Web of Lies

12

Once my professional help was secured, Violet Fox immediately wanted to go home and make sure her grandfather was okay.

“Forget it,” I said. “You’re not going home tonight. You need to stay here and rest. You’ve been through a serious trauma. Despite being magically healed, you still need some downtime to recover.”

By this point, purple circles rimmed her dark eyes, and she moved slowly, like every motion was an enormous effort.

Violet Fox was about to pass out from sheer exhaustion.

I didn’t add the fact I wanted Violet to stay right where she was so Jo-Jo and Sophia Deveraux could babysit her. The dwarves would make sure Violet didn’t do anything stupid, like tell her grandfather about the attack and have him go tearing off after Tobias Dawson in a rage.

“But what if Dawson sends some men after Grandfather?”

Violet asked.

“He won’t,” I replied. “You said it yourself. Your grandfather and his shotgun can handle Dawson’s men. That’s why the dwarf came after you instead. He wasn’t getting anywhere threatening your grandfather.”

“But how do you know?” she persisted.

I gave her a flat look. “Because I’ve had a lot of experience with this sort of thing. Dawson’s probably waiting for his cell phone to ring, for his man to check in and tell him that you’re dead. When he realizes something went wrong, Dawson will be too busy trying to find his own man and figure out what the hell happened to him to worry about your grandfather. At least for tonight. Trust me. We’ve got time for you to get some beauty sleep.”

Violet opened her mouth to argue with me some more, but I cut her off.

“You can call your grandfather and check in. See how he is, and tell him you’ll see him tomorrow. But if you want my help, you’re staying here tonight. Capisce?”

Violet Fox might be a straight-A business student, but her resistance wilted under my cold stare. “All right,” she murmured. “I’ll call my grandfather.”

“Good,” I replied and pushed her bowl back over to her. “Now, eat some more cobbler.”

——

Violet Fox ate some more apricot bars and vanilla ice cream, while the rest of us plotted. Jo-Jo and Sophia agreed to keep an eye on her until Finn and I showed up tomorrow. The two of us would drive Violet back home, meet with Warren T. Fox, and see what we could do to get Tobias Dawson to back off.

Jo-Jo settled Violet in one of her upstairs bedrooms, while Finn sweet-talked Sophia into going out into the rain and seeing what she could do about the blood Violet had dripped all over the backseat of his precious Aston Martin. Once Jo-Jo finished with Violet, the dwarf took me into the salon, where she gave me a plastic tub. The dwarf ’s cloud rune decorated the top of the container. I traced my fingernail over the pale blue paint.

In addition to healing with their hands, Air elementals like Jo-Jo could also infuse their magic in various products, like the ointment she’d just handed me. The ointment wouldn’t work as well as Jo-Jo healing me herself, but it would keep me from keeling over until I could get to her. Jo-Jo also gave me a couple of smaller containers of the ointment, including one that looked like a makeup compact and another solid tube of it that resembled lipstick.

“Thanks,” I said. “I have a feeling I’m going to need these, if I’m getting mixed up with Tobias Dawson.”

Jo-Jo’s white eyes clouded over. “Maybe. Although I don’t think the tub will be much help. Not this time.”

Her voice was soft and distant, like she was somewhere far away instead of standing in front of me. In addition to her healing powers, Jo-Jo also had a bit of precognition.

Most Airs did. They could read vibrations and feelings in the wind just like I could in whatever stone was near me.

But where my element whispered to me of the past, theirs often hinted at the future. Another way the two elements opposed each other.

After a moment, Jo-Jo’s eyes cleared, and she stared at me. “So, are we ever going to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” I asked, sliding the compact and lipstick tube into my jeans pocket.

“That folder I gave you. The one Fletcher spent so long working on.”

I grimaced. Jo-Jo had been the one who’d given me the folder about my murdered family two months ago soon after Fletcher’s funeral. The dwarf had told me to come talk to her about the information when I was ready.

Something else I hadn’t done yet.

“What’s there to talk about?” I shrugged. “For some reason, Fletcher Lane knew who I really was all along, and he never said a word to me about it. Instead, he spent his free time compiling all the info he could on my dead family, like I was another one of his targets. Some hit he was trying to figure out how to do. The old man gives the folder to you, then gets murdered before he can tell me about it — or what the hell he wanted me to do with the information. I don’t see what we have to discuss.”

Jo-Jo stared at me. “Your sister, for starters.”

I snorted. “Oh yes, my baby sister, Bria, who I find out is alive after thinking she was dead for seventeen years.”

“I can understand why you feel hurt, why you feel like Fletcher betrayed you. But family is everything, Gin,” the dwarf said in a soft voice. “Whether it’s the one you’re born into or the one you make for yourself. Bria is your blood, your sister, and she’s alive. You can’t just ignore that.”

“Fletcher left me a picture of her, but he didn’t tell me how to find her. Where she’s at, what she’s even like now. Kind of sloppy of him to omit that information, don’t you think?” I snapped.

“Fletcher Lane never did anything he didn’t mean to,” Jo-Jo said. “He left you that picture for a reason. You’ll understand why one day.”

The tone of her voice made the wheels of my brain grind together — just like my teeth were doing. My gray eyes burned into her light ones. “You know, don’t you? You know why he compiled that information.”

Jo-Jo tilted her head. “I have some ideas.”

“Care to share?” I asked in a sarcastic tone.

The dwarf shook her head. “It’s not my place. This is between you and Fletcher.”

“He’s dead.”

“Doesn’t mean he still can’t speak to you,” Jo-Jo said.

“All you have to do is be willing to listen.”

I opened my mouth to tell her to cut out the cryptic talk, that it was a little hard to have a conversation with someone who was buried six feet under. But Finn chose that moment to stroll into the salon. He jangled his car keys in his hand.

“You ready?” Finn asked.

I glanced at him. “Sophia cleaned the blood out of the back of the Aston already? How the hell did she do that?”

“Soap, water, and some dwarven elbow grease,” Finn replied. “That woman’s a genius. Smells and looks just like it did the day I got it.”

There were only so many things you could do with soap and water. I didn’t think getting blood out of leather was one of them. I looked at Jo-Jo, who gave me a guileless grin I didn’t buy for a minute. I loved the two dwarven sister, but the longer I was around Jo-Jo and Sophia Deveraux, the more I realized I didn’t know anything about them. Not really. Not anything that seemed to matter, like the truth. Just as I hadn’t seemed to know the real Fletcher Lane, either.

You ready?” Finn asked again.

I stared at Jo-Jo a moment longer, then turned to him.

“Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”

——

Finn dropped me off at Fletcher’s house, agreed to meet me at the Pork Pit tomorrow, then headed back to his apartment in the city. I checked the gravel in the driveway and the granite around the front door, using my Stone magic to listen for disturbances. But all the stones gave off their usual low, quiet vibrations. No visitors today.

But I always checked. Even in my retirement, I couldn’t afford to lower my guard, especially not now with this mess with Jake McAllister going on. Because Jake had been royally pissed when the cops had dragged him away the other night. I had no doubt he was thinking about what he could do to hurt me, to get me to drop the charges against him. After all, he’d been ready to fry me with his Fire elemental magic just for what was in the cash register. Torture and murder wasn’t a big leap to make from there. Whether Jake actually made a run at me or not was still up in the air. But I’d be ready either way.

It wasn’t that late, but it had been a hell of a day. So I took a shower, threw on a pair of pajamas, and went to bed. I fell asleep almost immediately, and sometime later, the dream began…

I stood in the Pork Pit, chopping onions to add to tomorrow’s baked beans. Despite the harsh, stinging aroma, my eyes didn’t water. I never cried. Not anymore. Not since my family had been murdered. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t worry. My eyes flicked up to the clock on the wall: 10:05. A minute later than the last time I’d looked. Fear tightened my stomach until it felt as hard as the brick of the restaurant around me.

“He’s late,” I said in a soft voice.

“Don’t be a worrywart, Gin,” a teenage voice sneered behind me. “He always comes back.”

I stopped my chopping and turned to look at Finnegan Lane. At fifteen, Finn was two years older than me, with a mop of dark brown hair and eyes that reminded me of wet grass. He was tall, with a solid chest that was already filling out. Nothing like my long, gangly, spider-thin arms and legs.

Finn perched on a stool in front of the cash register and sucked up the last dregs of the triple chocolate milkshake I’d made him. Finn didn’t like me much, seeing me as competition for his widowed father’s time, attention, and affection.

I’d hoped my small bribe would at least make him tolerable while we waited for Fletcher. It had worked. Finn had been too busy gulping down the rich, sweet concoction to mock me.

For a change.

It had been three months since Fletcher Lane had taken me in, and my life had become as normal as it was ever going to get. During the day, I attended school under the name Gin Blanco, catching up on what I’d missed while I’d been living on the streets and hiding from the Fire elemental who’d murdered my family. After school, I came straight to the Pork Pit to help Fletcher cook and clean and earn my keep. He might be putting a roof over my head, but I was determined to work for it as much as I could. Not a glamorous life by any means, and nothing like the soft, warm comfort I’d had before, but it had a thin illusion of safety. Something I appreciated now more than ever.

Only one thing bothered me — Fletcher’s late-night jaunts. About once a month, he’d disappear. Sometimes for a few hours, other times for a few days. He never said where he went or what he did, and I didn’t ask. But I knew blood when I saw it, and Fletcher was often covered with it. Fresh, sticky, wet blood. Spattered all over his clothes, as though he’d just killed someone. Something else I knew about, even at thirteen.

My eyes drifted back to the clock: 10:07. Fletcher had vanished as soon as I’d come in this afternoon, saying he’d be back by seven, more than three hours ago. He’d never been this late before. What would I do if he didn’t come back?

Where would I go? Back on the streets most likely, begging for food, clothes, and shelter once more. My stomach twisted a little tighter—

The front door of the restaurant jerked open, making the bell chime. My heart lifted. A moment later, a pair of long arms tossed Fletcher Lane inside. He flew through the air, hit a table, flopped off it, and landed hard. Fletcher groaned and coughed. His blood flecked all over the clean floor I’d spent the afternoon mopping.

Another man stepped inside the Pork Pit, closed the door behind him, and turned around. Even above the roaring in my ears, I could still hear the bolt click home. Locking us in.

“Dad!” Finn yelled.

Finn started toward his injured father, but the man stepped in front of Fletcher’s prone form and backhanded Finn. The teenager flew across the room. He too hit a table, bounced off, slid to the floor, and was still. I stood behind the counter, eyes wide, not believing this was really happening.

Not now. Not again. Please, please, not again.

“You should have taken the job, Lane,” the strange man growled.

He was a giant, almost two feet taller than me, with a wide, stout chest that reminded me of an iron park bench turned sideways. His black hair ringed his scalp like an upside-

down bowl, while a curly goatee covered his square chin.

“I told you… Douglas,” Fletcher rasped. “I don’t… kill… kids… ever.”

“You should have made an exception. Because now you’re the one who’s going to die.”

Douglas slammed his booted foot into Fletcher’s side.

Fletcher groaned and coughed up more blood. I gasped. The giant’s hazel eyes snapped up to me, settling on my nonexistent chest.

“Well, well.” He smacked his lips. “Hello, pretty girl. We’ll have some fun when I get through over here.”

“Leave her alone,” Fletcher said. “She’s just a kid.”

Fletcher tried to get up, but Douglas leaned down and punched him in the face. I heard his jaw crack across the room, and he fell back to the floor with a sharp grunt of pain.

Finn still hadn’t moved from where he’d fallen. I clamped a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.

“You know,” Douglas said, rolling up his shirtsleeves. “I’m going to enjoy beating you to death, Lane. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten my hands good and bloody.”

My stomach lurched, and for a moment, I thought I might vomit. My mother, my older sister, Annabella, my baby sister, Bria. In the last few months, I’d lost everyone I’d ever cared about. I couldn’t lose Fletcher too. I just couldn’t. He’d been the only person who’d shown me any kindness, any compassion.

He was the only one left who cared whether I lived or died.

But what could I do? Douglas wouldn’t stop until Fletcher was dead — or he was. He’d said as much, and Fletcher was in no position to fight back. Not now.

In that moment, I knew what I had to do if I wanted to save Fletcher, if I wanted to save myself and the fragile little bubble of life, of normalcy, of security, that I’d built at the Pork Pit.

My gray eyes skipped down to the knife I still clutched, the one I’d been chopping onions with. A strange calm settled over me, and my fingers tightened around the handle until the stainless steel imprinted itself over the silverstone spider rune scar on my palm.

“Leave him alone,” I said and dropped the knife below the counter, out of the giant’s line of sight.

Douglas stopped rolling up his sleeves long enough to stare at me. “What did you say, little girl?”

I drew in a breath. “I said leave him alone, you fat, ugly, cow-faced bastard.”

Douglas’s eyes narrowed. “Well, aren’t you a feisty one? A shame you’re going to die so young — and so painfully.”

The giant stepped over Fletcher and started toward me.

Fletcher reached out, trying to stop him, but he was too weak and injured to hold onto the bigger, stronger man. I stayed where I was behind the counter and moved my right arm behind my leg, hiding the knife. Douglas came around the counter and reached for me.

His left hand grabbed my shoulder, yanking me toward him. Something wrenched in my arm, and pain exploded in my body. His right fist was already drawing back to hit me.

Somehow, I pushed the pain away, gulped down a breath, lunged forward, and slammed the knife into his chest as hard and deep as I could.

My aim must have been better than I’d thought, because Douglas’s hazel eyes bulged in surprise and pain. But he didn’t go down. He staggered back. I kept my grip on the knife, and it slid free from his chest. Blood coated my fingers like hot grease, burning my skin. I wanted to drop the weapon. Oh, how I wanted to drop it. I might have, if Douglas hadn’t started laughing.

“Stupid bitch,” he said. “You think one little stab wound is going to stop me? I’ll enjoy making you pay for that.”

He came at me again, fist drawn back, but I didn’t hesitate.

Before he could hit me, I lurched forward and stabbed him again. I felt the blade slide off something in his chest.

A rib, maybe, or some other bone. The sensation made me want to retch.

Douglas screamed again, louder this time, and his beefy hand tangled in my brown hair, yanking my head back until I thought my neck would break. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the glitter of yellowish fangs in his mouth. A vampire.

He was a giant, and he was vampire. One who wanted to drink my blood to replace his own.

Panic filled me. Before he could sink his teeth into my neck, I wrested the knife out of his massive chest and plunged it into his body again.

And again.

And again.

Over and over I stabbed him, blood and tears and mucus covering me like a second skin. Someone was screaming. Me.

Douglas let go of my hair and slid to the floor, but I didn’t stop my assault. He kicked out, catching my leg. My knee buckled, and I stumbled back, grabbing the edge of the cash register for support. My shoulder burned with pain, just like my palms had when the Fire elemental who’d murdered my family had tortured me by making me hold onto my own spider rune medallion. The giant vampire flopped on his stomach and crawled around the counter. Some small part of my mind realized that he wasn’t fighting me anymore, that he was actually trying to get away from me.

But I still went after him.

I threw myself onto his back and plunged the knife in between his shoulder blades. With my weight behind it, the weapon sank up to the hilt in his flesh. This time, Douglas didn’t scream. Something seemed to give in his body, and he stilled. I raised the knife and stabbed him again—

Rough hands settled on my shoulders. I flailed against them, but they were stronger, pinning my arms to my sides.

He pulled me close to his chest, and the smell of chicory coffee washed over me, penetrating the coppery stench of fresh blood.

“It’s over, Gin,” Fletcher said in my ear. “It’s over. He’s dead. You can quit stabbing him.”

Fletcher crooned soft words into my ear, still cradling me in his arms. The knife slipped from my cramping hand and clattered onto the floor—

The sound might have only been in my dream, but its sharp echo woke me. So suddenly, that I was standing in the middle of my bedroom headed for the door before I realized it was only a dream, another one of my ugly memories manifesting itself. For a moment, I felt that hysterical rage burning through me, that gut-deep, primal need to survive no matter what the cost or consequences.

The instinct that had dictated so much of my life.

I sighed and rubbed the gritty crud out of the corners of my eyes. My psych professor at the community college would have said the dreams, the flashes of my past, were my psyche’s way of dealing with the trauma. Of healing.

Quack. To me, the dreams, the memories, were tiring trials, like Marley’s ghost rattling his heavy chains at Scrooge. I’d lived through the events once already. I didn’t need the Technicolor replay at night.

And I certainly didn’t need to dwell on them now.

So I crawled into bed, snuggled back into the warm spot underneath the flannel sheets, and forced myself to relax. To let my body sink into the mattress. To unclench my jaw, uncurl my fists, and forget about the night I’d so brutally killed a man inside the Pork Pit. One of many.

But despite my best efforts, it was still a long, long time before I drifted off to sleep once more.