Read Online Widow's Web (Elemental Assassin) by Jennifer Estep - Free Book Online

doors and ran toward Kincaid as fast as she could, given the people still trampling over each other. Now, instead of just running around in a blind panic, everyone was racing toward the gangplank, determined to get off the boat before what happened to Antonio happened to them too.
    “Stay with Violet. I’ll get Eva!” I yelled to Sophia.
    Knife still in my hand, I headed after Eva, dodging and darting between the stampeding students. The giants that made up the casino’s security force weren’t any calmer. Their heads swiveled left and right as they shouted at each other, all trying to stay as far away from Antonio as they could, lest they end up just like him. Some of the giants even shoved kids out of their way in their mad dash to safety.
    Up ahead, I saw Eva reach Kincaid’s side. She stared at the dead giant and the pools of water under his body, then turned away and threw up all over the deck.
    Kincaid cursed, got to his feet, and reached for her. “Eva, it’s okay—”
    And that’s when I felt another gust of that cool, deadly magic sweep across the deck. Only this time, it was focused on our host.
    I didn’t know exactly how it happened. One second,Kincaid was reaching for Eva. The next, his feet had gone out from under him, and he was on his back on the deck, clawing at something around his throat. Eva must have seen him fall out of the corner of her eye, because she wiped her mouth and turned her head in his direction. Her eyes widened, and her already pale face whitened that much more.
    “Philly!” Eva screamed. “Philly!”
    She dropped to her knees beside him, tearing at his neck with her nails, just as Kincaid himself was doing. I surged past a frat boy and sprinted over to the two of them. My eyes flicked left, then right, looking for the source of the danger, looking for the elemental who was behind this, but all I saw and heard were screeching kids and panicked giants.
    Since I couldn’t immediately eliminate the danger with my knife, I squatted down next to Kincaid. Something translucent shimmered around his throat, and it took me a second to realize that it was . . . water .
    Somehow, a long, thick stream of water—of Antonio, really—had attached itself to Kincaid’s neck and solidified there like a noose, slowly digging deeper and deeper into his throat and cutting off his air. The casino boss clawed and clawed at the water, but it was stuck to his skin like a coat of wet plaster. The water even looked like a noose, the length of it taking on a braided, twisted design and forming a tight knot in the center of Kincaid’s neck. The elemental definitely had a sick sense of humor.
    “Gin!” Eva screamed at me, tearing at the water and trying to peel it off just as hard as Kincaid was. “Do something! Help him!”
    Eva was a strong girl, a tough girl, who’d been through a lot in her life, including the murder of her parents, but she looked absolutely terrified right now. Like Kincaid was the most important person in the world to her and she’d be absolutely devastated if she lost him. What was going on between them? And why didn’t I know anything about it? Eva and I might not have been best friends, like she and Violet were, but we talked, and I dated her brother. I should have known something about her relationship with the casino boss.
    Kincaid’s eyes met mine. I could see the pain in his gaze—and the hope that I could somehow save him.
    Part of me knew the smart play was to let the elemental finish the job—to let Kincaid die. With him dead, there’d be one less bad guy in Ashland, one less person to come after me. If it had been Jonah McAllister, I wouldn’t have hesitated. I would have gotten myself a drink, leaned against the railing, pulled out my cell phone, and recorded the whole thing for repeat viewing. But to my knowledge, Kincaid had never made any moves against me or mine, except for luring me here tonight, and I was starting to get a glimmer of an idea why he’d