Thread of Death

by Jennifer Estep

  My boots sank into the thick, soft grass and I breathed in, enjoying the rich smell of the earth. Maple, poplar, and sycamore trees stretched toward the cloudless cerulean sky, their brown branches already budding out with new leaves and providing a bit of shade for the crowd below. It was warm for this early in March, and there would be more cold days to come, but I tilted my face up, welcoming the sunshine and the promise of spring in the air—small things I appreciated more than ever this year, since I’d spent the last few weeks cooped up indoors. Yes, all in all, this was a beautiful day and a pretty spot—for a cemetery.

  Ashland Memorial Cemetery spread out over about two square miles, tombstones and grave markers looking like dull silver needles sticking up out of the rolling green landscape before the monuments ended and the rocky ridges of the Appalachian Mountains took over. The cemetery was located in Northtown, the part of the city that the rich and powerful called home, and those were the folks who were buried here, each one with a marker that was bigger and more intricately carved than the last. Competition among the rich just never seemed to end in Ashland, not even in death.

  We headed deeper into the cemetery, and I reached out with my Stone magic, listening to the whispers of the tombstones around us. Murmurs of old tears, old hurts and griefs, mixed with newer, rawer emotions echoed back to me. Common enough sounds in a place like this, although I also heard several notes of unease and worry rippling through the tombstones, reflecting the feelings of those who had gathered here today—something else I’d expected. With Mab gone, no one in the underworld knew quite what to do, now that her fiery fist wasn’t poised over their heads, ready to crush, burn, and grind them into ashes at any moment.

  The crowd was exactly what I’d expected it to be. I spotted many of the Ashland crime bosses milling around, folks like Phillip Kincaid, who owned the Delta Queen riverboat casino. Despite the occasion and the somber suit he wore, Kincaid had a cold, calculating smile on his face. In fact, most everyone was smiling and chatting with their neighbors, even the folks who’d been in business with Mab . . . well, if sharks showing their teeth could be considered smiling. With the Fire elemental gone, it was clear that it was a brand-new day in Ashland. I just wondered how I fit into things now.

  However, there was one person who wasn’t smiling—Jonah McAllister. The lawyer was one of those who’d chosen to sit in the red plush chairs that had been set up on the grass. McAllister sat alone in the front row of chairs, staring straight ahead, his unnaturally smooth face even blanker than usual. Mab didn’t have any living relatives that I knew of, and with Elliot Slater, her other number two man dead, I guessed McAllister was the closest thing she’d had to family—or even just a friend. Hence his position in the first row of chairs.

  All of the chairs had already been taken, except for the empty ones around McAllister that were reserved for those closest to the dead; but the rest of the crowd had spread out in a semicircle, so we were able to find a spot in the ring of people and see what was happening. Not much, since everyone was busy staring at the closed ebony coffin that stood in the middle of them all.

  Mab Monroe might be dead, but she was once again the center of attention.

  As she should be, at her own funeral.

  Mab’s funeral. I’d never thought I’d live to see this day. But here I was—and Mab too. Both of us together again, for the final time.

  Maybe it was morbid of me to attend the funeral of the woman I’d killed. Maybe it was impolite or in poor taste or just downright mean. I’d never come to the funerals of any of the other people I’d assassinated as the Spider . . . well, except to do recon on or take out another target. No doubt some folks would think that I’d come here today just to thumb my nose at Mab one last time before she was officially six feet under.

  But that wasn’t the case. I hadn’t come here to mock Mab: I’d come to say good-bye to her.

  In her own brutal way, the Fire elemental had been a part of my life since I was thirteen, and even more so these past few months while I’d been plotting how to take her down. Now that she was gone, I felt her absence, and I wanted to make my peace with the role she’d played in my life—and finally move on. In fairy tales, people always lived happily ever after once the witch was dead. They faded to black with everyone happy and smiling. It was a nice thought, but those things couldn’t last forever, and I wanted to know what came next.

  The others had told me that Mab was dead, and I’d seen the news reports myself. In fact, the Fire elemental’s demise was all that the media in Ashland had talked about for the last few weeks, given how sudden and violently she had died. The fact that it had taken the coroner’s office so long to positively identify her body had only added to the speculation and media frenzy.

  But part of me had needed to come here today and see it for myself: I had to see for myself that Mab was truly, finally dead.

  The ebony coffin was closed—not surprising, given the fact that my Ice and Stone magic had wreaked just as much havoc on her body as her elemental Fire had on mine. Finn had told me that Mab had pretty much been reduced to charred bones during our duel as the cold and hot flames of our respective magics washed over her.

  However, a portrait of Mab stood on an easel next to the coffin, showing the Fire elemental in all her glory: hair as bright as copper, black eyes, creamy skin, a necklace ringing her throat. My gaze fixed on the necklace, which was shaped like a sunburst, the symbol for fire, the rune that had been Mab’s personal symbol. The necklace had actually survived our duel, but I’d used my Ice magic to smash it into a hundred pieces.

  I’d hoped I would never see that rune again, but I couldn’t escape it, because the symbol was on the coffin as well.

  Several dozen wavy golden rays glimmered on the side of the ebony casket, clustered around a large red gem. A real ruby, and not just expensive glass. My Stone magic let me hear the gemstone’s proud whispers of its own elegance. The sound mixed in with the similar, boastful murmurs of the jewels the other mourners wore. I could just make out a matching gem sticking up from the top of the coffin and another one down from the bottom, and I was willing to bet there was a rune on the far side, too, although I couldn’t see it from where I was standing.

  The sight of the sunburst, along with Mab’s smiling portrait, made my hands start to itch and burn. Mab had melted my own silverstone rune necklace into my hands when I was a kid, branding my palms with a small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. A spider rune, the symbol for patience.

  “Are you okay?” Owen whispered, noticing me rubbing first one hand, then the other.

  “Yeah. I’m fine,” I said in a low voice. “I should have realized they’d have a picture of her set up. It’s just a little . . . eerie, seeing her face again. And all those runes on her coffin aren’t helping.”

  He reached over and squeezed my hand, the warmth of his touch banishing the phantom pains in my palms. I flashed him a grateful smile and threaded my fingers through his.

  A minister holding a Bible separated himself from the chattering crowd and walked over to a wooden podium that had been set up on one side of the coffin. He opened his Bible, took out some white index cards, and cleared his throat a few times, telling everyone that it was time to begin the service.

  The crowd shuffled a little closer together, closing ranks so that everyone could see and hear the minister. My family and I stood to the left of the minister and coffin, at the nine o’clock position in the group of mourners who’d gathered here today.

  Slowly, the crowd quieted down and gave the minister their full attention. Everyone might be relieved that Mab was gone, but this was still a funeral, an occasion deserving of respect. All the underworld figures might be here mixing with their mortal enemies, plotting against them with a passion, and gleeful Mab was dead, but we’d all behave ourselves at her funeral. More or less. We Southerners were a little funny that way.

  As the minister began the service, I looked around, my eyes going from one fa
ce to another. I knew more than a few folks. Some I’d done jobs for as the Spider, taking out their enemies, their business partners, or whomever else they’d wanted out of their lives. Others were the friends and family of those I’d killed. And then there were people like Phillip Kincaid who I knew only by reputation. Altogether, more than five hundred people had shown up at the funeral, not counting the news crews who were stationed at the entrance to the cemetery. The media hadn’t been allowed inside to cover the service, no doubt because of all the crime bosses here today. Ashland might be a corrupt city, but folks still wanted to keep up the appearance of being legitimate, respectable businessmen and -women.

  I kept looking at all the faces around me, and more than a few folks stared back at me, curiosity and wariness gleaming in their eyes, their lips pulled back into toothy, predatory smiles. Finn had told me there were rumors going around the underworld about me and how I was really the Spider, the assassin who’d killed Mab. It looked like the rumors were a little more widespread than Finn had led me to believe, given all the calculating glances coming my way. But there was nothing I could do about that right now, so I kept scanning the crowd.

  Eventually, I noticed a woman standing alone just beyond the semicircle of supposed mourners. She wore a simple but elegant black dress and looked to be about my age, although I couldn’t really tell, because of the black pillbox hat and lacy veil that covered her face. All I could really see of her features were her crimson lips, but she wasn’t smiling like everyone else here was. If anything, she seemed . . . thoughtful.

  I frowned, wondering who the mystery woman might be. Another business associate of Mab’s? Someone the Fire elemental had hurt? Or someone else entirely? I had no way of knowing, but her calm, relaxed stance and distance from everyone else roused my interest and suspicion. I doubted she could even see the coffin from where she stood, but she seemed content to watch from her position. I made a note to ask Finn if he knew who she was after the service was over. My curiosity almost always got the best of me like that.

  Finally, my gaze met Jonah McAllister’s. The lawyer glared at me, even though the minister was standing in front of him, talking about Mab and what an impact she’d had on Ashland. Well, that was one way of putting it.

  The lawyer’s brown eyes were as cold as mine were, and his wrinkle-free face tightened that much more as he glared at me. McAllister hated me for killing his son, Jake, who’d been stupid enough to try to rob the Pork Pit and then had threatened to rape and murder me. As far as I was concerned, Jake had gotten exactly what he deserved—better than what he deserved, actually, since his death had been relatively quick. He wouldn’t have shown me the same courtesy if he’d had me at his mercy. No, I didn’t have any regrets about stabbing Jake to death, despite the fact that Jonah had tried to have me killed more than once for that and all the other insults I’d hurled his way over the past several months.

  I wondered what Jonah was thinking about as he sat at his boss’s funeral . . . what he was feeling right now. I imagined it couldn’t be anything good, especially not about me. . . .

  Jonah McAllister

  I couldn’t believe the bitch was still alive—and that she’d dared to show her face here today. Some people just had no class, no manners, and no respect, and Gin Blanco was one of them.

  Gin Blanco. The assassin the Spider. It was still difficult for me to reconcile they were one and the same. The bitch had seemed so small and dull and ordinary the first time I met her in that run-down rattrap of a barbecue restaurant she ran downtown. Just another business owner I had to pay off because of Jake’s stupidity in trying to rob her. I should have known there was more to her than met the eye when she refused my generous offer to compensate her if she dropped the charges against my son—and then smashed a plate of food into Jake’s face when he’d charged at her. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t done myself—more than once, truth be told—but the action still surprised me. It seemed so violent, so vicious, so at odds with the calm mask she’d worn up until that point.

  Oh, yes. I should have known there were hidden depths to Ms. Blanco from that very first day.

  I warned Blanco what would happen if she decided to do the foolish thing and stand up against me, but she seemed almost delighted by the prospect of taking me on. Another clue I should have seen back then. Still, I wasn’t too worried about her—until Jake’s body was discovered in a bathtub at Mab’s mansion.

  It didn’t surprise me that my son would die in such a sudden, violent manner. Jake never could keep his mouth shut or stay out of trouble, and it was only a matter of time before the spoiled brat pissed off the wrong person. But the location was certainly shocking. I thought Mab was going to kill me right there in the bathtub, along with Jake, for bringing such embarrassment to her. Murdering someone inside Mab’s mansion . . . well, only she was allowed to do that. Everyone in Ashland knew that you stayed on your best behavior whenever you were at Mab’s. But Blanco didn’t seem to care. I never figured out if she’d killed Jake just for spite or if my son had threatened her again in some way that night. Probably both.

  I immediately suspected Blanco had had something to do with Jake’s death, given his problems with her, although I couldn’t figure out how she had gotten past security and into the mansion. She certainly wasn’t the sort of person who normally got an invitation to one of Mab’s parties. Despite my suspicions that she was somehow involved, no one believed me and no one listened to me—not Mab and not Elliot. But I knew in my heart who had killed my son, and I was determined to get my revenge. I might not have particularly cared for Jake—might have always found him to be a bitter disappointment, a small-minded buffoon with no self-discipline or real ambition—but he was still my son, and nobody messed with the McAllisters.

  Ever since then, planning Ms. Blanco’s death was an amusing pastime of mine. I was quite happy when Elliot finally beat and questioned her about Jake’s death one night at the community college. But Blanco’s fake whimpers, crocodile tears, and ragged whispers of fear fooled the others, and Mab didn’t let Elliot kill her then the way I wanted him to. Now the giant was dead—blasted to hell with a shotgun, thanks to Blanco—and so was Mab.

  I stared at the portrait of the Fire elemental. Even in death, her face was as familiar to me as my own. Sometimes it felt like I’d spent a lifetime intensely staring at Mab’s features, trying to interpret what the slightest quirk of her mouth or the faintest lift of her eyebrow really meant. I’d had to, in order to keep her happy without getting burned myself—in more ways than one. Mab had never been shy about showing her anger—and magic—to those who displeased her.

  In some ways, I was relieved she was dead. I’d been her father Marcus’s lawyer first, and when Mab killed him in an elemental duel and took over his business interests, I quickly swore my allegiance to her in the name of self-preservation. I think it amused her to keep me on, knowing that I would do anything to please her—and anything to save myself from her fiery wrath.

  Still, it was never easy working for Mab. More than once, I went into a room with her wondering if I would live to walk out of it again. And more than once, I saw her use her Fire magic to its full and deadliest effect. I never quite got used to the stench and sizzle of burning flesh, but those things might as well have been Mab’s perfume and anthem, as often as I smelled and heard them over the years.

  The stress of working for her father and then Mab herself took its toll—aging me before my time. I was gray by the time I was thirty and looked sixty when I was forty—at least until I started a strict regimen of diet, exercise, and Air elemental facial treatments. I kept the silver in my hair, though. It gave me a gravitas I enjoyed.

  Despite the stress, I was smart and shrewd and most important I was a survivor. More than once, I blamed my mistakes on someone else, even planting the evidence to back up my charges, if necessary. Mab then took out her fiery rage on the other party accordingly, instead of me. If she knew I was really the one who’d scre
wed up, well, she either didn’t care or she liked watching me dance to her tune too much to murder me. Dance, Jonah, dance. At least, that’s what I told myself.

  But now the reality of the situation, of a life without Mab, was staring at me—hundreds of eyes, in fact, all staring at me.

  Everyone who was anyone in the Ashland underworld had turned out for the funeral, as well as those in legitimate business circles in the city and beyond, but I paid attention only to the other crime bosses. Folks like Ron Donaldson with his bad comb-over and bulging belly; the always mysterious Beauregard Benson; and Lorelei Parker, her soft, lush body at odds with her ruthless nature.

  I greeted them all in turn as they arrived, shaking hands and exchanging meaningless pleasantries, but I heard the not-so-subtle whispers as soon as I turned my back to them.

  “Not so high and mighty these days, is he?”

  “Not without Mab.”

  “Poor Jonah. It must be hard to know how irrelevant he is now.”

  Yes, all the other bosses were there supposedly to pay their respects to Mab, but really they were all just sizing each other up and plotting how they could take the Fire elemental’s place. Now they were all staring at me, sitting alone in the front row, without Mab beside me.

  It was still hard for me to believe that she was gone. I kept turning to my right, expecting her to be perched next to me, ready to ask her if she needed anything, ready to peer into her eyes, study her face, and sweat about what I needed to do to keep her happy today. But Mab was dead, thanks to Blanco, and I was all alone. I knew what the other bosses were thinking: that I would be easy to dispose of now that the Fire elemental was gone.

  I was determined to show them just how wrong they were.

  Oh, I knew that I wasn’t a leader. Not really. I didn’t have the brawn or the raw magic for that. Not as a human, not in Ashland, with all its dwarves, giants, elementals, and vampires. No, I was much better in a managerial position, taking care of legal matters that inevitably cropped up whenever you got your hands dirty with drugs, gambling, prostitution, extortion, and all the other crimes everyone loved to commit, oversee, and profit from in the city.