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Chapter One

The bastards never even would have gotten close to me if I hadn't had the flu

Coughing, sneezing, aching, wheezing That was me Gin Blanco Restaurant owner Stone and Ice elemental Former assassin And all-around badass Laid low by a microbe

It had started as a so And noell, it wasn't pretty Watery eyes Pale face And a nose so red and bright even Rudolph would have been jealous Ugh

The only reason I'd even crawled out of bed this evening was to coe and take the final for the classic literature class I was auditing I'd finished o Now I plodded across one of the grassy ca back intoout of it for a week

Just after seven on a cold, clear Deceht This was the last day of finals for the sehts burned in the s of the kudzu-covered brick buildings that rose above my head The stones whispered of forhtly pretentious sound that was decidedly at odds with the sinister shadows that blackened ht Which is probably why they decided to ju me would be such a bother

One second I hadmy sore, drippy nose for the hundredth time today The next, I looked up to find iants

Oh, fuck

I stopped, and they ile of trouble around iants were all around seven feet tall, with oversize, buglike eyes and fists alrinned at et down to the business of beating me

My gray eyes flicked to the leader of the group, who had taken up a position in front of iants, his enor even his flunkies seem small in comparison He was almost as wide as he was tall, with a solid, muscled frame Granite would be easier to break than his ribs Slater's colow in the faint light His hazel eyes provided a bit of color in his chalky skin, although his thin, tousled thatch of blond hair did little to cover his large skull A diaht

Up until hted as an assassin known as the Spider Over the years, I'd had plenty of dealings in the shady side of life, so I knew Slater by sight and reputation On paper, Elliot Slater was a highly respected security consultant with his own platoon of giant bodyguards In reality, Slater was the number-one enforcer for Mab Monroe, the Fire elemental who ran the Southern metropolis of Ashland like it was her own personal fiefdom Slater stepped in and either cut off, took care of, or permanently disposed of any pesky proble with herself

And tonight it looked like that problem was me

Not surprising A couple of weeks ago, I'd stiffed so a party at Mab Monroe's mansion Needless to say, the Fire elea few hundred of her closest business associates I'd gotten aith it so far, but I knew Mab was doing everything in her power to find the killer To find me

I sniffled into ured out who I really was If that hy Slater was here tonight-

Elliot Slater looked over his broad shoulder "Is this her?"