Heart of Venom (Elemental Assassin 9)

It was such a loud, jarring, unexpected sound that I whirled around, a knife in my hand, ready to kill whatever was making that noise. But after realizing that it was only my phone, which I'd left on the buffet table, I let it ring until it went to voice mail. I picked it up and had started to slip it into my pocket when it began ringing again. I had a sneaking suspicion who was calling and that he wouldn't give up until I answered.

"What?" I growled into the receiver.

"Finally!" Finn practically shrieked in my ear. "There you are! I've been calling and calling you!"

"Yeah, well, I've been a little busy, in case you haven't heard. "

"I got off the phone with Bria a few minutes ago," Finn said. "Tell me what happened. "

I quickly filled him in on everything that had happened. While I talked, I left the salon and walked down the hallway, my sandals sloshing through the puddles of

water. I stepped out onto the front porch, stopping to shut the door behind me. At least, I tried to. Its hinges had come loose from the frame, and it wouldn't quite close all the way. Another thing that Grimes had broken - and something else that he was going to pay for.

When I finished, Finn was silent for a moment. Then he let loose with a very long, very loud, very imaginative string of curses that quickly devolved into a raging manifesto about how Grimes should be brutally tortured, stitched back together, and then tortured again for everything that he'd done to Jo-Jo and Sophia.

"Well," I drawled when Finn had finally calmed down enough to let me get a word in edgewise. "I second all that. In fact, I'm getting into the car right now to go make it happen. "

"I'm up in cypress Mountain meeting with a client, but I can leave right now and be down there in a few hours," Finn said. "Then we can go after Sophia together. "

"There's no time. I need to get to her as soon as possible. There's no telling what Grimes will do to her. "

I didn't tell him that it might already be too late. Finn knew that as well as I did.

"You can't go after Grimes alone," Finn said. "Who knows how many more men he has on that mountain of his? At the very least, you'll be outnumbered. "

"I can, and I'm going to. I don't care how many fucking men he has. I'll kill every single one of them if that's what it takes; you should know that. "

"I do know that. I also know that you're upset, but going up there on your own isn't a smart move," Finn said. "You know it too, deep down inside. You're just not thinking clearly right now because you're so angry. "

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

The sisters' screams echoed in my head again, and once more all the images, all the terrible memories, of the day overwhelmed me. Sophia stumbling into the salon, telling us to run. Jo-Jo stretching her hand out toward her sister. Sophia hanging on to the doorframe with all her might. The coppery smears of Jo-Jo's blood on Bria's sheet of elemental Ice. The agony in her eyes at the thought of Sophia in Grimes's clutches. The cold touch of Jo-Jo's hand at cooper's house.

Finn was right. I was angry. But I was determined too.

And waiting simply wasn't an option, no matter how dangerous doing this alone was going to be.

"My thinking is crystal-clear," I snapped. "Save Sophia. kill Grimes. It's pretty cut-and-dried. Save your breath, Finn. "

"Gin, wait - "

I hung up on him. The phone started ringing a second later. No doubt, Finn thought that he could talk me out of it. He should have known better.

Chapter Ten

With my phone turned off and tossed onto the passenger seat of Roslyn's car, I left Jo-Jo's salon and drove over to Fletcher's house, my house now. I zoomed up the driveway, making the tires spit out gravel in every direction, crested the ridge, and parked.

The ramshackle structure looked a bit odd, since it featured a mishmash of white clapboard, brown brick, and gray stone, all topped off by a tin roof. But to me, it was simply home. To the right of the house, the yard stretched out before abruptly dropping off into a series of jagged cliffs. To the left, the woods formed a solid line of green, gray, and brown.

I got out of the car and headed for the front porch.

Normally, I took a moment to reach out with my magic and listen to the stones around me, in case anyone had decided to lie in wait to ambush the Spider at home. But today I didn't even bother. If someone was out there, then today was the unluckiest day of his life, because the idiot would be my warm-up for Harley Grimes.

But as I opened the heavy black granite front door shot through with thick veins of silverstone, nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the chirping of the birds in the trees or the rustle of the rabbits in the underbrush. Good. I didn't want anything else to slow me down and keep me from reaching Sophia as quickly as possible.

I stepped inside, shut the door behind me, and headed straight for Fletcher's office. I hated delaying even a second, but I needed more information before I went after Grimes, and this was the one place I was sure I could get it.

A large maple tree shaded this part of the house, and even with the day's sun, Fletcher's office was dark enough that I had to turn the lights on to see what I was doing.