Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies (15 page)

There were only so many things you could do with soap and water. I didn’t think getting blood out of leather was one of them. I looked at Jo-Jo, who gave me a guileless grin I didn’t buy for a minute. I loved the two dwarven sister, but the longer I was around Jo-Jo and Sophia Deveraux, the more I realized I didn’t know anything about them. Not really. Not anything that seemed to matter, like the truth. Just as I hadn’t seemed to know the real Fletcher Lane, either.

You ready?” Finn asked again.

I stared at Jo-Jo a moment longer, then turned to him.

“Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”

———

Finn dropped me off at Fletcher’s house, agreed to meet me at the Pork Pit tomorrow, then headed back to his apartment in the city. I checked the gravel in the driveway and the granite around the front door, using my Stone magic to listen for disturbances. But all the stones gave off their usual low, quiet vibrations. No visitors today.

But I always checked. Even in my retirement, I couldn’t afford to lower my guard, especially not now with this mess with Jake McAllister going on. Because Jake had been royally pissed when the cops had dragged him away the other night. I had no doubt he was thinking about what he could do to hurt me, to get me to drop the charges against him. After all, he’d been ready to fry me with his Fire elemental magic just for what was in the cash register. Torture and murder wasn’t a big leap to make from there. Whether Jake actually made a run at me or not was still up in the air. But I’d be ready either way.

It wasn’t that late, but it had been a hell of a day. So I took a shower, threw on a pair of pajamas, and went to bed. I fell asleep almost immediately, and sometime later, the dream began…

I stood in the Pork Pit, chopping onions to add to tomorrow’s baked beans. Despite the harsh, stinging aroma, my eyes didn’t water. I never cried. Not anymore. Not since my family had been murdered. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t worry. My eyes flicked up to the clock on the wall: 10:05. A minute later than the last time I’d looked. Fear tightened my stomach until it felt as hard as the brick of the restaurant around me.

“He’s late,” I said in a soft voice.

“Don’t be a worrywart, Gin,” a teenage voice sneered behind me. “He always comes back.”

I stopped my chopping and turned to look at Finnegan Lane. At fifteen, Finn was two years older than me, with a mop of dark brown hair and eyes that reminded me of wet grass. He was tall, with a solid chest that was already filling out. Nothing like my long, gangly, spider-thin arms and legs.

Finn perched on a stool in front of the cash register and sucked up the last dregs of the triple chocolate milkshake I’d made him. Finn didn’t like me much, seeing me as competition for his widowed father’s time, attention, and affection.

I’d hoped my small bribe would at least make him tolerable while we waited for Fletcher. It had worked. Finn had been too busy gulping down the rich, sweet concoction to mock me.

For a change.

It had been three months since Fletcher Lane had taken me in, and my life had become as normal as it was ever going to get. During the day, I attended school under the name Gin Blanco, catching up on what I’d missed while I’d been living on the streets and hiding from the Fire elemental who’d murdered my family. After school, I came straight to the Pork Pit to help Fletcher cook and clean and earn my keep. He might be putting a roof over my head, but I was determined to work for it as much as I could. Not a glamorous life by any means, and nothing like the soft, warm comfort I’d had before, but it had a thin illusion of safety. Something I appreciated now more than ever.

Only one thing bothered me—Fletcher’s late-night jaunts. About once a month, he’d disappear. Sometimes for a few hours, other times for a few days. He never said where he went or what he did, and I didn’t ask. But I knew blood when I saw it, and Fletcher was often covered with it. Fresh, sticky, wet blood. Spattered all over his clothes, as though he’d just killed someone. Something else I knew about, even at thirteen.

My eyes drifted back to the clock: 10:07. Fletcher had vanished as soon as I’d come in this afternoon, saying he’d be back by seven, more than three hours ago. He’d never been this late before. What would I do if he didn’t come back?

Where would I go? Back on the streets most likely, begging for food, clothes, and shelter once more. My stomach twisted a little tighter—

The front door of the restaurant jerked open, making the bell chime. My heart lifted. A moment later, a pair of long arms tossed Fletcher Lane inside. He flew through the air, hit a table, flopped off it, and landed hard. Fletcher groaned and coughed. His blood flecked all over the clean floor I’d spent the afternoon mopping.

Another man stepped inside the Pork Pit, closed the door behind him, and turned around. Even above the roaring in my ears, I could still hear the bolt click home. Locking us in.

“Dad!” Finn yelled.

Finn started toward his injured father, but the man stepped in front of Fletcher’s prone form and backhanded Finn. The teenager flew across the room. He too hit a table, bounced off, slid to the floor, and was still. I stood behind the counter, eyes wide, not believing this was really happening.

Not now. Not again. Please, please, not again.

“You should have taken the job, Lane,” the strange man growled.

He was a giant, almost two feet taller than me, with a wide, stout chest that reminded me of an iron park bench turned sideways. His black hair ringed his scalp like an upside-

down bowl, while a curly goatee covered his square chin.

“I told you… Douglas,” Fletcher rasped. “I don’t… kill… kids… ever.”

“You should have made an exception. Because now you’re the one who’s going to die.”

Douglas slammed his booted foot into Fletcher’s side.

Fletcher groaned and coughed up more blood. I gasped. The giant’s hazel eyes snapped up to me, settling on my nonexistent chest.

“Well, well.” He smacked his lips. “Hello, pretty girl. We’ll have some fun when I get through over here.”

“Leave her alone,” Fletcher said. “She’s just a kid.”

Fletcher tried to get up, but Douglas leaned down and punched him in the face. I heard his jaw crack across the room, and he fell back to the floor with a sharp grunt of pain.

Finn still hadn’t moved from where he’d fallen. I clamped a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.

“You know,” Douglas said, rolling up his shirtsleeves. “I’m going to enjoy beating you to death, Lane. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten my hands good and bloody.”

My stomach lurched, and for a moment, I thought I might vomit. My mother, my older sister, Annabella, my baby sister, Bria. In the last few months, I’d lost everyone I’d ever cared about. I couldn’t lose Fletcher too. I just couldn’t. He’d been the only person who’d shown me any kindness, any compassion.

He was the only one left who cared whether I lived or died.

But what could I do? Douglas wouldn’t stop until Fletcher was dead—or he was. He’d said as much, and Fletcher was in no position to fight back. Not now.

In that moment, I knew what I had to do if I wanted to save Fletcher, if I wanted to save myself and the fragile little bubble of life, of normalcy, of security, that I’d built at the Pork Pit.

My gray eyes skipped down to the knife I still clutched, the one I’d been chopping onions with. A strange calm settled over me, and my fingers tightened around the handle until the stainless steel imprinted itself over the silverstone spider rune scar on my palm.

“Leave him alone,” I said and dropped the knife below the counter, out of the giant’s line of sight.

Douglas stopped rolling up his sleeves long enough to stare at me. “What did you say, little girl?”

I drew in a breath. “I said leave him alone, you fat, ugly, cow-faced bastard.”

Douglas’s eyes narrowed. “Well, aren’t you a feisty one? A shame you’re going to die so young—and so painfully.”

The giant stepped over Fletcher and started toward me.

Fletcher reached out, trying to stop him, but he was too weak and injured to hold onto the bigger, stronger man. I stayed where I was behind the counter and moved my right arm behind my leg, hiding the knife. Douglas came around the counter and reached for me.

His left hand grabbed my shoulder, yanking me toward him. Something wrenched in my arm, and pain exploded in my body. His right fist was already drawing back to hit me.

Somehow, I pushed the pain away, gulped down a breath, lunged forward, and slammed the knife into his chest as hard and deep as I could.

My aim must have been better than I’d thought, because Douglas’s hazel eyes bulged in surprise and pain. But he didn’t go down. He staggered back. I kept my grip on the knife, and it slid free from his chest. Blood coated my fingers like hot grease, burning my skin. I wanted to drop the weapon. Oh, how I wanted to drop it. I might have, if Douglas hadn’t started laughing.

“Stupid bitch,” he said. “You think one little stab wound is going to stop me? I’ll enjoy making you pay for that.”

He came at me again, fist drawn back, but I didn’t hesitate.

Before he could hit me, I lurched forward and stabbed him again. I felt the blade slide off something in his chest.

A rib, maybe, or some other bone. The sensation made me want to retch.

Douglas screamed again, louder this time, and his beefy hand tangled in my brown hair, yanking my head back until I thought my neck would break. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the glitter of yellowish fangs in his mouth. A vampire.

He was a giant, and he was vampire. One who wanted to drink my blood to replace his own.

Panic filled me. Before he could sink his teeth into my neck, I wrested the knife out of his massive chest and plunged it into his body again.

And again.

And again.

Over and over I stabbed him, blood and tears and mucus covering me like a second skin. Someone was screaming. Me.

Douglas let go of my hair and slid to the floor, but I didn’t stop my assault. He kicked out, catching my leg. My knee buckled, and I stumbled back, grabbing the edge of the cash register for support. My shoulder burned with pain, just like my palms had when the Fire elemental who’d murdered my family had tortured me by making me hold onto my own spider rune medallion. The giant vampire flopped on his stomach and crawled around the counter. Some small part of my mind realized that he wasn’t fighting me anymore, that he was actually trying to get away from me.

But I still went after him.

I threw myself onto his back and plunged the knife in between his shoulder blades. With my weight behind it, the weapon sank up to the hilt in his flesh. This time, Douglas didn’t scream. Something seemed to give in his body, and he stilled. I raised the knife and stabbed him again—

Rough hands settled on my shoulders. I flailed against them, but they were stronger, pinning my arms to my sides.

He pulled me close to his chest, and the smell of chicory coffee washed over me, penetrating the coppery stench of fresh blood.

“It’s over, Gin,” Fletcher said in my ear. “It’s over. He’s dead. You can quit stabbing him.”

Fletcher crooned soft words into my ear, still cradling me in his arms. The knife slipped from my cramping hand and clattered onto the floor—

The sound might have only been in my dream, but its sharp echo woke me. So suddenly, that I was standing in the middle of my bedroom headed for the door before I realized it was only a dream, another one of my ugly memories manifesting itself. For a moment, I felt that hysterical rage burning through me, that gut-deep, primal need to survive no matter what the cost or consequences.

The instinct that had dictated so much of my life.

I sighed and rubbed the gritty crud out of the corners of my eyes. My psych professor at the community college would have said the dreams, the flashes of my past, were my psyche’s way of dealing with the trauma. Of healing.

Quack. To me, the dreams, the memories, were tiring trials, like Marley’s ghost rattling his heavy chains at Scrooge. I’d lived through the events once already. I didn’t need the Technicolor replay at night.

And I certainly didn’t need to dwell on them now.

So I crawled into bed, snuggled back into the warm spot underneath the flannel sheets, and forced myself to relax. To let my body sink into the mattress. To unclench my jaw, uncurl my fists, and forget about the night I’d so brutally killed a man inside the Pork Pit. One of many.

But despite my best efforts, it was still a long, long time before I drifted off to sleep once more.

13

“This is getting to be an annoying occurrence,” I said.

Just before noon the next day, I stood in the storefront of the Pork Pit. Once more, the restaurant was as empty as a church on Saturday night, except for Sophia Deveraux, who was at the back counter mixing white vinegar, sugar, mayonnaise, and black pepper to make the dressing for a batch of coleslaw. The Goth dwarf had lightened up her wardrobe a bit today. Instead of her usual black T-shirt, she wore one that was blood red—and decorated with lacy cutouts of white coffins. The collar around her neck resembled a thick garnet snake, with chunky square rhinestones for scales.

My eyes flicked over the empty booths, the abandoned tables, the deserted stools. Normally, Wednesday was a busy day, with people coming in to get their midweek barbecue fix. But not today. I knew Jonah McAllister was Mab Monroe’s number two guru, that he was a slick, powerful, corrupt lawyer in his own right, but he must have had more influence than I’d realized, if he could convince people to stay away from the Pork Pit two days in a row. I wondered how long the lawyer could keep up the pressure—and what I could do about it. Other than kill the bastard. Which would only cause more problems for me, in the end.