Read Online Elemental Assassin [9] Heart of Venom by Jennifer Estep - Free Book Online

stabbing into my skin, and I gritted my teeth to keep from snarling at the uncomfortable sensation. Two elements always complemented each other, like Air and Fire, and two elements always opposed each other, like Fire and Ice. With cooper’s Air magic being the antithesis of my own Stone power, it simply felt wrong to me, the way that fingernails screeching down a chalkboard drove some folks plumb crazy. Bria grimaced too. She didn’t like the sensation of cooper’s Air magic any more than I did.
    For the longest time, all I was aware of were the uncomfortable pricks of cooper’s magic, the coppery glow of his eyes, and the steady  tick-tick-tick  of the clock on the  wall. One after another, the minutes slipped by, but we were all frozen in place, not daring to move or even speak for fear of breaking cooper’s concentration.
    I stood right behind the dwarf, while Bria and Roslyn were on the other side of the table next to the sink. Phillip leaned against a cabinet full of mismatched dishes in the corner, his arms crossed over his muscled chest, his jaw clenched so tightly that I could see the muscles standing out in his neck. Rosco lay at Phillip’s feet, his blood— smeared head resting on one of Phillip’s black leather wing tips.
    Still, as I stared down at Jo-Jo, I couldn’t help but think back to another place, another time, and another woman lying so very still . . .
    The dwarf was totally weird.
    That was the thought that kept running through my mind  as Sophia closed down the Pork Pit for the night. Fletcher  had left me in his restaurant an hour ago, saying that he had  some business to take care of.
    In other words, he had to go kill someone.
    That’s what Fletcher did as the assassin the Tin Man, and  that’s what he was going to teach me how to do too. I hadn’t  been staying with Fletcher long, just a couple of months, but  he’d already showed me lots of ways to defend myself. He  said that I was making good progress, mastering the basics. I  didn’t really think it was all that difficult. All you had to do  was hit your enemy hard and long enough, and he’d eventually go down. All Fletcher was really teaching me to do was to  find those weak spots and exploit them to the fullest.
    I was disappointed that he’d had a job, especially since he’d promised me that he’d start showing me how to fight with weapons soon, including knives. That was what I was  most interested in, since Fletcher used silverstone knives on  most of his jobs, and I wanted to be just like him. I had been  hoping that this was finally the night, but it hadn’t turned  out that way.
    So there I was, sitting behind the counter, my schoolbooks  spread out in front of me, even though I’d already finished  my homework, watching Sophia mop the floor. The last customer had left thirty minutes before, and Sophia had pulled  out a radio that Fletcher kept in a slot under the cash register  and flipped it on. The radio was tuned to some oldies station,  and she swiveled her hips in time to the snappy, upbeat music  as she pushed the wet mop across the faded blue and pink pig  tracks on the floor and then underneath the matching vinyl  booths in front of the windows.
    Sophia was dressed completely in black, from her boots to  her jeans to her long-sleeved T-shirt. Even her lipstick was  black. The only bit of color on her was the grinning white pi-rate skull in the middle of her shirt, which featured crimson  flames shooting out of its eye sockets.
    Someone took the whole Goth look a little too seriously, if  you asked me. Oh, yeah. She was totally weird.
    “So,” I said when the song ended and some boring com mercials came on. “What do you and Jo-Jo like to do at night  for fun? Cook? Watch TV? Play board games?”
    Since Fletcher was out on a job, I was going home with Sophia and spending the night at Jo-Jo’s house.
    Sophia let out a soft snort at my question. I rolled my