Elemental Assassin 04 - Tangled Threads

needed my own rest. Deep, dark, dreamless sleep free of the memories that haunted me.
    Figuring out where Natasha was, tracking down LaFleur, determining how I could best kill the other assassin. That was what was important. I had goals, targets, and certain things that I could do to keep my sister and everyone else I cared about safe, and maybe even save a young girl’s life in the process. But to do all that, I needed to relax, rest, think, plan.
    Somewhat calmer, for this night at least, I laid my head down on my pillow once more and forced myself to go back to sleep.
    It was a long, long time before it actually happened, though.

12
     
    I didn’t sleep nearly as well as I would have liked to, but it was enough to get me through the next day, while I waited for Finn to see what he could dig up on Mab, LaFleur, and where the two of them might have stashed Natasha.
    Late the next afternoon, I stood behind the counter at the Pork Pit, the barbecue restaurant I ran in downtown Ashland. I handed a thick wad of change and a white bag stuffed to the brim with food across the counter, along with a similarly filled box. The man took them both from me, smiled, then left the restaurant and headed back out into the December cold.
    I let out a loud, long sigh and looked over my shoulder at Sophia Deveraux, who was whipping up yet another pot of baked beans—the thirteenth batch that she’d made already today, and it wasn’t even time to close down the restaurant for the night.
    “How many party orders was that today? Nine? Ten?”
    We hadn’t gotten much walk-in traffic at the Pit, not like we usually did, since people were busy shopping and getting ready for Christmas, which was only four days away now. But our takeout orders had quadrupled, along with all the ones for holiday barbecue platters that we offered for large groups and gatherings. Sophia and I had been busy all day long, getting everything ready for pickups from the restaurant, and we still had an hour to go before closing.
    The storefront was empty now, except for two couples sitting at different booths. Since they’d already been served and given their checks, I was just waiting for them to pay up and leave. Normally, I would have let them linger as long as they liked, but tonight I was in the mood to hurry them along, if need be. I’d already sent the waitstaff home for the evening. They’d helped Sophia and I put together the party orders, but once that was done, there was no real reason for them to stick around with only a few customers to serve.
    Sophia shrugged in answer to my question, her sharp gaze never leaving the bubbling beans in front of her. The dwarf wasn’t big on conversation. She gave the pot of beans another stir, the muscles in her arm bulging with the small motion. At five foot one, Sophia was tall for a dwarf, with a thick, muscled figure that was incredibly strong—even stronger than most giants. But most people wouldn’t have noticed that about her. At least, not right away.
    They’d be too busy staring at the rest of her.
    Sophia Deveraux had a very distinctive style abouther—Goth. We’re not talking a little black lipstick here. More like the heart of darkness itself. Just about everything that Sophia wore was black, from her heavy boots to her jeans to the plain leather collar that ringed her neck. Her hair and eyes were black too, providing a striking contrast to the absolute paleness of her face—and her crimson lip gloss.
    It always amazed me how different Sophia was from her older sister, Jo-Jo. At one hundred and thirteen, Sophia always reminded me of a moody teenager with her Goth wear, while Jo-Jo had already comfortably settled into her middle age with her ladylike pink dresses and ever-present string of white pearls.
    Today, though, Sophia had decided to show off her holiday cheer, at least what there was of it, by wearing a pointed Santa hat while she cooked. Black, of course, with a tiny grinning skull dangling off the end of it, instead of the more traditional white fluffy ball. Merry Christmas.
    I didn’t have time to ponder Sophia’s holiday proclivities, though, because the phone rang for what seemed like the hundredth time today. I loved all the extra business, but it had been a long day, and I was almost ready to stick one of my silverstone knives through the plastic receiver just to get it to shut up. Instead, I made myself answer it.
    “Pork Pit,” I said on the fifth ring.
    “Tell me,” Owen