Venom

Chapter Twenty-Six

I walked back through the woods to my previous spot and grabbed my duffel bag. I slipped the scabbard that I'd taken from Owen Grayson's house over my shoulders. The black leather straps crisscrossed over my chest, and I slid the two long swords into their anointed slots. Once that was done, I grabbed a few more small supplies and left the bag where it was.

I headed to the left, keeping inside the tree line and circling to the far, opposite side of the patio until I faced the very back of the mansion. Only one giant guard remained outside next to the pool, since the others had been pulled away to take care of Finn. Like it or not, Finn's plan had worked.

Since it looked like the shooting was over, the guard had once again lit up a cigarette. He faced away from me, out toward the woods where Finn had been, and I watched while he tucked his gun into the small of his back. The other man that had been sitting just inside the glass doors was nowhere to be found. He was probably somewhere farther inside the mountain mansion, helping Elliot Slater secure Finn for the torture that lay ahead. I wouldn't get a better chance than this.

So I took it.

I hopscotched my way down the slope, skipping from one tree to another. The landscape hadn't been as well cleared on the back side of the house as it had on the front, which gave me plenty of cover to work with. I moved quicker than I had before, but I took care to make as little noise as possible. I still needed every bit of surprise that I could muster. Because now Finn's life depended on it, along with Roslyn's.

Two minutes later, I'd worked my way to the edge of the stone patio, which was set about four feet off the ground. I eased up, letting my head rise just above the surface of the rim. All around me, the stones whispered of wind and water. They also reverberated faintly with the sharp crack of gunshots that had just been fired. But those notes of alarm had already started to fade away. That bit of violence had been too brief and the majority of it too far away for the action to permanently sink into the patio. As for what I was about to do to the man in front of me, well, that kind of violence would probably linger in the stone for quite some time to come.

The guard stubbed out one cigarette with his foot and reached into his suit jacket for another. I wouldn't get a better opportunity-so I took it.

I pulled myself up, rolled over, and came up into a crouch behind some heavy, wrought-iron patio furniture. The guard drew a lighter out of his pocket and clicked it a couple of times, trying to get more than mere sparks out of the cheap plastic. I rose to my feet and tiptoed forward, a silverstone knife in either hand.

The lighter flared, illuminating the guard's profile. He turned to face me, one hand pressing down on the lighter tab to keep the flame going.

"Finally," he muttered.

Last word he ever said. The giant never even saw me step out from behind the furniture and creep forward so that I was directly in front of him. He lit his cigarette and lifted his head, smoke streaming from his nostrils like he was a mythical dragon. My first knife ripped into his stomach, spilling his guts all over the stone patio. The second knife slammed into his windpipe, cutting off any sound he might make. The poor guy never knew what hit him. He choked on his own blood, even as his body spasmed from the shock of the two vicious, fatal wounds. He went down on his knees, halfway to dead, but I held him up and cut his throat, just to be sure.

Since I didn't feel like dragging his body off the patio, I tipped the dead giant into the pool. He sank to the bottom, blood still spurting out of his wounds, turning the crystal water the ugly brown color of iodine. Under my boots, the stone of the patio took on a harsher note from the giant's spattered blood. A symphony wouldn't have sounded better to me at the moment.

Gin 3, giants 0.

I waited a few seconds, but no one seemed to have heard me take out my latest victim. When I was sure that the kill had been clean and quiet, I eased over to the glass patio door, turned the knob, and slipped inside.

The inside of the mansion looked just as I'd expected it to-lush, elegant, expensive. Thick carpeting, throw rugs, and just enough natural wood and stone to make you think that you were in some rustic oasis instead of a carefully crafted structure. I could tell Slater had had the structure built especially for him because all the doorways had at least a twelve-foot clearance and were five feet wide. Giants didn't like to be crowded.

I stood inside the patio door a moment, thinking about the blueprints of the place that Finn had procured for me and getting my bearings. In the woods, Elliot Slater had told his man to chain Finn up in the downstairs living room. I currently stood on the back side of the house, which meant the living room was several hundred feet in front of me. I knew that Slater had at least one more man with him right now-the one who had carried Finn out of the woods-but I didn't know how many other giants might be lurking around. Best to do a perimeter sweep and kill as many of them as I could before taking on the big kahuna himself.

Besides, some small part of me hoped that Roslyn Phillips might still be alive. I owed it to the vampire to get her out of here if she was still breathing. Jo-Jo Deveraux could fix anything short of death, no matter what horrible things Slater might have done to Roslyn. I'd promised the vampire that I was going to protect her from the giant. That he was never going to hurt her again. So far, I hadn't lived up to my word, but if Roslyn was still breathing, then I'd be damned if I was leaving here without her.

A long hallway stretched out north and south before me. I tiptoed up the north side, keeping to the shadows and pausing every few feet to look and listen.

Silence.

I didn't hear any movement. No rustle of clothing, no labored breathing, no scratch of shoes on the rugs or carpet. Just silence.

I kept going, eventually coming to a set of stairs that led up to the third floor. Once again, I visualized the blueprints that had been in Finn's folder. If I remembered correctly, the interior of the mansion was hollow. The downstairs living room on the second floor was the focal point of the structure, with the ceilings of the other floors cut out above it. Balconies on every floor led to other rooms while still overlooking the living room below, which featured floor-to-ceiling windows on one side. Since I wanted to see Elliot Slater's setup before I went after him, I headed up the stairs so I could get a bird's-eye view of things. Besides, the master bedroom was located on the third floor. Which is where Slater had probably taken Roslyn first when he'd brought her here.

Again, I heard no one and saw nothing except furniture-until I reached the door that led to the master bedroom. To my surprise, the door was cracked open, and soft murmurs slid out into the hallway where I stood. I cocked my head to one side. A man's voice doing most of the talking, but not Slater's. The pitch was too high. Didn't much matter. Other than Finn and Roslyn, whoever else was in this house was going to die right along with the giant, no matter what his voice sounded like.

I crept closer to the door, and the murmurs sharpened into real words.

"... know how beautiful you are? It doesn't have to be like this," the man said.

More silence, as if he was waiting for someone to respond.

"I'm talking to you, bitch. Answer me."

More silence.

Slap-slap-slap.

A series of violent blows rang out, and a low moan sounded. My eyes narrowed, even as my heart lifted. Because the moaner was a woman. And it sure sounded like Roslyn Phillips to me.

I eased closer to the door and put my eye up against the crack. The door was only slightly open, showing me a narrow strip of what lay inside.

A bed dominated the room-the biggest bed that I'd ever seen. The sucker had to be at least twenty-five feet square and was covered with an ivory comforter. Thick wooden posts rose up from the four corners of the bed, and I could see some sort of heavy, hemp rope tied to them. The rope creaked, as though someone was tied down by it. A man also stood before the bed, but it wasn't Elliot Slater. His hair was a bright red, instead of the blond wisps of the other pale, chalky giant.

This giant was also naked, with an ass that was so fat, dimpled, and hairy that I would happily have killed him just for inflicting the sight on me.

"Like I told you, Slater's busy right now. Besides, he doesn't know a good thing when he has it anyway. Smashing up that pretty face of yours, beating on that soft body of yours, what a fucking waste. If you were mine, I would have found something much better for us to do together. Something we're going to do right now," the man drawled in a soft voice, as though he wasn't casually talking about raping someone.

"He'll... kill you... for this."

The voice was low and weak and raspy, but I still recognized the person it belonged to-Roslyn Phillips. She was still alive-and she was damn well going to stay that way.

I couldn't see the man's face, but I got the impression that he smiled.

"No, he won't because you're not going to live long enough to tell him about it," he replied.

The man moved forward to the edge of the bed. He held a rag in his hand. The bits of rope I could see jerked and spasmed. Roslyn, trying desperately to get free before the bastard gagged and raped her. A cold, calm, familiar sort of determination filled me, and my hands tightened around my bloody knives.

While the naked giant wrestled with Roslyn, trying to get the gag into her mouth, I opened the door and stepped inside the room. The man was too busy with the vampire to hear my soft footsteps on the carpet. I came at him at an angle, so I could see what kind of shape Roslyn was in.

The sight on the bed sickened me.

I'd been right on one count. Elliot Slater had wanted to hurt Roslyn before he killed her. The vampire lay spread-eagled on the bed, her arms and legs tied to each of the four posts. Blood and cuts and bruises covered her body-every single inch I could see of it.

If I hadn't known it was Roslyn, I wouldn't have recognized her. That's how bad she looked, her features all mushed and mashed together, like she'd been run over by a car. Roslyn's skin looked like it had been rubbed raw with sandpaper. Her beautiful face was a mess of pulpy, purple, swollen flesh, and the vamp's blood had long ago turned the ivory comforter a dark crimson. There was so much blood on her that it took me a second to realize that Roslyn was still wearing clothes underneath all the gore. Her pants and shirt were torn in places, and blue-black bruises peeked out from the rips like dark eyes.

I didn't often feel rage, but cold fire burned in my veins at what had been done to the other woman-and what sort of torture Elliot Slater had in store for Finn if I didn't save him. For a moment, I felt almost crazed with this burning need to kill the giant and everyone else here, everyone who had hurt Roslyn and Finn.

The giant put one hairy knee on Roslyn's stomach. The vampire thrashed weakly against him, but he would have been much too heavy for her to dislodge, even if she'd been free of the ropes and at full strength. I gathered my own will and waited until the giant leaned over Roslyn, trying to force the gag into her bloody mouth before I spoke.

"Having fun yet, you sick bastard?" I growled.

The giant's head whipped around to me. His mouth fell open, and he started to sputter out some excuse about what he was doing. But it was too late for that. Much, much too late.

I threw myself at him. My knives flashed like liquid silver in the light. And someone else's blood besides Roslyn's spattered onto the ivory comforter.

Less than a minute later, the dead giant thumped to the floor. I wiped my bloody knives off on the comforter, then used them to saw through the ropes that bound Roslyn to the bed. The vamp turned her head to look at me. I didn't know if she could see me through her battered, black eyes, so I reached forward and gently squeezed her hand.

"It's Gin," I said in a low voice.

"Gin?" Roslyn whispered through her bloody, swollen lips. "You... came... for me? After... I left... Jo-Jo's... Why... would you... do that?"

I stared at the vampire's body, at all the horrible things that had been done to her on the outside, and all the other horrible things that I couldn't see on the inside. All the things that might never, ever heal. All the things that I'd brought down upon her when I'd asked her to help me get into Mab Monroe's party. The guilt from it made me sick, and I knew that it always would. I was Roslyn's now, and I always would be. Whatever she needed, I would freely give to her, anytime, anyplace.

Still, I made my voice as gentle as I could, given the cold rage and sharp guilt still burning and twisting through my veins.

"Because I'm the Spider. Because my retirement's been a fucking bore. Because you asked me to do a job, and I never go back on my word. Because we're friends, in a weird sort of way. But mainly because nobody deserves to be treated like this-except the bastards who live here." I paused to let the cold venom seep back into my tone. "And you can believe that I'm not leaving this place until every single one of them is dead."

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Roslyn Phillips wasn't in the greatest shape of her life, which is why I unzipped one of the pockets on my vest and drew out a tin of Jo-Jo Deveraux's healing ointment. I made Roslyn lie still on the bed while I slathered the ointment on the worst of her wounds on her chest and arms.

It was one of the hardest things I'd ever had to do.

I knew that Roslyn didn't want me touching her, that she might not want anyone touching her ever again, given how badly she'd been beaten. But it had to be done to save her. Roslyn flinched every time my fingers brushed her body and with every single movement of my bloody hands, but she didn't complain, and she didn't ask me to stop.

I'd never seen anything so brave in my entire miserable life.

Still, I did the best I could to distract Roslyn, keeping up a steady stream of chatter, telling her exactly how the bastard who'd been about to rape her had died and exactly how I was going to do the same thing to Elliot Slater. I don't know if it was my cold, measured words or the healing power of Jo-Jo's magic, but Roslyn stilled after a few minutes, only flinching every other time I touched her.