Heart of Venom

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 creakedopen. 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 to one side, and I realized that he wasn’t alone. A woman had followed him into the salon.

The woman wore an old-fashioned red wrap dress that could have come straight out of some gangster movie, with a pair of black patent-leather kitten heels.

Her black hair was curled into tight waves against her skull, and a couple of thin diamond pins sparkled in her dark locks. She had the same brown eyes and dusky olive skin as the leader, and it was obvious that they were related, although she seemed a bit younger. Her body was also taller and much slimmer than his, as though she’d gotten more of the giant than the dwarven blood from the family tree. Plus, she was giving off the same sort of

Fire magic as the leader, and her power felt even stronger than his.

The woman looked first at Sophia, then at Jo-Jo. She didn’t even bother glancing at Bria or me. Her gaze went back to Sophia and stayed there, and she smiled, her teeth as white as paper against her scarlet lips.

Meanwhile, the leader smoothed his black hair back that much more and plastered a pleasant smile on his face, as though he’d dropped by for a polite visit. He stepped forward, and a curious thing happened. Instead of walking over to me and spouting off about how he was finally going to kill the Spider, he too ignored me completely and moved toward Jo-Jo.

He stopped right in front of her and smiled even wider, revealing a row of perfect white teeth. “Ms. Deveraux, what a pleasure to see you again. It’s been a long, long time.” His voice was cool and cultured, but I could detect a faint twang in it, as though he had some hillbilly accent that he was working hard to hide.

“Not long enough,” Jo-Jo snarled. “I know why you’re here, and you, your men, and that twisted sister of yours can get the hell out of my house.”

He sighed and shook his head, as though her violent reaction saddened him. “I thought that the past fifty years or so might have made you more reasonable, but I can see that’s just not the case.”

Jo-Jo didn’t bother responding. Instead, she spat in his face.Everyone froze, except for Jo-Jo, who spat in the leader’s face again. She started to do it a third time, but one of the men holding on to her shoved his gun even deeper into her side and thumbed back the trigger. Jo-Jo stopped spitting, but she did lift her head and give the leader a look that was total, murderous hate.

Jo-Jo prided herself on her manners, and it shocked me to see her do something so crass, so vicious and out of character. Bria raised her eyebrows at me, as surprised as

I was, but I shook my head a tiny bit in response. I didn’t know who the man was or why Jo-Jo would look at him that way. But one thing was clear. This wasn’t about me, but I was going to end it.

The woman in the red dress moved closer and raised her hand so that it was level with Jo-Jo’s face. She rubbed her thumb and forefinger together, and red-hot embers hissed out from between her fingertips as though she was holding a sparkler. More and more of those invisible bubbles popped against my skin as the woman reached for even more of her Fire magic.

“Let me kill her,” the woman snarled in a voice that was even twangier than the leader’s. “Or at least put out one of her eyes. She deserves it for insulting you like that.”

“No, Hazel,” the leader said, pulling a gray silk handkerchief from his pants pocket and using the fabric to wipe the spit off his face. “Leave her be—for now.”

Hazel gave him a sour look, but she reluctantly let go of her magic, dropped her hand, and stepped away from Jo-Jo.

The man tucked his handkerchief back into his pants.

He pulled his hand out, and a small piece of paper fluttered out of his pocket and drifted to the ground. He didn’t seem to notice it, though. Then again, it was most likely just a bit of trash. Just like he was.

“You’ll have to forgive me. I would have been here sooner, but I’ve been busy these past few months. Business has been booming ever since Ms. Monroe died, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

Business? What sort of business was he in? And what did it have to do with Mab?

He paused, as if he expected Jo-Jo to respond, but she kept silent.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I finally managed to get myself in gear and come on back down to Ashland. I’d been meaning to for a while now. Ever since I heard that our mutual friend Mr. Lane had passed away last year. A shame, him being tortured to death like that.”

I frowned. Fletcher’s murder was no secret, but there was something ominous about the way the leader talked about him, as though the old man’s death was something he’d been waiting for and looking forward to for a long, long time. He said that he’d known Jo-Jo some fifty years ago. Had he known Fletcher back then too? Had the two of them been enemies all these years?

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 to subdue 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 sharpcrack 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 fucking stopit, Grimes reached into his suit jacket, pulled out a gun, and shot Jo-Jo in the chest