Free Elemental Assassin 05 - Spider's Revenge by authors_sort Page A

The slight sensation was enough to derail my memories, and I dropped my gaze to the ring, latching on to the distraction.
    Truth be told, it wasn’t much to look at. The ring was completely plain and featureless, except for the tiny spider rune stamped into the middle of the thin band. But to me it was more precious than any diamond because it had been a gift from Bria.
    My sister had given me the ring for Christmas. She’d worn it for years as a reminder of me, her big sister, Genevieve Snow. Even now, two more silverstone bands glinted on her left index finger—with runes carved into both surfaces. Snowflakes for our mother, and ivy vines for ourolder sister. Bria wore the rings every day, along with her primrose rune, as a tribute to them, our lost family.
    I pulled my gaze up from the jewelry and looked at Bria. For seventeen years, I’d thought that she was dead, that I’d accidentally killed her. After Mab had tortured me that night, I’d heard Bria scream and thought that the Fire elemental had found the place where I’d hidden her. So I’d lashed out with my Ice and Stone magic to try to escape from the ropes that had held me down, to try to get to Bria before Mab killed her. But I’d used too much magic far too wildly. As a result, I’d collapsed our whole house—and I’d thought that Bria had been crushed to death by the falling stones. A secret guilt that I’d carried with me until just a few months ago when Bria had come back to Ashland.
    My sister had been drawn here by a picture of the spider rune scar on my palm that Fletcher had sent her. Just as I’d started looking for her when the old man had arranged to leave me a photo of her from beyond the grave. Fletcher had wanted us to find each other, and we had. But our reunion hadn’t exactly been a rosy one. As a detective, Bria had dedicated her whole adult life to being a cop, to helping people, to doing the right thing and making sure that bad guys like me got exactly what they deserved. As the assassin the Spider, all I’d done was kill people for money and contribute to my retirement fund. The two worldviews didn’t exactly mesh.
    But Bria and I were working through our differences—or at least trying to find some common ground. It had started at Christmas, when I’d saved Bria from getting dead at the hands of LaFleur and had told my sister whoI really was. Bria had been shocked and horrified that her big sister, Genevieve, had grown up to be the Spider, but she was trying to accept me, which is more than I’d dared to hope for.
    Now, almost two months later, we weren’t exactly best friends, but we weren’t enemies either. We had coffee sometimes and tried to talk. But even when we just sat there staring at each other, searching for something to say, I was grateful that my sister was back in my life. I thought that Bria felt the same way. At least, I hoped she did.
    Bria wasn’t alone. Xavier, the roughly seven-foot-tall giant who was her partner on the force, stepped inside the Pork Pit and shut the door behind him. I knew Xavier well and counted him among my few friends. The giant had helped me out of some tough situations a time or two, and I’d returned the favor a while back by going after Elliot Slater, the sick, twisted bastard who’d been stalking and terrorizing Roslyn Phillips, Xavier’s main squeeze. Roslyn had eventually killed Slater, but as the Spider, I’d claimed responsibility for his death to take the heat off her.
    The two of them headed over to the counter. I leaned down on my elbows and waited for them. Sophia stood off to my left, peeling potatoes in case anyone else came in this afternoon who had a hankering for the thick, steak-cut French fries that the Pit was famous for, among other things.
    “Hey there, baby sister,” I said to Bria. “Xavier.”
    They nodded at me.
    “Here for a late lunch?” I asked.
    Xavier grinned at me, his teeth flashing like opalsagainst his onyx-colored skin. “Something