Jennifer Estep - Venom

For a moment, I wavered, ready to tell her where I’d hidden Bria. Then I thought of my mother and Annabella, of their burned, smoking bodies lying on the floor. No, I vowed. I wouldn’t do that to Bria. I wouldn’t give her to the Fire elemental.

The rune continued to heat up. I felt blisters form on my palms. I tried to move, tried to slip the metal out from between my hands, but they were taped together too tightly. All I could do was sit there and endure it. The blisters popped and turned into a burning sensation. I gritted my teeth, even as more tears streamed out of my eyes, and sweat dripped off my fingers. The burning intensified. What came after burning? Scorching? Scalding? Searing? The acrid smell of my own melting flesh filled my nose, along with sour sweat and fear.

The Fire elemental’s low chuckles washed over me. She was enjoying this, enjoying my suffering, this hot, searing, excruciating pain that felt like it would never, ever end.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I screamed. And again. And again. And again—

I woke up, my mouth open in a silent scream. My eyes flicked around the dark room, and it took me a moment to come back to myself. To remember that I was safe in Fletcher Lane’s house. That it was just a dream, just a memory, and nothing more. Nothing that could physically hurt me now. I drew in a ragged breath and flopped back against my damp pillow.

I’d been having these sorts of dreams ever since Fletcher’s murder a couple of months ago. The old man had been tortured to death by an Air elemental who’d hired me to do a job, then decided to double-cross and murder me so the hit couldn’t be traced back to her. I’d killed the Air elemental, of course, but it hadn’t brought Fletcher back to me — or stopped the dreams. If anything, it was like the old man’s death had opened a floodgate to my past, and the images kept spilling out no matter how much I wanted them to sink back into the darkness.

Only they weren’t really dreams so much as memories of my past. Of that fateful night when my mother and older sister had been murdered — by Mab Monroe. Of when the Fire elemental had tortured me to get me to give up Bria’s hiding place.

I opened my hands and stared at my palms. A bit of moonlight slipped in through the bedroom window and highlighted the silverstone scars on my hands. A small circle surrounded by eight thin lines. A spider rune. The symbol for patience. I’d born the marks for seventeen years now, but tonight, it felt like they’d just been made yesterday. Everything had felt fresh and raw and sore since Bria’s reappearance in my life.

I thought of that folder of information Finn had compiled on my sister. Of what secrets it might hold. I wondered what Bria remembered of the night our mother and older sister had died. If she knew Mab Monroe was the one who was responsible for it all. Why Bria had come back to Ashland. Why now, after all these long years?

But instead of getting out of bed, going downstairs, turning on a light, and looking at the file like I should have, I pulled the sheet up to my chin, as though the soft, warm flannel could protect me from, well, everything. All the horrible things that had happened, and all the ones that were yet to be.

Tomorrow, I thought. I would look at the information tomorrow.

Tonight, I only wanted to sleep — and forget.

At exactly two o’clock the next afternoon, Xavier pulled open the front door of the Pork Pit, making the bell chime. Punctual. I liked that in a man.

The giant held the door out wide so Roslyn Phillips could maneuver around him and step inside. The vampire madam and nightclub owner was dressed down today in a pair of black wool pants and a thick, ivory turtleneck sweater. A black and ivory checked coat covered her slim shoulders, and silver glasses perched on the end of her nose. Roslyn was still a striking woman, even without the party clothes and heavy makeup she wore when working the floor at Northern Aggression.

Catalina Vasquez, one of my best waitresses, heard the bell chime too. Her head snapped up from the chemistry textbook she’d been reading. Like me, Catalina was a student at Ashland Community College who worked part-time at the Pork Pit to make ends meet. With her long black hair, hazel eyes, and full-bodied figure, Catalina was quite popular with my male customers — especially Finnegan Lane, who always stopped to admire her assets whenever he came by the restaurant.

Catalina grabbed a couple of menus off a holder on the back wall and hurried behind the long counter that ran down one side of the barbecue restaurant. She reached the end, where I perched on my usual stool behind the old-fashioned cash register. I put down the copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that I’d been reading and signaled Catalina to stop.

“The lunch crowd has died down,” I said. “Why don’t you go on break now? I know you’ve got some errands to do. Take a couple hours if you want. I’ll handle them. I was thinking about closing down until four anyway.”

Catalina flashed me a wide, grateful smile. “Thanks, Gin. You’re the best.”

“Hmph.”

A grunt sounded from the middle of the counter, where Sophia Deveraux stood slicing a thick wedge of Jarlsberg cheese, one of the key ingredients in the Pork Pit’s most excellent grilled cheese sandwich. The dwarf was dressed in her usual black jeans and boots. Her T-shirt was also black today with a large silver heart on the front that was broken in two and dripping crimson blood. A thick silver choker ringed Sophia’s throat, and several matching rings flashed on her fingers.

Catalina Vasquez bit her lip and looked over her shoulder at the Goth dwarf. Catalina had only been working at the restaurant a few weeks, and she was still getting used to Sophia — and interpreting what the dwarf’s grunts really meant. Of course, I knew that Sophia was mocking Catalina’s assertion that I was the best boss ever, but I wasn’t about to share that knowledge. I had a hard enough time keeping waitresses, given the dwarf’s dour persona. I wasn’t about to let a responsible, punctual, hard-working jewel like Catalina slip through my fingers because of Sophia Deveraux and her monosyllabic method of communication.

“Sophia agrees,” I said. “You should definitely go on your break now.”

“Um, okay. If you’re sure.”

Catalina handed the menus over to me, grabbed her black wool pea coat off the stand in the corner, and headed out the front door. I waited until she was gone before I stepped over to Xavier and Roslyn.

“This way, please.” I led them to a booth in the very back of the restaurant, out of sight of the glass storefront windows.

Finnegan Lane was already seated there against the back wall, wearing another one of his ubiquitous suits. Black, with a faint gray pinstripe today. A cooling cup of chicory coffee perched on the table in front of Finn, along with the remains of his lunch — a half-pound cheeseburger with all the fixings, steak-cut fries, and a triple chocolate milkshake that would go straight to anyone else’s ass but his. I always envied Finn his ability to eat whatever he wanted and never gain a pound.

Roslyn slid into the opposite side of the booth across from Finn. Xavier sat next to her. I gave both of them menus and went to check on my only other customers — a couple of construction workers grabbing a late lunch before heading back out into the December cold. The two men were ready to pay up and leave. Once I got their change, I went back over to the others. Behind the counter, Sophia kept slicing cheese, her knife thwack-thwack-thwack ing against the countertop.

“So what’ll it be?” I asked, pulling a pad and pen out of the back pocket of my blue jeans.