Web of Lies

29

“Are you sure it was her, Tobias?”

A female voice sounded somewhere above my head, although it seemed far away. I couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from. The pounding in my head drowned out just about everything else, although I felt dew-covered grass underneath my back, and the cool kiss of the night wind on my face. Why was I lying down? I couldn’t remember anything through the ache in my skull.

“I’m positive,” a man muttered. “This is the bitch who broke into my office. She has the stench of that Stone magic all over her. Then there are these.”

Something rustled. I wanted to open my eyes to see what it was, but for some reason, my eyelids just wouldn’t lift.

“Is that silverstone?” the woman asked again.

Some small part of my mind frowned in thought. I knew that voice, that soft, breathy voice that resonated with so much raw power. I just couldn’t remember whom it belonged to.

“Yeah,” the man replied. “She had five of them on her.”

“And you really think she lured you out here to kill you?” the woman asked. “Perhaps she was just carrying them for protection. Hookers tend to do that, you know.”

“I know it was her. I’ve seen her before. She was at Fox’s store yesterday, along with a cop. She must be working for the old man.”

Silence. Again, I tried to open my eyes to see what was going on. Once again I failed. The pounding in my head intensified, as though another drum had been added to the band.

“What a pity,” the woman said in a mocking tone.

“She had such potential.”

I sensed someone crouching beside me, and a sweet, slightly noxious smell filled my nose — like jasmine mixed with smoke. A finger trailed down the side of my cheek.

Hot needles of pain stabbed my skin, but I couldn’t even cry out. No part of me seemed to be working. The burning finger skirted down my cleavage, before sliding off my stomach.

A soft laugh echoed above my head. The sound made me think of fire, smoke, ash. Rough hands holding me down. The spider rune heating up between my palms.

Questions. So many questions about Bria. The silverstone searing my skin, melting into my flesh. The Fire elemental laughing as the rune burned me. Laughing.

The Fire elemental. Mab—

“Very well,” the woman said. “Do whatever you want to with her — outside.”

Her voice short-circuited my train of thought. I tried to grab hold of the wispy tendrils of memories, but they retreated back into the darkness — a darkness that was slowly swallowing me once more.

“Outside? Why? I want to take care of the bitch right now.” The man sounded whiny and petulant.

“Because in case you haven’t noticed, Tobias, I’m hosting a function for several hundred people. A dead body in the garden would put a damper on the evening, don’t you think? Besides, you claim she came here to kill you. So you can take care of it. I have no desire to get my hands or any other part of my person dirty tonight. Besides, she’s unconscious. No fun to be had there.”

“Well, what do you want me to do with her?” the man asked again.

“I don’t fucking care,” the woman snapped. “Just get her off my lawn. Now.”

Rough hands closed around my arms and yanked me up, but by that point, I’d sunk into the blackness once again.

——

The first thing I was aware of was the soft soil underneath my cheek, interspersed here and there with small pebbles. Tiny little stones that felt like smooth peas muttering against my skin. I concentrated on that sound, that faint muttering, letting it pull me out of the darkness I’d been floating in. After a few moments, I realized I was lying facedown, but I didn’t try to move. My head hurt too much for that, the previous pounding now a hot, throbbing ache behind my left eye.

But I focused, and slowly the evening came back to me. Dressing up and crashing Mab Monroe’s party. Killing Jake McAllister. Running into the Fire elemental herself, then Owen Grayson. I also remembered going out into the garden with Tobias Dawson, and the dwarf sucker punching me. And now, well, who knew where the hell I was. But I was still alive, which meant I still had a chance. To run, to fight, to cower in a cramped dark hole until the bad guys went away. Whatever it took to survive. The will to do so no matter what — the very first lesson Fletcher Lane had ever taught me. Something I’d known even before he’d articulated it to me.

So I focused on my body, assessing the damage that had been done. My face felt like it had been hit with a sledgehammer. Given the stiffness and constant throbbing, I was pretty sure my jaw was broken, maybe my left cheekbone too. A couple of my teeth felt loose, and the coppery tang of my own blood filled my mouth. I cracked my eyes open. A bit of light trickled into my vision.

Well, at least he hadn’t ruptured my optic nerve.

Next I wiggled my fingers and toes. My arms felt sore, as though I’d been manhandled, which I probably had been. My knees were scraped and raw. So were my hands.

Minor annoyances. But to my surprise, I didn’t seem to have any other injuries. No broken bones, no missing limbs, no trauma between my thighs. Which could only mean one thing. Tobias Dawson wanted to question me before he killed me — or the dwarf just wanted me awake while he tortured me. Neither option was a pleasant one, but I’d faced them both before and come out more or less in one piece. I’d survive this too.

“I think the bitch is awake,” a voice said.

The low, deep baritone of a giant. But the most curious thing was the voice echoed like an organ, bouncing off the rock walls that surrounded us. I listened again, more closely this time, not just to the pea-size pebbles around me but also to the underlying stone beneath my body. And I realized it surrounded me. The ground was soft, but the ceiling and especially the walls were harder, rockier, and all made of stone. Given what I knew of Tobias Dawson, there was only one place I could be — inside the dwarf ’s coal mine. Dawson Number Three. A place where no one would hear me scream — or ever find my broken body.

Footsteps scuffed on the ground behind me, and I started rocking back and forth and moaning. No need to let the bastards know I had my wits about me just yet. I also opened my eyes and started blinking away the white spots that swam in and out of my vision like lazy catfish.

Slowly, I pushed myself up to my hands and knees, then leaned back on my heels. My head and face pounded, but I blocked out the pain, even as I huddled there with my head in my hands.

A pair of boots appeared before me. Cowboy boots.

Black snakeskin with red flames and pointed, silverstone tips. I looked up to find Tobias Dawson looming over me.

As much as a five-foot-tall dwarf could loom.

“About time you woke up, bitch,” he said and hit me again.

——

I didn’t have time to reach for my Stone magic to harden my skin into a rocky shell. Besides, that was a card I didn’t want to play just yet. Tobias Dawson might have sensed my magic, might have been able to finger me as the one who broke into his safe, but he probably didn’t realize how strong I was. Otherwise, he would have done the smart thing and killed me while I’d been unconscious in Mab Monroe’s garden.

But all that knowledge, all that planning, didn’t help me with the fist whistling toward my body at warp speed.

I managed to lean back and turn my body enough so that his fist hit my left shoulder instead of slamming into my face. The hard blow bowled me over onto my side, and I felt it reverberate through my whole body. An electric shockwave of pain. A low groan escaped from between my clamped lips, but I forced myself to tense up, to try to defend myself against another sharp blow. But the dwarf didn’t come after me again. Instead, he stepped back and regarded me with his cold blue eyes. Since Tobias Dawson wasn’t immediately going to beat me to death, my gaze flicked around the area.

I’d been right — I was deep in Dawson’s coal mine.

Gray and brown rock surrounded me on all sides, and seams of coal ran like black ribbons through the various layers of stone. The passage was wider than I’d expected.

Taller too. Concrete beams shored up the roof, and a variety of old, broken equipment lay scattered on the ground.

The air smelled of rocks, dust, metal.

All around me, the stone muttered. Sharp, angry sounds that told of massive explosions and heavy equipment burrowing into the heart of the mountain. The stone didn’t like what had been done to it anymore than I had. I listened to that anger, let it clear my aching head.

Feeling sorry for myself wouldn’t be any help in this situation.

But anger — anger was another story. Sure, anger could make you reckless, sloppy, but it could also made you strong. Determined. Both of which were things I was going to need if I had any hopes of getting out of here alive.

“Pick her up,” the dwarf ordered. “I want the bitch to see exactly what she’s dying for.”

Two giants stepped out of the shadows and lumbered over to me. I recognized them as two of Dawson’s men, the two that had come with him to Country Daze to brace Warren and Violet Fox. The giants hauled me to my feet. More pain blossomed in my shoulder and jaw, and I let out another low groan. But I didn’t offer any resistance to the giants. Not yet.

I was already injured, which meant I needed more of a plan than my usual method of hacking and slashing my way out of trouble. I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious, but Finn had surely realized things had gone to hell at Mab’s party. He was probably working his connections, trying to figure out where Tobias Dawson had taken me. Finn might even be on his way to the mine right now, with Sophia and Jo-Jo Deveraux in tow.

But I couldn’t count on them to save me. I wouldn’t.

In the end, the only thing, the only person, you could ever count on was yourself. Another lesson Fletcher Lane had taught me. Something else I’d already figured out for myself long before I’d met the old man.

The giants held me between them and carried me deeper into the mine. They hoisted me up so high my feet didn’t even touch the ground. While they carried me, I rubbed my thighs together. But the slots on my garter belt were empty. They’d taken the silverstone knives that had been strapped to my thighs. The ones up my sleeves were gone too. Something bumped against my hip, and I looked down. Dawson or one of his goons had been kind enough to loop my purse around my neck. The top flapped open, and I could see the empty space where my final knife had been. The bastards had been thorough, if nothing else. Too bad for me.

Dawson led the way, carrying a flashlight. The two giants also carried one apiece in their free hand. I eyed the flashlights. Not as weighty as a baseball bat, but a crack across the throat with one of those would be a good way to start cutting my captors down to size. Assuming I had the strength or guile to wrest a flashlight away from one of the three men.

We went down, down, down into the earth. The tunnel grew narrower, tighter. The bits and pieces of equipment on the floor vanished. So did the concrete support beams. Slowly, the violent mutters of the stone gave way to older, calmer vibrations. We walked through a natural tunnel now, instead of a man-made hole in the ground.

I noticed a light up ahead. A soft, white glow, like a beam of sunshine slanting through a cloud. Some sort of industrial spotlight that had been rigged up so folks could see what they were doing in the belly of the mountain.

Tobias Dawson rounded a corner and disappeared from sight. A moment later, the giants dragged me around it as well.

And my breath caught in my throat.

Because the narrow tunnel opened up into a circular chamber that was more than two hundred feet wide. The ceiling was just as tall, with thick stalactites that hung down like elegant stone icicles. That was beautiful enough by itself.

But the diamonds made it truly breathtaking.

The gemstones lay embedded in the rock walls. They were raw, of course, uncut and completely untouched by man. They lacked the polished look of a finished stone, but my Stone magic let me see the pure fire inside them, the beautiful potential they possessed. More seams of coal ran around the diamonds, making the gems seem as though they were resting on a velvet tray. I could also hear the diamonds. They resonated with the same sort of brilliance the stone in Tobias Dawson’s safe had. Often, the more intense a gemstone’s vibration, the more beautiful and valuable it was. If the song skipping through my head was any indication, there was several million dollars’ worth of uncut diamonds nestled in the heart of this mountain — just waiting for someone to come and claim them.

Tobias Dawson stalked to the center of the cavern. The giants dragging me followed along behind him. The dwarf snapped his fingers, and the two brutes threw me down.

I put my hands out to break my fall, but the stone still dug into my palms and scraped my already raw, bloody knees. Even being a Stone couldn’t protect me from being injured by my own element like that. I huddled on the ground, once again scanning the area for anything I could use. Any sort of weapon. Hell, I’d even take a bolt hole at this point. Folks who said you were a coward if you ran away from a fight usually didn’t live long themselves. I wouldn’t care if I was called a coward, as long as I was still breathing in the end.

The top of the cavern was damp, and phosphorescent mold covered most of the jagged stalactites, a strange, pale green contrast to the rest of the gray, brown, and black rock. A drop of water fell down from one of the stones and spattered onto my upturned cheek. I looked up, backtracked the drop, and realized a steady stream of water rushed down one wall of the cavern. Still more water dripped from other stalactites over my head. Hmm.

That might be useful.

Tobias Dawson walked in a loose circle around me.

His snakeskin cowboy boots clattered on the rough stone.

“Do you know where you are?”

I put my hands on the ground and pushed myself up to my feet. Spots swam in front of my eyes again, but I blinked them away. “I have a pretty good idea.”

It was hard to talk through my broken, throbbing jaw, and my words came out mushy and mumbled. Just the way my face felt.

The dwarf stared at me. “You broke into my office, into my safe.” His floppy mustache bristled with anger.

I shrugged. No use denying it now. If Tobias Dawson’s elemental talent for sensing and identifying others’ magic was as good as he claimed, no lie of mine would convince him otherwise. Besides, I was already on the hook here. If I played my cards right, maybe things would stop and end with me. I didn’t want Dawson to start thinking about who else might have been involved with me — and I didn’t want him going after Finn, the Deveraux sisters, the Foxes, or even Donovan Caine.

“Yeah, I broke into your office.”

“Why?” the dwarf snapped. “What were you looking for? Who are you working for? Did Warren Fox hire you to kill me?”

I stared at the dwarf and kept my eyes cold, my face expressionless. I might be on the express bus to dead, but I wasn’t going to snitch on the Foxes and take them with me. “I don’t know any Warren Fox.”

“Bullshit,” Tobias snarled. “I saw you at his store the other day.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You mean that shack by the side of the crossroads? Yeah, I was there. So what?”

“Why?” Dawson demanded.

“I had to pee,” I quipped. “And I didn’t feel like getting a briar in my ass by going in the woods.”

The dwarf stared at me, considering my words. “I don’t believe you.”

“Doesn’t much matter to me whether you believe me or not.”

Tobias spit a stream of tobacco juice out of his mouth.

It spattered against my bare, scraped leg. The dwarf was going to pay for that. I might die down here, but before I went, I was going to get at least one good blow in. Just for that.

“Who are you working for? What do you want?” Dawson asked again. “I have ways of making you talk, you know.”

My jaw twitched with pain, which kept me from rolling my eyes. Yeah, I’d figured out the dwarf could hurt me the first time he’d slammed his fist into my face. The memory was still fresh in my mind, even if it had apparently slipped his.

“I’m sure you do. As for what I want, well, it’s more about what my employer wants. Maybe we can work out some sort of deal.”

The dwarf stopped his circle to stand in front of me.

His pale blue eyes narrowed. “I’m listening.”

“You let me go, and I tell you who wants you dead. How does that sound?”

The dwarf nodded. “All right. You have a deal.”

Lying bastard. He wasn’t going to let me go, and we both knew it. But this was how the game was played when you were sloppy enough to get captured. Dragging things out to the bitter end. I’d only get one shot to try to take out Dawson. I knew what I was going to do, but whether I had the strength for it was another matter. Still, it was best to keep him talking as long as possible.

I backed up a few steps from the dwarf so that I was clear of the stalactites and the water dripping down from the ceiling. He didn’t follow me. His first mistake. “So you’ve figured out what I am, what I do.”

“You’re an assassin,” Dawson said. “That’s the only explanation for all those silverstone knives you had on you and the way you threw yourself at me at the party.”

Well, at least he wasn’t stupid enough to think I’d really been attracted to him. That would have been rather sad on his part. I gave him a thin smile. “Actually, I was enjoying my retirement, if you can believe that. But then, as the old story goes, I got one last job offer, and the money, well, it was just too good to pass up.”

Another assassin, Brutus, had said those words to me once — right before I’d killed him. Of course, they were a complete fabrication on my part now. But it was just the sort of fairy tale Tobias Dawson wanted to hear, the story he’d already sold himself on. I could see the suspicion in his eyes. All I had to do was fill in the name for him. And even if I didn’t make it out of here alive, I still planned on causing as much trouble as I could for one certain individual.

“Who hired you? Why? Tell me right now, or I’ll let my boys have some fun with you.” Dawson jerked his thumb over his shoulder at his two men.

Behind him, one of the giants rubbed his crotch and rocked his hips forward. His buddy laughed at him and gave me a slow wink. Their casual mockery made my anger ratchet up from a slow simmer to a boil. Those bastards weren’t laying another hand on me.

But I still had my part to play for Tobias Dawson, so I took another step back from the jagged stalactites and threw my hands out wide. “Isn’t it obvious who I’m working for? Who else knows about this little diamond mine you’ve stumbled upon? Who else have you told about it? Why don’t you think about that for a few seconds and get back to me.”

The dwarf frowned and spit out another stream of tobacco juice. His blue eyes turned inward as he reviewed the list of folks he’d shared his underground discovery with. I was willing to bet it was a real short list — with only one woman’s name on it.

“Mab,” he muttered. “Mab Monroe. That’s who you’re working for?”

I shot my thumb and forefinger at him. “Give the man a prize.”

Dawson frowned. “But why would she hire an assassin to kill me?”

Despite my broken jaw, I managed a laugh. A loud, mocking laugh that echoed off the walls. “Because, you idiot, she wants all this for herself. All these lovely, lovely diamonds, and the money that’s going to come along with them.”

“No way.” Dawson shook his head. “There’s no fucking way you’re working for Mab. She wouldn’t turn on me like that.”

I snorted. “Take your head out of your ass. Of course Mab would turn on you like that. It’s what she does. She’s made a career out of it, as a friend of mine would say. You’re just the latest casualty in her ever-expanding empire.”

Dawson paced back and forth in front of me as he thought about it. I took another small step back. Ten feet now separated me from the dwarf. Not as much as I would have liked, but it was going to have to do. After a few seconds, the dwarf stopped pacing. The doubt in his eyes faded away, replaced by sparking anger. I’d sold him on the lie. Even if I didn’t make it out of this cavern alive, Dawson might do something stupid and go after Mab Monroe himself. She’d probably kill him, but at least he’d feel her wrath before he died. And he might inconvenience her slightly. Either way, it was the best I could do, given my current situation.

“Although I am curious about one thing,” I said.

“What?” Dawson asked.

“The old man at the store. Why did you brace him like that? Why do you need his land so badly? We’re in this cavern right now with all these gorgeous stones. I know you don’t own the mineral rights to the diamonds, but why not just quietly take them out of the walls yourself and be done with it?”

Dawson shook his head. “All that Stone magic you have, and you don’t really know anything about your own element, do you?”

I shrugged. “Geology isn’t my strong suit.”

The dwarf pointed to the ceiling, where water dripped off one of the stalactites. “This whole cavern is directly underneath a creek that runs through Fox’s property. The ceiling’s strong enough as it is, but if I start digging diamonds out of here, there’s a good chance the whole thing will collapse in, leaving a giant sinkhole right in the middle of his backyard — even bigger than the one that’s there right now.”

He wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t already guessed, but it was nice to have some confirmation.

“And you couldn’t risk that,” I said in a soft voice. “You couldn’t risk him finding out about the diamonds that are on his own land.”

“Smart and pretty. A shame you’re going to die so young,” Dawson mocked.

“I thought we had a deal,” I said, although there was no real protest in my voice. I’d expected the double cross.

The dwarf laughed. “Ah, the foolishness of youth. But I’m a sporting man. I’ll give you a chance to get out of here.”

“Really? And how would I do that?”

Dawson stared at me. “All you have to do is beat me— in an elemental duel.”