Tangled Threads

14

Sophia came over to stand beside me, her black eyes still fixed on the front door that Jonah McAllister and Elektra LaFleur had just walked out of.

“Assassin?” she rasped.

“Yeah, that was LaFleur,” I said. “Did you see the way that she was checking out the place?”

Sophia nodded instead of actually answering me. The Goth dwarf spoke as little as possible, since her broken, raspy voice sounded like she’d spent her entire life downing rotgut whiskey, puffing on cigarettes, and gargling gasoline. Sophia didn’t have any of those vices, at least not that I knew of, and I always wondered what had happened to the dwarf to so completely ruin her voice. But I never asked her. Whatever it was, I knew that it couldn’t possibly be good. Sophia’s secret pain was her own to share or not. Just like mine was.

“Problem?” Sophia asked, cutting into my reverie.

“Yeah, LaFleur’s going to make a run at me here at the Pit,” I said. “That’s the only reason I can think of that McAllister brought her here. She was planning the best way to kill me, probably sometime in the next few days. McAllister wants me dead, and he’s asked her to do it while she’s in town.”

“Ready,” Sophia said, reached over, and squeezed.

I squeezed back and smiled at the dwarf. “I know you’ll be ready. And I will be too. Elektra LaFleur’s going to get the surprise of her life when she comes here to kill Gin Blanco — and finds the Spider waiting for her instead.”

Sophia and I went back to work, cleaning up the restaurant for the night. The other couple paid up and left, and I was thinking about flipping the sign on the door over to Closed when the front bell chimed and a woman stepped inside the Pork Pit. As always, her appearance startled me and took my breath away at the same time — as well as filling me with a touch of cold dread.

Detective Bria Coolidge. My baby sister.

Like so many others moving about on the frosty streets this evening, Bria wore a long coat over a pair of jeans and thick but stylish black Bella Bulluci boots. Her V-neck sweater was a Christmas green in keeping with the season, while a gold badge winked on the leather belt around her slender waist. In contrast, her gun looked like a blob of black ink next to it.

The badge marked Bria as a detective with the Ashland Police Department, but she didn’t really look like a cop. She was far too pretty for that, with her longish shag of blond hair, cornflower blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and rocking figure.

Besides the badge and the gun, Bria also wore a silverstone medallion on a short chain around her neck. A delicate primrose, the symbol for beauty. The same rune, the same necklace, that our mother had given her as a child, one that I’d never seen her without, even now as an adult. Three rings also gleamed on her left index finger, thin silverstone bands each sporting tiny runes. Snowflakes ringed the bottom band, while ivy vines curled around the middle one. The final ring, the top one, was stamped with a single symbol in the middle — a spider rune. My rune, the symbol for patience. I supposed that the rings were Bria’s way of remembering our shattered family, just as the drawings on the mantel at Fletcher Lane’s house were mine.

“Gin,” Bria said in her high, lilting voice. “Good to see you again.”

She nodded at me, and I returned the favor. Bria and I hadn’t exactly started off on the right foot. I’d first seen her a few weeks ago, the night that Slater had attacked me at the community college. To say that it had been a shock would be a serious understatement. I’d known that my sister was alive, after thinking her dead for years, but seeing her in the flesh had been something else. Enough to make me cry, especially since I’d been looking for her myself with no success. But there she had been, as large as life and back in Ashland after so many long years gone.

Bria had also been the detective assigned to find out what had happened to me that night, and she’d dogged my steps after that, trying to get me to tell her who had hurt me and why. She’d also suspected me of somehow being involved with Roslyn Phillips, of keeping the vampire’s location from her when Roslyn had been hiding from Slater. But since everything had turned out all right in the end, with Roslyn living and Slater rotting in the ground, Bria’s icy attitude toward me had thawed a bit. As had my wary one toward her.

“You too, detective,” I said and meant it. “What can I do for you this evening?”

She moved closer, putting her hands up on the counter beside the cash register. The lights made her silverstone rings wink at me one after another, like all-seeing eyes that knew every one of my deep, dark secrets. “I called earlier. I’m here to pick up my takeout.”

That must have been the order that Sophia had taken over the phone before McAllister and LaFleur had come into the Pork Pit. But she hadn’t bothered to tell me it was Bria’s, even though Sophia knew all about my sister. I looked at the dwarf, who gave me a small grin and went back to wiping down the counter. I supposed that this was Sophia’s way of getting me to talk to Bria. The Goth dwarf could be sneaky when she put her mind to it.

“I would have been here to get it sooner,” Bria said, leaning against the counter. “But I got stuck late working a case.”

“Really?” I asked, moving to get the white bag that Sophia had packed Bria’s food in. “Which case was this?”

As a whole, Ashland was a violent city, full of lots of powerful people with lots of powerful grudges against each other, as well as your more mundane criminals just trying to make a buck. There was so much crime here that it was hard to tell what kind of case Bria might be working. It could be everything from a domestic dispute to a gangbanger drive-by to a missing person—

“The Spider killed three more men last night. Or, at least, someone left her symbol behind at the crime scene,” Bria answered.

Years of Fletcher’s training kept me from showing any emotion, but once again, I cursed luck. Of all the detectives in Ashland, my sister had to be the one investigating my nighttime activities as the Spider. First, Jonah McAllister had brought Elektra LaFleur by so that the assassin could put her bull’s-eye on my forehead, and now Bria was joining the firing squad. Irony was really kicking me in the teeth tonight.

“Oh.” Once again, I was the conversational genius.

I set the bag of takeout on the counter between us, as if that would somehow derail Bria’s train of thought. Not likely. I might not have seen her in the last seventeen years, but since her arrival back in Ashland a few weeks ago, she’d been nothing but tenacious, showing me exactly what kind of strong, confident, dedicated woman she’d grown up to be.

Then there was the fact that Bria was also one of the few honest cops in the city. With all the crime in Ashland, it was far easier for members of the police department to take bribes to look the other way than to actually investigate crimes and arrest the perpetrators. A couple of C-notes in their fat wallets made for far less paperwork. But Bria was different. She didn’t turn a blind eye to crimes or bury her head in the sand — ever. Even more than that, she actually tried to help people, tried to bring some comfort to victims and put as many bad guys as she could behind bars. And now she was gunning for me, the Spider. Despite the fact that Bria knew that the assassin and her long-lost sister Genevieve Snow were one and the same.

While I admired Bria’s strength and determination, her dedication to her day job also had the unfortunate reality of interfering with my plans to kill Elektra LaFleur, Jonah McAllister, Mab Monroe, and anyone else who threatened the people I loved.

Instead of reaching for the bag or digging into her jeans for some cash to pay for the food, Bria stared at me with her blue eyes — eyes that reminded me of our mother and older sister. They’d all had the same beautiful features and coloring. I was the only one who’d gotten our father, Tristan’s, gray eyes and chocolate brown hair — along with his Stone magic.

My Ice magic had come from our mother, and Bria had inherited it as well. I’d seen her use her Ice power only a few times, most notably to try to save herself from being murdered by Elliot Slater and his giants. They’d paid her a late-night visit when she’d first come to Ashland a few weeks ago, but luckily, I’d been there to take care of them instead. Still, Bria’s magic had felt strong to me, just as strong as our mother’s had been.

“Have you heard anything?” Bria asked me in a low voice. “Any … talk in the neighborhood about the Spider and this vendetta that she has against Mab Monroe? Because the men that she killed last night were giants, two of them anyway, and from what I can tell, they worked for the Fire elemental.”

“Why would you think that I would know something?” I asked.

Bria shrugged. “This is a popular place. Lots of people come in and out of here all day long. I thought that maybe you or one of your cooks or waitresses might have overheard something. Somebody bragging about being the Spider. Something like that.”

I raised an eyebrow. “From what I read in the newspapers, the Spider doesn’t seem like the kind of person to brag about what she does. She kills people and then vanishes without a trace. At least, that’s my impression of her.”

Bria turned around one of the rings on her index finger. The top ring, the one with the spider rune stamped on it. My ring.

“Yeah,” she said in a soft voice. “That’s something that I plan on talking to her about, when I find her. And I will find her, Gin. Make no mistake about that.”

We didn’t speak. Sophia continued wiping down the counter, but the dwarf kept her black eyes on the two of us, just watching.

Bria let out a long sigh and started digging into her jeans pocket. “So what do I owe you for the food?”

I waved my hand. “Your money’s no good here tonight. It’s on the house.”

Bria shook her head. The motion made the light dance on the primrose rune around her neck. My heart twisted at the sight.

“You should let me pay you, Gin. I know how hard you work.”

I held back a snort. I doubted that her tone would be so kind, so considerate, if she knew how much money I had stashed away in various bank accounts — money that I’d gotten for killing people.

I glanced at the ticket stapled to the bag. “It’s a ham sandwich, beans, fries, and two pieces of strawberry pie. Don’t worry. It’s not going to break me. Besides,” I said, thinking of Jonah McAllister and his measly thirteen cents. “A customer gave me a big tip tonight anyway. More than enough to cover your meal, detective.”

She opened her mouth, but I cut her off.

“I insist,” I said in a firm voice. “Think of it as an early Christmas present.”

The least I could do was slip my own sister a free meal now and then. The very least.

“All right,” Bria said, being gracious enough to take me up on my offer. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

She grabbed the bag, gave me a nod and a smile, and turned to go.

Sophia cleared her throat — loudly. I glanced over at the dwarf, and she stabbed a stubby finger in Bria’s direction before stabbing it back in mine. Then, Sophia crossed her arms over her chest and gave me a flat stare. I felt like a naughty schoolgirl being chastised by her nun of a teacher. I knew what the dwarf wanted. For me to talk to Bria, to get her to stay, to do something, anything, to further our relationship, even if it was only the tiniest bit.

“Um, detective?” I said.

Bria stopped and looked over her shoulder at me.

“I know that you don’t have any … family in Ashland.” The lie stuck in my throat like lumpy gravy, but I forced it out. “I was wondering if you had any plans for Christmas.”

I knew that because I kept an eye on Bria whenever she came into the Pork Pit, trying to learn everything I could about her. Usually she brought Xavier along with her, since the giant was her partner on the force whenever he wasn’t busy helping Roslyn run Northern Aggression. Finn had also compiled a fat folder of information on Bria that contained just about everything that she’d ever done in her twenty-five years.

But for some reason I just hadn’t been able to bring myself to look at the file, and it lay unopened on the coffee table in the den in Fletcher’s house. I didn’t want to read about what my sister had been up to all these years — I wanted her to tell me herself. About her life, about her job, even about her hopes and dreams. Sappy and sentimental of me, but I didn’t care.

Every time that Bria came into the Pork Pit to eat, I tried to strike up some kind of conversation with her, tried to learn more about my sister and what she’d been doing since the last time that I saw her, when she was eight years old. To let her tell me in her own words about all the things that had happened to her since that horrible night when our family had been torn apart by Mab.

From the bits and pieces that she’d told me and what Xavier had let slip, I knew that Bria had been adopted by a couple named Coolidge. The man had been a cop down in Savannah, Georgia, where they’d lived, and he was Bria’s inspiration for joining the force. Her foster father had died a couple of years ago from a heart attack. Her foster mother had followed him a year later, hit and killed by a drunk driver.

By all accounts, they’d both loved Bria, and she’d loved them. I’d learned a while back that when your family had been murdered and torn away from you like mine had, you had to make a new family for yourself. Sometimes with what was left of your own flesh and blood, and sometimes with the people you met along the way. It helped to ease the pain.

Shadows darkened Bria’s blue eyes, and her mouth flattened into a tight line. “I was planning on working Christmas and letting somebody else spend the day with her family since I don’t really have any.”

The harsh tone in my sister’s voice indicated that I should drop this awkward conversation. I looked at Sophia, who cleared her throat again and raised her eyebrows, a rare show of expression from her. The dwarf didn’t want me to give up. Neither would Finn, Owen, or Jo-Jo, if they’d been here. The truth was that I didn’t want to give up either. Not when Bria was finally back in my life after so many years. Not when Fletcher had gone to so much trouble to make sure that I knew that she was alive and to bring her back to Ashland in the first place.

“Well, Owen Grayson is having some people over at his house,” I said, taking the plunge. “Me, Finn, Xavier, Roslyn. I thought that if you weren’t doing anything else, you might like to join us.”

After, of course, I called Finn, Xavier, and Roslyn and asked them all to come.

Bria didn’t say anything, but a sad sort of longing flickered in her blue eyes. It matched the ache in my heart.

“I’m cooking,” I said, trying to sweeten the pot, so to speak. “So I can assure you that the food will be excellent.”

After, of course, I told Owen that I was whipping up a Christmas feast for all the people that I hadn’t actually invited over to his house yet.

Bria stared at me a moment more before answering. “I don’t want to intrude,” she said in a soft voice.

I smiled at her, letting a rare bit of warmth creep into my cold gray eyes. “You won’t be intruding. You’re Xavier’s partner. You’re practically family now, Bria.”

Behind me, Sophia let out a soft snicker at my lame attempt to establish some sort of connection with my sister. Yeah, my words dripped with cheese, and I knew that it was amusing to see big, bad Gin Blanco reduced to pleading just to spend a few hours with her own bloody sister. But still, this comedy of errors had been the dwarf’s idea to start with.

I turned and glared at Sophia. Below the counter, out of Bria’s line of sight, I grabbed the silverstone knife that I’d stuck in there when McAllister and LaFleur had come into the restaurant. I brandished the weapon at the dwarf, telling her exactly what I was going to do to her if she didn’t quit her giggling.

But my flashing the blade only made her snicker harder. Given her extremely thick, dwarven musculature, I could make Sophia look like a pincushion with my silverstone knives, and it wouldn’t hurt her — much. At least, not as much as she’d hurt me with her fists, something that we both knew.

“I’ll … think about it,” Bria finally said.

I gave her another smile, but her lack of commitment made some of the warmth drain out of my features. “You do that.”

Bria nodded at me once more, then turned and headed out of the restaurant. This time, I didn’t try to call her back or stop her from leaving, even though my heart felt as cold and empty as the snowy night outside as the door swung shut behind her.