Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

get lay by his sides, crushed and useless. But Finn hadn’t tonight.
    hit his head, and the dwarf was still alive. His blue eyes
    “Get the car,” I told Finn. “We need to take the girl burned with pain and hate as he watched me come to Jo-Jo’s.”
    closer.
    Finn nodded and trotted off to retrieve his Aston Mar“Want to tell me who you’re working for before I kill tin. I walked over to Violet.
    you?” I said.
    Sometime during my fight with the dwarf, Violet Fox The dwarf spat blood on my jeans.
    had slid off the hood of the pickup. She sat propped up
    “I’ll take that as a no.”
    against the tire. Her fingers were stuck in her purse, as I leaned down and cut his throat. His eyes bulged, and though she was trying to get her cell phone out to call he gurgled once, twice, three times before his head lolled the cops. I crouched down until I was eye level with her. to the side and the light leaked out of his irises. I gave him “You’re safe now,” I said in a soft voice. “He’s not going a minute to bleed out, then put my fingers against his to hurt you anymore.”
    lacerated neck to make sure. No pulse. As dead as dead Violet Fox’s face was a mess. Her nose had been pushed could be. I wiped off my bloody hand on my jeans and halfway across her face, while her jaw reached out in the gestured at Finn.
    other direction. Her skin looked like putty that had been Finn killed the engine, got out of the truck, and stretched to the breaking point over her distorted feawalked back to me. His green eyes flicked to the dwarf’s tures. Blood covered the bottom half of her ruined face Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 96-97
    12/17/09 9:32 PM
    98 JENNIFER ESTEP
    Web of Lies 99
    like a mask, and thick drops of it slid down her neck, I grabbed Finn’s cell phone again and hit 7 on the staining her coat. Her glasses had been snapped in two speed dial. Three rings later, she picked up. in the middle. The glasses were still hooked around her “Hmph?” Sophia Deveraux let out her usual grunt of ears, but the two halves dangled like earrings against her a greeting. The dwarf didn’t like to strain her vocal cords bloody cheeks.
    with things like conversation.
    Pain filled her brown eyes, and for a moment, I didn’t
    “It’s Gin. There’s something you might find interesting think she’d heard me. But Violet turned her head and over in one of the parking lots near Ashland Community stared at me. She squinted, and recognition flickered in College.”
    her dull gaze.
    “Hmm.” Her interested grunt.
    “You . . .” she mumbled.
    I waited a moment to see if she’d say anything.
    “Don’t try to talk, sweetheart,” I said. “We’re going
    “Number?” Sophia asked, referring to the number of to get you patched up, and then you can tell us all about bodies I wanted her to come dispose of.
    why somebody wants you dead and how you know about The Goth dwarf ’s voice came out in a harsh rasp, like the Tin Man. okay?”
    she’d spent the last fifty years chain smoking and knockViolet Fox didn’t answer me. She’d already passed out. ing back jugs of mountain moonshine. I didn’t know why Sophia’s voice was the way it was, especially since I’d Finn brought the car over, and we stuffed Violet Fox into never seen the dwarf light up or drink anything stronger the backseat. I took her broken glasses off her face and than iced tea. Another mystery I wasn’t sure I wanted to passed them to Finn for safekeeping. Then I used one of solve. Because I had a feeling that there was something my knives to cut a strip off the bottom of my long-sleeved real bad in Sophia’s past. Some sort of horrific accident, T-shirt. I wound the cotton around the girl’s face to catch trauma, or even torture. Those were the only things that the blood oozing out of her broken nose. She didn’t stir. I could think of that would so completely ruin her vocal “She’s going to bleed all over the backseat,” Finn mutcords. tered. “Do you know how much I paid for this car?”
    I also wondered why Jo-Jo had never healed her sis“Too much,” I said. “And don’t worry about your preter. Maybe she’d wanted to and Sophia wouldn’t let her. cious leather seats. I’m sure Sophia can get the blood out.”
    Maybe it had just been too late by the time Jo-Jo had
    “You going to call her to get rid of the dwarf’s body?”
    reached her. Whatever it was, whatever had happened to Finn asked.
    the Goth dwarf, I knew that it couldn’t be