Jennifer Estep - Heart of Venom

“Gin! Down!” I heard Finn yell behind me.

I immediately stopped my attack on the giant and dropped to the ground.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Bullets punched through the air where I’d been standing, and the familiar acrid burn of gunpowder mixed with the stench of garbage in the alley. A second later, the

giant’s body hit the ground with a dull thud. knife still in my hand, I got to my feet and hurried over to him, but there was no need. Finn had put a couple of bullets through the giant’s right eye and up into his brain. His body had already shut down; he wasn’t even twitching.

I turned to look at Finn, who had a gun clenched in one hand. With his other hand, he was picking a piece of wilted cabbage off his jacket sleeve. He tossed the cabbage aside with a disgusted expression and moved over to me.

“You okay?” I asked.

Finn nodded. “You?”

I nodded back and gingerly touched my side. “I’ll have some bruises from where he played kick-the-can with my ribs, but I’ll stop by Jo-Jo’s on the way home and get her to patch me up. No worries.”

“Speaking of Jo-Jo’s, I still say that I should get to come to your little soiree,” Finn said. “Especially after I was so helpful here tonight.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You start up with that again, and

I’ll be dealing with three bodies instead of just two.”

Finn gave me a wounded look, but after a moment, he sighed and holstered his gun. “Well, at least this one’s already halfway to the cooler,” he grumbled.

I grinned at him. “See? We’re nothing if not efficient.”

Finn muttered some choice words under his breath, but he reached down and took hold of the dead giant’s shoulders, and I grabbed his ankles again. We lugged the two men over to the cooler to await Sophia and her body disposal skills.

Not the first body dump we’d done—and certainly not the last.

Two days later, Saturday, the dead giants were still on ice in the cooler, but I found myself in much nicer, warmer confines: a beauty salon.

The salon took up the back half of an old plantation house, and the area had a homey and welcoming, if cluttered, feel. Tubs of nail polish and lipstick sat on a counter, along with bottles of hair dye, shampoo, and conditioner.

Nestled in between the tubs and bottles were brushes, combs, curlers, rollers, scissors, and every other item you could think of that would untangle, tease, straighten, curl, kink, or cut your hair. Stacks of beauty magazines covered the small tables scattered here and there in the room, the models on the slick, glossy covers beaming as if they approved of all the beauty ministrations that could be had there.

I was relaxing in one of the cherry-red salon chairs when something warm, wet, and slightly rough touched my foot. I leaned to one side, and Rosco, Jo-Jo’s basset hound, licked my toes again, then gave me a hopeful woof . I stretched out my foot and rubbed it against his side. Rosco let out a loud, contented sigh and collapsed in a wrinkled puddle of black and brown fur, perfectly happy to let me rub his round tummy for as long as I would.

“Hold still, darling,” Jo-Jo drawled as she put another coat of paint on my fingernails. “I’m almost done.”

Rosco and the salon were the pride and joy of Jolene

“Jo-Jo” Deveraux, the dwarven Air elemental who healed me whenever I got banged up or almost shot, stabbed, beaten, or magicked to death as the Spider. Given my current notoriety in the Ashland underworld and the legion of would-be murderers targeting me, I was over here more days than not. Then again, I would have been over here anyway, since Jo-Jo was a mother figure to me and part of my extended family.

Since we were having a girls’ day at the salon, I’d forgone my usual long sleeves, jeans, and boots in favor of a red tank top, some white cutoff shorts, and a pair of black sandals that immediately got kicked off over into the corner when I’d first arrived an hour earlier. Jo-Jo, however, enjoyed dressing up, and she had on one of her prettiest

pink dresses, along with her usual strand of pearls. Her

white-blond hair was curled just so, her soft, understated

makeup would have put any beauty queen to shame, and

her bare feet showed off the perfect raspberry pedicure

that she’d just given herself.

“You know, you really don’t have to give me a manicure,” I said. “You should be relaxing today too.”

Jo-Jo raised her head and gave me an amused look.

Laugh lines fanned out from the corners of her clear, almost colorless eyes. “You did all the cooking, darling.

That’s more work than this is. Besides, I like pampering you, Gin. You don’t take nearly enough time for yourself.

Especially not these days.”

“I know, I know,” I said. “But it’s a shame that you’re doing up my nails so neat and pretty when they’ll probably be chipped by this time tomorrow. Or probably before I leave here today. I never seem to be able to keep the polish on them for very long.”

I held up my hand. Jo-Jo had painted my short nails a deep, dark red that was definitely my color. If nothing else, it would help hide the blood that was sure to get on my hands the next time some idiot tried to murder me.

“Well, I have to agree with Jo-Jo,” a light, lilting voice chimed in. “I’d rather have your cooking than a manicure any day. This dark chocolate mousse pie is to die for, Gin.”

I looked to my right where my baby sister was eagerly digging her fork into a piece of said pie. Like me, Detective Bria coolidge had dressed down today, in a pale blue T-shirt, gray cargo shorts, and brown sandals, although she was still beautiful, with her blond hair, rosy skin, and cornflower blue eyes. But just because Bria was off the clock didn’t mean that she wasn’t armed. I knew that her gun and her gold detective’s badge were stuffed into the oversize straw bag that she’d brought along, just like my knives were laid out on the buffet table within easy reach.

Bria took another big bite of the pie and made the same sigh of contentment that Rosco had a minute ago.

“What all did you make besides the pie?” she asked, her eyes going from one covered dish on the table to the next.

“Well, since it’s girls only today, I decided to go all out,” I replied. “There’s the dark chocolate mousse pie you are currently enjoying, along with some chocolate truffles, double-chocolate-chip cookies, and dark-and milk-chocolate-dipped strawberries, kiwis, pineapples, and mangoes.”

Bria gave me a wry grin. “I’m sensing a chocolate theme.”

I returned her grin with one of my own. “You might say that. But there’s some real food too, in case we get tired of dessert. Plus, Roslyn is bringing some fresh veggies from her garden.”

Jo-Jo glanced at the clock on the wall, which was shaped like a puffy cloud, her rune and the symbol for her Air magic. “Where is Roslyn?”

Roslyn Phillips, another one of our friends, was also supposed to come to the salon today, along with Sophia

Deveraux, Jo-Jo’s younger sister.

Bria waved her fork in the air. “She called me this morning and said that she’d be a little late, that we should go ahead and start without her.”

“And you went for the food first. You’re picking up some of Finn’s bad habits,” I teased. “How was your date with him the other night?”

Bria’s fiery blush told me everything that I needed to know. “I plead the Fifth,” she murmured, and took another bite of pie.

“Well, when you’re finished with that, come over here, darling, and tell me what color you want on your nails,” Jo-Jo said.