turned on her heel and got back into her waiting limo. Message received.

A cold smile curved my lips before I turned and slipped off into the dark woods.

And now, promises to keep. Promises to keep.

Chapter Thirty

"Broken wrist, cracked ribs, and more cuts and bruises than I can count." Jo-Jo ticked off my many injuries one by one.

I shrugged. "It was a slow night."

I lay in one of the cherry red chairs at Jo-Jo Deveraux’s beauty salon. After hiking back down the mountain, I’d driven myself over to the dwarf’s house so she could heal me up once more. Sophia had already positioned herself above me. The Goth dwarf had her hands clamped on my arms, ready to hold me down so Jo-Jo could pour her healing Air elemental magic into my battered body.

In the next chair over, the already healed Finn murmured a quiet good-bye and snapped his cell phone shut.

"That was Xavier, checking in," he said. "Roslyn’s given her statement to the cops. She said exactly what you told her too, Gin. She told the police that Elliot Slater kidnapped her from Northern Aggression and took her up to his mansion because of what she said about him on the riverboat. That he beat her before leaving her tied to the bed. They also found the clothes and mementoes of his other victims in that closet you rifled through, the other women that he raped and murdered."

I nodded. That was the cover story we’d gone with, a way for Roslyn to be the victim that she really was in all this, instead of a twisted scapegoat to cover up Slater’s many crimes.

Finn drew in a breath. "Roslyn told them the rest of it too. That she heard lots of noise, lots of screaming, and then several gunshots. That a masked figure, a woman, came into the bedroom where she was at and untied her. That the woman told Roslyn that she was the Spider and to tell everyone in Ashland what she had done to Slater and his men. Then the woman vanished into the night. Roslyn passed out, and the next thing she knew, the cops were everywhere."

Finn stared at me, his eyes bright and green in his ruddy face. "It’s already all over the news. They’ve dubbed you a vigilante, some sort of modern day Robin Hood. Except, of course, you kill people instead of just stealing from them."

I nodded again. That’s exactly what I’d wanted to happen. To set myself up as a larger-than-life legend, to distract people from the fact that I was just as human and mortal as the rest of them. People looking for legends tended to ignore the mundane, like someone who owned a barbecue joint and took classes at the local community college.

"I’m proud of you, Gin," Jo-Jo said in a soft voice.

"Proud," Sophia echoed in her raspy voice.

"Why?" I replied. "For setting myself up as a target for Mab Monroe? According to Finn, she’s already got her people trying to figure out who I am and what I really want from her. She thinks I’m working for someone who’s trying to muscle in on her territory. One of her many enemies."

Jo-Jo shook her head. "No. For saving Roslyn Phillips, for putting the blame on yourself instead of on her."

I shrugged. "It was my fault Elliot Slater fixated on her in the first place. I owe her more than I can ever repay for that alone. Besides, there was just no other way to work it out. Otherwise, Mab would have come after Roslyn, even though she knew that the giant was stalking the vampire."

"Still," Jo-Jo said. "It’s something that Fletcher Lane would have done. I’m sure wherever he is, he’s looking down and smiling at you, Gin."

I thought of the old man, of the file of information that he’d left me on my murdered family, about the fact that he’d gotten Bria to come back to Ashland to look for me. Jo-Jo was right. I felt like I was following in Fletcher’s footsteps in a weird sort of way. The old man had done pro bono jobs for folks. Now I was doing one for the whole city of Ashland.