Tangled Threads

by Belle Aurora

Page 28

  I crashed into it with a loud bang, moaned for show, and slumped down to the alley floor. While I was curled into a ball, I slipped my silverstone knives out of my sleeves once more and slid the weapons underneath the Dumpster.

  I didn't want the giants to grab hold of my arms and feel the weapons tucked up my sleeves. Right now, LaFleur thought that I was just a defenseless cook. I didn't want her opinion of me to change whatsoever. Every second she thought me weak was another second I had to escape and save myself and Bria.

  Besides, sooner or later, Sophia would come out into the alley to see what had happened to Bria and me. When she realized that we weren't back here, the dwarf would start looking around. She'd find the knives and realize something bad had gone down. She'd call Finn and get the cavalry charge rolling-provided Bria and I lived that long.

  LaFleur shook her head. "Oh, now she starts blubbering. How disappointing. Pick her up. "

  Two of the giants plucked me off the ground. The third moved over to help Elektra with Bria. The giant yanked my baby sister's gun off her belt, then ran his hands over the rest of her body in a slow, suggestive way. Bria's lips tightened, but she didn't respond to his leers. The giant found her backup gun strapped in an ankle holster and removed that one as well, along with the cell phone in her jacket pocket and her keys.

  I held my breath, but the two giants holding on to me didn't bother to search me for weapons. I suppose they considered the cop more of a threat than the cook. It was a mistake that was going to cost them their lives. I was glad I'd ditched the two knives, though. The way the giants had their hands clamped on my arms, they would surely have felt the blades through my sweater. But the fabric was bulky enough to at least hide my silverstone vest.

  When the giant finished searching Bria, the four of them marched us out of the alley, with LaFleur keeping a close eye on the proceedings, the ball of green lightning still flickering in her hand. She wasn't going to drop her magic until we were secured. Maybe not even then.

  LaFleur had a limo waiting two blocks away, well out of sight of the storefront windows of the Pork Pit. The giants shoved Bria and me inside the back, then crowded in after us. The few people still moving out on the street ducked their heads and walked even faster when they spotted us. In Ashland, giants shepherding people into the back of a car was never a good thing.

  "Cuff them," LaFleur called out from the street.

  The giants produced a couple of pairs of handcuffs and clamped them on our wrists, shackling our hands in front of us. Mistake number one. It's much harder to get free if your hands are behind your back.

  While the giants were busy settling themselves into the limo, I looked at the metal, which had a peculiar glint that could mean only one thing-it was made out of silverstone. Which meant that I'd have to use my elemental magic to somehow break through the metal chains before I could get free to do anything else with my hands-like carve up LaFleur and the giants with the three knives I still had on me. Fuck. My being an elemental was something else that I didn't want LaFleur to know about just yet. Not until it was too late.

  "Don't worry, Gin," Bria said in a low voice, trying to reassure me. "Everything's going to be fine. "

  I just stared at my sister and the determination blazing in her blue eyes. If she only knew that I was the reason all this was happening in the first place. That I'd thumbed my nose at Jonah McAllister once too many times. That I was the Spider, the assassin who was going around killing Mab Monroe's men. That I was the one with the Ice and Stone magic Mab had so desperately wanted to snuff out. That I was the reason why the rest of our family was dead. I wondered if Bria would be so eager to rescue me then. Probably not.

  But I had a bad, bad feeling she was going to find out all that and more before the night was through.

  Elektra LaFleur climbed into the limo and sat across from us. One of the giants was next to her, with the other two crowded in on either side of Bria and me. Elektra tapped on the roof of the car with her fist, and the limo pulled away from the curb.

  Elektra regarded the two of us a moment before reaching into the small wet bar housed in the back of the limo. She pulled out a crystal glass and poured herself a couple of fingers' worth of a pale blue liquor.

  "Gin," LaFleur said, toasting me, before taking a long pull on the cold drink.

  I hoped she choked on it.

  "Where are you taking us?" Bria demanded.

  Elektra leaned back against the limo seat and smiled. "Somewhere nice and deserted where no one will hear you scream, detective. "

  Bria didn't say anything, but her eyes narrowed. Her whole body tensed, as though she was getting ready to launch herself across the seat at the other woman. I reached down and put a hand on her thigh, warning her. Bria's head snapped around to me, and I gave a small shake of my head. No, I was telling her. Taking her on is suicide right now. Don't do it. Don't you dare. My sister frowned, but she seemed to get the message in my sharp gaze because her body relaxed the slightest bit.

  "Aw," Elektra pouted over the rim of her glass of gin. "I was really hoping that you'd be stupid enough to try something, detective. But don't worry. I'm going to shock the fight right out of you, among other things. "

  Bria opened her mouth, but before she could let out another angry retort, someone's cell started chirping. LaFleur rolled her eyes, then dug in her coat pocket, pulling out a small silver phone.

  "What!" she snapped into the receiver.

  I couldn't hear the voice on the other end, but it had to be Mab by the way that LaFleur suddenly straightened up in the black leather seat.

  "I was just getting ready to call you with an update, Mab," Elektra said, confirming my suspicion.

  My lips tightened. Damn and double damn. If Elektra told Mab she had Bria and me, the Fire elemental would probably want to meet the assassin wherever she was taking us just so she could watch Bria's death in person. Just so she could be sure it had actually happened this time. And then we'd both get dead-in a hurry.

  I had to do something to prevent that from happening. Elektra and her giants would be hard enough to take out. I didn't want to have to face Mab tonight too. Not when Bria was here in the line of fire with me.

  "Minion," I said in a mocking voice just loud enough for the other assassin to hear. "You're nothing but Mab's little minion and Jonah's little bitch. Who are you going to roll over and open your legs for next, Elektra? One of the giants here?"

  Bria frowned and stared at me, obviously wondering what I thought I was doing, antagonizing the other assassin. But I couldn't think of anything else to do. Elektra had showed me her temper once before in the alley. It was the only real weakness I'd seen in her so far-one that I was desperately trying to exploit any way I could.

  Elektra's green eyes narrowed, and she regarded me for a long moment. Then she straightened up. "You know what, Mab? I'm getting rather tired of your constant need for updates. All you need to know is that I'm working on it. I'll call you back when it's done and not a second before. "

  Then she snapped her cell phone shut and tossed it down onto the seat between her and the giant. A moment later, it started ringing again. Elektra regarded it with a venomous look.

  "Aren't you going to get that?" one of the giants rumbled. "Mab doesn't like it when her calls get ignored. Trust me. I know. I had to have Air elemental skin grafts for a week after she got done with me. "

  Elektra snorted. "Fuck what Mab wants. In case you haven't noticed, I'm busy doing her dirty work right now. So she can wait. Unless you'd like to answer the phone and tell her yourself? Although I have to warn you, it will be the last thing you ever do. Because I don't like it any more than Mab does when people disobey me. "

  Lightning flickered in LaFleur's green eyes, bringing the promise of death along with it. The giant swallowed and stared at the window. The phone rang five
more times before Mab's call went to voice mail. Elektra glared at it again before pouring herself some more gin.

  I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. One problem solved.

  Now I just had to figure out how to get my cuffs off, get Bria to safety, and kill LaFleur before Mab came looking for the other assassin.

  All in a night's work for the Spider.

  Chapter 25

  We rode for about fifteen minutes, the limo twisting and turning through the downtown area like a large black beetle scuttling ever closer to its ultimate destination. Nobody said anything, but the giants kept their eyes on Bria and me the whole time, ready, willing, and eager to slap us around if one of us tried to do something stupid.

  Now that we were captured and officially on the way to our deaths, LaFleur seemed to have lost interest in us. The other assassin drank more of her blue gin and stared out the window the whole time.

  With every passing mile, I could feel Bria's body getting tenser and tenser against mine. I could almost see the wheels turning in her mind as she thought of and discarded various ways to overpower and escape our captors. Several times, she glanced at the limo door, as if she was thinking about leaping over the giant and flinging herself out of the vehicle.

  While I admired my sister's bravado, I didn't bother doing the same. It wouldn't do us any good to try to make a break for it. Not while we were all squished together in the back of the limo. LaFleur would only have to touch one of us with her electrical magic, and it would zip through all of our bodies like chain lightning. I had no doubt that the other assassin was perfectly fine sacrificing Mab's giants, as long as Bria and I weren't breathing in the end.

  Finally, the limo slowed, then stopped. The giants yanked us out of the car, and I found myself standing in the old train yard once again. The limo had pulled into the very center of the yard, and metal railcars surrounded us on all sides. The smell of smoke wafted over to me, and I looked over my shoulder.

  The crumbled, blackened remains of the train depot still smoldered, despite the cold. Finn had been right when he'd claimed that I'd started a four-alarm fire, because virtually nothing remained of the structure but mounds of flaky ash. Here and there, warped pieces of metal stuck up out of the gray ash, gleaming underneath the portable spotlights that had been set up around the depot. I guess the metal had just been too thick and dense to completely melt with the rest of the building.

  A cold smile pulled up my lips. Well, that was one thing I'd done right these past few days. If nothing else, I'd delayed Mab's plans for her twisted nightclub and bought Roslyn Phillips and Northern Aggression at least a few more months of business.

  Then my eyes fell to all the metal rails that crisscrossed through the train yard and stretched out like greedy fingers in every direction-metal that could conduct LaFleur's electrical magic faster than I could slit her throat with one of my silverstone knives. Even now, I remembered the pain of her electrical power slamming into me. It had hurt like nothing else I'd ever experienced. Worse than being stabbed, worse than being shot. Hell, even worse than being beaten by Elliot Slater.

  The smile dropped from my face. I was really starting to hate this place.

  Elektra raised an eyebrow. "I'm afraid this is the end of the line for you girls. "

  "Wow," I said. "Did you come up with that little bit of witty repartee all on your own? Or has Jonah McAllister been giving you tips in between blow jobs?"

  Elektra regarded me for a moment. Then she backhanded me across the face as hard as she could. Despite her petite frame, the assassin had plenty of strength in her muscles. But worse than the sheer force of it was that she put some of her magic into the blow, and I felt the static shock of her power all the way down to my bones. Just for an instant, but the jolt was more than enough to make me stagger back and my heart race from the electrical discharge. Fuck. She was so strong. I was really going to have to figure out some way to keep her electrical elemental magic from killing me before I stabbed her to death.

  Elektra eyed me. Satisfied that I was properly cowed, she jerked her head at the giants.

  "Put them in the railcar while I get some things ready for our special guests," she snapped. "And I want one of you on every side of that damn railcar. If the Spider's lurking out there tonight, she's not getting her hands on these two, understand?"

  The giants nodded. There were four of them now, including the limo driver, who'd stepped out to join the other three. Right now, they were more afraid of LaFleur than the nebulous danger the Spider presented. I had to admit I was a little disappointed. After my performance here the other night, you'd think that the giants wouldn't be so quick to discount the Spider and what she could do to them. But they were faced with a more immediate danger in LaFleur, so that's what they chose to focus on. I suppose I couldn't blame them for that.

  Still, the irony of the situation wasn't lost on me. Oh, the bloody irony. If I'd been alone, I would have laughed long, loud, and hard over the absurdity of it all.

  Because what Elektra LaFleur didn't realize was that she had already captured the Spider-and the assassin was planning to kill me and my baby sister before the night was through.

  LaFleur disappeared into the shadows, probably to go get some kind of power tools or other sharp objects that she could torture Bria and me with. I'd needled her too much for her to just blast us with her electricity. No, the assassin really wanted to make it hurt for as long as possible before she finally went in for the kill shot with her elemental magic. Or maybe she was just going to get a couple of white orchids that she could leave on our bodies after the fact. Didn't much matter either way. She'd left us alone with the giants. Mistake number two. Never take your eyes off your target.

  The giants marched us deeper into the train yard, leading us over to the same car they'd been holding Natasha in when I'd rescued her. Had it just been two nights ago? Somehow, it seemed like a lifetime. Especially since tonight might be the end of mine and Bria's.