Elemental Assassin 04 - Tangled Threads

it pooling in my stomach, and my lips drew back in a silent snarl.
    Mab shrugged. “Not enough profit to make it worth my while. She’s getting too old for what some of my prospective customers want, and her coloring’s all wrong. Besides, she’s a loose end, and it’s always better to cut those off before they unravel on you.”
    The Fire elemental stared at the assassin with no mercy or feeling of any kind in her soulless black gaze. “So kill the brat. Tonight.”

17
     
    Mab and Elektra starting talking about other things then, namely how fast they thought the construction workers could finish remodeling the old train depot and all the railcars. I hung on the ladder outside the window and considered my options.
    Right now, I was as close to the two women as I could possibly get and still take them by surprise. I longed to kill them, both of them. Every cell in my body screamed at me to do it. To crash in through the window, toss my silverstone knives, and lash out at them with every ounce of Ice and Stone magic I possessed.
    But the problem was that there were two of them, both powerful, dangerous elementals in their own right who were more than happy to use their magic to kill. Whereas I was out here swinging in the breeze all by my little lonesome, except for Finn and his rifle across the train yard. There weren’t any windows on the side of therailcar facing his location, and as good as Finn was with his gun, even he couldn’t shoot through solid metal. Not from this distance anyway, not even with the silverstone bullets that I knew he always used.
    And the truth was that while I might have been able to take Elektra out by myself, I didn’t have the same confidence when it came to Mab. Not after what I’d seen her to do my mother and older sister all those years ago. Throw Mab and her Fire magic into the mix with LaFleur’s electricity, and I was the one who’d wind up getting dead.
    But most importantly, there was Natasha to think about. A scared little girl who had already suffered who knew what kinds of horrors. And she was going to die tonight by LaFleur’s hand unless I decided to go save her.
Right now
.
    I hung there on the ladder for a second longer, debating my choices. Try to kill Mab and LaFleur or go save a little girl. There was no choice, really. There never had been. I might be a cold-blooded assassin, but even I still had a heart, what little, black, patchwork bits there were left of it. Besides, I’d promised Vinnie that I’d find his daughter and bring her back to him, no matter what kind of terrible shape she might be in. I didn’t go back on my word—ever. Not as Gin Blanco and certainly not as the Spider.
    So I hopped down from my perch on the ladder, palmed another one of my silverstone knives, and slithered off into the darkness.
    According to Elektra LaFleur, Natasha was being held in the next railcar over, which stood about fifty feet offto my left and back from the old depot. Keeping to the shadows, I picked my way through the train yard, still careful not to send any of the debris littering the ground flying with my feet. It was easy enough for me to creep up to the railcar, scurry halfway up the metal ladder on the back side, and peer inside the window.
    Unlike the car Elektra and Mab had been in, this one hadn’t been completely renovated yet. The walls had been polished to a high silver shine, but none of the other furnishings had been put in place. The floor was bare, and only a lone bulb hung overhead.
    But there was still plenty of light for me to see the two giants sitting inside, their seven-foot frames hunched over the small table that they were playing cards on. I looked at the far corner. A third, much smaller form huddled there against the wall, buried under a pile of dirty, tattered blankets.
    That had to be Natasha. I watched the blankets, tracking the slight, steady lift and fall of them. She was still breathing, at least. I didn’t know what kind of shape the girl was in, what horrible things had been done to her, but it didn’t much matter to me right now. I’d promised Vinnie I’d do everything that I could to rescue his daughter—even if she might already be dead and broken on the inside.
    The front door of the railcar was halfway open and, unfortunately enough, faced the depot where so much of the construction action was going on. Which meant I couldn’t go in that way, not without drawing unwanted attention. I thought about my options,