Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

grab hold of the wispy tendrils of memories, but they
    “Yeah,” the man replied. “She had five of them on her.”
    retreated back into the darkness—a darkness that was
    “And you really think she lured you out here to kill slowly swallowing me once more.
    you?” the woman asked. “Perhaps she was just carrying
    “outside? Why? I want to take care of the bitch right them for protection. Hookers tend to do that, you know.”
    now.” The man sounded whiny and petulant.
    “I know it was her. I’ve seen her before. She was at
    “Because in case you haven’t noticed, Tobias, I’m hostFox’s store yesterday, along with a cop. She must be working a function for several hundred people. A dead body in ing for the old man.”
    the garden would put a damper on the evening, don’t you Silence. Again, I tried to open my eyes to see what was think? Besides, you claim she came here to kill you . So going on. once again I failed. The pounding in my head you can take care of it. I have no desire to get my hands or intensified, as though another drum had been added to any other part of my person dirty tonight. Besides, she’s the band.
    unconscious. No fun to be had there.”
    “What a pity,” the woman said in a mocking tone.
    “Well, what do you want me to do with her?” the man
    “She had such potential.”
    asked again.
    I sensed someone crouching beside me, and a sweet,
    “I don’t fucking care,” the woman snapped. “Just get slightly noxious smell filled my nose—like jasmine mixed her off my lawn. Now.”
    with smoke. A finger trailed down the side of my cheek. Rough hands closed around my arms and yanked me Hot needles of pain stabbed my skin, but I couldn’t even up, but by that point, I’d sunk into the blackness once cry out. No part of me seemed to be working. The burnagain. ing finger skirted down my cleavage, before sliding off my stomach.
    The first thing I was aware of was the soft soil underneath A soft laugh echoed above my head. The sound made my cheek, interspersed here and there with small pebbles. me think of fire, smoke, ash. Rough hands holding me Tiny little stones that felt like smooth peas muttering down. The spider rune heating up between my palms. against my skin. I concentrated on that sound, that faint Questions. So many questions about Bria. The silvermuttering, letting it pull me out of the darkness I’d been stone searing my skin, melting into my flesh. The Fire floating in. After a few moments, I realized I was lying elemental laughing as the rune burned me. Laughing. facedown, but I didn’t try to move. My head hurt too The Fire elemental. Mab —much for that, the previous pounding now a hot, throb“Very well,” the woman said. “Do whatever you want bing ache behind my left eye.
    to with her—outside.”
    But I focused, and slowly the evening came back to Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 322-323
    12/17/09 9:32 PM
    324 JENNIFER ESTEP
    Web of Lies 325
    me. Dressing up and crashing Mab Monroe’s party. KillThe low, deep baritone of a giant. But the most curiing Jake McAllister. Running into the Fire elemental ous thing was the voice echoed like an organ, bouncing herself, then owen Grayson. I also remembered going off the rock walls that surrounded us. I listened again, out into the garden with Tobias Dawson, and the dwarf more closely this time, not just to the pea-size pebbles sucker punching me. And now, well, who knew where around me but also to the underlying stone beneath my the hell I was. But I was still alive, which meant I still had body. And I realized it surrounded me. The ground was a chance. To run, to fight, to cower in a cramped dark soft, but the ceiling and especially the walls were harder, hole until the bad guys went away. Whatever it took to rockier, and all made of stone. Given what I knew of Tosurvive. The will to do so no matter what—the very first bias Dawson, there was only one place I could be—inside lesson Fletcher Lane had ever taught me. Something I’d the dwarf’s coal mine. Dawson Number Three. A place known even before he’d articulated it to me. where no one would hear me scream—or ever find my So I focused on my body, assessing the damage that broken body.
    had been done. My face felt like it had been hit with a Footsteps scuffed on the ground behind me, and I sledgehammer. Given the stiffness and constant throbstarted rocking back and forth and moaning. No need to bing, I was pretty sure my jaw was broken, maybe my let