Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

billionaire vampire clients and selling the diamonds on Warren Fox’s land to this who bought cases of off-brand toothpaste at the nearest highfalutin crowd.
    Sell-Everything so they could save a measly five cents a I recognized more than a few of the faces I passed. tube.
    Some, I’d done jobs for. For others, I’d assassinated parEstep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 278-279
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    ents, brothers, sisters, or business partners for whatever ballroom floor, their clusters and cliques not even comreason. Some were Mab’s sycophants, her loyal subjects. ing close to filling the massive space. They reminded others would have been happy to spit on her corpse, me of dolls that might populate a child’s playhouse. dance a jig on her grave, and then set about trying to take Pretty and polished with fake smiles that stretched their the Fire elemental’s place as Ashland’s queen bee. painted, plastic faces to the breaking point. But I looked I didn’t speak to anyone, but men and woman stared beyond the elegant veneer of the people and furnishings. at me as I passed. Their eyes caught on the silver rune Despite the rich sophistication on display, I noticed around my throat, then slid down my body, as thought I other things, things that weren’t as nice as they appeared were a cut of meat they were thinking about getting from at first glance.
    the butcher. According to Finn, I looked like a real, live, Like the giants circulating throughout the ballroom. fuckable Barbie doll, thanks to Roslyn’s clothes and long Given the platters of champagne, caviar, and quail’s eggs blond wig. I’d barely recognized myself when I’d looked they supported on their enormous hands, you might have in the mirror earlier.
    thought them nothing more than waiters. But I knew But I didn’t meet anyone’s gaze and walked on as if I what they were really here for—crowd control, in case hadn’t noticed there was anyone else in the mansion at folks got stupid and drunk enough to start turning on all. I wasn’t here to attract their attention. Tobias Dawson each other. I imagined Mab Monroe wouldn’t cotton to was my target, and I had no intention of getting sidea couple of tipsy elementals deciding to stage a magical tracked or propositioned by anyone else.
    duel in her ballroom.
    The main hallway led out into a grand ballroom. AlThat’s how elementals usually fought, by flinging their though grand really wasn’t the right word for the enorraw magic at each other, until one person succumbed mous space, which served as the junction for the three to the other’s power. When two elementals clashed, the wings of the mansion. It featured a golden parquet floor, inevitable loser could suffer everything from catching tiled here and there with marble, granite, and sheets of Fire, to getting encased in Ice, to having her heart turned hammered bronze. Chandeliers dangled from the ceiling. to Stone, or even being flayed alive by the very Air she Some glowed with rubies and diamonds. others burned breathed. Depending, of course, on the type of elemental with garnets and topaz. A staircase that was several hunshe was fighting. And this wasn’t even counting all the dred feet wide lay at the opposite end of the ballroom, its other folks who had talents for things like metal, water, pristine scarlet carpet stretching up to the second floor and electricity.
    and beyond.
    overall, elementals’ duels were a quick, nasty, painful More than three hundred of Mab Monroe’s closest way to die, which is why I never engaged in them. Killbusiness associates talked and laughed and drank on the ing the other person first was what mattered to me. Not Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 280-281
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    old-fashioned, outdated, useless concepts like honor and gown that made her look like a Greek goddess. Mab Monduels. Codes of conduct were for overconfident fools. roe had invited the hooker to the party so Roslyn could Five, ten, twenty . . . I count almost thirty giants in all, keep an eye on her guys and girls and make sure they were more than enough to control even the unruliest crowd. properly servicing the more important guests. And, as None of them were carrying weapons, but then again, part of our plan, Roslyn had brought Finn along as her they didn’t need to. one good blow from a giant’s fist date for the evening. Nothing unusual about it, since the would break