Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

cutouts of white coffins. The collar around her front door chimed. I looked up, expecting to see Finn. neck resembled a thick garnet snake, with chunky square The man wore an impeccable business suit and polished rhinestones for scales.
    wingtips, but that’s where his resemblance to Finnegan My eyes flicked over the empty booths, the abandoned Lane ended.
    tables, the deserted stools. Normally, Wednesday was a His gunmetal gray hair was parted on the side, with busy day, with people coming in to get their midweek a thick doo-wop that curled up, down, and around his barbecue fix. But not today. I knew Jonah McAllister was forehead like a scoop of vanilla soft serve. Given the gray Mab Monroe’s number two guru, that he was a slick, hair, I would have put his age at around sixty. But he had Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 140-141
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    the face of a much younger man—smooth, clean-shaven, black suits that had probably taken a whole field of cotton and curiously free of wrinkles, even around the corners to construct. No telltale bulges could be seen under their of his brown eyes. My guess? The finest Air elemental arms. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about them shootfacials and skin treatments his hefty retainers could by. ing me, if things went badly here. They’d enjoy beating Debutantes and trophy wives weren’t the only vain folks me to death more anyway. Giants who worked for Elliot in Ashland. He’d left his hair au natural, though. ProbSlater were notorious for that. ably thought the silver color made him look more distinAnd they just might get a chance, the way the hate and guished.
    magic sparked in Jake McAllister’s brown eyes. Still, for all his youthful vigor, the man radiated awJonah McAllister stood in the middle of the Pork Pit. shucks charm the way a snake-oil salesman might. Shake But instead of looking at me or even Sophia, McAllister’s his hand, and you’d be wiping the grease off yours for gaze slid over the blue and pink booths, the faded pig the next ten minutes. And wondering where your waltracks on the floor, the clean tabletops, the ancient cash let went. I recognized him from his many pictures in the register. His eyes resembled his son’s—flat, brown, hard—newspaper and Fletcher’s thick file on Mab Monroe and but without the fiery glint of magic. Jake must have gother flunkies. ten his Fire power from his mother. She died several years Jonah McAllister, Ashland’s slickest attorney and perago, from what I remember having read in Fletcher’s file. sonal counsel to Mab herself, had just walked into my Jonah McAllister didn’t say anything. I might as well restaurant.
    not have even been in the same room with the man for And he wasn’t alone.
    all the attention he paid me. His arrogance annoyed me. Jake McAllister strutted in through the door behind If that was the game he wanted to play, I was more than his old man. Rock-star jeans, vintage T-shirt, heavy boots, happy to participate. I sprinkled some more black pepa black leather coat that skirted the floor. Another punk per on top of my coleslaw, dug my fork into the colorgetup. ful mound, and took another bite. Sweet and sour. Yeah, Two giant bodyguards also stepped inside the restauthat’s the way things were going today. rant, taking up all the available space by the front door. Finally, after two minutes of intense perusal, Jonah The goons were probably on loan from Mab Monroe, via McAllister turned his head to me. I got the same treather other number-two man, enforcer Elliot Slater, who ment he’d given the rest of the restaurant. A slow, was a giant himself. Even if I’d had a customer today, she thoughtful gaze that weighed, measured, and calculated wouldn’t have been able to get inside with the two behemy worth down to the last rusty penny. moths blocking the entrance.
    “I assume you’re Gin Blanco, the owner of this fine I stared at the giants, with their big, buglike eyes and establishment,” McAllister said in a rich, deep, sonoEstep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 142-143
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    rous baritone voice that would boom like thunder in the cold, calculating glint in his eyes. Still, he had a presence closed confines of a courtroom.
    about him, a commanding sort of air that probably made I chewed another bite of coleslaw and tilted my head. people promise him their first-born, if only he’d give them
    “I am.