Read (Elemental Assassin 01) Spider's Bite for Free Online Page A

claiming that runes should only be used by those with power. Most of those same folks also harbored crackpot dreams of a magic-controlled society run by elementals and the like, instead of the current balance of power between all the races. The reason no one race had taken over was simple: guns were great equalizers. So were knives, baseball bats, chain saws, and wood chippers. And most folks in Ashland had at least one of each. Magic was great, but three bullets in the back of the head was enough to put almost anyone’s lights out for good. So the humans used runes, the magic users scoffed at them, and the city kept on turning.
    But the humans using runes had no real impact on anything. Only elementals could imbue runes with magic; make the symbols come to life and perform some specific function. And really, a Fire elemental tracing a sunburst rune into a wooden log to start a campfire was just a flashy way of showing off. Especially when he could just snap his fingers and do it outright. But magical runes were good for some things—trip wires, alarms, timed or delayed bursts of magic. That last one had obvious appeal to certain assassins. Trace an explosive Fire rune on a package, mail it to your mark, and you could be sipping margaritas in the Caribbean when the poor idiot opened the box and it went boom .
    Most runes had no power in and of themselves, but were simply ways to announce your lineage, show your alliances, and say something about your temperament, business, occupation, or hobbies. The rune of my family, the Snow family, had been a snowflake—the symbol for icy calm. My mother, Eira, had the rune fashioned into a silverstone medallion she’d worn on a chain around her neck. My mother had taken the tradition a step further and had a rune necklace created for each of us, with the symbol revealing something about our personalities.
    The snowflake rune was the first piece on the mantel, followed by a curling ivy vine—representing elegance—my older sister, Annabella’s, rune and necklace. And finally, there was a primrose, symbolizing beauty, which had been given to my younger sister, Bria.
    There wasn’t a picture of my rune—the spider rune—on the mantel. The small circle surrounded by eight equidistant lines hadn’t been intricate or interesting enough to merit a drawing for my class. Of course, I didn’t actually have the spider rune medallion anymore, but if I wanted to see the damn thing, all I had to do was look at the scars on my palms.
    I shook myself out of my trance. The memories were always worse during the fall. That’s when my mother and Annabella had been killed by the Fire elemental, their bodies reduced to ash. Bria had escaped that fate, only to be buried alive by the crumbling remains of our house. All I’d found of my baby sister had been a splash of blood on the stone foundation.
    The clear, crisp tang in the air. The bright, cerulean blue of the sky. The rich, damp smell of the earth turning. The way the approaching winter chill slowed the murmur of the stones underfoot. It all reminded me of them, even now, seventeen years later.
    But the runes on my mantel weren’t going to bring my family back. Nothing could do that. I didn’t know why I’d done the damn drawings in the first place. I really did need a vacation. Or perhaps Fletcher’s talk of retirement had unsettled me more than I’d realized.
    My fingers tightened around the folder in my hand. I pulled my eyes away from the drawings, went into the bedroom, and closed the door, cutting off my view of the runes.
    Out of sight, almost out of mind.
    At eight o’clock the next evening, I stood outside on the topmost balcony of the Ashland Opera House, a massive building constructed of gray granite and glistening white marble. An old-fashioned architectural gem, the opera house spread over three downtown blocks. A slender turret marked each one of the building’s three wings, which always made it seem like an elaborate