Elemental Assassin 01 - Spider's Bite

freak when he finds out about this.”
    Cassidy nodded her head in sympathetic agreement and pulled her own phone out of her jeans. The two women started dialing numbers, instead of asking me, the restaurant owner, to do it for them. Not surprising. If you wanted the cops, you called them yourself. You certainly didn’t depend on the kindness of strangers to do it. Not in Ashland.
    I frowned. Cops. Just what I needed. Some of Ashland’s finest getting an eyeful of me, the former assassin, a Goth dwarf who liked to dispose of dead bodies in her spare time, and the two guys we’d so easily dispatched. Not the kind of attention I wanted to draw to myself, even if I was retired now. Nothing I could do about it now, though.
    Sophia went back to the stove to check on her baked beans. Eva spoke in a low voice to someone on her phone. Cassidy finished her 911 call and sank into the nearest chair.
    The girl stared at Jake on the floor, then her brown eyes flicked to the bloody knife. Her lower lip quivered, her eyes grew glossy, and her hands trembled. Trying to hold back the tears. Something else I’d had to do, once upon a time.
    I walked over to the counter and picked up a glass cake plate filled with the black forest cookies I’d baked this morning.
    “Here.” I took the top off and held the plate out to her. “Have a cookie. They’ve got plenty of sugar and butter and chocolate in them. They’ll help with the shakes.”
    Cassidy gave me a wan smile, took one of the chocolate treats, and bit into the concoction. The bittersweet chocolate melted in her mouth, and her eyes brightened with pleasure instead of worry.
    Eva finished her call and sat down next to her friend. Her hands didn’t tremble as she snapped her phone shut, and she looked at Jake with a thoughtful expression. The only sign anything had happened to Eva was a red welt on her cheek, where her face had smacked into the floor. The girl had a level head on her shoulders and a firm grip on her emotions. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t crash later.
    I held the plate out to her. “You, too.”
    Eva took a cookie, broke it in two, and stuffed half of it into her mouth. Not shy, either.
    I also plucked one of the chocolate treats off the stack. Not because I had shaky nerves, but because they were damn good cookies. After a month of trying, I’d finally perfected the recipe.
    I looked at the two unconscious men on the floor. Lance lay spread-eagle next to one of the booths where Sophia had dropped him. Blood continued to drip from the cuts on Jake’s throat and temple, staining the floor a rusty brown.
    I grabbed another cookie off the plate and watched him bleed.