Elemental Assassin 04 - Tangled Threads

charred flesh still filled my nose. The familiar, acrid scent triggered all sorts of emotions that were better left dead and buried deep inside me. But they bubbled to the surface, whether I wanted them to or not.
    For a moment, I was thirteen again, weeping, wailing, and staring down at the ashy, flaky ruined
thing
that hadbeen my mother, Eira, before Mab Monroe had used her elemental Fire to burn her to death. And the matching husk that had been my older sister, Annabella. Trying not to vomit as I realized the cruel thing that had been done to them. That was going to be done to Bria and me before the night was through. Sweet, little Bria …
    I ruthlessly shook away the memory. My hands had curled into fists so tight that I could feel the hilts of my silverstone knives digging into the spider rune scars on my palms. I forced myself to relax my grip, then bent down on my knees so I could get a better look at the white blob resting on the dwarf’s back.
    To my surprise, it was a single white orchid, exquisite, elegant, and petal soft in the dark.
    My eyes narrowed, and I regarded the blossom with a thoughtful expression. I knew what the flower meant and exactly who had left it behind to be found. It was her calling card, her name, rank, and trademark, just as my spider rune was. Something that she’d put here to announce her presence, mark her kill, and serve as a warning to anyone who dared to get in her way.
    She was taunting me, just as I’d been doing to Mab Monroe these last two weeks.
    “LaFleur,” I muttered, saying her name out loud.
    Because the simple fact was that an assassin had come to Ashland—one who was here to kill me.

2
     
    “You really don’t know that she’s here to kill you, Gin,” Finn said.
    After I’d examined the dead dwarf, I’d jogged back across the street and gotten into Finn’s Escalade. He’d cranked the engine, and we’d left the docks and the mean streets of Southtown behind. Now we cruised through the downtown area on our way out to the suburbs that ringed Ashland.
    The corporate sharks had long ago deserted the city’s skyscrapers and office complexes and had gone home for the evening. The only people out on the streets at this hour were the bums who hadn’t been able to find shelter for the night. A few of them huddled around trash can fires on some of the darker side alleys. Out on the main drag, vampire prostitutes wearing as little as the cold would let them trolled listlessly up and down the sidewalks, still hoping that some sugar daddy would want toget his rocks off before going back to his warm, comfortable bed. The hookers eyed Finn’s vehicle with predatory interest as he drove past, their teeth gleaming like pointed pearls underneath the harsh glare of the streetlights.
    “Maybe LaFleur just wanted to stiff the dwarf to get his merchandise,” Finn added.
    “So what? She waits in that shack on the dock for an hour until he moves those crates for her. Then she comes out and chats with him before she fries him with her electrical magic? I don’t think so,” I said. “The dwarf knew she was there the whole time. She was asking him if he’d seen or heard anything. If he’d seen or heard any sign of
me
. That’s why he shrugged. The whole thing was a setup, pure and simple.”
    That was the only explanation that made sense. There was no other reason for someone of LaFleur’s reputation, skills, and magic to sit in the dark for an hour. No, she’d been paid to be there—and I knew exactly who was footing the bill.
    “Are you sure it was her?” Finn asked. “LaFleur? Here in Ashland?”
    I nodded. “Yeah, it was LaFleur. She’s the only assassin I know of who leaves a white orchid behind with her victims. It’s her signature. Fletcher has a whole file of information on her.”
    Fletcher Lane had been the assassin the Tin Man most of his life, until I took over the business from my foster father several years ago. But Fletcher had kept up with things in his own way, including compiling information on all the other top-level assassins currently working in the trenches and those who had supposedly retired likeme. Strengths, weaknesses, vices, quirks, preferred kill methods. The old man had documented everyone and everything that he could find, just in case any of the others ever became a threat to us.
    It wasn’t unheard of for one assassin to be hired to take out another. A few months ago, an assassin named Brutus, aka Viper, had been sent to