Venom in the Veins

by Jennifer Estep

  I sighed. “I know. Me neither.”

  A loud knock sounded at the front of the house, followed by the sound of a key turning in the lock and the door opening.

  “Gin?” Finn’s voice rang out.

  “In the den!”

  Footsteps clomped in this direction, and Finn appeared in the doorway. His green eyes widened, and he let out a low whistle.

  “What happened? It looks like a library exploded in here.” He frowned. “Along with an ammunition factory. Are those bullet holes in the covers?”

  I’d been so busy going through the books that I hadn’t called Finn and told him what was going on. So I quickly filled him in about the ambush on the road outside the botanical gardens.

  “Where’s Mosley?” I asked. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine. The auction is finally finished, and we shipped out the last of the items about an hour ago. I dropped Mosley and a couple of the bank guards off at the Parker mansion like we planned, then came over here,” Finn said. “Don’t worry. Lorelei’s there too. She knows to keep an eye out for Alanna.”

  I nodded, got up, and put the ruined copy of Huck Finn that I’d been double-checking on the fireplace mantel next to that strange sapphire paperweight. Then I looked out over the mess that Owen, Silvio, and I had made in the den. Books covered every available surface, from the flagstones in front of the fireplace to the coffee table in the center of the room to every single one of the couch cushions. Finn was right. It did look like a library had exploded in here.

  Still, I wouldn’t have minded the enormous mess if I’d found what I’d been searching for…whatever that might be.

  “Alanna has to want something that’s in here,” I growled. “Otherwise, why ambush me right after I left the estate? She wanted to be sure that I still had Mab’s things with me, and she needed to get to them before I put everything under lock and key somewhere.”

  “But you said that she was at the estate earlier today and that she helped catalog everything for the auction,” Owen pointed out. “She’s been around Mab’s things for weeks. So why didn’t she just take whatever she wanted when no one was looking?”

  “Probably because she couldn’t get to it before now,” Finn said.

  Silvio frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “After Clementine Barker tried to rob the Briartop museum, Mab’s art was put into storage by First Trust for safekeeping,” Finn said. “And after Madeline Monroe died, so were all of Mab’s personal effects from her mansion. Mosley oversaw the entire project himself to make sure there were no more screwups or robbery attempts. No one had access to anything from Mab’s estate except for him, and he went through and created a master list of each and every item, down to the last paper clip. Trust me, Mosley would have known if something went missing, and he would have known that Alanna was the one who’d taken it.”

  I nodded. “That matches up with what Alanna told me during the auction. She said that Mosley wouldn’t even let her examine some of the items.”

  “But what about after everything was moved to the Eaton mansion?” Owen asked. “Wouldn’t Alanna have been able to take what she wanted then? During the confusion of setting everything up? Or maybe later on, during the auction itself?”

  Finn shook his head. “Nope. Mosley was paranoid about security, especially after Deirdre’s robbery attempt at the bank. He didn’t want anything like that to ruin the auction, so he set up cameras, alarms, and sensors everywhere, and he personally vetted every single guard. He even had the security footage continuously streamed to his phone. You couldn’t have tried on a necklace or swiped so much as a teaspoon without him finding out about it in a matter of minutes.”

  “So that’s why Alanna sicced those two muggers on him. She didn’t want to kill Mosley. At least, not right away. She needed him to get access to whatever auction item she wanted, since she couldn’t steal it herself.” I started pacing back and forth, skirting around the stacks of books on the floor. “But when I stopped those two muggers from kidnapping Mosley—”

  “When we stopped those two muggers,” Finn interjected.

  I rolled my eyes. “When we stopped those muggers, Alanna had to come up with a new plan. That’s why she was trying so hard to outbid me for this lot of books at the auction. I thought she was just being spiteful, but that was the easiest way to get her hands on them.”

  Finn shot his thumb and forefinger at me. “That would be my guess too.”

  “And when that didn’t work, Alanna decided to kill you and take whatever it is that she wants,” Owen chimed in.

  “Precisely,” Silvio added. “Not only that, but she could also take revenge on Gin for killing her mother. Now that Alanna is mixed up with Tucker, she has to know that Gin is the Circle’s number one enemy. Alanna probably thought that killing Gin would also give her bonus points with Mason, the Circle leader, whoever he really is. Two birds, one stone, and all of that. Unfortunately for you, Gin, you just happened to be one of the birds.”

  “You know, you three could quit being so cheerful about my being marked for death,” I snarked.

  Finn stabbed his finger at me. “Don’t limit my emotions. Besides, it’s not like your being marked for death is some new and unexpected occurrence. I’d be more surprised if people weren’t trying to kill you.” He nudged Owen with his elbow. “Am I right?”

  “Totally right,” Owen replied.

  “Absolutely right,” Silvio chimed in, agreeing with them.

  I glared at them. Traitors. They all crossed their arms over their chests and stared right back at me. After a moment, I sighed and gave them a sheepish shrug. As much as I hated to admit it, they were right. My being on someone’s hit list wasn’t an unusual occurrence. More like a monthly lunch date with death, that dear old friend of mine.

  “Well, I at least want to know why Alanna wants me dead,” I grumbled. “What one thing Mab had that Tucker and the rest of the Circle are so desperate to get their hands on. So let’s keep looking.”

  Owen, Silvio, Finn, and I started going through the books again, even more carefully than before, searching for anything—anything—that would indicate that the volumes contained some secret that was worth killing for.

  After about an hour, the words and pages started swimming before my eyes, so I headed into the kitchen to make some dinner while the guys kept working.

  Given the cold weather and everything that had happened today, I wanted some warm, hearty, stick-to-my-ribs comfort food, so I melted some butter in a pan, then added a package of ground beef, along with some kosher salt, black pepper, chili powder, and a generous amount of cumin. Once the meat had browned, I drained off the excess fat and added in some red kidney beans, along with a couple of jars of homegrown tomatoes that Jo-Jo had canned last summer, creating a chunky sauce. My quick and easy version of chili.

  While the chili simmered away, I dropped a pound of spaghetti into some salted boiling water and tossed together a garden salad with romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, and cucumbers. I also chopped up some red onions and put them in a small ramekin, then filled two more ramekins with sour cream and shredded sharp cheddar cheese.

  When the spaghetti was done, I drained it, spread it in the bottom of a large platter, and topped it with the chili. Then I put the platter on a tray with the onions, sour cream, and cheese and took it into the den.

  Finn perked up. “Spaghetti chili? You must have read my mind.”

  He reached out to snatch a stray noodle off the platter, but I smacked his hand away.

  “There’s a salad in the kitchen too. Go grab it and some plates, please.”

  Finn gave me a sour look, but he got the salad, along with plates, napkins, and silverware. I fetched some glasses and a pitcher of sweet raspberry tea, while Owen and Silvio cleared the books off the coffee table. Then we all settled down and dug into our meal.

  “Mmm-mmm-mmm!” Finn said. “Spaghetti and chili. Two great foods combined into one dish of aw
esomeness.”

  I grinned. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

  For dessert, I grabbed a dark chocolate pound cake topped with a decadent chocolate ganache, dried cherries, and chopped almonds that I’d baked earlier in the week.

  “Pasta. Meat. Chocolate.” Owen sighed. “I could die a very happy man right now.”

  Nobody else spoke. We were all too busy eating.

  When we finished, Owen and Silvio offered to clean up, while Finn and I kept working on the books. One by one, we went through them all again.

  “This is a waste of time,” Finn muttered. “There’s nothing here. Nothing. Why, this book doesn’t even have anything in it.”

  He tossed aside a book with a royal-blue cover and silver-foil-trimmed pages, the one my parents’ photo had been propped up on.

  The longer I stared at the volume, the more uneasy I felt, like there was something important about it that I was missing. So I picked up the book and flipped through the pages, but they were all blank like Finn had said.

  I frowned. Given the thin blue lines on each page, this seemed less like a book and more like a diary, the kind of thing a teenage girl would use to scribble down her secrets. So why had Mab had it? The Fire elemental certainly wasn’t the kind of person to pour out her heart about some long-ago teenage crush or anything else. The bitch would have had to have a heart first.

  I sighed and placed the book on the coffee table next to the picture of my parents. “You’re right. There’s nothing here. Maybe Alanna made a mistake.”

  Finn shook his head. “Alanna Eaton doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who makes mistakes. Neither does Hugh Tucker.”

  “I know,” I said, rubbing my aching head. “I just hope I can figure out what they’re after before it’s too late.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was after six now, and there was nothing more that we could do this evening, so Finn and Silvio headed home. Owen started gathering up the books and packing them back into their boxes to get rid of some of the mess in the den. While he worked, I decided to check in with Bria. To my surprise, she answered on the first ring.

  “Funny,” she said. “I was just about to call you. Guess where I am?”

  I didn’t hear any sirens, but several people muttered in the background, and I heard the words crime-scene tape. I winced. “Um, standing outside the botanical gardens, wondering why there’s a black sedan and five dead giants in middle of the road?”

  “Why, it’s like you read my mind,” she drawled, an amused note in her voice. “You must be psychic.”

  I barked out a laugh. “Not even close.”

  “Your handiwork, I presume?”

  “Partially.”

  I told Bria about the attack, as well as the cryptic conversation I’d had with Tucker.

  “So you think there’s something in one of those books you bought that Tucker and the rest of the Circle want? And they hired Alanna to get it for them?” she asked.

  I watched Owen stack books into another box. “That’s the theory right now. Although whatever it is, we haven’t been able to find it yet.”

  I promised to keep Bria posted, and she did the same, saying she would let me know if she got any leads from the dead giants. But I already had a sneaking suspicion about what she would find: that they all moonlighted as housekeepers, gardeners, and the like at the Eaton Estate.

  We hung up, and I helped Owen finish putting the books away. After that, I went through the house, making sure that it was locked up tight and that the silverstone front door and the bars on the windows were secure like always. If Alanna did come here tonight, she would have a tough time getting inside the house, and we could always slip out through the secret tunnel in Fletcher’s office.

  Once I was satisfied that we were safe, Owen and I took a shower and went to bed.

  Owen fell asleep quickly, but my mind kept spinning as I thought back over everything that had happened. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t figure out what was in Mab’s things that Alanna and the Circle were so desperate to get their hands on.

  So I curled up next to Owen and put my hand on his heart, letting the steady rise and fall of his chest soothe me. Finally, my eyes fluttered closed, and I drifted off to sleep as well, although my dreams were anything but peaceful…

  I was in trouble—serious, serious trouble.

  Amelia Eaton had her hands locked around my throat, slowly squeezing the life out of me. She was much stronger than I was, and I couldn’t buck her off, no matter how hard I tried. All I really did was worm my body even deeper into the sand, as though I was digging my own grave. Maybe I was. A few feet away, I could hear the water lapping at the lakeshore. The steady smacking sound reminded me of the vampire licking my blood off her claws earlier. I shuddered in disgust and redoubled my efforts to throw her off.

  “I’m not going anywhere!” she snarled. “And neither are you!”

  Amelia tightened her grip. She was still wearing that metal glove on her right hand, and I could feel her digging her fingers into my neck, trying to punch those razor-sharp silverstone talons through the protective shell of my Stone magic.

  But she didn’t have to claw me to death. Didn’t have to sink her fangs into my throat. She didn’t have to make me bleed at all. Despite my Stone magic, I still needed air to breathe, and if I didn’t get it in the next few seconds, then I wouldn’t be breathing ever again.

  Given the vampire’s superior strength, there was no way I could break her grip. At least, not by conventional methods.

  But I was very good at being unconventional.

  My Stone magic might be my stronger power, but it wasn’t going to save me in this situation, so I turned to my much weaker Ice magic. I raised my hand and sent a spray of Ice daggers shooting straight into Amelia’s face.

  Okay, so daggers might be an exaggeration. A small frosty cloud sputtered out of my palm, along with a few harmless needles of Ice, but it was enough to make Amelia jerk back in surprise.

  The second her grip slipped, I snapped up my fingers and jabbed them into her eyes. My fingers weren’t tipped with silverstone claws like hers were, but the sharp pokes still made her yelp, and her hands dropped away from my throat. I jutted my head forward, opened my mouth wide, and sank my teeth into her left arm, the one not protected by that metal glove.

  I bit down as hard as I could, and her hot, sticky blood spurted into my mouth. The coppery taste made me want to vomit, but I ignored the disgusting sensation and ground my teeth even deeper into her tender flesh.

  “You bitch!” Amelia howled. “You bit me!”

  I would have asked her how it felt to be bitten for a change if I hadn’t been trying to rip through her muscles with my teeth.

  She yelped again and finally tore her arm free of my teeth, throwing herself a bit off-balance. I spit out the blood in my mouth and shoved her off me.

  Amelia landed on her right arm, and her metal glove punched through another driftwood log lying half on the shore and half in the lake. She splashed around in the sand and water, trying to get back up, but the glove must have been snagged on something inside the log, because she fell right back down again. She snarled, got up, and braced one of her feet on the log, yanking on the driftwood and trying to wrench her gloved hand free.

  I staggered to my own feet, sucking down giant gulps of air.

  Continued crack-crack-cracks of gunfire sounded from the terrace above and the woods in the distance, as Amelia’s guards fired on Fletcher’s position and vice versa. But I wasn’t worried about the old man. He had the trees to protect him, and sooner or later, he’d finish off the guards, who were more exposed on the open terrace.

  That meant it was up to me to kill Amelia. Fine by me. I just needed to get my breath back first. As I sucked down another giant gulp of air, it occurred to me that the vamp and I had one thing in common.

  I needed air to breathe, and so did she.

  No matter how much blood Amelia drank, n
o matter how quick and strong it made her, no matter how sharp all those claws on her metal glove were, she couldn’t change that one simple biological fact. So I decided to use it to my advantage.

  Before Amelia could work her glove out of that driftwood log, I put my shoulder down and barreled into her, knocking her legs out from under her. She flew backward and landed in the water, the weight of her body carrying the driftwood log along with her. Amelia came up sputtering, but I wasn’t done yet.

  Not until she was dead.

  So I waded into the lake after her. Despite the summer heat, the water was shockingly cold, although the soothing wetness felt good on my cut, bruised, battered body.

  Amelia lashed out at me with her free fist, but I used my Stone magic to harden my skin again and ignored her awkward blow. Then I stepped around behind her, dug my fingers into her wet hair, and dragged her deeper into the lake. My legs churned through the mud and rocks, but I didn’t stop moving, not even for a second.

  “Let me go! Let me go!”

  She screamed and screamed, beating at me with her fist and trying to get me to loosen my grip on her hair. Her metal glove was still stuck in that driftwood log, which bobbed along with her like a fishing lure on the surface of the water.

  Amelia finally managed to get her legs under her, and she dug her boots into the mud, using her strength to yank me back toward her. I slammed into her body and bounced off. By this point, we were both hip-deep in the water, but that was perfect for what I had in mind.

  The vampire snarled, reached out, and wrapped her free hand around that driftwood log, clutching it like a baseball bat. Then she pulled the whole thing up and out of the water and swung it at me as hard as she could.

  But the water slowed her down, and I ducked her reckless blow. She drew back the log for another swing, but I surged forward, hooked my leg around hers, and knocked her off-balance, sending her crashing down into the water.