Elemental Assassin 04 - Tangled Threads

propped up there.
    I’d done the first three drawings a while back for a class that I’d taken over at Ashland Community College. I was one of the college’s perpetual students, taking any and every course that appealed to me, especially those thatdealt with cooking or literature, two of my passions. One of the projects in the art class that I’d audited had been to create a series of drawings, all different but linked together by a common theme.
    I’d drawn a series of runes—the symbols of my dead family.
    A snowflake, a curling ivy vine, and a primrose. The symbols for icy calm, elegance, and beauty. The snowflake had belonged to my mother, Eira, being the main rune for the Snow family, the one that had identified us to other elementals. The other two symbols had been fashioned into medallions that my sisters had worn. The ivy vine for my older sister, Annabelle, and the primrose for my younger sister, Bria.
    But the fourth rune was relatively new. I’d done it only a couple of months ago, after Fletcher had been tortured to death by an Air elemental. That drawing was shaped like a pig holding a platter of food. An exact rendering of the multicolored neon sign that hung over the entrance to the Pork Pit. Not a rune, not exactly, but I’d drawn it in honor of the old man. Fletcher had been the only father I’d ever really known, and I’d wanted to honor him, just the way I had the rest of my family.
    I stared at the runes for another moment. Then I rubbed my hands over my face, took my feet off the coffee table, leaned forward, and picked up one of two manila folders lying there. The first file had been on the table for weeks now, since it dealt with my sister Bria, but I’d retrieved the second folder earlier today from Fletcher’s cluttered office in another part of the house. That was the one I was interested in tonight.
    I flipped open the folder and stared at the pages of information—everything that Fletcher had ever been able to dig up on the assassin known as LaFleur. I’d seen her electrical elemental magic for myself the other night, of course, but information was its own kind of power, and I wanted to be as prepared as possible when the two of us finally danced.
    Besides, I was willing to bet that wherever Natasha was, whatever dark hole she’d been stashed in, LaFleur wouldn’t be too far away from it. When I found the little girl, I’d find the assassin. And then, I’d kill her—or die trying.
    So I leaned back against the sofa, put the file in my lap, and started reading.
    I read through all the information on LaFleur, absorbing every fact, tidbit, rumor, and sheer speculation that Fletcher had been able to piece together about the other assassin. Of course, what I was really looking for was any sign of weakness, anything that I could use against the other assassin to kill her before she killed me.
    But there wasn’t anything in the file to give me any hope of accomplishing that. At least, not without getting dead myself.
    The file started out by listing all of LaFleur’s vital stats. Height: Five foot two. Weight: One hundred fifteen pounds. Black hair. Green eyes. Asian heritage. Rumored to have some sort of tattoo on her, probably in the shape of a rune. Cliché, yes, surprising, no. As a general rule, assassins liked symbols and catchy nicknames almost as much as magic users did.
    Fletcher had also pegged her age at thirty-three and concluded that LaFleur was actually part of a family of elite assassins, all of whom sold their services to the highest bidder. Included was a sheet about a brother that LaFleur supposedly had, an assassin just like her. But since the page just referenced another one of Fletcher’s files, instead of spelling out the information for me here, I didn’t get up and go into the old man’s office to look for it. LaFleur’s brother, whoever the hell he might be, wasn’t important at this point.
    The bottom line was that killing people was in LaFleur’s blood, as much a part of who and what she was as my spider rune scars were to me. Interesting to know, but not particularly helpful when it came to actually taking her down.
    So I moved on to the pages that dealt with LaFleur’s accomplishments as an assassin. LaFleur had killed dozens and dozens of people over the years, everyone from common street thugs to the richest, most heavily guarded businessmen. As far as Fletcher knew, she had a one hundred percent kill rate and the exorbitant fees to