By a Thread (42 page)

The darkness greeted me like an old friend, as did the rest of the sights. The oil and grease on the pavement, the crack in the wall opposite the Pork Pit, the soft, slow murmurs of the bricks.

The two guys in the shadows waiting to get the jump on me.

Nope, things hadn't changed much since I'd been back in Ashland. The underworld was still in turmoil, which meant that the lowlifes were still gunning for me, still coming around the restaurant in hopes of taking out the Spider. I'd seen a few of them hanging around the Pit, looking at me with cold, calculating eyes, but no one had tried to kill me—until now. I was mildly surprised that it had taken them this long to start up again.

I threw the trash bags into one of the Dumpsters, then turned to see exactly who was lurking around tonight.

“Y'all might as well come on out,” I said. “I know you're there. I can smell you.”

“Smell me? But I just took a shower this morning!” an indignant voice drifted out of the shadows.

There was a loud sound, like someone was getting smacked upside the head. Then another voice let out a low mutter.

“Shut up, idiot.”

My thoughts
exactly.

But the two men knew their cover was blown, so they stepped out from behind the Dumpster at the far end of the alley. I recognized them immediately, and it was déjà vu all over again.

It was Billy and Bobby, the giant and the Fire elemental who'd jumped me the night Finn had said I needed a vacation. Apparently they hadn't learned anything from the previous ass-kicking I'd given them. Some people just never did, like Jonah McAllister.

Through the grapevine and his many spies, Finn had heard that the slick lawyer was deeply, deeply disappointed that I'd made it back to Ashland in one piece. Apparently, after he'd attacked me that first night in his library, Dekes had called McAllister to brag about how easily he'd killed me. That had gotten Jonah's hopes up—hopes that I'd dashed as soon as he'd learned Dekes was really dead instead of me. I had no doubt that McAllister was already cooking up another scheme he hoped would lead to my death, but it was the lawyer's days that were numbered—not mine.

The two guys stepped forward and cracked their knuckles, evil grins spreading across their faces. Nope, looked like they hadn't learned a thing last time—or they wouldn't be stupid enough to be standing in the alley with me right now.

“Surrender now, Spider,” Billy the giant said. “And we might just go easy on you.”

“Yeah,” Bobby the Fire elemental chimed in. “We won't hurt you—much.”

The two men chuckled
at their seeming cleverness. I rolled my eyes. The only people these two were really hurting were themselves.

“Didn't y'all learn your lesson the first time?” I said. “You should be grateful you're still breathing. Now, run along like good little boys before I lose my temper and kill you.”

Bobby's face twisted, and a murderous glint shimmered in his eyes along with his Fire magic. “Nobody talks to us like that, bitch.”

The Fire elemental sucked in a breath and went on a long, rambling rant then, talking about how he and his buddy were going to make me wish I'd never been born. Typical talk in the shadows of Ashland. It amused the hell out of me, and I found myself leaning against the wall of the Pork Pit and just letting him talk—because that's all these guys were.

“What are you smiling at?” Bobby growled, finally noticing that I wasn't the least bit scared of him, his magic, or his giant friend.

“Nothing much,” I drawled. “I was just thinking that there's no place like home.”

The two men looked at each other, obviously confused. Then they charged at me, the way I knew they would. This time I didn't bother picking up one of the dented trash can lids. Instead, I palmed the silverstone knives tucked up my sleeves and stepped up to meet them.

Magic and blood arced through the air and splattered onto the alley floor and walls, punctuated by sharp, pain-filled screams that quickly died off to choking gurgles.

Then . . . silence.

I got to my feet and
wiped my bloody knives off on the clothes of my latest victims. Billy and Bobby stared up at the black sky, eyes and mouths wide open in shock and fear. It was far too late for them to agree with me. It was far too late for them to do anything at all.

Oh, I knew that it wouldn't end with these two. More Billys and Bobbys would seek me out in the coming days, trying to cash in and build their street cred at the Spider's expense. Not to mention McAllister and whom he might decide to send after me next.

But I'd be right here at the Pork Pit waiting for all of them, serving up the best barbecue in Ashland and helping those who couldn't help themselves after-hours in my own special way. With Owen, Bria, Finn, the Deveraux sisters, and all my other friends right by my side.

Yep, the Spider was definitely back.

Still smiling, I slid my bloody knives up my sleeves and headed inside the restaurant to ask Sophia to come and help me get rid of the blood and the bodies.

Turn the page for a sneak peek at the next book in the Elemental Assassin series

HEART OF VENOM

by Jennifer Estep

Coming soon from Pocket Books

1

“What do you mean, I can't come?”

I jerked my head down at the heavy weight swinging between us. “Do you really want to talk about this right now?”

“I can't
think
of a better time,” he replied, then dropped his half of the load onto the ground.

I let go of my half of the weight, put my hands on my hips, and rolled my eyes at the whiny, petulant tone in my foster brother's voice. “You can't come because it's a girls' day at the salon. No guys allowed. That includes you.”

Finnegan Lane sniffed, straightened up to his full height, and carefully adjusted the expensive silk tie knotted around his neck. “Yes, but I am not just
any
guy.”

More eye rolling on my part, but Finn ignored me. His ego was pretty much bulletproof, and my derisive looks wouldn't so much as scratch his own highfalutin opinion of himself.

“Besides,” he continued, “I'd get more enjoyment out of a spa day than you would.”

“True,” I agreed. “I don't particularly care how shiny my nails are or how well conditioned my hair is.”

Finn held out his manicured nails, studying them with a critical eye, before reaching up and gently patting his coif of walnut-colored hair. “My nails are good, but I could use a trim. Wouldn't want to get any split ends.”

“Oh no,” I muttered. “We wouldn't want such a horror as
that
.”

With his artfully styled hair, designer suit, and glossy wing tips, Finn looked like he'd just stepped out of the pages of some high-end fashion magazine. Add his intense green eyes, chiseled features, and toned, muscled body to that, and he was as handsome as any movie star. The only thing that ruined his sleek, polished look was the blood spattered all over his white shirt and gray suit jacket—and the body lying at our feet.

“Come on,” I said. “This guy isn't getting any lighter.”

The two of us were standing in the alley behind the Pork Pit, the barbecue restaurant that I ran in downtown Ashland. A series of old, battered metal Dumpsters crouched on either side of the restaurant's back door, all reeking of cumin, cayenne, black pepper, and the other spices that I cooked with, along with all of the food scraps and other garbage that had spoiled out here in the July heat. A breeze whistled in between the backs of the buildings, bringing some temporary relief from the sticky humidity and making several crumpled-up white paper bags bearing the Pork Pit's pig logo skip down the oil-slicked surface of the alley.

I ignored the low, scraping, skittering noises of the bags and concentrated on the sound of the stones around me.

People's actions, thoughts, and feelings last longer and have more of an impact than most folks realize, since all of those actions and feelings resonate with emotional vibrations that especially sink into the stone around them. As a Stone elemental, my magic let me hear and interpret all of the whispers of the element around me, whether it was a jackhammer brutally punching through a concrete foundation, weather slowly wearing away at a tombstone, or the collective frets of harried commuters scurrying into an office building every day on their way to work, hoping that their bosses wouldn't yell at them for being late again.

Behind me, the brick wall of the Pork Pit let out low, sluggish, contented sighs, much the way the diners inside did after finishing a hot, greasy barbecue sandwich, baked beans, and all of the other southern treats that I served up on a daily basis. A few sharp notes of violence trilled here and there in the brick, but they were as familiar to me as the sighs were, and I wasn't concerned by them. This wasn't the first person I'd killed inside the restaurant, and it wouldn't be the last.

“Come on,” I repeated. “We've had our body-moving break. You grab his shoulders again, and I'll get his feet. I want to get this guy into that Dumpster in the next alley over before someone sees us.”

“Dumpster? You mean the refrigerated cooler that Sophia hauled in just so you could keep bodies on ice close to the restaurant with at least a
modicum
of plausible deniability,” Finn corrected me.

I shrugged. “It was her idea, not mine. But since she's the one who gets rid of most of the bodies, it was her call.”

“And why isn't Sophia here tonight to help us with this guy?”

I shrugged again. “Because there was some James Bond film festival that she wanted to go to, so she took the night off. Now, come on. Enough stalling. Let's go.”

“Why do I have to grab his shoulders?” Finn whined again. “That's where all the blood is.”

I eyed his ruined jacket and shirt. “At this point, I don't think it much matters, do you?”

Finn glanced down at the smears of red on his chest. “No, I suppose it doesn't.”

He grumbled and let out a few put-upon sighs, but he eventually leaned down and took hold of the dead guy's shoulders, while I grabbed his ankles. So far, we'd moved the guy from the front of the Pork Pit, through the rear of the restaurant, and outside. This time, we slowly shuffled away from the back door of the Pit and down the alley.

Finn and I had moved bodies before, but the fact that this dead guy was a seven-foot-tall giant with a strong, muscled figure made him a little heavier than most, and we stopped at the end of the alley to take another break. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and stared down at the dead guy.

Half an hour ago, the giant had been sitting in a booth in the restaurant, chowing down on a double bacon cheeseburger, sweet-potato fries, and a big piece of apple pie and talking to the friend he'd brought along. The two giants had been my last customers, and I'd been waiting for them to leave before I closed the restaurant for the night. The first guy had paid his bill and left without incident, but the second one had swaggered over to the cash register and handed me a fistful of one-dollar bills. I'd counted the bills, and the second my eyes dropped to the cash register, the giant had taken a swing at me with his massive fist.

Please. As if no one had ever tried that trick before.

But such were the job hazards of an assassin. Yep, me, Gin Blanco. Restaurant owner by day. Notorious assassin the Spider by night. Well, actually, it was more like I was the Spider all the time now. Ever since I'd killed Mab Monroe, the powerful Fire elemental who'd owned a good chunk of the crime in Ashland, everyone who was anyone in the underworld had been gunning for me. I was a wild card in the city's power structure, and lots of folks thought that arranging my murder would prove their mettle to everyone else. Tonight's giant was just the latest in a long line of folks who'd eaten in my restaurant with the intention of murdering me as soon as they'd sopped up the last bit of barbecue sauce on their plates.