Tangled Threads

5

“Fuck.” I let out a soft curse.

“What are you—” Finn’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. Is that who I think it is?”

I nodded. “That would be her. LaFleur.”

Finn let out his own curse.

Roslyn looked back and forth between the two of us. “LaFleur? As in the assassin that you guys think Mab hired to come to Ashland and kill Gin?”

“The one and the same,” Finn murmured, his green gaze on the other woman. “And she’s talking to Vinnie.”

The three of us stared at them. LaFleur crooked her finger at Vinnie, who swallowed before moving forward. LaFleur leaned across the Ice bar a little more and whispered something into his ear. Whatever she said, it wasn’t good, because Vinnie’s blue-white Ice magic leaked out of his eyes once more. LaFleur was breaking his concentration with her words.

I tensed, my thumb tracing over the hilt of the silverstone knife that I’d palmed under the booth table. I wondered if the other assassin was going to kill Vinnie right here, right now, in the middle of the nightclub since no one had shown up for her staged meeting last night. Because the Spider hadn’t made an appearance like LaFleur had wanted me to. She could easily kill Vinnie. One blast of the assassin’s electrical elemental magic would be enough to cut through any Icy defense that the bartender might be able to muster.

That’s how elementals fought — by flinging their raw power, their raw magic, at each other. By measuring their strength against each other. Dueling each other, until one person weakened, and the other’s magic washed over the loser and killed her. Suffocated by Air, burned by Fire, frozen by Ice, encased in Stone. The end result for the weaker elemental was never a good one, and death by elemental magic was never pretty, easy, or painless.

But instead of forming a ball of green lightning in her hand and shoving it into Vinnie’s face, LaFleur did a most curious thing. She patted the Ice elemental on the cheek, gave him a sly wink and a sexy smirk, then turned and disappeared into the crowd.

Leaving him alone and unharmed.

Vinnie blinked, then sagged against the bar as though his body were made out of water and he were melting all over the place. He stayed like that for about thirty seconds, before a waitress stepped up in the spot where LaFleur had been and slid her empty tray over to him. The waitress said something, probably telling him about her latest order. Vinnie shook his head, then picked up his martini shaker once more. But the blue-white magic flickering in his eyes was weak, dim, and faint. Whatever LaFleur had said to him, it had utterly demoralized the Ice elemental.

Since Vinnie wasn’t going anywhere, I tracked LaFleur’s movements through the crowd. To my surprise, the assassin headed toward the front door. Leaving. She was actually leaving. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. I wanted to see where she was off to in such a hurry.

“Watch Vinnie,” I told Finn, slipping out of the booth. “Call me on my cell phone if he makes a move to leave. I want to see if LaFleur’s here with anyone.”

“Gin?” Finn said.

I looked at him.

“Be careful.” Concern filled his face, and I knew he was thinking about LaFleur’s magic. What we’d seen her do with it last night and what she might do to me tonight.

I flashed him a grin. “Don’t worry about me. I always come back, Finn.”

I just hoped this time it wouldn’t be in a pine box.

I didn’t immediately charge through the crowd after LaFleur. Because if I were her, I would have a couple of guys stationed in the nightclub keeping an eye on Vinnie, seeing who might wander over to talk to him, and most especially who might be interested in following the assassin outside. So my first move was to make a detour by the Ice bar.

I walked down the length of it, weaving in and out of the clusters of people. Everyone was laughing, talking, drinking, and necking, so it was easy enough for me to grab a martini that a dwarf was blindly reaching for before his stubby fingers closed over it. I also swiped a pack of cigarettes and a lighter off the bar that belonged to a giant who had his back turned to them. Props in hand, I headed for the front door and stepped outside.

The night had grown even colder while I’d been in the club, and now bits of hard snow gusted along, pushed on by a breeze that slapped my cheeks and cut straight through my jeans, T-shirt, and fleece jacket. But the cold hadn’t driven anyone away. The line to get inside had doubled since I’d arrived.

Xavier stood in his same spot by the door, clipboard still in hand. The giant didn’t even glance up as LaFleur strolled by him. He was too busy herding the mass of people in front of him inside to care about who was leaving early.

The assassin skirted around Xavier and set off across the parking lot. Keeping one eye on her, I paused right outside the entrance long enough to light a cigarette and make sure that my martini glass was up where everyone could see it so people would think that I was here to party, despite my dressed down clothes. I also ran a hand through my dark chocolate brown hair, mussing it up, as though I’d already had a hell of a good time inside.

Then I headed in LaFleur’s general direction, my steps slow and wobbly, my body swaying from side to side. Just another tipsy smoker desperate for a nicotine fix and getting some fresh air before I went back inside the club for another drink, another fuck, or whatever I was indulging in tonight. An easy enough role for an assassin to play and one that I’d used for camouflage dozens of times over the years.

I’d taken only ten lazy steps away from the building before LaFleur stopped at the edge of the parking lot. I paused as well, ambling back and forth on the fringes of a group of smokers huddled together for warmth, keeping close enough to them to look like I belonged there. Just another face in the crowd sucking down her cancer stick as fast as she could.

LaFleur stood in the shadow of a weeping willow tree, its long, delicate, swaying tendrils just brushing the top of her emerald headband. She put her back to the tree and turned to face the entrance to Northern Aggression once more. She examined everything, from the people waiting in line, to the group of smokers that I was standing with, to the flashing heart-and-arrow sign above the building. The assassin took it all in, analyzing everything just the way that I would have, looking for any threats to her, anything suspicious, unusual, or out of the ordinary.

I was glad that I’d stopped at the bar for my props. Otherwise, the other assassin would have spotted me storming out of the club after her. And then, well, things would have gotten interesting.

But LaFleur didn’t see me or anything else that threatened her. Her watchful stance relaxed, and she made herself a little more comfortable against the tree, just leaning the tops of her shoulders against it, instead of the full length of her slender body.

And then she waited.

Ten … twenty … forty-five … I counted off the seconds in my head. LaFleur didn’t move a muscle for three minutes. She could have been a statue planted under the tree for all the emotion she showed. I frowned. So not only did she have deadly electrical magic but LaFleur could be patient as well — just as patient as I could be. Mab Monroe had chosen her assassin very wisely.

I wondered what LaFleur was waiting for, though. Had she told Vinnie Volga to break away from his station at the Ice bar and come outside and meet her? Because the way he’d reacted to her had told me that Vinnie knew exactly how dangerous the assassin was. Did she really think that the bartender would want to be alone in the dark with her? Especially after her little trap down at the docks had failed to net her the Spider?

But Vinnie didn’t come outside, and five minutes and three horrible, disgusting cigarettes later, I got my answer as to what LaFleur was doing lurking outside Northern Aggression.

A black stretch limo rolled through the parking lot, coming to a stop in front of her. The assassin pushed away from the weeping willow and straightened, her hands loose and open by her sides, but she made no move to step forward toward the rumbling car. My eyes narrowed. Whom was she meeting now? And why?

The driver scurried out of the front seat of the limo and ran around to the back. He opened the door and stuck his hand inside the dark depths. He helped a woman out and to her feet, then bowed and stepped back. I recognized her at once. As if I could ever forget her.

Mab Monroe.

Mab looked like she either had been or was going out for the night. The Fire elemental wore a long black evening gown with a strapless, sweetheart neckline. A matching black fur wrap was draped around her creamy shoulders. The paleness of her skin contrasted with her hair, which was the bright, polished red of a new penny. It curled softly to her shoulders. But Mab’s eyes were her most striking feature. They were even blacker than her dress and looked like two pieces of hard jet set into her milky face.

My gaze fell to the Fire elemental’s throat. As always, she wore her signature rune necklace — a large ruby set in a ring of curvy, gold rays. The diamond cutting on the gold caught the light from the neon sign outside the club and made it seem that the rays were actually flickering, that they were real, burning flames. No wonder, since the necklace represented a sunburst. The symbol for fire. Mab’s personal rune, used by her alone. She never went anywhere without it, just as I never left home without my silverstone knives.

I watched as Mab approached LaFleur. The assassin bowed her head respectfully to Mab, but she never took her eyes off the Fire elemental, not even for a second. LaFleur might be working for Mab, but she didn’t trust her. Smart girl.

The two women put their heads together and started talking. I was too far away to hear what they were saying, and Mab wasn’t the sort of person you just walked up to in the dark. I couldn’t move any closer to them without attracting attention to myself. At least, not without circling all the way around the back of the club and coming at them from a different angle. Knowing my luck, they’d probably be long gone by the time I did that.

What I really wanted to know was what the hell the Fire elemental was doing outside Roslyn’s club. As far as I knew, Mab had never come here before. She and the drunk yuppies who frequented Northern Aggression didn’t exactly run in the same circles.

So why would she meet LaFleur out here in the open instead of somewhere more private? What was going on between the two of them? And how much was it going to fuck up my plans to kill the Fire elemental sooner rather than later?

In the pocket of my jeans, my cell phone let out a low, steady buzz. Still pretending to be nothing more than a drunk smoker, I ambled away from the group of people that I’d been standing next to. My phone kept vibrating, so I dug it out and flipped it open.

“What?” I growled.

“We’ve got a problem,” Finn said in my ear. “Vinnie left the bar. At least, he tried to. He didn’t get five steps before three guys came out of the crowd, surrounded him, and helped him on his way.”

So that’s why LaFleur had come back outside Northern Aggression so quickly. She’d left her men behind inside the nightclub to watch Vinnie in case he decided to bolt. Just as I would have.

“They went out through a side door,” Finn said. “From the looks of them, I think they’re going to take Vinnie for a walk that he won’t come back from — ever.”

As I stood there listening to Finn, I kept staring at LaFleur and Mab. Emotions surged through me, and for a moment, I considered palming my silverstone knives, sprinting toward the two women, and stabbing them to death. Mab didn’t have any of her usual giant guards with her. No backup, nothing. This was my chance to finally kill her. To do to her what she’d done to my family all those years ago.

My whole body burned with the need to kill her — right here, right now. Enemy, enemy, enemy, a primal little voice muttered in the back of my head. Here is your enemy. In the open. Exposed. Vulnerable. Kill her now, before she leaves. Before she hurts anyone else that you love.

But I forced the hot, aching, greedy, reckless rage aside and buried it under the cold, inescapable logic of the situation. Because the part of me that was the Spider — the cold, hard, rational, ruthless part of me that would always be the Spider — realized that attacking Mab now would be suicide.

LaFleur would be tricky enough to take out by myself. First of all, she was an assassin, trained, skilled, and deadly, just like me. She hadn’t earned her stellar reputation by being weak or sloppy. But even more important than that was the fact that her electrical elemental magic had felt just as strong as my Ice and Stone power. Face-to-face, I didn’t know which one of us would win. Besides, even if I killed LaFleur, that would still leave Mab to deal with. I wouldn’t survive a fight with both of them — not at the same time. Together, their magic was just greater than my own.

Even if I’d been reckless enough to attack the two women, they made my decision for me. Mab gestured to LaFleur, and the two of them walked over to the waiting limo and slid into the back. A moment later, the long car pulled out of the parking lot and disappeared into the cold night. My enemies would live to see another day. And so would I.

Equal parts relief and frustration filled me. I sighed, and my breath frosted in the night air.

“Gin?” Finn’s voice murmured in my ear. “Are you listening to me? LaFleur’s men have Vinnie. What do you want to do?”

I snapped out of my reverie. “Tell me which way they went. LaFleur might be gone, but I still plan on having a little chat with Vinnie tonight.”