Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies (19 page)

Especially in Ashland.

Warren noticed Violet’s shiver as well. His wrinkled face tightened, and rage flashed like black lightning in his eyes.

He reached over and patted his granddaughter’s hand.

“Don’t think about it, honey,” Warren said. “Don’t you ever think about what happened last night again. Because Tobias Dawson and his men will never lay another hand on you. I promise. No matter what I have to do to stop them.” He muttered the last few words.

“You should have told me,” Donovan Caine cut in. “I could help you with Dawson. Get him to back off.”

Finn snorted his disbelief. The detective glared at him.

“Please,” Finn scoffed. “Most of the Ashland po-po couldn’t get a puppy to give up a chew toy, much less manage someone like Tobias Dawson. You know he’s friends with Mab Monroe, right? You giving Dawson the hard cop stare isn’t going to cause him indigestion, much less get him to back off.”

“So what do you suggest?” the detective snapped.

“Well,” I drawled. “There was a reason I drove up here today.”

Donovan turned his golden eyes to me. Disappointment shimmered in his gaze. “To offer your services to Warren, right? To take care of Tobias Dawson in your own special way?”

“Something like that.”

Disgust filled the detective’s rugged face. “Once an assassin, always an assassin.”

Violet let out a soft gasp.

Warren stared at me. “So you do what Fletcher Lane, what the Tin Man did.”

“I used to. I’m retired now.”

Warren peered at me with his shiny brown eyes. “And what did he call you?”

I met his gaze with a flat stare. “The Spider.” The rune scars on my hand itched at the sound of my former assassin moniker. My mouth twisted. “Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”

Warren gave a curt nod of his head. “I have.”

Nobody said anything. A bit of wind gusted down off the mountaintop overhead and stirred up dust in the gravel parking lot. The breeze swept on, and the tiny whirlwinds died down.

“I want to thank you for saving my granddaughter’s life,” Warren said. “But why did you really come here? Why do you want to stick your neck out for two people you don’t even know? Why do you want to tangle with somebody like Tobias Dawson? Like your friend said, he’s not someone whose bad side you want to get on.”

“Yeah,” Donovan chimed in. “I thought you’d retired.”

I stared at the detective. Our eyes met and held, and the familiar heat warmed the pit of my stomach. Answering warmth sparked in Donovan’s eyes, although he tried to smother it with cool indifference.

I held the detective’s gaze a moment longer, then turned my attention to Warren T. Fox, who’d stopped his rocking. His wrinkled face was blank and free of emotion, as though he couldn’t care less about my answer, but his fingers dug into the arms of his chair. Warren needed me, and he knew it—even if Donovan Caine didn’t.

“You’re right,” I said in a quiet voice. “I don’t know you and your granddaughter, don’t care about you. Why am I here? Because you once told your granddaughter a story about the Tin Man, about how he helped people with problems. You and Fletcher Lane might not have spoken in decades, but you still cared enough, thought enough, about him to tell Violet that story. So I’m here because of Fletcher. Because the two of you were like brothers once upon a time. Because if Fletcher were still alive, he’d be sitting right here, whether you wanted him to or not.”

There was more to it than that, of course. Much more.

Like the fact that I felt this peculiar kinship with the Foxes. That in a weird way, seeing Violet and Warren together was like looking at a sweeter, more innocent version of Fletcher Lane and myself. What we might have been, if circumstances had been different. Maybe it was crazy, but I wanted the Foxes to stay just the way they were. To keep on loving and fighting. To keep what was left of their innocence, especially Violet.

My mouth twisted again. “Besides, my retirement’s been pretty boring. Last night was the most excitement I’ve had in ages. And I find myself interested in why somebody like Tobias Dawson wants to get his hands on your land so badly he’d be willing to kill for it. I don’t care much for bullies like that.”

“A curious sort, huh?” Warren asked.

I smiled. “It’s a trait I got from Fletcher. So what do you say? Shall I poke around and see what I can come up with? Or should Finn and I get in his car and go back to the Pork Pit? It’s your choice, Warren.”

The old man stared at me, that thoughtful look in his eyes once again. As though he knew something about me that I didn’t even know myself. But Warren didn’t get a chance to answer.

On the highway, a black SUV slowed. Instead of passing by like all the other cars and trucks, it pulled into the gravel lot. For a moment, I thought the Foxes were going to get their first customer of the day. Then I saw the white banner on the car door. The one that read Dawson Mining Company. The two
is
in
Mining
had been changed to resemble a rune—a lit stick of dynamite. The same rune the dwarf who’d attacked Violet had had tattooed on his bicep.

Finn noticed the writing and rune as well and glanced at me. “Trouble,” he said in a low voice.

“You think?” I asked, already reaching for one of my knives.

16

The SUV stopped, the doors opened, and several men poured out. One after another, they kept coming, like they were clowns crammed into a circus car and this was their only chance of escape. Five men total: two giants, two shorter, burly guys, and a dwarf. The giants and other men wore work clothes—grimy coveralls, sturdy boots, thick gloves. The dwarf was dressed a little nicer—clean jeans, boots, a black T-shirt, and a tight black blazer that looked like it would do a Hulk rip down the sleeves if he breathed too hard.

The dwarf headed toward the front porch, and the rest of the men fell in step behind him. Finn and I exchanged a quick glance, and he made a motion with his hand. I nodded and slid left into a shadow that pooled on the porch. Finn moved off to the right. Donovan Caine stayed where he was on the porch steps, although the detective got to his feet. Warren and Violet Fox remained seated in their rocking chairs. Violet’s face paled, and she crossed her arms over her stomach, like she was trying not to vomit. A scowl deepened the lines around Warren’s mouth.

The dwarf stopped at the base of the stairs that led up to the wooden porch. He hitched his thumbs in the belt loops on his jeans and put a foot up on one of the stairs.

Black snakeskin boots covered his feet. Orange-red flames spread over the tops, while silverstone tipped the pointed ends. A black ten-gallon hat rested on the dwarf ’s head, making him seem taller than his five feet, and the lariat tie around his neck featured a piece of turquoise almost as big as my fist. Somebody liked playing cowboy.

The dwarf ’s hair was a curly, sandy blond mane that fell to his shoulders. His nose was a bulbous piece of flesh that puckered out from his face like a boil, and a wide, fuzzy mustache drooped over his lips. His eyes were a pale, piercing blue in his tan face.

“Warren,” the dwarf rumbled.

“Tobias,” the old man replied.

The two men looked each other square in the eye the way old enemies do. Squinting, staring hard, neither one willing to back down, look away, or even fucking blink first.

While Tobias Dawson and Warren T. Fox played eyeball chicken, my gaze flicked to the men standing behind the dwarf. The two shorter guys were human, although they probably had some giant blood mixed in them, from the looks of their powerful muscles and fists. Easy enough to put down with my knives. The giants standing behind them would be a bit more of a challenge—especially considering the fact each of their fists was only a little smaller than my head. I’d have to bob and weave with them, just like I’d done with the dwarven assassin last night. Still, nothing I couldn’t handle.

My gray eyes rested on Tobias Dawson once more. He’d be the real problem, the real test. Especially since I felt the faintest bit of power trickling off him, like a piece of sandpaper just brushing against my skin. Magic. The blond, mustached dwarf had some kind of elemental magic.

Being an elemental myself, I could sense when others used their magic, of course. But there were some folks like Dawson who, well,
leaked
magic, for lack of a better word. Even when those elementals weren’t actively using their power, magic still trickled out of them, like water from a leaky faucet.
Drip, drip, drip
. The magical runoff was easy to sense. Then there were people like me, whose magic was completely self-contained. No leaks, no drips, no runoff. My magic couldn’t be felt at all unless I used it in an overt, forceful manner or someone had a particular knack for sniffing out elemental power.

Dawson’s magic felt similar to my own, although I couldn’t quite tell if the dwarf was a Stone or Ice. If I had to guess, I’d say Stone. The sensation rippling off him would have felt smoother, cooler if he’d been an Ice elemental.

Either way, I felt it. If things went badly, I’d go for the dwarf first, then his goons. With his magic and inherent dwarven strength and toughness, Tobias Dawson was definitely the greater threat.

My thumb rubbed over the hilt of the silverstone knife I’d already palmed. Even though I hadn’t gotten in much practice with my knives lately, the weapon felt cold and comforting in my hand, just like always. An old, familiar friend.

Donovan Caine cleared his throat. Tobias tore his gaze away from Warren and stared at the detective. The dwarf gave Donovan the once-over, dismissed him as unimportant, and turned his attention back to Warren.

“Have you thought any more about my latest offer?”

Tobias Dawson asked in a voice that was pure twangy country.

Warren’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve been saying for two months now. I’m not interested in selling a soda pop to you, much less my store. You coming down here and asking me every other day isn’t going to change my mind. No matter how much money you offer me.”

Tobias leaned forward and spit. Tobacco juice stained the wooden plank an ugly brown at Warren’s feet. “Now that’s a damn shame, especially considering the most recent, more-than-generous offer I made you. Why don’t you do the smart thing and sell out, old man?”

“Because this store, this land, has been in my family for more than three hundred years,” Warren replied in a testy tone. “And I’m not letting someone like you come in and strip-mine it like you have the rest of the mountain.”

Tobias sighed. A long, drawn-out see-what-I-have-to-put-up-with sigh that sounded as phony as Jonah McAllister had at the Pork Pit. “Now, you know that it’s not exactly strip-mining, Warren. It’s called mountaintop removal, and there’s nothing illegal about it. We’re just getting the coal out of the ground the quickest way we know how.”

“And leaving everybody else with your mess,” Warren snapped. “Like I said, I’m not interested in letting you do that to my land. My whole backyard’s turned into a damn sinkhole already from you and your mining.”

Tobias’s face hardened, and his mustache bristled with barely restrained anger. “I’m tired of waiting you out, old man. You can either sell out now, and get a good price for your land. Or—”

“Or what?” Warren snapped, cutting off the dwarf ’s threat. “You’ll send some of your boys over here to make me see the light of day? You’ve tried that before, and it didn’t work. A couple of shotgun blasts in their asses sent your boys running for the hills.”

Tobias glared over his shoulder at his men, who all shuffled on their feet and stared at the ground.

I looked at Warren with a little more respect. Violet had told me that Warren had fought off Dawson’s goons by himself, but I hadn’t realized the old coot had put buckshot in their hides. Brave but stupid of him. Because Warren’s shotgun and sheer stubbornness must have been part of the reason why the dwarf had decided to go after Violet instead.

Tobias turned back to face us and spit another mouthful of tobacco juice onto the porch. “All I’m saying is it would be a damn shame if something was to happen to you—or your sweet granddaughter.”

The dwarf leered at Violet, staring at her boobs like he wanted to bury his head between them. Behind him, the giants and other men did the same. Violet’s face paled a little more, but she crossed her arms over her chest and lifted up her head. She wasn’t backing down any more than her grandfather was.

“By the way, Miss Violet,” Tobias drawled in his twangy voice. “You haven’t seen my brother Trace around anywhere, have you? Short guy, looks a fair bit like me, has a stick of dynamite tattooed on his arm. Drives a great big ole truck.”

My gray eyes narrowed. Dawson had a brother named Trace? With a dynamite tattoo on his arm? That must be the dwarf that Finn had pancaked in the parking lot last night. The one whose body Sophia had disposed of.

“He was going to take care of some business for me in Southtown, over near the community college,” Tobias said. “But he didn’t come home last night. I thought you might have seen him, seeing as how you take all those classes at the college.”

Violet’s eyes widened behind the frames of her black glasses. She’d just realized Trace was the dwarf who’d attacked her, and she didn’t know how to respond to Tobias Dawson’s veiled innuendos, hints, and threats. But Finnegan Lane, being the Southern gentleman he was, stepped forward and intervened.

“Southtown’s a dangerous neighborhood,” Finn said in a soft tone. “Who knows what could have happened to him in a place like that? Just about anything, I imagine. Rough crowd, down in that part of Ashland. Junkies, vampire hookers, pimps. Not safe for a man to walk those streets by himself.”

Tobias fixed Finn with a hard stare. “I wasn’t talking to you, son. And what the hell would you know about it anyway?”

Finn smiled. “I grew up down there.”

The dwarf stared at Finn with open hostility and suspicion. The two giants and two other men sensed their boss’s displeasure. They shifted forward on their feet, as if to storm past him and come up onto the porch. Tobias tensed, ready to give the order. I palmed another knife.