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Mab shrugged "Not enough profit totoo old for what so’s all wrong Besides, she’s a loose end, and it’s always better to cut those off before they unravel on you"

The Fire ele of any kind in her soulless black gaze "So kill the brat Tonight"

Chapter 17

Mab and Elektra starting talking about other things then, naht the construction workers could finish re on the ladder outside theand considered ht noas as close to the toet and still take theed to kill them, both of them Every cell in h the , toss my silverstone knives, and lash out at theic I possessed

But the probleerous eleht ere ic to kill Whereas I was out here swinging in the breeze all by my little lonesome, except for Finn and his rifle across the train yard There weren’t any s on the side of the railcar facing his location, and as good as Finn ith his gun, even he couldn’t shoot through solid metal Not from this distance anyway, not even with the silverstone bullets that I knew he always used

And the truth was that while I ht have been able to take Elektra out by myself, I didn’t have the same confidence when it came to Mab Not after what I’d seen her to do o Throw Mab and her Fire ic into the mix with LaFleur’s electricity, and I was the one who’d wind up getting dead

But most importantly, there was Natasha to think about A scared little girl who had already suffered who knehat kinds of horrors And she was going to die tonight by LaFleur’s hand unless I decided to go save her Right now

I hung there on the ladder for a second longer, debating irl There was no choice, really There never had been I ht be a cold-blooded assassin, but even I still had a heart, what little, black, patchwork bits there were left of it Besides, I’d pro her back to hiht be in I didn’t go back on my word-ever Not as Gin Blanco and certainly not as the Spider

So I hopped down from my perch on the ladder, palmed another one of my silverstone knives, and slithered off into the darkness

According to Elektra LaFleur, Natasha was being held in the next railcar over, which stood about fifty feet off toto the shadows, I picked h the train yard, still careful not to send any of the debris littering the ground flying with h for me to creep up to the railcar, scurry halfway up the metal ladder on the back side, and peer inside the

Unlike the car Elektra and Mab had been in, this one hadn’t been coh silver shine, but none of the other furnishings had been put in place The floor was bare, and only a lone bulb hung overhead

But there was still plenty of light forinside, their seven-foot fra cards on I looked at the far corner A third, ainst the wall, buried under a pile of dirty, tattered blankets

That had to be Natasha I watched the blankets, tracking the slight, steady lift and fall of the, at least I didn’t knohat kind of shape the girl was in, what horrible things had been done to her, but it didn’t ht now I’d pro that I could to rescue his daughter-even if she ht already be dead and broken on the inside

The front door of the railcar was halfway open and, unfortunately enough, faced the depot where soon Whichunwanted attention I thought about my options, then tucked one of ht hand only

Then I drew in a breath, put ic

A cold silver light flickered in my palm, centered on the spider rune scar, and snowflake-shaped Ice crystals spread out fro theAs always, it surprised ic no much more control I had over it than before, and er it was

But I pushed the thoughts aside and focused on the task at hand I used only a trickle of power, as Mab and Elektra would be sure to notice anything more since they were elementals too Still, in seconds, the entirehad colass, metal fralass weak and brittle enough for ic and droppedthe angles and my method of attack one last tih the

I sent out another brief burst of Icethe thick wall of it that I’d put over theto shatter It worked and took the glass along with it I tucked into a tight ball, hit the floor of the railcar, and caiants never had a chance

They looked up as theshattered, startled by the sharp, sudden, unexpected noise While they were still processing as going on, I was alreadytoward them

With my first pass, I cut the throat of the man closest totheiant clutched at the crazy cri for breath, but the light was already starting to leak out of his eyes

The second man was a little quicker He actually ot to him I leaped up onto the low card table and buried my silverstone knife in his heart He started to scream from the pain, but I clamped my hand over his mouth, yanked out my knife, and used it to cut his throat as well His arms flailed wildly for about ten seconds before his brain quit working He thudded to the floor and was still

I hopped off the card table, the bloody knife still in my hand, crept over to the front of the railcar, and looked out through the partially open door The whine of power saws and steady thwack-thwack-thwack of hammers filled the air No one outside had heard iants, because no one was looking, running, or pointing in this direction Instead, the men continued with their construction work, oblivious to the danger in their iants, but their card table had been tucked back out of sight of the open door Their dead bodies couldn’t be seen by anyone casually glancing in this direction Satisfied that I was safe for a few seconds, I headed for the pile of blankets in the corner Whoever was inside heard my footsteps, and the blankets shifted and then slowly lowered

Natasha Volga peeked out froainst the wall of the railcar She looked a lot like Vinnie, with dark brown hair, blue eyes, and a pretty, round face that hadn’t quite lost that last bit of baby fat yet She lookedwell, I didn’t know exactly how old she looked It wasn’t like I’d spent any tiht, or maybe ten I also wondered if she had the saic as her father, but noasn’t the time to ask