Page 69 (1/2)

Chapter 1

Old habits die hard for assassins

And I planned on h

That's what I did Me Gin Blanco The assassin known as the Spider I killed people, soood at

Tonight I had et ever-Mab Monroe, the Fire elemental who'd murdered my family when I was thirteen

I'd been plotting the hit for weeks Where to do it, how to get past security, eapon to use, how to get away after the fact Now, on this cold, cold night, I'd finally decided to carry out my deadly plan

I'd been on the prowl for hours Three hours, to be exact Each one spent out in the bitter February frost, including cli my way up the side of a fifteen-story mansion one icy foot at a time Hard bits of snow peltedIt wasn't theone of my hits, but it was necessary

Too bad Mab knew that I was co for her

Oh, I hadn't expected it to be easy, but slipping past the massive net of security, first in the snooods around Mab's mansion, and then closer to the house itself, was a bitwith the giants that the Fire eleuards, not to h the trees like invisible spiderwebs Of course, I could have dropped the giants, killing the, but that would have resulted in the alar that much more

So instead I'd opted for a silent, nonlethal approach-at least for now It had taken h the woods, then another one to get close enough to the mansion to slither up the stairs to a second-floor balcony and then heave myself up onto part of the roof that sloped down there After that, things had gotten easier, since there were no sensors, alariants posted on the roofs that covered the various parts of the s above the second floor, since her, especially on a snowy night like this one

I wasn't particularly brave or crazy, but I was determined to kill Mab

A strong gust of wind slapped and then backhanded themore frozen snow off the eaves and ontoover the side of the roof and dropping down into the eerie silver dark of the night

I grunted at the hard, stinging iic to protect myself, could have tapped into my power and made my skin hard as marble so that the rocklike wads of snoould bounce off my body like bullets off Superman's chest But ele their powers, and I didn't want to give Mab any hint that I was here

At least, not before I'd killed her

By this point, I'd worked my way up to the sixth floor, where the mansion's blueprints had indicated there was a particularly large dining rooan Lane, had picked up fro a fancy dinner party this evening Finn hadn't been able to determine what the party was for or even who had been invited, but that didn't ht-I didn't care as in the room with her