Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies (43 page)

“Enough.”

A low voice floated out from somewhere deeper in the shadows. A soft, breathy sound that reminded me of silk wisping together. I knew that tone, that sultry cadence, knew exactly whom it belonged to. So did my inner psyche.
Enemy, enemy, enemy,
a little voice muttered in the back of my head. A strange, primal, elemental urge flooded my body, the desire to use my Stone and Ice magic to lash out and kill whatever was within striking distance.

Elliot Slater ignored the command and hit me again, adding to the pain that racked my body.

“I said
enough
.” The voice dropped to a low hiss that crackled with power, menace, and the promise of death.

Elliot froze, his hand pulled halfway back to hit me again.

“Let her go. Now.”

The two giants who’d had their hands clamped around my upper arms dropped me like I had the plague. I lay on the ground, my blood soaking into the frosty grass.

Despite the pain, I curled my beaten body into a small, defensive ball. I also palmed one of my silverstone knives.

The weapon felt cold and comforting against the thick scar embedded in my palm.

Something rustled, and Mab Monroe stepped out of the shadows to my left.

The Fire elemental wore a long wool coat done in a dark forest green. Her red hair gleamed like polished copper, but her eyes were even blacker than the night sky. A bit of gold flashed around her pale throat in between the folds of her expensive coat.

I couldn’t see that well, given the starbursts still exploding in my vision, but I knew what the gold flash was.

Mab Monroe never went anywhere without wearing her signature rune necklace. A large, circular orange ruby surrounded by several dozen wavy rays. From previous sightings, I knew the intricate diamond cutting on the gold would catch the meager light and make it seem as though the rays were actually flickering. Or perhaps my vision was just that fucked up at the moment.

Still, I knew what the rune was. A sunburst. The symbol for fire. Mab Monroe’s personal rune, used by her alone.

At the sight, the silverstone scars on my own palms started to itch and burn. Mab wasn’t the only one here with a rune. I had one too. A small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. A spider rune. The symbol for patience.

The rune had once been a medallion I’d worn on a chain around my neck, until Mab had used her Fire elemental magic to superheat and burn the silverstone metal into my palms like it was a fucking cattle brand. That’s how she’d tortured me the night she’d murdered my family.

I was looking forward to returning the favor—someday soon.

Enemy, enemy, enemy;
the little voice in the back of my head kept up its muttered chorus.

Mab Monroe walked over and stood beside Elliot Slater and Jonah McAllister. She glanced down at me with all the interest she might give a cockroach before she crushed it under the toe of her boot. Her dark eyes swallowed up the available light, the way a black hole might. I lay very, very still and tried to look like I was a mere inch away from death. Not much of a stretch tonight.

“I said enough, Jonah,” Mab said. “Or have you forgotten that you and Elliot work for me?”

After a moment, Elliot Slater stepped back and bowed his head in deference. The other two giants did the same.

But Jonah McAllister was too angry to heed the hard edge in Mab’s breathy tone.

“This bitch made problems for my son, and I think she knows something about his death,” McAllister barked. “I want her to pay for that. I want her to
die
for that.”

Mab stared down at me again. “You’re letting your emotions cloud your judgment, Jonah. Ignoring the facts. It’s most unbecoming.”

“And what would those
facts
be?” McAllister demanded.

“That Ms. Blanco is just a woman, a mere, weak woman with no elemental magic or other notable strength or skills. Otherwise, I’m sure she would have used everything at her disposal to keep from being so viciously beaten tonight. She’s not the person you’re looking for, Jonah. More importantly, she’s not the woman
I’m
looking for.”

McAllister’s brown eyes glittered. “You and your obsession with that blond whore. Why can’t you accept the fact that she’s dead? Buried somewhere in that coal mine, just like Tobias Dawson and his two men were?”

Mab’s eyes grew even blacker. She reached for her Fire elemental magic, holding the power close to her like she might a lover. As an elemental myself, I could feel her magic. Mab’s power pricked at my skin like hot, invisible needles, adding to my misery, but I stayed still, giving no indication I could sense it—or that I knew what the fuck they were talking about.

“I doubt that hooker was a real hooker, and they never found her body in the rubble of the collapsed mine,” Mab replied in a cold voice. “Until I see her body, she’s not dead. I’m going to find her, Jonah, and then we can both have our revenge. She killed Dawson, and she’s the one who killed your son. Not Ms. Blanco.”

They were talking about the night of Mab’s party, when I’d dressed up as a hooker to get close to Tobias Dawson, a greedy mine owner who was threatening some innocent people. Dawson was the one I was supposed to kill that night, but Jake McAllister had spotted me before I’d had a chance to do the hit. Mab had caught me in the bathroom a few minutes after I’d stabbed Jake McAllister to death. Evidently, the Fire elemental had put two and two together and realized that I’d stiffed Jake, then done the same to Tobias Dawson later on in his own mine. Not good.

“I agreed to this little test with the understanding that Ms. Blanco would live through it, should she prove herself to be innocent of your son’s murder,” Mab continued.

“She’s done so, at least to my satisfaction. Nobody would willingly let themselves be beaten the way she has.”

So Mab Monroe didn’t understand the concept of self-sacrifice. Not surprising. I might have laughed, if it wouldn’t have hurt so damn much. At the moment, I would have endured a whole new beating just to get them to leave me alone in the darkness. Still, I was doubly glad that I’d let Elliot Slater hit me. Otherwise, I would have been dead by now, ambushed from the sidelines by Mab Monroe and her Fire elemental magic.

“Who cares if the bitch lives or dies?” Jonah McAllister scoffed. “She’s nobody.”

“That might be true, but unfortunately, Ms. Blanco is not without friends,” Mab replied. “Most notably the Deveraux sisters.”

“I don’t care about those two dwarven bitches,” Jonah snapped. “You could easily kill both of them.”

Mab gave a delicate shrug of her shoulders. “Perhaps. But Jo-Jo Deveraux is quite popular. It might be entertaining, but killing her wouldn’t win me any favors. Besides, I have other concerns at the moment, most notably Coolidge.”

My dazed mind latched onto the odd name. Coolidge?

Who the hell was Coolidge? And what had he done to piss off Mab Monroe?

“You’ve had your fun, Jonah. Face it, Ms. Blanco isn’t the one who killed Jake. And she’s suffered plenty tonight for whatever insults she laid on him previously. Now, are you going to come quietly so we can talk business? Or should I start looking for a new attorney?” Malice dripped from Mab’s voice like acid rain.

Jonah McAllister finally realized he wasn’t going to win this one. And that if he kept arguing with his boss, she was likely to use her Fire elemental magic to fry his ass where he stood. So the lawyer clamped his lips together and nodded his head, acquiescing to his boss’s wishes. At least for tonight.

Then the silver-haired bastard turned and kicked me in the stomach as hard as he could.

The blow wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it still made me retch up even more blood. Something hot and hard twisted in my stomach. I needed to get to Jo-Jo Deveraux soon so the dwarven Air elemental could heal me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be breathing much longer.

“Fine. We’ll move on to the next person, then.” Jonah McAllister leaned down and grabbed my brown ponytail, pulling my face up to his. “You talk to the cops about this, bitch, and you will die. Understand me?”

Cops? Oh, I had no intention of going to the cops. No siree. I was going to handle this matter all by my lonesome.

But to keep up the act, I let out a low groan and nodded my head. Satisfied that I was suitably cowed this time, McAllister let go. I flopped back onto the ground.

“Let’s get out of here,” the lawyer growled. “The bitch dripped blood all over my coat.”

Jonah McAllister stepped over my prone body and disappeared into the darkness. Elliot Slater and the other two giants followed him. But Mab Monroe stayed where she was and studied me with her dark gaze. Her power washed over me again, the invisible, fiery needles pricking my bloody skin. I bit back another groan.

“I do hope you’ve learned your lesson this time, Ms.

Blanco,” Mab said in a pleasant voice. “Because Jonah’s right. Next time you cross one of us—any of us—you will die. And I promise you that it will be far more excruciating than what you’ve experienced here tonight.”

A bit of black fire flashed in her eyes, backing up her deadly promise. Mab Monroe smiled at me a moment longer, then turned on her boot heel and vanished into the cold night.