Elemental Assassin 04 - Tangled Threads

told too many times to too many people over the years—especially myself.
    “Really?” Roslyn whispered, doubt filling her toffee eyes.
    I shrugged. “Well, Slater’s dead and burning in hell right now. He’s never going to bother you again, so it’s not going to get worse. I can promise you that much.”
    She gave me another small smile. “I guess that will have to do for now.”
    It always did in Ashland.
    We sat there for a few more minutes. My eyes scanned the crowd, looking through the faces, before moving on to whom I was really here to see tonight—Vinnie Volga.
    One of the main features at Northern Aggression was the elaborate Ice bar that took up a good portion of one of the walls. The bar was a single, solid sheet of elemental Ice with a variety of runes carved into the frosty surface. Suns and stars mostly, symbolizing life and joy. The runes glittered like diamond chips in the Ice, making it seem more like a beautiful work of art than a functional, working bar. But the Ice more than held up to all the people who sat next to and leaned on it, and the others who clustered three deep in some places waiting to get their latest round of liquid courage.
    My gaze locked onto the man standing behind the bar—the Ice elemental responsible for making sure his creation stayed in one piece for the night.
    Vinnie Volga had swarthy features—tan skin and a mop of curly hair that could only be described as dirty brown. A neat, trimmed goatee covered his pointed chin, although his mouth and forehead both had a pinched look to them, as though he was constantly worried about something. Vinnie was short for a guy, only about my height, five seven or so, with a thin, wiry body.
    But the most striking thing about Vinnie was his eyes, which glowed blue-white in the semidarkness, thanks to his elemental magic. Vinnie held on to his Ice power at all times, even while mixing and serving up drinks. He had to keep feeding a small, steady trickle of magic into the bar, or his creation would start to melt, given all the bodies and heat packed into the club.
    It’s rare that an elemental can use his magic without other elementals sensing it, and Vinnie wasn’t trying to hide what he was doing. Even across the room, I could feel the cool caress of his power call out to me. It made me want to reach for my own Ice magic and let the cold energy fill every part of my being, but I pushed the longing aside. I wasn’t letting the bartender know that I had any kind of magic—until it was too late.
    “So tell me about Vinnie,” I asked Roslyn.
    The vampire’s eyes tracked my gaze across the club to where the bartender stood, shaking up another round of martinis. She shrugged. “Not much to tell. He’s worked for me for a couple of years now. Emigrated here from Russia with his daughter. The mother died in Russia before they came to the States. Very quiet, keeps to himself. A hard worker. Always on time. Doesn’t seem that interested in my girls, but he’ll go out with one occasionally. I’ve never had any problems with him. He comes in, makes sure the bar is in one piece, mixes drinks, takes a few quick breaks to go check on his daughter, and leaves. He’s the best bartender that I’ve ever had. I’d really hate to lose him.”
    I gave her a cool look. After a moment, Roslyn nodded.
    “But if it can’t be avoided, I suppose that I can find anotherIce elemental to take over for him,” she said. “What I really want to know is if Vinnie’s spying for Mab Monroe. If he is, he’s out. Nobody who works for Mab is going to be on my staff or welcome in my club—ever.”
    Roslyn’s toffee eyes glittered with anger, and her mouth flattened into a hard, ugly slash in her beautiful face. The vampire had just as much reason to hate Mab as I did, because Mab had been Elliot Slater’s boss, the one who pulled all his crazy, twisted strings. The Fire elemental had known that Slater was stalking and terrorizing Roslyn, and she’d done nothing to stop it. As long as Slater had done Mab’s bidding, she hadn’t cared what he did to anyone else—or who got hurt in the process.
    “What about Vinnie’s Ice magic?” I asked. “Will that be a problem?”
    “He has enough to keep the bar in one piece,” Roslyn said. “But I think that’s about it. I’ve never seen him do anything else with it. He’s certainly not as strong as you are.”
    I shifted in the booth. Everybody always said how
strong
my magic was, like it was