Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

into matchstick pieces. He swung pay for that, bitch.”
    at me again. I ducked back and plucked a third knife out
    “Yeah, yeah,” I said, palming the knife hidden up my of the small of my back.
    right sleeve. “Let’s dance.”
    “Knives? Is that all you got, lady?” he drawled. “You The dwarf charged me. I waited until the last possible can cut me all night long, and I’ll stand right here and moment, then stepped to one side. My left foot lashed take it. All I need is one good punch, and you’re mine, out, and I tripped him. But he was expecting it. The bitch.”
    dwarf tucked into a ball, hit the ground, and rolled right He was right. We’d barely started, and my heart was back up. Bastard was quick. Bendy too.
    already racing. My lungs hadn’t started to burn yet, but it
    “Nice.”
    was only a matter of time. I just didn’t have the stamina He smiled. “I take yoga.”
    he had. Never would. The dwarf wasn’t even sweating, I smiled back. “Me too.”
    and the wounds I’d inflicted on him were nothing more He came at me again. And then we got down to busithan paper cuts. I had to find a way to end this. Now. ness. The dwarf swung his hard fists at me. I ducked his out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large, dark shape blows, not out of cowardice but practicality. No way I creeping up the parking lot. The shape stopped. Waiting. was letting his sledgehammer of a hand connect with my I slashed at the dwarf with my knife, forcing him toface. I’d had my nose and various other body parts broward a sedan a few feet away. He laughed, backed up, and ken plenty of times already. I had no desire to repeat that crooked his index finger at me.
    particular pain tonight.
    “Come on, bitch,” he said. “I’m just getting warmed up.”
    The dwarf swung again, but his foot slipped on a I smiled at him. “Me too.”
    chunk of broken asphalt and he overextended his arm. I I braced my hands on the car hood and pushed off. came up inside his defense and stabbed him in the chest He wasn’t expecting me to change tactics, and he paused, with my silverstone knife. The smell of coppery blood just for a second. All the opening I needed. My feet hit filled the night air, overpowering the rain. But he jerked the dwarf in the chest with enough force to make him back before I could shove the weapon into his heart. The stumble back. His shoe caught on another break in the blade skittered across his ribs and caught on one of them. pavement, and he fell on his ass.
    I grunted, but it was like trying to slice through frozen And that’s when Finn ran him over with the truck. meat. His chest muscles were just too thick and dense for While I’d been fighting the dwarf, Finn had made himme to do enough damage to put him down quick. self useful. He’d broken into and hotwired the monster The dwarf chopped at my knife hand with the edge truck that had been parked next to Violet Fox’s Honda. Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 94-95
    12/17/09 9:32 PM
    96 JENNIFER ESTEP
    Web of Lies 97
    Then he’d pulled the vehicle up into range, waiting for body. “You still had to cut his throat? Tough little bugger, me to notice.
    wasn’t he?”
    The dwarf thump-thumped under the truck’s massive,
    “He’s a dwarf,” I replied. “They usually are. Now, give oversize wheels. But Finn wasn’t finished. He put the me your cell phone.”
    truck in reverse and backed over the dwarf. He went back Finn dug into his jacket pocket and handed me a slim, and forth over the man three more times before I held my silver phone. I used it to snap a picture of the dwarf’s frohand up, signaling him to stop. Finn pulled the truck forzen face, along with the tattoo on his bicep, the one that ward. He stayed inside the cab, waiting to see if I needed resembled a lit stick of dynamite. It had been flattened by him again. I picked up my dropped knives and walked the truck tires, but there was still enough flesh there to across the pavement to the dwarf.
    get an idea of the original shape of the rune. I handed the The wheels had flattened out the man’s thick, strong, phone back to Finn, then stuck my hand into the dwarf’s compact body until now it resembled a fleshy, bloody front pockets. No wallet, no money, no ID. Probably in pancake that had been pressed into the asphalt. Greasy his back pocket, but I wasn’t going to peel him up off the black tire tracks covered his torso, and his arms and legs pavement to look for them. Messier than I wanted to