Elemental Assassin 04 - Tangled Threads

body getting tenser and tenser against mine. I could almost see the wheels turning in her mind as she thought of and discarded various ways to overpower and escape our captors. Several times, she glanced at the limo door, as if she was thinking about leaping over the giant and flinging herself out of the vehicle.
    While I admired my sister’s bravado, I didn’t bother doing the same. It wouldn’t do us any good to try to make a break for it. Not while we were all squished together in the back of the limo. LaFleur would only have to touch one of us with her electrical magic, and it would zip through all of our bodies like chain lightning. I had no doubt that the other assassin was perfectly fine sacrificing Mab’s giants, as long as Bria and I weren’t breathing in the end.
    Finally, the limo slowed, then stopped. The giants yanked us out of the car, and I found myself standing in the old train yard once again. The limo had pulled into the very center of the yard, and metal railcars surrounded us on all sides. The smell of smoke wafted over to me, and I looked over my shoulder.
    The crumbled, blackened remains of the train depot still smoldered, despite the cold. Finn had been right when he’d claimed that I’d started a four-alarm fire, because virtually nothing remained of the structure but mounds of flaky ash. Here and there, warped pieces of metal stuck up out of the gray ash, gleaming underneath the portable spotlights that had been set up around the depot. I guess the metal had just been too thick and dense to completely melt with the rest of the building.
    A cold smile pulled up my lips. Well, that was one thing I’d done right these past few days. If nothing else, I’d delayed Mab’s plans for her twisted nightclub and bought Roslyn Phillips and Northern Aggression at least a few more months of business.
    Then my eyes fell to all the metal rails that crisscrossed through the train yard and stretched out like greedy fingers in every direction—metal that could conduct LaFleur’selectrical magic faster than I could slit her throat with one of my silverstone knives. Even now, I remembered the pain of her electrical power slamming into me. It had hurt like nothing else I’d ever experienced. Worse than being stabbed, worse than being shot. Hell, even worse than being beaten by Elliot Slater.
    The smile dropped from my face. I was really starting to hate this place.
    Elektra raised an eyebrow. “I’m afraid this is the end of the line for you girls.”
    “Wow,” I said. “Did you come up with that little bit of witty repartee all on your own? Or has Jonah McAllister been giving you tips in between blow jobs?”
    Elektra regarded me for a moment. Then she backhanded me across the face as hard as she could. Despite her petite frame, the assassin had plenty of strength in her muscles. But worse than the sheer force of it was that she put some of her magic into the blow, and I felt the static shock of her power all the way down to my bones. Just for an instant, but the jolt was more than enough to make me stagger back and my heart race from the electrical discharge. Fuck. She was so
strong
. I was really going to have to figure out some way to keep her electrical elemental magic from killing me before I stabbed her to death.
    Elektra eyed me. Satisfied that I was properly cowed, she jerked her head at the giants.
    “Put them in the railcar while I get some things ready for our special guests,” she snapped. “And I want one of you on every side of that damn railcar. If the Spider’s lurking out there tonight, she’s not getting her hands on these two, understand?”
    The giants nodded. There were four of them now, including the limo driver, who’d stepped out to join the other three. Right now, they were more afraid of LaFleur than the nebulous danger the Spider presented. I had to admit I was a little disappointed. After my performance here the other night, you’d think that the giants wouldn’t be so quick to discount the Spider and what she could do to them. But they were faced with a more immediate danger in LaFleur, so that’s what they chose to focus on. I suppose I couldn’t blame them for that.
    Still, the irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me. Oh, the bloody irony. If I’d been alone, I would have laughed long, loud, and hard over the absurdity of it all.
    Because what Elektra LaFleur didn’t realize was that she had already captured the Spider—and the assassin was planning