11 Poison Promise (2 page)

I reached the end of the corridor and pushed through the doors, stepping out onto one of the quads at Ashland Community College. Stone buildings ringed the open grassy space, and a couple of maples towered up out of
the ground, their red- and orange-streaked leaves providing patches of dappled shade that danced over the lawn. After the intense air-conditioning inside the building, the humid heat of the September evening felt like a warm, welcome blanket wrapping around my body. I tilted my face up to the sun, enjoying the sensation, before it turned into the inevitable, muggy, stifling burn.

Students moved back and forth across the quad, staring at their phones as they headed to other buildings or stepped onto the cobblestone paths that wound through campus and over to the parking lots. It was after seven now, and this was the last class period of the day, so everyone was ready to go somewhere else for the night, whether it was to the library to study, home to Mom and Dad’s to do laundry, or to a nearby bar to soak their overworked brain cells in enough alcohol to make them forget everything they’d learned today.

I stopped long enough to heft my backpack, with its pens, notebook, and copy of
You Only Live Twice
by Ian Fleming, a little higher on my shoulder. The book was for the spy-literature course I was taking. I liked learning new things, so I was something of a perpetual student at the college, always signing up for a class or two every semester. When I was younger, the classes had helped kill the time between my assignments as the assassin the Spider. Now the classes helped kill the time between people trying to murder me because I was the Spider. Funny how much my life had changed in the last year.

“Gin?” Owen asked again. “Are you still there?”

I meandered toward the parking lot where my car was. “Anyway, as I was saying, every year, I beg and plead for
Finn to forget about throwing me any sort of party, and he always pays absolutely no attention to me whatsoever.”

“Do you want me to talk to him?”

I snorted. “You can try, but he won’t listen.”

Owen laughed. “Yeah, probably not.”

“Just try to rein him in a little bit, okay? I don’t need some enormous party with streamers and balloons and stuff. A nice, quiet dinner with you, Finn, and Bria would be great.”

“Streamers and balloons? Sounds like he really goes all out,” Owen teased.

“You have no idea,” I grumbled again. “Those parties?”

“Yeah . . .”

“One of them featured a petting zoo. Finn rented a bouncy house for the other one. Set it up on the lawn outside Fletcher’s house. I went over there after work one day, and
surprise!
”

Owen laughed again at my snarky tone. “I’ll see what I can do.”

We started chatting about other things, and I let his voice wash over me, enjoying the deep, familiar rumble of his words. All the while, though, I focused on my surroundings, scanning the quads, peering into doorways, and easing around corners in case anyone was lying in wait for me. A vampire baring his fangs in anticipation of sinking his incisors into me. A giant flexing her hands, eager to wrap them around my throat and strangle me. A dwarf rolling his shoulders, ready to tackle me and beat my head against the ground. A Fire elemental cupping flames in the palm of her hand, preparing to roast me with her magic.

Just because no one had attempted to kill me at the community college yet didn’t mean that some enterprising fool wouldn’t have the bright idea to try. They’d certainly made the effort pretty much everywhere else I went. So many people had tried to murder me at my barbecue restaurant, the Pork Pit, that I’d lost count of how many of them I’d offed instead.

People had been trying to take me out ever since I killed Mab Monroe, the head of the Ashland underworld, back in the winter. With Mab gone, there was an opening for a new king or queen of crime in the city, and many folks saw my murder, the Spider’s murder, as a stepping-stone to the throne.

Me? Well, at first, I’d just been trying to fly under the radar and survive all of the assassination attempts. But now people were really starting to piss me off. You’d think that I had killed enough lowlifes for all the others to get the message to leave me the fuck alone already, but apparently, brains were not in abundance in Ashland. Shocking, I know.

But I made it over to the parking lot without anyone jumping out of the shadows, shouting, screaming, and trying to shoot, stab, bludgeon, or magic me to death. Still, I remained vigilant as I approached my car, since this area was close to Southtown, the dangerous part of Ashland, home to gangbangers, hookers, their pimps, and down-on-their-luck homeless bums. And those were some of the nicer folks around here. They wouldn’t care about murdering me because I was the Spider. They’d be more than happy to kill me for my phone, my car keys, and what might be in my wallet.

I stopped at the end of the path and scanned the lot in front of me. Like most places this close to Southtown, the area was a bit worse for wear. Jagged cracks zigzagged across the pavement, before collapsing into wide potholes, while the white paint that marked the parking spaces was so faded that you could barely make out the lines. Fast-food bags, crushed cigarettes, and jumbo-size soda cups overflowed out of the trash cans, and the steady breeze sent them gusting along the blacktop, along with the
tinkle-tinkle-tinkle
of glass from broken beer bottles.

A variety of gang runes and graffiti tags had been spray-painted onto the concrete barriers that cordoned off the lot from the construction site next door. The words
Vaughn Construction
were embossed on a metal sign hanging on the chain-link fence that ran behind the barriers, although the
V
in
Vaughn
had been turned into a giant red heart, thanks to some tagger’s artistic talents. I made a mental note to get Finn to find out what Charlotte Vaughn was building here. Or perhaps I’d pay Charlotte a visit one night and ask her myself.

I didn’t see anyone, but instead of moving forward, I held my position and reached out with my magic. People’s feelings, actions, and intentions sink into whatever stone is around them, and as a Stone elemental, I can hear and interpret all of those emotional vibrations. Like, say, if someone was lurking behind one of those concrete barriers, a gun in his hand, ready to rise up and shoot me the second I was in range, then the barriers would mutter to me, the same way a man might mutter under his breath as he impatiently waited for me to hurry up and get here, already.

But the concrete and the pavement only grumbled
with displeasure about all of the spray paint, cracks, and potholes that marred their surfaces. No one was here to try to kill me. Good. Perhaps I would actually get through one day without having to fight for my life.

I strolled through the lot, listening to Owen and still looking for any signs of trouble, but my silver Aston Martin was right where I’d left it. I’d bought the car a few weeks ago at Finn’s insistence. He had demanded that I have my own Aston, since I had a bad habit of getting his keyed, beaten, dented, bloodied, and generally destroyed.

I glanced around a final time, still half-expecting some idiot to pop up from between two cars, yell, and charge at me with a weapon, but I was the only one here, so I focused on my conversation with Owen again.

“So what’s on tap for tonight?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “I thought we would stay in and have a quiet evening. You, me, a nice dinner, perhaps some quality time watching TV in my bedroom.”

“Watching TV? Really?”

“Well, if you absolutely insist, we can skip the TV-viewing portion of the evening,” Owen suggested in a husky tone.

Even though he couldn’t see me, I still smiled. “Let’s.”

He laughed, and we kept chatting as I pulled my keys out of my jeans pocket and unlocked the car door—

“Where do you think you’re going?”

The harsh words and the smug tone that went with them made me stop and look over my shoulder. While I’d been talking to Owen, three twenty-something guys had entered the parking lot, all of them wearing jeans, polo shirts, and sneakers. A girl the same age hurried along in
front of them, her arms crossed over her chest and her head down, her speed increasing with every step as she tried to get clear of the guys.

The girl’s backpack bounced on her right shoulder, and a large pin shaped like a pig holding a plate of food, all done in blue and pink crystals, winked at me. I frowned. I knew that pin. It was a rough approximation of the neon sign that hung outside the Pork Pit. Sophia Deveraux, the head cook, had ordered a whole box of the pig pins and given them to the restaurant’s waitstaff to wear.

I focused on the girl and realized that I knew her too. Long, wavy black hair, hazel eyes, bronze skin, pretty features. Catalina Vasquez. She worked as a waitress at the Pit and took classes at the college, just like I did.

And it looked like she was in trouble, just like I was most days.

Catalina scurried forward, moving as fast as she could without actually running, but the guys weren’t going to let her get away that easy. One reached forward and grabbed her backpack, jerking it off her shoulder and making it fall to the ground. Books, notepads, pens, and more tumbled out of the bag. Catalina scowled, but she didn’t make a move to bend down and pick up her stuff. Instead, she stood her ground, her hands clenched into tight fists, as though she wanted to throw herself at the guys and give them a good pounding.

I leaned against the side of my car, watching the situation unfold.

“Listen, Troy, I’ve told you before. I’m not into drugs. I don’t use them, I don’t buy them, I don’t sell them, and I sure as hell don’t date guys who do,” Catalina said.

Troy, the guy who’d grabbed the backpack, stepped forward. He was around six feet tall, with dirty-blond hair, brown eyes, a beefy build, and a mean smile. My own lips curved in response in a smile that was far meaner than his.

“Ah, come on, Cat,” Troy purred, stepping closer to her. “Don’t be like that. We used to be friends. We used to be a lot more. I remember how good we were together, don’t you?”

Troy reached out, as if he were going to curl a lock of Catalina’s hair around his finger, but she slapped his hand away before he could touch her.

“That was a long time ago,” she snapped. “Before I knew better.”

Troy’s eyes narrowed. “You know, given our history, I was going to be nice about this. Not anymore.”

He snapped his fingers. One of the other guys stepped forward, unzipped the black backpack he was holding, and pulled out a fistful of plastic bags, all filled with pills. He handed the bags to Troy, who held them up so that Catalina could see them.

“All you gotta do is take these pills over to that barbecue restaurant where you work and pass them out to the waiters and the customers,” Troy said. “Give them out here on campus too. Think of them as free samples.”

He snickered, and so did the other two guys.

Catalina’s jaw clenched tight, and she glared at Troy, her hazel eyes almost black with anger. “I’m not pushing your pills. Forget it. Find someone else to sell that poison for you.”

Troy reached toward her a second time, but Catalina slapped his hand away again. Troy surged forward, and the
other two guys stepped up behind him, the three of them crowding Catalina and forcing her to back up against the chain-link fence on that side of the lot. Troy’s two minions were actually older guys—vampires, given the glint of the fangs in their mouths as they leered at Catalina.

“You move out of the neighborhood, and you suddenly think you’re better than everyone else. Well, not so high and mighty now, are you?” Troy sneered. “Not when there are three of us and one of you.”

She coldly looked from one guy to the next, not a flicker of fear showing in her face. Impressive. Catalina was tougher than she’d ever let on at the restaurant.

“Actually, I’d say that there are just two of you,” Catalina said, jerking her head at the vampires. “From what I remember, you don’t like to get your hands dirty, Troy.”

A flush crept up Troy’s neck, spreading into his cheeks. “Well, you’d know all about being dirty, wouldn’t you? Since all you do is clean up other people’s shit all day long.”

Catalina stiffened, but she didn’t respond.

“You know, if you won’t play ball, then you aren’t leaving me a lot of options,” Troy said. “I can’t have you going around school after turning me down. That would send the wrong message to a lot of people. Last chance, Cat. Take the pills—or else.”

The two vampires crept a little closer to her, smiling even wider and showing off even more of their fangs. Troy’s meaning was clear: get with the pill-pushing program or get drained.

Catalina lifted her chin and glared at Troy. She wasn’t backing down, no matter what. I admired her for it, really,
I did, but it was also stupid of her. She should have just accepted the pills and flushed them later. Oh, I knew that Catalina didn’t want to take the pills and get sucked in with Troy and his thugs, but it was too late for that. This was about to get very ugly for someone.

Good thing ugly was what I specialized in.

“Gin?” Owen asked.

I realized that he had asked me a question, probably more than once, and I focused on his voice again. “Sorry, babe. I’ve gotta go.”

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Nah. I just see a bit of trash that needs to be taken care of. I’ll be there soon.”

Owen and I hung up, and I slid my phone into my jeans pocket, before opening the car door and throwing my backpack into the passenger’s seat. Then I slammed the door shut.

The sharp
crack
reverberated through the parking lot, and the three guys turned to stare at me. Catalina tried to edge away, but the two vamps spotted her furtive movements and flanked her, keeping her pinned against the fence. I pushed away from my car, stuck my hands into my pockets, and strolled in their direction.

Catalina recognized me, her boss, at once. She let out a small gasp, her face paled, and she started shaking her head
no-no-no
, although I couldn’t tell if she was trying to warn me off or worried about what I was going to do to the three guys hassling her.