Deadly Sting

by Belle Aurora

Page 22

  "Now we see what kind of leverage we have. "

  I pulled the small ebony tube out of the pouch on my utility belt. Mab's sunburst rune glimmered in the moonlight, deadly and beautiful, just like the Fire elemental herself had been. I reached for my Stone magic, used it to harden my skin, and traced my finger over the sunburst, wondering if the rune might hold some sort of booby-trap. But the symbol didn't flare to life or spew explosive, elemental Fire in my face.

  Still, the problem was that I didn't see a way to open the tube. Flat discs of silverstone covered both ends of the wood, but I couldn't pry them off with either my nails or the tip of my knife. I handed the tube to Owen, who ran his fingers up and down it, but he couldn't figure out how to get inside it either. It had to open, because there was something inside, something that rustled back and forth whenever I shook the tube. I needed to know what that something was so I could deal with Clementine accordingly.

  Of course Mab wouldn't make it easy to loot whatever was inside the tube, especially when I was under pressure and pressed for time. I imagined the Fire elemental was laughing at me even now from wherever she was in the great beyond.

  "Laugh your ass off, Mab," I muttered. "You've certainly earned it tonight. "

  I held up the tube, wondering if there was something I was missing. Once again, my eyes focused on the sunburst rune. The wavy golden rays took on a muted silver tinge in the moonlight, while the ruby smoldered like a dull, banked ember in the middle of the design. Maybe it was the mocking way the rune seemed to wink at me, but an idea popped into my mind. I put my thumb on the ruby and pressed in on it.

  A soft click sounded, and one of the silverstone discs on the end of the tube popped up.

  "Here goes nothing," I murmured.

  I hinged the silverstone to one side and tipped the contents of the tube into my hand. I'd been expecting jewels, a fistful of rubies or something like that, something that would have been in keeping with Mab's bold, flashy, fiery nature.

  Instead, a single piece of rolled-up paper slid out of the hollowed-out wood.

  "That's it?" Owen asked. "That's all that's in there?"

  I shook the wood, but nothing else came out. "Yep, that's it. So let's see what's so important about it. "

  I carefully unrolled the paper. It was hard to make out everything, since the print was so small and the night was so dark, despite the golden glow from the garden lights in the distance, but I managed to skim through it.

  "It looks like some sort of legal document. I think . . . I think this is Mab's will. "

  Owen frowned. "Why would Clementine go to so much trouble to steal Mab's will?"

  "I don't know," I murmured. "But apparently, she wanted it bad enough to arrange the heist and everything else tonight. But you're right. The question is why. "

  "Well, what does it say?" he asked. "Who did Mab leave what to?"

  I squinted and read a few more paragraphs. "A bunch of legal mumbo jumbo, and . . . it looks like . . . she left everything to one person. Someone whose last name is also Monroe - M. M. Monroe. "

  * * *

  I stared at the paper. It seemed innocent enough, but I couldn't help but feel like the earth had just opened up at my feet and I was about to tumble into an abyss.

  "M. M. Monroe?" Owen asked. "Did I hear you right?"

  All I could do was nod.

  Finn had mentioned there was a rumor that the contents of Mab's will were going to be revealed at the gala tonight. Now that I'd read the document myself, I could easily imagine Mab arranging for things to go down like that. Like Finn had said, it would have been one last hurrah for her - an opportunity to remind everyone how powerful she had been, and a chance to announce her successor in the most dramatic way possible.

  Because Mab hadn't left anything to Jonah McAllister, her other business associates, or even charity. No, she'd given everything to this M. M. Monroe.

  I wondered if this mysterious relative had the same devastating Fire magic Mab had wielded.

  I wondered if this person knew about the massive fortune he or she had inherited.

  I wondered if this Monroe would decide to come to Ashland to oversee Mab's empire in person - and how much trouble he or she might cause for me if so.

  My mother and Mab had been enemies for years before Mab had murdered her and my older sister. Their parents had been enemies before them, and their parents before them. At least, that's how it had been according to Mab. So it wasn't too much of a stretch to think that the family feud would continue on into another generation, if that's what this was. It already had with me and Mab, really.

  Once again, I'd thought that I'd taken care of everything when I'd killed the Fire elemental, that I'd finally set myself free from her, but she just kept screwing with me, even from six feet under.

  "It doesn't really matter who Mab left her fortune to," I finally said, rolling up the paper and sliding it back into the tube. "Just that we have the will and Clementine wants it. We can use it for leverage. "

  Owen shook his head. "She's not going to let the hostages go, if that's what you're thinking. You know that as well as I do. Not now, when everyone's seen her face and knows exactly who she is. She can't afford to let any of them live. "

  "That's what I thought at first too. But I think good ole Clem has a slightly different plan in mind. "

  I told Owen about the bombs I'd found on the bridge and under the bumper of the moving truck.

  He frowned. "Okay, I understand about the destroying the bridge to help with their escape, but why would Clementine want to blow up the moving trucks?"

  I shrugged. "I haven't quite figured that out yet. But it doesn't really matter, because the only way she's leaving this island is in a body bag. "

  Owen studied me in the moonlight. "Because of what she and Dixon did to Jillian?"

  I didn't say anything, but he could see the answer in my cold, angry eyes - along with the guilt.

  "That wasn't your fault, Gin," he said. "It was a mistake, her having on the same dress as you. Just a stupid, simple, cruel twist of fate. " He hesitated. "She was a friend, but you don't have to avenge her for me, if that's what you're thinking. I wouldn't ask you to do that. "

  No, he wouldn't. Owen preferred to handle such things himself, just like I did. It was one of the many things I admired about him.

  "I know you wouldn't ask me that," I said. "But I need to avenge Jillian for me. Because it should have been my face that got blown off, not hers. "

  "I'm not blaming you for Jillian's death, if that's what you're thinking. "

  "No," I replied, weariness creeping into my voice. "You just blame me for Salina. "

  His ex-fiancee's name hung in the air between us, writhing around and around like a poisonous snake. But I'd said the words, and there was no taking them back. Despite the danger we were in, the danger we were all in, Eva, Phillip, and the others were right: Owen and I needed to start talking, to start figuring out where we stood and what kind of future we might have together. If I was going to die tonight, if we both might die tonight, well, I wanted to clear the air between us - about this, anyway.

  Owen grimaced. He reached out and touched one of the brown briars wrapped around the weeping willow, sliding his thumb over one of the thorns. It was several seconds before he finally spoke.

  "I don't blame you for Salina's death. You did what you thought needed to be done. "

  "But you didn't agree with it then," I said. "And you still don't now. "

  He sighed, looking as sad and tired as I felt. "Like I told you before, everything's all mixed-up inside me right now. You, Salina, how I feel about her death and your part in it. I keep going over it again and again in my head, wondering if I could have done something different, if I could have changed things. But I can't see how I cou
ld have, other than waking up and realizing what Salina was really like when we were young. But I didn't see the real her, and now she's dead. I can't change any of that, and I haven't sorted any of it out. Not really. "

  It was a shortened version of the same speech Owen had given me at the Pork Pit a few weeks ago, when he'd told me that he needed some time to himself. I'd hoped that tonight's events, that the danger and emotions we'd shared, had meant that he'd come to terms with at least some of his issues. But he hadn't, and I didn't know if he ever would.

  "Jillian was a friend," he continued. "But I wasn't one to her. Not really. Because I didn't even realize that she wasn't in the rotunda with the rest of us. When Clementine threw that body down, and I thought it was you . . . I couldn't think about anything else but you being dead. I always seem to let down the people I care about. Eva, Phillip, Cooper, you. I let you all down because of Salina. And tonight, I didn't even notice that Jillian was missing. Some friend that makes me, huh?"

  Owen barked out a harsh laugh, his face twisting with guilt and misery.

  "And that kiss you laid on me in the vault?" I asked.

  He didn't look at me. Instead, he pressed his thumb into the thorn, drawing a bit of blood, pain etching lines in his sweaty, rugged, soot-streaked face. "I was just so glad that you were alive, Gin. I will always be glad for that, no matter what. "

  Despite the fact that I'd killed Salina. That's what it seemed like he really meant. But I couldn't blame him for his feelings. He'd loved her once, and I'd cut her throat even though he'd asked me not to. It wasn't exactly the kind of thing you got over easily, if ever.

  Still, I'd hoped - I'd hoped that by saving Owen, I could save us too. Hope. Such a stupid, foolish emotion. One that could lift your heart to the heavens and then grind it into the ground in the very next instant. My emotions felt as tangled and twisted as the briars around us. And every move I made, everything I did to try to make things better, just stabbed another sharp, brittle thorn deep into the desolate wasteland of my heart.

  "Gin?" Owen asked again, all sorts of questions in the soft, single syllable of my name.

  Before I could answer him, bullets zipped in our direction.

  Chapter 19

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Bullets zinged through the air. I started to throw myself forward onto Owen, but he shook his head and held up his finger, pointing at the tree branches above us, and I realized what he was getting at. Those shots had been far too high for someone to have seen us. So why was someone shooting? Why waste their ammunition like that?

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  "Come out, come out, wherever you are," a mocking voice called out.

  Owen and I looked at each other and reached for our weapons. I didn't know how many giants were waiting, but we'd fight our way through them just like we had all the others tonight -

  A loud sigh sounded. "Quit messing around, Dave," a second voice, this one female, said. "We're supposed to be searching for the thieves. Do you want somebody to hear the noise and shoot us by mistake?"

  "Please," Dave, the first giant, said. "Whoever set off that bomb is long gone. So I say we have a little fun before we go back inside. Besides, we're the only ones still out this far. Everyone else has headed back to the museum already, from what I've heard on the radio. "

  A knife in my hand, I crawled over to the weeping willow at the other end of the hedge of briars and slowly got to my feet. Owen took cover behind another tree. Using the long, fluttering tendrils as a screen to hide me from sight, I peered around the tree trunk.

  I spotted two giants in the semidarkness, both holding guns and standing about twenty feet away from us beyond the row of thorns. The male was tall and extremely skinny, with a shaved head that looked like a cue ball in the moonlight, while the woman was a bit shorter, with a plump body.

  "Come on, Dave," the woman said again. "We need to get back so we can help load up the rest of the art. "

  "Sure, Cindy. We'll go back - in a minute. "

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Dave laughed as he fired off a few more random shots.

  "Will you stop that?" Cindy hissed. "It's creepy enough out here already without you acting like a jackass - "

  A sharp crackle of static filled the air, and a second later, Opal's voice sounded. "Team one, what's your position? I thought I heard shots in the trees near the west exit. "

  Cindy raised her walkie-talkie to her lips. "It's nothing, Opal. Dave thought he saw something and fired off a few rounds, but it was just a rabbit. We're coming back inside now. "

  "Roger that," Opal replied.

  Cindy clipped her walkie-talkie back to her belt and shot Dave another hot glare.

  I put my finger to my lips, then made a circle and a slashing gesture with my knife at Owen. He nodded and held up his gun, telling me that he was ready to help.

  Despite everything that had happened between us, Owen knew that we were in this together. Once we got off the island, well, we'd have to see where we stood. But for right now, we were together, and I was going to enjoy the solidarity while I could, even if I knew it was a result of circumstances, rather than of choice.

  The tangle of briars wasn't quite so thick around this tree, so I was able to maneuver around the far side of the trunk past the row of thorns and circle around so that I was parallel with the two giants.

  "Come on, Dave," Cindy said, a little more heat in her tone this time. "Let's go back. "

  "Fine," Dave muttered, holstering his gun. "I'm out of ammo anyway. "

  Out of ammo? What a shame. I smiled and headed toward my enemies. Maybe something was finally going to go right -