Elemental Assassin 04 - Tangled Threads

arsenal. I also fished a couple of extra knives out of the duffel bag and put those in various pockets in my vest. I had a feeling I’d need the extra weapons to take down LaFleur. The assassin wouldn’t go quietly. Not with her deadly skills and electrical elemental magic. Hell, I’d be lucky if I didn’t get fried in the process.
    When I was outfitted for the evening, I slipped out of the back of the Pork Pit. For a moment, I stood there in the alley, my eyes flicking over the black shadows, making sure that everything was as it should be. Sophia had already left, so nothing moved or stirred in the dark night.It was so cold that even the garbage rats had quieted down for the evening.
    Still, just to be sure, I brushed my fingers against the back wall of the restaurant and reached out with my Stone magic. The red brick only murmured with its usual slow, steady, clogged contentment, matching the stomachs and arteries of so many folks after eating at the Pork Pit. Satisfied that everything was as it should be, I shouldered my duffel bag and left the restaurant behind.
    It took me about ten minutes to drive to Finn’s location. The old train yard was located on the outskirts of the downtown area, just on the edge of Southtown, a half-moon piece of land that curved around a high bank overlooking the Aneirin River before sloping downward and giving way to dilapidated buildings and streets once more.
    I found Finn’s Aston Martin parked in an alley on the far western edge of the train yard, several hundred feet from the actual start of the rail lines themselves. I whipped a U-turn and pulled my silver Benz into an alley another quarter mile out, giving us a second getaway option in case things got a little heated this evening. Then I pulled my cell phone out of my vest pocket and called Finn. He answered on the third ring.
    “I’m here,” I said. “Where are you?”
    “On a small hill overlooking the train yard, about five hundred feet due west of McLaren Street,” he said.
    “I’ll be there shortly.”
    I hung up and got out of the car. I moved quietly through the night, hopscotching from building to building, shadow to shadow, and stopping frequently to lookand listen to the stones around me. But nothing moved on this cold December night, except the icy wind whipping through the streets and the few hard bits of snow that came along with it. Crushed beer cans and crumpled fast-food wrappers skittered across the cracked parking lots, pushed on by the steady breeze.
    Finally, I left the streets and buildings behind and entered a more industrial area. A small knoll covered more by hard-packed dirt than actual grass sloped upward before curving around and cresting over the train yard below. Still keeping a watchful eye out, I palmed one of my silverstone knives and climbed up the shallow hill.
    Two dogwood trees, stooped and gnarled by age, squatted on top of the knoll. The few leaves still clinging to the branches rustled back and forth in the breeze, threatening to fly off into the night. Finn sat against the trunk of one of the trees, sipping coffee from a metal thermos and looking down at the scene below with a pair of night-vision goggles. Like me, Finn was dressed in black from head to toe.
    “About time you showed up, Gin,” Finn said without looking up. “I’ve been freezing my ass off out here for half an hour now.”
    “Sorry,” I said, dropping into a crouch beside him. “I had to make sure I was properly attired for the evening.”
    “Way ahead of you.” Finn tapped on a slender metal case sitting on the ground next to him.
    “You brought your rifle?”
    “You bet,” he said. “With the new scope that I just bought. Thought I might get a chance to test it out tonight.”
    Finnegan Lane could barely carve a Christmas ham with a knife, much less actually cut into a person with one the way that I could. But he was a hell of a shot, even better than me. Whether you were standing right in front of him or two hundred yards away, Finn could put three bullets through your eye before you realized that the first one had even hit you.
    “Here,” he said, passing me the goggles. “Take a gander at the majesty before us.”
    I took the goggles from him and held them up to my eyes. It took a few seconds before my vision adjusted to the greenish tinge.
    Below us, the old Ashland train yard stretched out horizontally about a mile, with the left side giving way to the downtown streets once more and