Heart of Venom

by Jennifer Estep

  The guy snorted again. I casually swiped my knife across his left arm. His mouth opened, and he started to yelp with pain, but I slowly waggled the bloody blade in front of his eyes.

  “Not a sound. Remember?”

  He winced, but he choked down his scream and slowly nodded.

  I flipped the knife over, so that I was holding it by the blade, then held the weapon up where he could see it, along with the spider rune stamped into the hilt. “Now, tell me, have you ever heard of the Spider?”

  The guy’s gaze flicked over me again, taking in my dark clothes, his blood on my knife, and the cold, cold expression on my face. His eyes widened again, and he nodded much faster this time.

  “Good. So I can assume that I don’t have to bother explaining exactly who I am and what I do?”

  Another nod, this one even quicker and more enthusiastic. Sometimes it was good to be notorious and feared.

  “Well, this is your lucky day, because you get to see me in the flesh. More important, you get to be helpful. You do want to be helpful, don’t you?”

  By this point, the guy’s head was snapping up and down faster than I could talk, and the rest of his body trembled in time to the rapid, jerky motions.

  “Excellent. Because now we’re all going to go for a little walk in the woods.” I looked at Warren. “Where’s this other trail you were talking about?”

  He pointed to the west.

  “Lead the way, then.”

  Warren nodded and stepped off the main trail and into the woods. Owen stopped long enough to pull a gun out of his backpack, then followed him. I slapped a piece of duct tape over my prisoner’s mouth, so he wouldn’t scream for his buddies and give away our position. Then I gestured toward the trees.

  “Move.”

  The guy hesitated.

  “Walk or die—your choice.”

  Maybe it was the threat of violence, or maybe it was the absolute chill in my eyes, but the guy swallowed, shuffled forward, and slowly fell into step behind Owen. I kept my knife out and ready to strike in case he got any stupid ideas, then headed into the forest after the others.

  * * *

  We left the main trail behind and walked due west for about twenty minutes. The landscape grew more rugged the farther we hiked, as the thick stands of trees and rich soil gave way to more high, open balds made out of layered sheets of limestone and other rock. I reached out with my magic, listening to the stones, but they only sleepily murmured of the blazing sun that was slowly baking them and the afternoon thunderstorms that whistled over the mountains, bringing a bit of cooling rain with them before quickly giving way to the hot, brutal sun once more.

  I’d always enjoyed hiking with Fletcher in the mountains. It was a special treat, being surrounded by so much of my own element, these steep ridges, flat plateaus, and rocky landscapes that I felt such kinship with. I would have enjoyed this outing too, if not for the horrible circumstances that had brought me here.

  Warren slowed, then finally stopped. He gestured to the top of the rock-strewn ridge that we’d been climbing up.

  “Grimes’s camp is about another hour beyond that crest,” he said. “But we’ll start running into the traps he has set up around the perimeter soon. Maybe even more guards. So I figured that you might want to stop and do whatever it is that you’re going to do with that fella before we go any farther.”

  I looked at Warren, and he stared right back at me, his expression carefully devoid of emotion. He knew exactly what I was planning to do, and so did Owen, who also had a blank look on his face. The only one who wasn’t clued in was Grimes’s man. His head kept swiveling back and forth between us.

  “Thank you for letting me know. You guys might want to take a walk for a few minutes.”

  Warren snorted and flapped his hand at me. “Bah, I’ve seen more blood and violence in my lifetime than you have, Gin. So don’t try to coddle me.”

  “I’m staying too,” Owen said in a quiet voice.

  I stared at them both again, but their shoulders were set, their mouths fixed in flat, determined lines. They knew what I was going to do now, what I had to do in order to have the best possible chance of saving Sophia.

  “All right,” I said. “But don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”

  I turned to my prisoner and ripped the duct tape off his mouth. The guy hissed with pain, but that was the only sound he made. He’d learned that much, at least.

  “It’s finally time for you to be useful,” I drawled. “Tell me about Grimes’s camp and what he did with the woman he kidnapped this morning, the one with the black hair and clothes.”

  The guy shook his head. “I’m not telling you a thing, not one damn thing.”

  “Sure you are,” I replied in an easy voice. “Everyone talks eventually. Even me. The only question is how much it has to hurt first. And believe me when I tell you that I’m very, very good at inflicting massive amounts of pain on people in a very, very short amount of time.”

  He gave me a surly look. “You think I’m scared of you? Please. You couldn’t possibly be the Spider. That ruthless bitch would have killed me the second she saw me. Not dragged me halfway up the mountain instead.”

  “You’re right,” I replied. “So maybe I should get on with things. Wouldn’t want to disappoint my fans.”

  I slid my backpack off and set it on the rocks. Then I started rolling my shoulders and swinging my arms from side to side, limbering up for what was to come. I even did a couple of squats, just for kicks. Yeah, it was a show more than anything else, but sometimes a little show was all you needed to get someone to see things your way.

  But the guy kept quiet through my warm-up routine, so I decided to up the ante by palming a second knife and turning toward him.

  He let out a harsh laugh. “Oh, look, she has another knife. What do you think you’re going to do with that, honey? Cut me up a steak for dinner?”

  I kicked the guy’s right knee out from under him, and he landed awkwardly on his ass on the rocks. Before he could yell with pain, I slammed my boot into his ribs, driving the air out of his lungs again.

  And I didn’t stop there.

  Again and again, I kicked him in the ribs, chest, and stomach, until he got the message. He groaned and rocked from side to side, trying to find some position where his body wouldn’t ache, but there wasn’t one. I’d made sure of that.

  When his moans finally died down, I straddled him and crossed my blades over his throat. “Now, sugar, I’ll show you exactly what I intend to do with my knives—unless you start talking.”

  The guy glared at me, still defiant. “Go to hell. You won’t get anything out of me. I’m more scared of what Mr. Grimes will do to me than some bitch with a couple of knives.”

  “Your mistake, sugar.”

  “Why is that?”

  I leaned down so he could see exactly how cold and empty my eyes were. “Because Mr. Grimes isn’t here right now—but I am.”

  Before he could protest, I slapped the piece of duct tape back over his mouth.

  And then I started cutting him.

  I used small, shallow cuts at first. A nick here, a thin slice there. Little more than paper cuts, really. But the longer I worked on him, the deeper I went, slowly sawing into his neck, his arms, and the thick muscles of his chest.

  I didn’t particularly enjoy torturing people. In fact, it went against everything that Fletcher had ever taught me about being an assassin. No kids, no pets, no torture. But Sophia’s life was at stake, and there was nothing that would keep me from rescuing her, not even Fletcher’s killer code of honor.

  Owen and Warren stood a few feet away, watching the whole thing. Every slice I made, every bit of blood that spurted out of the guy’s wounds, every muffled scream he let out through the tape over his mouth as I dug my blades deeper and deeper into his tender flesh. They didn’t say a word, and they didn’t try to interfere. Even if they’d wanted to, Owen and Warren couldn’t have stopped me. Not from doin
g whatever it took to save Sophia. Not even from this.

  The guy writhed on the ground, trying to buck me off, but I dug my knees into his chest and used my weight to hold him in place.

  And then I cut him some more.

  It went on for about three minutes before the guy started shaking his head up and down, as though he was trying to scream, Yes! Yes! Yes! I’m ready to talk!

  I rocked back onto my heels and coldly considered him. “I’m going to take the tape off your mouth now. You’d better be ready to tell me everything I want to know. Because if this is a trick and you even think about screaming, then I’ll bury my knife so deep in your throat that you won’t let out so much as a whistle before you die. Understand?”

  The guy furiously nodded again, his head moving even faster than before.

  I leaned forward and yanked the tape off his mouth. “Now, where is the woman Grimes took? What does he plan on doing with her?”

  “She’s—she’s at camp!” he sputtered. “It’s about another hour away, just like the old man said!”

  “Is she still alive?” I had to ask the question, even though my heart felt as hard and heavy as a brick in my chest, dreading the answer.

  “Yes! Yes, she’s still alive!” the guy said, the words tumbling out of his mouth one after another. “Grimes wants her for himself! He told the rest of us not to even think about touching her!”

  I didn’t have to ask him any more questions, because the guy started babbling all about Sophia, Grimes, and the camp. He told me everything that I wanted to know and a few things that I didn’t. Apparently, in his free time, Grimes liked to go trolling through Ashland, especially around the community college. Once he saw a girl he liked, he grabbed her off the street, out of one of the parking lots, or even right off campus and brought her up to his mountain camp, and he didn’t let her go until she died from the torture, rape, and abuse that he subjected her to. Occasionally, Grimes would get bored with a girl before he killed her, and he’d give her to the rest of his men as a reward for their loyal service. The girl always died real quick after that.

  The whole thing made me sick, but it matched up with the information in Fletcher’s file.

  But what was especially revealing was that Grimes wasn’t the only one in on the act. Hazel enjoyed torturing the girls even more than Grimes did, beating them, berating them, and using her Fire magic on them again and again for no real reason other than the fact that she could. Sometimes she was the one who would go trolling and bring back whatever young man caught her eye to meet the same sad fate as the kidnapped girls.

  “How many men does Grimes have?” I asked. “Where are they stationed? What kind of weapons do they have? Do any of them have elemental magic?”

  The guy hesitated, so I cut him again to encourage him to keep talking. After a few more slices with my knife, he sang like the proverbial canary.

  According to my new best friend, Grimes currently had around three dozen men working for him—a mix of dwarves, giants, vampires, and humans, all armed with guns, knives, and whatever other weapons they could make or scrounge up. But Grimes and Hazel were the only ones with elemental magic. A few guards patrolled the camp perimeter, but Grimes counted on his ruthless reputation to keep most folks away, along with the booby traps that surrounded his camp.

  Apparently, my guy was a relatively new recruit and had been sent down to do a sweep through the park and make sure that no one was hanging around who shouldn’t have been and that no one had tracked Sophia to Bone Mountain.

  “Grimes said that some woman tried to stop him,” the guy babbled. “Some chick who got lucky and took out a couple of our guys. He said that once he had the dwarf under control, he was going to go back for the other chick—and that he was going to teach her a lesson that she wouldn’t forget.”

  “Well, Grimes doesn’t have to worry about finding me,” I said. “Because I’m going to find him first. Anything else you want to add?”

  The guy didn’t say anything, so I casually twirled my knives in my hands to motivate him one final time.

  “That’s it! That’s it!” he sputtered again. “That’s all I know. I swear! I swear! I wouldn’t lie, not to you.” He stared at the knives in my hands—knives stained a bright, glossy crimson with his blood. He shuddered, but a desperate, hopeful light still flared in his eyes, despite what I’d done to him. “So . . . I was helpful, right? I mean, like, really, really helpful. I told you practically everything there is to know about Grimes and his operation.”

  “Oh, yeah. You sang your sweet little heart out for me.”

  I didn’t add that it had been a foregone conclusion. Few people could resist more than a few minutes of torture, even me.

  “So . . . you . . . you’re going to let me live, right?” the guy asked.

  Behind me, Owen and Warren remained still and silent. They hadn’t said a word while I’d carved up and questioned the guy, and they didn’t speak now. It wouldn’t have done them—or him—any good. Because I had a promise to keep to Jo-Jo and Sophia—and Fletcher too.

  “You said that you’ve been working for Grimes for, what, six months now?”

  The guy nodded his head.

  “Tell me,” I asked. “Of all those poor women Grimes has kidnapped and brought to his camp in the time that you’ve been there, exactly how many of them did you rape and torture along with the others?”

  He winced, as though I’d caught him with his hand in a cookie jar instead of talking about the horrible brutalization of so many innocent victims. “Um . . . well . . . you see . . .” His voice trailed off, and he gave me a sheepish grin, followed by a shrug, as if to say that he was just one of the guys.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I thought.”

  I plunged my knife into his heart. The guy opened his mouth to finally let out a good, long, loud scream, along with all the others he’d been holding back while I’d been cutting him. But I denied him even that much mercy. I ripped the blade out of his chest and sliced it across his throat before he could utter a single sound. He bled out quickly after that, which was a far more merciful death than what his vile gang had given all those young women and men.

  When I was sure that he was dead, I wiped my knives off on his pants leg, then got to my feet. Warren and Owen stayed silent.

  Warren finally turned to one side and spat on the rocks. “That’s one of Grimes’s men that we won’t have to worry about getting between us and Sophia.”

  Well, I supposed that was one way of looking at things, instead of the cold, hard fact that I’d just tortured and killed a man. Warren nodded at me, then shouldered his rifle and satchel and started back up the ridge.

  And finally, even though I dreaded it, I turned to face Owen.

  I expected to see censure stamped all over his features, along with disgust, disapproval, and disappointment. But I didn’t find any of those things. Instead, Owen stared right back at me, his violet gaze level and steady on my gray one. There was no judgment in his eyes, no wariness, no hurt or pain or anger.

  Instead, he squared his shoulders and faced the truth of the situation head-on, just like I did. Because the other cold, hard fact was that Harley Grimes wasn’t the only one who had a heart of venom. I did too.

  Owen had just seen me at my most violent, my most vicious, my most vindictive, and he wasn’t disgusted by my actions, and he wasn’t turning away from me because of them. I wondered at the change in him. Maybe he only felt this way because this was some random stranger who lay dead at my feet and not someone he had loved.

  Not Salina.

  “Warren’s right,” Owen finally rumbled. “One down. And good riddance.”

  He nodded at me, then hefted his backpack onto his shoulder, turned, and headed after Warren.

  If the situation had been different, if we’d had more time, I might have called out and asked him if he really meant what he’d said and what he really thought about everything that I’d done. But Sophia was waiting, and t
his was no time to be selfish and think about Owen and me and what was or wasn’t happening between us. Not when Sophia was in so much danger and especially not when she could be in so much pain right now because of Grimes.

  So I slid my knives back up my sleeves, grabbed my own bag, and followed Owen and Warren up the ridge.

  14

  We’d been hiking for about thirty minutes when we came across the first trap.

  I only noticed it because the trap was emanating the faintest bit of magic. I was scanning the forest, a knife in my hand, on the lookout for Grimes’s men. I took a step forward, and hot, invisible bubbles started popping against my skin.

  “Stop,” I said. “Nobody move.”

  Warren and Owen both froze in their tracks.

  After a moment, Owen frowned. “Is that . . . Fire magic?”

  Owen had an elemental talent for metal, which was an offshoot of my own Stone power, so he could sense magic just like I could.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I feel it too. Now, let’s see if we can find out where it’s coming from.”

  We peered into the woods around us, eyeing the trees, leaves, rocks, even the dirt under our feet.

  “There,” Warren said.

  He pointed at a slender poplar about three feet ahead on the faint track we’d been following. It took me a few seconds to realize that a small rune had been scorched into the tree trunk a couple of inches off the ground, a small circle surrounded by several dozen wavy rays. A sunburst, the symbol for Fire.

  Runes were more than fancy familial symbols or flashy business logos. Elementals could also imbue runes with their magic and get them to perform specific functions. Lots of folks used the sunburst symbol for magical trip wires and booby traps.

  Warren got down on his hands and knees, laid his rifle and satchel aside, and carefully crawled forward. “What do we have here?”

  He hooked his finger under something and gently pulled it up so Owen and I could see the thin, translucent fishing line that had been strung ankle-high between the poplar and another tree on the opposite side of the track. The left end of the line was wrapped around a wooden peg that had been driven into the ground, while the right end was merely taped to the tree, right on top of the sunburst rune. As soon as you walked through the fishing line, the tape would rip off the rune, and the sunburst would flare to life and explode with elemental Fire. Simple but effective.