Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

jeans. ered Sophia.
    These two rich punks were robbing my barbecue restauThe first guy raised his hand. A small knife glinted in rant just for the thrill of it.
    his red, chapped fingers. A hard, thin smiled curved my Worst fucking decision they’d ever made.
    lips. I liked knives.
    “Freeze!” the first guy repeated, as if we all hadn’t heard
    “Chill out, Jake,” the second guy muttered. “There’s him before.
    no need to scream.”
    He was a beefy man with spiky blond hair held up I looked at him. Where his buddy was blond and beefy, by some sort of shiny hair-care product. Probably a robber number two was short and bone-thin. His wispy little giant blood in his family tree somewhere, judging hair stuck up due to uncontrollable cowlicks instead of from his six-foot-six frame and large hands. Despite his an overabundance of product. The locks were a bright twentysomething years, baby fat still puffed out his face red that had probably earned him the nickname Carrot like a warm, oozing marshmallow. The guy’s brown eyes at some point. Carrot shoved his hands into his holey flicked around the restaurant, taking in everything from pockets, shifted on his feet, and stared at the floor, clearly the baked beans bubbling on the stove behind me to the wanting to be somewhere other than here. A reluctant hissing french fryer to the battered, bloody copy of Where sidekick at best. Probably tried to talk his buddy out of the Red Fern Grows mounted on the wall beside the cash this nonsense. He should have tried harder. register.
    “No names, Lance . Remember?” Jake snarled and Then Beefcake turned his attention to the people inglared at his friend. side the Pork Pit to make sure we were all following his Lance’s bony body jerked at the sound of his own Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 2-3
    12/17/09 9:32 PM
    4 JENNIFER ESTEP
    Web of Lies 5
    name, like someone had zapped him with a cattle prod.
    “Lance!” Jake jerked his head at the injured woman His mouth dropped open, but he didn’t say anything. and Sophia. “Watch those bitches!”
    I used one of the day’s credit card receipts to mark my Lance wet his lips. Pure, uncomfortable misery filled place in The Odyssey. Then I closed my book, straighthis pale face, but he stepped around his friend and trotted ened, slid off my stool, and stepped around the long over to the injured woman, who had pushed herself up to counter that ran along the back wall of the Pork Pit. Time her hands and knees. She shoved her wild tangle of blueto take out the trash. black hair out of her face. Her pale blue eyes burned with The first guy, Jake, saw me move, out of the corner of immediate hate. A fighter, that one.
    his eye. But instead of charging at me as I’d expected, the But Lance didn’t see her venomous look. He was too half giant moved to his left and jerked one of the girls up busy staring at Sophia. Most people did. The dwarf had and out of her booth—a Hispanic girl with a pixie hairbeen Goth before Goth was cool—a hundred years ago or cut. She let out another squeaky scream. Her thick beef so. In addition to her skull collar and matching T-shirt, sandwich flew from her hand and spattered against one of Sophia Deveraux sported black jeans and boots. Pink lipthe storefront windows. The barbecue sauce looked like stick covered her lips, contrasting with the black glitter blood running down the smooth, shiny glass. shadow on her eyelids and the natural pallor of her face.
    “Leave her alone, you bastard!” the other woman Today, the color motif extended up to her hair. Pale pink shouted.
    streaks shimmered among her cropped black locks. She jumped to her feet and charged at Jake, who But Jake wasn’t so dumbstruck. He pulled the first backhanded her. He might only have been a half giant, woman even closer, turned her around, held her in front but there was still enough strength in his blow to lift the of him, and raised the knife to her throat. Now he had a woman off her feet and send her careening into a table. human shield. Terrific.
    She flipped over the top, hit the floor hard, and gave a But that wasn’t the worst part. A bit of red sparked low groan.
    in the depths of his brown eyes, like a match flaring to By this point, Sophia Deveraux had become a little life. Magic surged like a hot, summer wind through the more interested in things. The dwarf moved to stand berestaurant, pricking my skin with power and making the side me. The silver skulls hanging from