Thread of Death

by Jennifer Estep

  “I’m fine,” I said. “There’s not a scratch on me. For once.”

  “Well, the same can’t be said for our friend here,” Finn drawled, staring down at all the bullet holes in the sniper’s body.

  Bria stood next to him, looking at the dead dwarf as well. After a moment she shook her head. “I’ll call it in,” she said in a resigned voice.

  “Bria—”

  I held out my hand to her, hoping to explain, but my sister had already turned away. I couldn’t tell if she hadn’t heard me . . . or if she had just decided to ignore me instead. I let my hand drop to my side, hurt by the idea that Bria was shunning me. Mab was dead. We should be closer together now than ever, but instead it seemed like we were drifting further and further apart, and I had no idea how to reach her. Everything I did only seemed to make things worse—like coming to the funeral today.

  Bria walked a few feet away, pulled a cell phone out of her purse, and started dialing, summoning her fellow members of the po-po to the scene.

  “Wow, Gin,” Finn said in an amused voice. “You’ve really done it this time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He swept his hand out, the gesture meant to encompass the whole cemetery. “I mean, take a look around. Not only did you kill Mab, but you pretty much trashed her funeral, too, ruining her last little hurrah in this world. It’s like the cherry on top of the ultimate revenge sundae. A dish definitely served cold.”

  I looked out over the crowd. Everyone had gotten to their feet now that the sniper was dead and the danger had passed. Most of the mourners were covered with dirt and grass, and several folks looked smushed after being pounced on and driven into the ground by their giant bodyguards. No one seemed to be seriously injured, though.

  However, the same couldn’t be said for the rest of Ashland Memorial Cemetery. Many of the monuments and headstones were cracked and riddled with bullet holes where the bodyguards had opened fire on the sniper, and several of the older, more delicate and brittle markers had been completely shattered on impact. The wail of the cracked and broken stones echoed in my ears, the marble and granite shocked out of the quiet passage of time by the sudden eruption of violence and the horrible damage that had been done to them. One monument in particular caught my eye. A tall, slender angel stood off to my left, the one Kincaid had taken cover behind. Her once beautiful wings had been chipped off, and bullets had also struck her face, scorching the stone and making her look like she was weeping black tears.

  As much as I hated to admit it, Finn was right: I had ruined Mab’s funeral—and the cemetery too.

  “It’s okay, darling,” Jo-Jo said, coming up to stand beside me, Finn, and Owen. “We all know you didn’t intend this.”

  “Not your fault,” Sophia added in her hoarse, raspy voice.

  “You couldn’t have known this was going to happen,” Roslyn chimed in.

  “I doubt everyone else will believe that,” I murmured. “No doubt some of them will think I planned the whole thing just to ruin the funeral like Finn said. Or, worse, that I hired the sniper to try and kill the crime bosses.”

  Owen shook his head. “But we know you would never do something like that, not even to Mab. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. We know the truth. So the question is: Who was the sniper really after? You? Another one of the bosses? More than one of them? And why here? Why today of all days?”

  My eyes swept over the crowd, going from one face to another. By this point, folks had started to cluster together, talking to each other or murmuring into their cell phones. All the bodyguards still had their guns out, their heads swiveling left and right, but I could have told them not to bother. The danger was dead. At least for today.

  Still, the bodyguards eyed me warily, as did their employers, including Phillip Kincaid.

  The casino boss politely tipped his head to me. The motion made the blond highlights in his short ponytail shimmer in the sun. That same smile I’d noticed earlier was still plastered on his face, although it was even wider now, as if he’d thoroughly enjoyed the show I’d inadvertently put on. I’d never spoken to Kincaid, but something about the way he looked at me made me feel like he knew a lot more about me than I did about him. That was worrisome, especially since Kincaid would no doubt be moving to consolidate his power base now that Mab was dead and almost buried.

  Still, I’d never made any problems for Kincaid, and he hadn’t for me, either. Hiring someone to kill me at Mab’s funeral just didn’t seem like his style.

  I couldn’t say the same thing about Jonah McAllister, though. He was talking to the minister, probably about trying to finish the service for Mab. He must have felt me staring at him, because he looked over his shoulder at me. The lawyer’s mouth puckered into a frown, and he turned his attention back to the minister. I didn’t know whether McAllister’s displeasure was because I’d ruined the service or I was still breathing. I imagined either one was more than enough to thoroughly piss him off.

  “My money’s on McAllister setting this up,” I said, finally answering Owen’s question. “As to who he was after, the sniper had his sight set on you first before he switched it over to me, but that was probably just him turning the laser on and lining up his shot. I think he wanted to take me down first. It looked like he was aiming for Donaldson and Parker, too, given how many shots he fired at them.”

  “But he kept firing even when you and the others were on the ground,” Owen pointed out.

  I shrugged. “Maybe he was trying to get Donaldson, Parker, and some of the other bosses as a bonus. Maybe he had orders just to kill whomever he could. There’s just no way of knowing, but trying to have me or some of the other underworld players assassinated at Mab’s funeral is just the sort of underhanded, weaselly thing McAllister would do. As for why now, probably because this is one of the few times all the bosses have been together and that I’ve been out in such a public place since I killed Mab. McAllister wants me dead, and he probably thought this was his best shot—that I might still be weak from my fight with her. I would still be weak, if Jo-Jo hadn’t spent so much time and magic healing me.”

  I didn’t add that my arms and legs were still twitching and trembling from my sprint across the cemetery and that I could feel the familiar exhaustion creeping up on me from overexerting myself. The others would probably insist on taking me home, and I still had unfinished business here.

  Jo-Jo patted my hand. “Something I was more than happy to do, darling. You know that.”

  I nodded at the dwarf, but my gaze went back to McAllister. If the lawyer had been behind the attack, I wondered how he was feeling now that it had failed. He didn’t seem as upset as he should be, though, and I couldn’t help but wonder what else McAllister would plan now that he hadn’t gotten what he’d wanted at the funeral.

  I had a feeling I was going to find out sooner rather than later.

  The guns were holstered, the overturned chairs were righted, and folks took their places in the seats and around the coffin once more. It was a little more difficult this time, but eventually the minister got everyone settled down again and managed to finish the service. He consulted his notes and picked up right where he’d left off, talking about all of Mab’s contributions to various charities in Ashland and beyond and how she’d left a lasting legacy on the city that would be remembered for years to come.

  And now, so would her funeral—thanks to me.

  I kept glancing at the other mourners as he spoke, and more than a few folks looked back at me. For some reason I had a feeling like everything had changed since the shooting. Now, instead of looking at me with curiosity, everyone was staring at me with cold speculation, like I was a prize they’d suddenly set their sights on, one they wanted to win no matter what.

  The rest of the service went off without a hitch, and the minister had just finished speaking when blue and white lights started flashing in the distance. Several sedans and cop cars entered the cemetery, letting everyone know that the
police had finally arrived.

  You would think that the appearance of the po-po would cause all the crime bosses to quietly, discreetly leave the scene as fast as they could. But this wasn’t a normal city: this was Ashland, where practically all the cops were on the take. Instead of shying away from the police, many of the underworld figures greeted the cops like they were old friends. Hell, I even saw Kincaid shaking hands with some folks in the coroner’s office. More than a few C-notes exchanged hands as the crime lords and ladies slipped their po-po and other informants their usual bribes to report back on the shooting here today. Sometimes I thought the underworld movers and shakers should just go ahead and take over the police department instead of playing this elaborate game. At least then the corruption would have an official city stamp of approval on it.

  Once the bribes had been handed out, the bosses said their good-byes to their informants, got into their limos and expensive sedans, and rode away. The other mourners started filing out of the cemetery as well, now that the show was over and the cleanup had started.

  “If you don’t need us anymore, we’re going home, darling,” Jo-Jo said. “I need to feed Rosco and get everything set up in the salon for my morning customers.”

  “Thank you for coming and being here with me,” I said, looking at her and Sophia. “Both of you.”

  “Welcome,” Sophia rasped.

  The Goth dwarf nodded at me, then she and Jo-Jo started walking across the grass to her convertible.

  “Now what?” Owen asked.

  I looked around at the emptying cemetery. “Now we go see what Bria has found out about the dead guy. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll actually have some info on him about who hired him and whether he was after me or someone else.”

  The two of us walked over to Finn, who was talking to a giant who was around seven feet tall. The giant had one arm around Roslyn and was holding her close, while the vampire had her arm wrapped around his waist and was resting her head on his chest. The sun glinted off the giant’s shaved head as he nodded at something Finn said.

  Xavier, Bria’s partner on the force and a friend of mine, grinned when he saw me come up behind Finn. “Hello, Gin. Good to see you out and about. Tell me, have you danced on Mab’s grave yet?”

  “No,” I replied, smiling back at him. “But only because they haven’t officially buried her yet. Trust me. It’s on my to-do list.”

  Xavier glanced over at a group of three dwarves who were wearing gray coveralls, drinking sodas, and leaning on shovels a few feet away from Mab’s coffin. Apparently they were waiting for everyone to clear out before they buried the Fire elemental. They’d be waiting awhile longer now that the police were here.

  While Owen and Finn talked with Xavier and Roslyn, I headed over to Bria, who was using a pen to flip through the dwarf’s wallet, which she’d fished out of his pants pocket.

  “Anything interesting in there?” I asked.

  She shook her head, making the sunlight dance through her blond hair. “Not much. Driver’s license says his name is Jack Spenser. Address says he’s a local who lives in an apartment building over in Southtown. I’ve got someone running down his friends and family now, but so far no luck finding anyone who knew him.”

  “Cell phone?”

  “Just a brand-new burner phone in his pocket, with a log that looks like he only got calls from another brand-new burner phone. Some odds and ends in his pockets: loose change, a pack of gum, a paper clip. The most interesting thing is the five thousand dollars in cash he had on him.”

  She pointed her pen at the fat roll of hundreds bound together with a rubber band that was sitting on the grass. The money was splattered with blood, just like the rest of the dwarf was, and it looked like a bullet had cut right through Ben Franklin’s face and lodged inside the rest of the cash.

  I arched an eyebrow. “He only got five thousand dollars to try and take me out? I’m rather insulted. I didn’t realize my rates had dropped so much so fast. Mab was offering at least five million to anyone who bagged me—ten if her bounty hunters managed to take me alive.”

  Bria didn’t say anything, and she didn’t crack a smile at my black humor. If anything, her face darkened at the mention of Mab’s bounty. Instead of looking at me, she stared back down at the dead dwarf, thinking.

  “We’ll look at his phone calls and backtrack the bullets and the sniper rifle . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged.

  I knew what she meant. “But you doubt either one will lead you anywhere.”

  “We both know how easy it is to get any kind of gun and ammo you want over in Southtown with no questions asked, and these burner phones are even more popular,” Bria said. “Sorry, Gin, it looks like whoever hired the dwarf to crash the funeral covered his tracks pretty well.”

  This time I shrugged. “Well, you know me: I prefer to handle my own problems anyway rather than relying on the police.”

  Bria’s features hardened a little more at that. One of the uniformed officers waved at her and she got to her feet and went over to him without another word, her high heels driving spikes into the grass. I knew Bria was still trying to come to terms with the torture she’d suffered at Mab’s hands, but it was starting to feel like she thought the attack today was my fault. Hell, maybe it was. No matter how hard I tried to avoid it, trouble just seemed to follow me everywhere I went. I was just glad neither she nor any of the others had been hurt today.

  Part of me wanted to go after Bria, to say that I hadn’t planned any of this, but I didn’t know that it would do any good. So I turned my attention back to the dead dwarf, kneeling down beside his body. But there were no more clues to be found. Someone had cut open his shirt, probably one of the paramedics who’d arrived with the cops. I couldn’t even begin to count the number of bullet holes that riddled his chest, tearing through his muscles before punching out his back. He looked like ground-up sausage meat.

  Still, I had to admire the cleverness of the person who’d hired him. With so many bigwigs at the funeral and so many bodyguards, the dwarf had never had a chance of getting out of the cemetery alive. Even if he’d managed to kill me or one of the crime bosses, someone—Finn, Kincaid, or one of the bodyguards—probably would have gunned him down after the fact. So I would have been dead, the sniper would have been silenced, and whoever had planned this whole thing would probably have been whistling as he walked out of the cemetery.

  I just wondered who had hired the dwarf—and how long it would be before he or she decided to try again.

  It didn’t take the police and coroner’s office as long as I’d thought it would to put the dwarf in a black body bag, cart him away, collect their evidence, and go on their merry way. I guess because what had happened had been so cut-and-dried—and seen by so many witnesses.

  No one asked me any questions, and I didn’t volunteer to give a statement. The lower the profile I kept, the better. It was bad enough every crime boss in the city had been here today and had seen me racing toward the sniper. I didn’t want the cops to focus their attention on me as well. Then again, they didn’t really have a reason to, since I hadn’t actually killed anyone today—for a change.

  Still, I stayed in the cemetery, with Owen and Finn by my side. While the cops worked, Finn had his ear glued to his cell phone, calling number after number, seeing if any of his many spies and snitches had heard any chatter about the sniper at the funeral. Just about the time the cops wrapped up their investigation, Finn did the same and snapped his phone shut.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Nobody heard so much as a peep about this before the guy started shooting this afternoon. Whoever hired the dwarf to ambush you did it real quiet like. But him shooting at the other bosses, too . . . well, it’s got everyone plenty pissed right now. They all want blood. At least, more than what was in the sniper.”

  I’d figured as much, given the lack of evidence Bria had found on the body, but I nodded at my foster brother. “Thanks for checking anyway
.”

  “I wish I could tell you more, Gin,” he said. “This worries me just as much as it does you.”

  I hugged him. “I know, and I appreciate your concern, but we’ll figure it out. This isn’t the first time someone’s tried to kill me, and we know it won’t be the last. But we’ll be ready for them, just like we always are. Just like the old man taught us to be. Capisce?”

  Finn grinned. “Capisce.”

  He hugged me again, then walked over to where Bria was wrapping things up with Xavier and Roslyn. Finn was going to catch a ride back into the city with the three of them. That left me and Owen standing by ourselves. We were the last two people in the cemetery. Even the minister had left a few minutes earlier, along with Jonah McAllister, although the lawyer hadn’t been able to resist giving me one more dirty look before he’d gotten into his car and driven away.

  I shifted back and forth on my feet, not ready to leave just yet. There was one more thing I had to do—something I didn’t want an audience for.

  Owen picked up on my mood. “I’ll be by the car if you need me,” he said in a soft voice. “Take as long as you need.”

  I nodded, grateful that I didn’t have to put my feelings into words for him. Owen always gave me the space I needed, which was one of the many things I loved about him. He knew I needed to say my final good-bye to Mab, and he was going to give me the time to do it on my own terms.

  Owen headed across the grass, going back to his car, vanishing from sight, and leaving me alone in the cemetery. Even the dwarves with the shovels had gotten bored and disappeared, probably digging another grave while they waited for the cops to finish up here at Mab’s.

  When I was sure I was alone, I drew in a breath and walked over to her casket.

  The coffin had been spared from the hail of gunfire that had erupted earlier, and its ebony surface was so smooth and shiny that I could see my reflection in the expensive, polished wood—and in the large golden rays that made up the sunburst runes on the sides.