Kiss of Venom (7 page)

Silence. Then—

The giant kicked me in the ribs again. Once more, I pretended that I couldn’t feel the sharp, brutal blow. The giant kept up with his attacks, plowing his foot into my ribs, my shin, and even my shoulder. I thought he might lean down, press his gun against the back of my skull, pull the trigger, and try to put a couple of bullets into my head just to make sure that I was dead. But for once, my luck held, and he didn’t take that final step. Maybe he was out of bullets. Or maybe he just wasn’t that smart. Either way, after about three more minutes of dithering around and petulant pleas from Finn to move my body off him, the giant seemed to buy my playing possum.

“I did it,” the guy finally said. “I did it! I killed the Spider! Woo-hoo!”

Okay, I thought the
woo-hoo
at the end was a little much, but I let the giant enjoy his moment of victory.

It was going to be the last thing he ever enjoyed.

“All right, all right,” Finn groused again. “Now, can you please get her off me? Seriously, dude, I’m about three seconds away from throwing up here. I know you don’t want that all over your boots.” He started making choking sounds.

“Fine, fine,” the other man muttered. “Just quit your damn whining already.”

The giant reached down, grabbed my shoulder, and turned me over.

I surged up and stabbed him in the chest for his thoughtfulness.

The giant screamed in surprise and jerked to one side, making my knife skitter across his ribs instead of slicing into his heart. He staggered back, and my knife cut free of his chest, blood spraying everywhere. The giant brought his revolver up between us and pulled the trigger.

Click
.

Empty. Well, too bad for him. Fatal for him, actually.

I scrambled to my feet, raised my knife high, and threw myself forward, but the giant was anticipating the move. He caught my arm in his hand. Given his enormous strength, it was easy for him to keep me from plunging my knife into his chest a second time. So I brought my free hand up, curved my fingers, and clawed at his face. The giant let go of my arm and craned his neck back, trying to protect his eyes from my prying fingers.

“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. 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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JENNIFER ESTEP is a
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author prowling the streets of her imagination in search of her next fantasy idea.
Spider’s Bite, Web of Lies, Venom, Tangled Threads, Spider’s Revenge, Thread of Death, By a Thread, Widow’s Web, Deadly Sting,
“
Parlor
Tricks”
(in the
Carniepunk
anthology),
Heart of
Venom,
and
The Spider
are the other works in her red-hot Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series for Pocket Books. Jennifer also writes the Mythos Academy young adult urban fantasy series and is the author of the Bigtime paranormal romance series. For more on Jennifer and her books, visit her at
www.JenniferEstep.com
and
@Jennifer_Estep
.

THE ELEMENTAL ASSASSIN SERIES BY JENNIFER ESTEP

Spider’s Bite

Web of Lies

Venom

Tangled Threads

Spider’s Revenge

Thread of Death (eNovella)

By a Thread

Widow’s Web

Deadly Sting

Heart of Venom

The Spider

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Pocket Star Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright
©
2013 by Jennifer Estep

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Pocket Star Books ebook edition July 2013

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ISBN 978-1-4767-5441-3 (ebook)