Venom

by Jennifer Estep

  Xavier looked to the others for support. First, his eyes cut to Finn, who took another slug of coffee and moved to stand behind me. Xavier turned to Sophia. The dwarf grunted, gave him a flat stare, and also walked over to my side of the table. Finally, the giant stared at me. Rage still glinted in his eyes, but another emotion shimmered in his dark gaze. Resignation. Despite his feelings for Roslyn, Xavier was smart enough to realize that I knew what I was talking about—and that I’d do everything in my power to keep my promise to him and especially to Roslyn.

  “Fine,” Xavier said in a low voice. “We’ll do it your way. But if Elliot Slater’s not dead in two days—”

  “Then you can go after him and damn the consequences,” I said.

  Xavier stared at me a moment longer, then nodded. “All right. What do you want me to do?”

  “When Slater comes to the club looking for Roslyn, you tell him you don’t know where she is and that you don’t care anymore. That you hate her, and he’s welcome to her.”

  Xavier flinched at my harsh words, but he nodded. “All right. I can do that.”

  “You have to do more than just do it,” I snapped. “You have to sell it. Make Slater think that you’re done with Roslyn. For good. I’m not going to lie to you, Xavier. Slater’s probably not going to believe you. Things will get ugly. He’ll probably get his goons to beat you or do it himself. He could hurt you real bad. Maybe even kill you just for the fun of it.”

  Xavier stared at me, his black eyes as hard as granite. “I don’t care how bad he hurts me as long as Roslyn is safe. That’s all that matters to me.”

  I nodded. “Good. Is there anyone at the club you can trust? Anyone there who will back you up?”

  Xavier thought a moment. “Vinnie. The Ice elemental who works the bar. He’s a stand-up guy. And he owes me.”

  “You tell Vinnie to watch the door and to call the cops as soon as Slater shows up. Specifically, your partner, Detective Bria Coolidge.”

  Finn and Sophia both stared at me, surprised by my order. I didn’t want Bria anywhere close to Elliot Slater, but she was the only cop I knew who’d take on the giant and his men. Who would do something besides stand there and let Slater beat Xavier to death. Like it or not, I had to get my sister involved in this. Bria could keep Xavier alive long enough for Jo-Jo Deveraux to get to the giant and heal him. After that, Sophia would be there to watch over everyone.

  Xavier nodded. “All right. I’ll tell Vinnie. One question, though. What will you be doing during all of this?”

  “Following the bastard,” I replied in a cold voice. “Tomorrow night, the second he’s alone, I go after him with everything I have.”

  Everyone knew their part in the drama that was about to unfold, and there wasn’t anything else to say. So we stayed in the kitchen, drinking tea, sipping coffee, and eating muffins in silence.

  A few minutes later, Jo-Jo came down the stairs. The middle-aged dwarf looked at Xavier. “Roslyn’s asking for you,” she said. “Second door on your left.”

  The giant nodded, put down his tea cup, and headed up the stairs. Finn wandered in that direction and waited until the heavy tread of Xavier’s footsteps stopped and the upstairs door creaked closed before he turned back to me.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, Gin,” Finn said. “But you didn’t explain exactly how we’re all going to get free and clear of this after you make a pincushion out of Elliot Slater.”

  I nodded. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Xavier, but we’re going to make Mab Monroe forget all about Roslyn.”

  “How?” Sophia rasped.

  “We’re going to give her someone else to worry about.”

  I told Finn, Sophia, and Jo-Jo exactly what I was planning on doing after I killed Slater. The crazy, dangerous way that I was going to take the heat of Mab’s fury off Roslyn and direct it squarely on me. I laid it all out for them. Everything I was going to do—now and when I finally made my move against the Fire elemental.

  When I finished, the three of them looked at me. Finn’s eyes a bright green. Sophia’s face flat and expressionless as usual. Jo-Jo’s head cocked to one side, a thoughtful light in her pale gaze.

  Finally, Finn let out a low whistle. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  I shrugged. “If you can think of a better plan, please, enlighten me.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Finn said. “I think it’s brilliant. Stupid and dangerous and cocky, but brilliant too. Even though it goes against everything that Dad taught us about drawing attention to ourselves, everything that he taught you.”

  I blew out a breath. “I know. Which is why I need to know if you’re all on board with me or not. Because it’s not just me who’s going to be on the line this time. You guys will all be on the hook too. If Mab figures it out before I’m ready to deal with her, she’ll come after us—all of us. And she won’t stop until we’re all dead. If you don’t want to be a part of it, I understand. This thing with Mab, it’s my fight, my problem, not yours. It always has been.”

  Finn, Sophia, and Jo-Jo didn’t even have to look at each other.

  “Nonsense,” Jo-Jo said. “We’re family, darling. Always will be.”

  “Family,” Sophia repeated.

  “Family,” Finn echoed.

  I stared at them. Handsome Finn, who looked so much like his father that it made my heart twist in my chest. Dark, remote Sophia, who kept all her secret dreams and hurts and fears to herself. Soft, pink Jo-Jo, the smartest and wisest of us all. I’d already lost Fletcher Lane. I didn’t want to lose them too. But my confrontation with Mab Monroe was inevitable now. Hell, maybe it had been ever since the night she’d murdered my family. Like Oedipus killing his father, no matter how hard he struggled not to. Nobody did tragedy like the Greeks. Or me.

  “I’m glad you’re with me on this.” My voice shook only a little. “But mostly, I’m glad that you are my family.”

  I turned away from them and took my tea cup over to the sink so they wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes. When I turned back to face them, I was cold, calm, and composed once more.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s get this party started.”

  22

  We all spent the night at Jo-Jo’s house, and the next day, we put our plan into action. That is to say, everyone did what they would normally do in the morning.

  Sophia got up early and drove to the Pork Pit to bake the bread for the day’s sandwiches. Finn donned one of his many suits and went to work for the money men at his bank. Xavier headed home to rest so he’d be ready to open Northern Aggression later on tonight. Jo-Jo fired up her hair dryers, tanning booths, and curling irons for her salon clients. I planned to go to the Pork Pit and work a full shift as usual.

  Before I drove home to shower and change, I looked in on Roslyn Phillips. The vamp sat cross-legged on the bed in one of Jo-Jo’s guest bedrooms staring out the window at the skeletal branches of the trees that surrounded the antebellum house. Roslyn wore a pair of Sophia’s black sweats, somehow making the fabric seem rich and expensive instead of the sturdy, sensible cotton that it was. She wore no makeup, her beautiful face smooth and dull, like a stone that had been worn down by the steady rush of water over time.

  I sat down on the end of the bed. Roslyn didn’t turn in my direction, but she knew I was there. If nothing else, she’d felt the mattress dip under my weight.

  “Feeling better?” I asked in a soft voice.

  She shrugged.

  A soft thump-thump-thump sound caught my ear. Roslyn’s cell phone lay on top of the nightstand next to the bed, moving ever so slightly.

  “I got tired of the constant ringing, so I put it on vibrate,” she said in a flat voice. “He must have called me a hundred times since last night. And no, I haven’t answered it.”

  “You should turn it off.”

  She bit her lip. “I can’t do that, Gin.”

  I knew she couldn’t. Roslyn realized that Elliot Slater was out there searching for h
er, using all the resources he had to find her. As long as the phone kept ringing, she could tell herself that he hadn’t found her yet. That she was safe for a little while longer. In a twisted way, that phone was Roslyn’s lifeline—the only thing keeping her from going completely crazy.

  I’d never been good at helping people, comforting them. That was more Jo-Jo’s line of work. There was only one thing I could say to comfort Roslyn, only one promise I could make to her that would mean a fucking thing.

  “Leave it on then,” I said in a quiet tone. “Listen to it. Make sure your battery doesn’t die.”

  After a moment, Roslyn turned to stare at me. “Why?”

  I let her see the cold, violent resolve in my gray eyes. “Because when your phone quits ringing, you’ll know the bastard’s finally dead.”

  That afternoon, I sat on my stool behind the cash register at the Pork Pit and reviewed all the information that I had on Elliot Slater. Mostly, though, I thought about my previous encounters with the giant, visualizing the way he’d hit me that night at the community college, the way he threw his punches, how he placed his feet, how he distributed his weight. Analyzing his style, his technique, looking for any weakness that I could exploit, looking for any way that I could kill him without letting him put his hands on me first. The giant had beaten me twice now. He wasn’t going to do it again.

  “Anything?” Sophia rasped.

  I closed the folder and shook my head. “It says the same thing that it’s always said—that Slater is one tough customer.”

  “Hmph.” Sophia grunted and went back to wiping down the back counter.

  It was after six. Darkness had already spread its black blanket over Ashland, and most folks were heading home from work, eager to get in from the cold. It had been slow all day, so I’d sent the waitresses home early with pay. My last customer had left ten minutes ago. Those who passed by the storefront windows invariably had their heads down, chins tucked into the tops of their jackets, with no time or inclination to stop for hot barbecue tonight. Outside, the street lamps had already flickered on, illuminating the gray sidewalks and bits of snow that floated in the frosty air. Time to leave the restaurant and get on with my mission for the evening—killing Elliot Slater.

  I turned to Sophia to tell her to close up shop when the front door opened, making the bell chime—and Detective Bria Coolidge stepped into the restaurant.

  Bria shut the door behind her and headed in my direction. She looked beautiful as always. Shaggy blond hair, ice blue eyes, cheeks flushed from the cold air. Once again, she wore her long navy coat over jeans, a sweater, and black boots. Her primrose rune flashed like a ball of silver fire in the hollow of her throat. It matched the glint from the rings on her index finger.

  “Hello, detective,” I said in a calm voice. “Good thing you got here when you did. Sophia and I were just about to close down for the evening.”

  Bria’s gaze flicked to the Goth dwarf, who was still wiping down the long countertop. “Kind of early for that, don’t you think?”

  I held out my hands and gestured at the empty storefront. “Not tonight. The cold tends to make people want to head home to their loved ones instead of stopping off for something to eat.”

  “Point taken. But I’m not here for the food.”

  “More’s the pity,” I murmured. “The strawberry pie is excellent today.”

  Bria looked at the glass cake stand where I always put the dessert of the day. But even the lush strawberries glinting from their golden crust weren’t enough to make her stray from her appointed mission.

  “I want to talk to you about Roslyn Phillips,” Bria said.

  Not surprising, given the fact that Bria had been chasing after the vamp last night after Roslyn told everyone on the riverboat what Elliot Slater had been doing to her. I’d been half-expecting Bria to come barging into my gin joint all day, demanding to know where the vampire was. And she had finally shown up.

  I had no doubt that Bria wanted to help Roslyn. Given what I’d seen so far, she would have done the same for any woman that she thought had been stalked and victimized the way Roslyn had. I admired her for that.

  But the cold, cynical part of me wondered how much of Bria’s determination to help was personal. Because Bria didn’t have any witnesses to the fact that Slater had tried to kill her, and Sophia had made sure that no evidence of any kind had been left behind at the scene. If Bria wanted to lock up Slater—and she surely had to, given the fact that the giant had tried to kill her—then Roslyn was her best shot at making that happen. And somehow, I didn’t think she was going to give up on the vamp without a fight.

  “What about Roslyn?” I asked.

  “Have you seen or talked to her today?” Bria asked.

  “No.”

  An easy lie. And I didn’t volunteer any more information or even ask why Bria was so interested in finding Roslyn in the first place. When dealing with the po-po, it was best to follow the example of Sophia Deveraux and speak only in short bursts—if at all.

  Bria studied me, her blue eyes cold and icy. “I think you’re lying. You and Roslyn looked particularly friendly when she was in here yesterday.”

  “That was yesterday,” I replied. “Roslyn was here for the food. Nothing more, detective.”

  “That’s funny because no one seems to know where Ms. Phillips is,” Bria replied. “She’s not at home, and no one’s seen her at that nightclub she owns, Northern Aggression.”

  “Perhaps you should ask your partner if he’s seen her,” I said in a snippy tone. “Since Xavier actually works for Roslyn.”

  Normally, I wouldn’t have sicced Bria on Xavier. But better for her to be at the nightclub questioning him than standing here accusing me. I had work to do tonight. And the sooner I killed Elliot Slater, the sooner Roslyn could sleep easier and return to her regularly scheduled life, instead of being holed up in Jo-Jo Deveraux’s house.

  “I’ve already been to the club,” Bria replied. “And Xavier claims he hasn’t seen her either.”

  I cocked my head to one side. “You sound like you don’t believe him.”

  Her face hardened. “What I do or don’t believe is none of your business. Now, why don’t you tell me where you were last night?”

  “You think I did something to Roslyn Phillips?” I laughed. “Oh, please.”

  Bria’s eyes iced over, even more. “You know, we could have this conversation down at the police station.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Really? On what grounds? That I was at the same party as Roslyn last night? That she came into my restaurant and had a meal? I see you’ve already taken up the bad habits of the rest of the Ashland Police Department, detective.”

  “And what would those be?”

  I stared at her. “Interrogating people for no reason.”

  Bria had the good grace to flinch at my insult.

  As much as I would have loved to continue this verbal smackdown with my long-lost sister, I needed to get on with things. Finn was due to pick me up at seven so we could start tailing Elliot Slater and look for a place to kill the giant. Which meant that I needed to get rid of Bria. So I decided to give her what she wanted—some answers.

  “Yes, Roslyn came in here yesterday, but only to get some food. Yes, I saw her last night on the riverboat, including that awful scene with Elliot Slater. No, I haven’t seen the vamp since then, and I don’t expect to,” I said. “Whatever you think you saw here yesterday, Roslyn and I are not best friends, merely casual acquaintances. I go to her club on occasion, she gets barbecue here sometimes. That’s the extent of our relationship, detective. As for where I was last night, I went home with Owen Grayson. We had a very stimulating evening in his office, if you absolutely have to know.”

  Bria studied me for several seconds. “You don’t like me much, do you, Ms. Blanco?”

  It wasn’t that. It wasn’t that at all. If anything, I was proud of how well Bria seemed to have turned out, despite everything that h
ad happened to her. She just didn’t realize that I had to keep her at arm’s length. That my jumbled feelings for her were still too fresh and raw for me to do anything but antagonize her. That sarcasm was the gentlest and least deadly of my many defense mechanisms. That I had a cold, hard, bloody job to do tonight, something that she could never know about or be a part of.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know enough about you to like or dislike you, detective. What I hate is when someone comes into my gin joint and starts threatening me. I don’t respond well to threats, from the police or anyone else.”

  She sighed. “I’m not threatening you. All I’m trying to do is help Ms. Phillips. You heard what she said about Elliot Slater, what she accused him of. I’ve spent the whole day trying to track her down. Surely you know about Slater’s reputation, who he works for. I want to find Ms. Phillips before he does. That’s all I want to do.”

  Bria had that same tired note in her voice that I’d always heard in Donovan Caine’s. That same tone that told me how many brick walls and dead ends she’d run up against today—many of them in her own police department. Like she said, she was just trying to do the right thing, just trying to help a woman who so obviously needed it. Bria was trying to do things the legal way. In Ashland, all it would get her was dead. And I just couldn’t allow that to happen. Not to my baby sister. Better I deal with Slater than Bria. Better for Roslyn, and better for Bria, whether she knew it or not.

  “That’s very noble of you,” I said in a kinder voice. “It really is. But I can’t help you. I don’t know where Roslyn is, and I didn’t know anything about her problems with Slater until I heard about them last night on the riverboat, like everyone else. Even if I had known before, there’s nothing I could do to help her. Not against someone like Slater. You said it yourself. You know who he works for. But I truly am sorry for Roslyn, detective. I truly am. More than you will ever know.”