Widow's Web (Elemental Assassin) (35 page)

An hour later, just after eight o’clock, I slipped onto the Dubois estate.

The mansion was situated on a high bluff, and a set of stone steps led from it down to a large boathouse along the Aneirin River. I’d had Finn drop me off at a nearby bridge, then I’d hiked along the riverbank until I came to the steps. After that, it was just a matter of climbing up them, keeping an eye out for any wandering guards, and slipping into the woods at the top of the bluff. There weren’t even any security cameras for me to avoid. No motion sensors. No explosive runes hidden in the steps. No magical trip-wires strung in between the trees in the woods. Lax security all the way around. Then again, Salina
wanted
people to come to her estate—she just didn’t plan on them ever leaving again.

Now I was hidden in the trees, dressed in my usual
black clothes, and looking at the landscape through a pair of high-powered binoculars.

The woods bordered the north lawn, and I scanned the spectacle before me. I had to hand it to Salina—she’d gone all out. Tables covered with blue-green linens had been set up on the lawn, and I could see the glitter of crystal and silver on them, along with the faint flickers of lit candles. She’d even sprung for a couple of bars made of elemental Ice. Sharp peaks had been carved into the surface of the Ice, representing water, waves, and the ocean, along with Salina’s mermaid rune. I eyed one of the grinning mermaids through my binoculars. Deadly beauty, indeed.

According to the information Finn had gathered, the dinner wasn’t supposed to officially start until eight thirty, but a crowd had already gathered on the smooth grass. The men wore tuxes, while the women were dressed in evening gowns. Even from here, I could hear whispers from the gemstones the partygoers wore, as the jewels vainly murmured of their own faceted beauty.

I’d been right when I’d told Finn that all the power players would bring their bodyguards. Men and women wearing suits that obviously concealed guns could be seen among the glitterati. Most of them were giants, but there were a few dwarves, vamps, elementals, and humans in the mix too. All of them stayed close to their bosses and eyed the other guards with cold, hostile intent. Everyone was on their best behavior, and it was obvious they didn’t like it one bit.

Waiters moved through the crowd, bearing trays of bite-size food, while several men and women worked
the bars, pouring drinks as fast as they could. A couple of them were Ice elementals whose job was to keep the curved monstrosities from melting in the May heat. Their eyes flashed blue and white in the twilight as they held on to their magic.

But the fountains were what caught and held my attention.

There were seven of them, all featuring different shapes, all with a water theme. One fountain was relatively flat, with metal water lilies spiraling out from the edge, as if the flowers were really floating on the surface instead of being anchored in place. Another fountain featured metal koi half in and half out of the water, spewing steady streams of it up into the air. The other sculptures featured more fish and flowers, along with a few abstract designs. They were all beautiful, and I could tell that Cooper had crafted them with the same care he did everything else he made.

I focused on the largest fountain, the centerpiece of the lawn. It was another fucking mermaid sitting on a pile of rocks and grinning. Only her long, flowing, metal hair covered the mermaid’s lush body, and she had her finger crooked out, inviting folks to come and take a closer look at her, not realizing that she was really luring them to their deaths with her shy, sweet, beguiling smile. Just like Salina had duped her guests into coming here tonight.

Finn had been right about what Salina wanted the fountains for. They were arranged in a wide circle, with all the tables and people situated in between them and the Ice bars filling in some of the wider gaps between the fountains. A kill zone if I ever saw one. Given Salina’s
magic, she could easily flood the whole area with water from the fountains, then let loose with her elemental power. No one would get out unless she wanted them to—and I doubted she’d offer anyone that mercy.

Eyeing the fountains, I wondered how long Salina would let the water just bubble, foam, and froth away before reaching for it and transforming the rippling surfaces into something deadly. Before finally taking the revenge she’d waited so long for.

On the ground beside me, my walkie-talkie crackled, and I heard a loud sigh.

“Do we have to do it this way?” Finn asked through the walkie-talkie for the fifth time since I’d gotten into position.

I didn’t know how he’d done it on such short notice, but my foster brother had scrounged up a set that would work despite Salina’s cell phone jammers. He’d even brought along a few tiny spy cams, which I’d hidden in the trees and pointed at the lawn so Finn could see what was happening there through a feed to his laptop.

“Yes,” I replied. “We have to do it this way. Unless you have another idea for getting past that gate on such short notice?”

I looked off to my left. A ten-foot-high stone wall ringed the Dubois estate, typical for this part of Northtown. Several limos and town cars sat on the street outside the gate, the drivers waiting to take their bosses home later that night. It seemed like all of Salina’s guests had already arrived, and the wide iron gate in the middle of the wall had been shut to keep any party crashers out—and everyone else in, even if they didn’t realize it yet.

The plan was simple. I’d sneak into the mansion, find Owen and get him out of here, grab Kincaid on my way out, then go back and deal with Salina. If she made a move before then, Finn was going to crank the engine on his Escalade, zoom toward the gate from his position across the street, crash through the iron bars, and drive across the lawn to where the dinner was being held. Hopefully, the crowd would scatter in confusion and give my foster brother a clean shot at the water elemental with one of his omnipresent guns. If not, I’d take her down with my knives. Win-win, either way.

“But my car,” Finn muttered. “Why do we always have to wreck
my
car?”

“It’s not like you don’t have another Escalade in your fleet. You’ll barely notice the scratches on this one,” I said, attempting to soothe his ruffled feathers.

“Hmph,” he harrumphed in my ear. “Believe me, I’ll notice. I just think you like destroying my cars on purpose. First, you get my new Aston Martin all scratched up and beat to hell, and now you want me to ram my Escalade through an iron gate. It’s unseemly, I tell you.
Unseemly
.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh yes. You’ve caught me. I confess. My sole purpose in life is to gleefully, willfully, maniacally destroy all of your precious chrome babies.”

“I knew it!”

“What about Bria?” I asked, distracting him.

“She’s on her way, along with Xavier and some other members of the po-po. Are you sure you don’t want to wait for her?”

“Yes, I’m sure. If Salina sees the cops, she might decide
to start the show early. I doubt she’d have any qualms about killing the fine boys in blue along with everyone else. I at least need to get Owen and Kincaid away from her first before anyone goes in guns blazing. Just keep watch, and be ready if it looks like I’m in trouble.”

“Roger that.”

“Eva? How are you holding up?” I asked.

I heard Finn pass the walkie-talkie over Eva, who was in the car with him. I hadn’t been able to stop her from coming, but I’d made sure she was on the outside looking in and well away from Salina and the danger the water elemental posed.

“I’m fine, but I’ll be better when that bitch is dead. You promised me, Gin. You
promised
.”

“I know,” I said in a soft voice. “But I promised Owen too.”

Eva sighed. “But he has such a blind spot when it comes to Salina. He always has.”

I didn’t tell Eva that I was planning to end that blind spot tonight—permanently. She knew as well as I did that Salina had to be put down. All that remained to be seen now was what Owen would think of me after the fact.

I looked through the binoculars a final time, then put them into the sack of supplies I’d grabbed from Finn’s car. I pulled a few things out of the bag, including some extra knives, and slid them into the pockets on my vest, before hiding the bag in a pile of leaves. As a final touch, I picked up a long staff that Finn had gotten when he’d swung by Fletcher’s house earlier—a staff that hummed with my Ice magic.

A few weeks ago, I’d used the staff to defeat Randall
Dekes, a nasty vampire who’d wanted to keep me as his pet. Dekes had stolen my magic by forcibly drinking my blood, but I’d tricked him into using my own power against me, and I’d had the staff ready when he did. Since the staff was made of silverstone, it had absorbed all the magic Dekes had thrown at me. Even now, all these weeks later, the metal felt cold to the touch.

My silverstone knives also contained my Ice magic, from my fights with both Dekes and Mab before him, and they were my backup plan, just in case I couldn’t overcome Salina with the power within the staff. But if that was the case, I’d probably already be dead. Salina wouldn’t be giving me second chances to kill her.

“All right,” I said. “Stand by. I’m going in.”

“Good luck,” Eva whispered back.

I tucked the walkie-talkie into another pocket on my vest. I didn’t tell her that I was wishing for every scrap of luck I could get tonight—and then some. We all knew what was at stake.

Fortunately, the area between the woods and the lawn was still a bit overgrown from all the years of neglect during Salina’s absence, and several large holly and rhododendron bushes had sprang up, providing plenty of cover. I crept from the shadow of one bush to another, easing closer and closer to the mansion. I hadn’t spotted Owen in the crowd with my binoculars, so I had to assume he was already inside—and that Salina was with him, since she hadn’t put in an appearance yet.

The staff made it difficult to be as invisible as I wanted to be, since it was such a large weapon and the silverstone
that it was made of gleamed in the sunset. But the movers and shakers were busy bullshitting and sizing each other up, while their guards all eyed each other. The waiters were just trying to keep everyone happy and their heads attached to their shoulders. So no one noticed the dark figure slinking through the shadows.

Finally, I came to the most dangerous part of my journey—a bush that was right by one of the Ice bars. It was far too close to the crowd for my liking, but it was the only way I could get to one of the mansion’s side doors. I waited until everyone was looking in the other direction, then left my hiding spot and sprinted the few feet over to the bush, crouching down behind it and making myself as small as possible.

I counted off the seconds in my head.
Ten . . . twenty . . . thirty . . . forty-five . . .
As the minute mark passed and no one came to investigate, I figured I was safe enough to make the final sprint from the bush over to the door.

I’d just started to move toward the house when someone planted himself on the other side of the rhododendron I was crouched behind, so close that I could see his legs through the green, glossy leaves.

“Girl,” a cold, familiar voice said.

I stiffened. I knew that voice, knew exactly who it belonged to—Jonah McAllister. Had he somehow spotted me?

“Girl,” McAllister repeated. “Come here.”

I frowned. Those weren’t the words of the man who’d just spied his mortal enemy somewhere she shouldn’t be. I peered up through the branches at him and realized that he was addressing someone else. He hadn’t seen me after all.

The smarmy lawyer wore an impeccable tux like everyone else, and his wing tips had a higher shine than some of the necklaces the women wore. McAllister’s silver coif of hair glittered with a hard, brittle light in the setting sun, and his face had an unnaturally smooth, almost waxy look to it. Jonah really needed to cut back on the Air elemental facials or soon he wouldn’t have any skin left to exfoliate.

For a moment, I considered killing him where he stood. After all the trouble he’d caused me, I would have loved nothing more than to rise up and stab McAllister to death with my knives. But I couldn’t do that without drawing attention to myself. With all the guards in attendance, I wouldn’t get three steps before one of them realized what happened, pulled out a gun, and started shooting. Besides, I wasn’t here for McAllister. No, tonight was about saving Owen and killing Salina—nothing else. So I swallowed my hatred of McAllister and kept quiet as a waitress shuffled over to him.

“Yes, sir. Champagne, sir?” she asked.

McAllister sniffed. “It’s about time. I was wondering if Salina was going to make us all thirst to death.”

I listened to the faint bubble of the fountains in the distance. I didn’t think there was any danger of that tonight.

His champagne fix satisfied, McAllister dismissed the waitress with a wave of his hand and moved toward the center of the crowd. I waited until the woman had turned back toward the bar before racing over to the side door.

The door was standing open, and I slid behind it, using it to shield me from anyone looking in my direction. I
paused and peered around the edge, making sure no one had noticed me and was coming my way, but I’d made it undetected. My eyes scanned over the crowd, taking in all the underworld sharks like Ron Donaldson, Beauregard Benson, and Lorelei Parker and the bodyguards they’d brought along with them.