Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

girls and part of the evening’s entertainment.
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    A light spotlighted a red banner draped over one of the balconies in the center wing of the mansion. The enormous piece of heavy fabric featured a rune done in shim25
    mering gold—a round circle surrounded by several dozen curled, wavy rays. A sunburst. The symbol for fire. Mab Monroe’s personal rune. The same one on the invitation in my purse.
    The driver fell into the flow of traffic going through the open wrought-iron gates that designated the entrance to Mab Monroe’s estate. The yellow taxi seemed out of place among all the stretch limos crawling up the curving driveway like fat, black beetles. It took twenty minutes for the driver to maneuver all the way up and stop in front of the entrance.
    At eight o’clock that evening, my taxi pulled into the long, My gray eyes flicked over the security. Five giant snaking driveway that led up to Mab Monroe’s mansion. guards roamed through the line of limos, opening doors, Given her status as the city’s richest and deadliest helping people out of their vehicles, directing traffic, and citizen, Mab Monroe lived in the biggest, most impresmaking sure the waiting drivers weren’t getting into too sive home in Ashland. The gray stone structure soared much trouble drinking or smoking on the sly. Two more fifteen stories into the air, making it taller than some of giant guards stood by the front double doors that led into the downtown skyscrapers. The mansion’s three equalthe mansion, flanking a smaller human holding a large size wings formed a wide, upside-down W-shape. Tall, clipboard.
    skinny windows fronted each floor, along with crenel“That’ll be twenty bucks,” the driver growled. lated balconies. A twelve-foot-tall stone fence ringed the
    “Twenty bucks? You only drove me a couple of miles.”
    mansion itself, which was set back more than a mile from Earlier this evening, I’d taken the precaution of parkthe main road. From the research Fletcher Lane had done ing a car on the side of the road just beyond Mab Monover the years, I knew the expansive, manicured grounds roe’s estate. An old, battered burner vehicle with fake featured several gardens, three greenhouses, an aviary, a registration and fake plates. I’d put a white trash bag in golf course, copses of woods, and a small lake. Along with the window, left the hood up, and scattered a few tools giant patrols, guard dogs, assorted magical trip wires, and by the side of the road. All designed to make it look like some other nasty surprises.
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    back for it. The car was my insurance policy, in case I too.” I gave him a winsome smile and handed over the needed to make a quicker getaway than the one I had in engraved invitation Roslyn Phillips had slipped me. mind. once I’d put the car where I wanted it, I’d hiked The man stared at the heart-and-arrow rune a moover to the closest anonymous coffee shop and called the ment; then his eyes swept over the rest of my body. Becab to bring me here. hind him, the two giants also leered at me. Looked like “Twenty bucks,” the driver said again.
    Tobias Dawson wasn’t the only one here tonight with a Since I didn’t want him to remember me, I quit arthing for busty blondes. guing, paid him, got out, and walked toward the stairs The man with the clipboard pulled his attention away that led up to the main entrance of the mansion. I could from my boobs and checked the name on the invitation. hear it, of course. With fifteen stories of solid, stacked “I assume you know the rules for tonight, Candy?”
    stone looming above me, I’d have to be deaf not to. The I nodded. “Yeah, sugar, I know how to behave myself. stone whispered of power and money, the way I’d always I’m a pro.”
    thought it would. But there were other vibrations in it too. Before Finn and I had left the nightclub, Roslyn had Fire, heat, death, destruction. But perhaps most disturbgiven me a list of rules Mab Monroe had sent her for ing was a touch of madness that trilled like a whippoorthe party guys and girls. Basically, Roslyn’s hookers were will’s cry through the solid rock, as though the stone itself to make themselves available to anyone at anytime durhad