Elemental Assassin: The Spider Part 9

Three . . . now catching a hint of the day's sweat and sawdust that clung to his skin . . .

One . . . go!

I raised my knife to strike, but Vaughn must have finally heard the stones' sharp warnings about me, or perhaps he saw my reflection in the windows, or maybe I was just too d.a.m.n slow again. Either way, he turned at the last possible second.

Vaughn took in my black clothes and the knife in my hand in an instant. His brain kicked into gear, and he dropped his drink and threw himself to one side, out of the way of my deadly strike. My knife skidded off the window with a loud, ear-splitting screech, as though it were diamond that I was trying to cut the gla.s.s with. I winced and lost my grip on the blade, which thumped to the floor. I didn't want to waste time reaching for it, so I palmed another knife and whirled toward him.

He had scurried over to the far right side of his office and put his back against the bookcase. But he didn't make a break for the door. Instead, a grim, determined look filled his face, and he reached out and grabbed a stone model of a strip mall off the shelf. I tightened my grip on my knife and started forward. Vaughn reared back and threw the model at me, his aim surprisingly good. But that wasn't all he did. As the stone sailed through the air toward my head, I felt a hard wave of magic roll off Vaughn.

The model broke into a hundred pieces.

It was like a bomb had exploded in my face. Sharp shards of shrapnel zipped through the air, all of it purposefully propelled in my direction by Vaughn's magic. A neat trick, one that I'd have to remember for my own use later on. On instinct, I threw my hand up and reached for my own Stone magic, using it to harden my head, hair, skin, and eyes. The shrapnel pelted my body like nails, but the jagged pieces couldn't penetrate my skin, thanks to the protective sh.e.l.l of my magic.

Silence.

Then I dropped my hand, brushed the bits of shattered stone off my clothes, and looked at my target.

Vaughn's eyes widened to the point of almost bulging out of his face, as if I'd done something so surprising that he simply couldn't believe it. "Your magic . . . it's so strong . . ."

And that was all he got out before I went on the offensive again.

I took a step forward, but Vaughn was quicker than I was. He grabbed another model, this one a skysc.r.a.per, hurled it at me, and used his magic to make the stone explode in my face again. But I was still holding on to my own power, and the shrapnel hit my body and clattered off the same way it had before.

Back and forth we fought, with Vaughn moving from one side of the bookcase to the other, picking up every single model that he could get his hands on and tossing them all at me like grenades. I kept a grip on my own Stone magic and chased after him, but his miniature model bombs held me at bay.

Slowly, though, I started wearing him down. Vaughn was strong in his magic, but he was putting all of his power into his bomb blasts. It was much harder and far more draining to actively shatter thick chunks of solid stone over and over again, whereas I had the easier and far less magic-intensive task of keeping my skin just hard enough to withstand the a.s.saults.

Vaughn threw another model at me, but this one only cracked into two pieces, instead of splintering into shrapnel like all the others. His breath came in ragged gasps, and sweat streamed down his face from the intense effort and the sheer amount of power he'd expended. I could feel the rest of his magic falling away, like the chips of stone dropping from my silverstone vest. Still, he made one final effort to take me down, this time with a particularly large model of a multistory mansion. But once again, he only managed to split the stone into two pieces, which plummeted to the floor before they even got close to me. Vaughn kept fighting, though, his hand reaching back toward the shelves for another model . . .

And coming up empty.

His eyes bulged again when he realized that he'd used up all his makeshift weapons, and his panicked gaze flicked to the door, as if he were finally thinking about running away. I needed to end the fight-now.

So I did.

While he hesitated, I leaped forward, raised my knife high, and drove it down into his chest.

Vaughn opened his mouth to scream, but I clamped my gloved hand over his lips, m.u.f.fling the sound. He'd already made far too much noise setting off his model grenades, and it was a wonder that the guard hadn't come to check on him already-if he wasn't hurrying back here at this very second.

Vaughn's body went slack against mine, and I knew that the job was finally done.

I pulled the knife out and started to step away, but he reached up and grabbed my arm, his grip still surprisingly firm, given the blood gushing out of his chest.

"I don't know who sent you, but if this is about what happened at the restaurant . . ." he rasped. "Leave . . . my family . . . out of it. . . . Spare . . . them . . . please. . . ."

I leaned closer so he could see the coldness in my wintry gray eyes. "I am sparing them-from you. Did you think that you could slap around your kid and get away with it?"

Vaughn frowned, as though he didn't understand what I was talking about. Hard to think when your brain was shutting down along with the rest of your body. But after a moment, understanding flickered in his dark eyes, along with sadness.

"Charlotte," he rasped again, his voice even weaker than before, blood bubbling out of his lips. "Charlotte-"

Then the light faded from his eyes, his hand fell from my arm, and he dropped to the floor.

Dead.

11.

I stood there and stared down at Cesar Vaughn's dead, crumpled figure.

Why had he thought of Charlotte at the end? He was the one who'd been hurting her. Or perhaps he thought that whoever had hired me had told me to kill his entire family. A common enough occurrence and a reasonable a.s.sumption in Ashland. Vaughn had seemed to think this was about payback for the terrace collapse. Maybe he reasoned that I'd been ordered to take out his loved ones, as eye-for-an-eye retribution for the dead and injured. But that hadn't been my a.s.signment.

And for the first time, I wondered why it wasn't.

If someone really wanted to hurt Vaughn, to wound him, to make him suffer like they had suffered, then I should have been hired to kill Charlotte and Sebastian too. Not that I would ever hurt a kid, but if this was truly about payback, you'd think that my mysterious employer would have wanted to hit Vaughn where he would feel it the most. One would a.s.sume that would be by murdering his family. Plus, revenge would have been an obvious, logical move and motivation for someone who had been injured in the terrace collapse or who had lost a loved one because of it. But someone had simply wanted Vaughn dead instead.

Now, I didn't mind such short, sweet, and to-the-point a.s.signments. In fact, I felt a great deal of dark satisfaction that I'd eliminated the threat to Charlotte and had gotten a bit of payback for the accident victims and their families. But, with the dirty deed done, for the first time doubts whispered in my mind, doubts about what this was all really about, who exactly had wanted Vaughn dead, and why.

I sighed, realizing that I was worrying too much, like Fletcher did. But it was far too late for any sorts of doubts and unanswered questions. The job was done, and Cesar Vaughn was bleeding out on the floor, his blood soaking into the rugs, the broken bits of his stone models already muttering about their master's murder.

Still, I couldn't quite quiet the worried whispers in my mind or shake off all of the warnings that Fletcher had drilled into my head over the years, so I stepped over Vaughn's body and crouched down in front of the bookcase. It only took me a moment to slide back the bottom wooden panel that hid his safe. It was a st.u.r.dy, old-fashioned device, a thick gray metal box with a simple spin lock. Enter the appropriate numbers, pull down the lever, and the safe would open. I didn't have the combination, but I still eyed the lock, wondering if I could somehow use my weak Ice magic to shatter it and open the safe that way- A sharp knock sounded on the door. I whipped around on one knee, my b.l.o.o.d.y knife still clutched in my hand.

"Mr. Vaughn?" A m.u.f.fled voice sounded through the wood. "Are you okay? I thought that I heard some sort of scuffle back here."

So the guard had finally come to investigate after all.

"Mr. Vaughn? Are you in there?"

Any second now, the guard would turn the k.n.o.b to try to come inside and check on his boss. When he realized that the door was locked, he'd probably become even more worried, maybe even break down the wood with his ma.s.sive shoulder.

Time for me to leave.

I got to my feet and hurried over to the windows at the back of the office, making sure to grab the knife that I'd dropped earlier during my fight with Vaughn.

"Mr. Vaughn?" the guard called out again. "Are you okay?"

The k.n.o.b rattled as he tried to open the door.

I should be getting while the getting was good, but I hesitated, my gaze flicking back to the safe. Finn could have cracked it if he were here, probably before the guard busted into the office, but I wasn't as good with locks as he was, especially not with something a little more sophisticated like the safe. Besides, my escape was more important than any information that I might find.

So I opened one of the windows, slipped out of the construction magnate's office, and disappeared into the night.

I made it through the compound, over to the opening I'd cut in the fence, and back down the block to where Fletcher was waiting in the van. I opened the pa.s.senger door and slid inside. He studied me, looking for injuries and taking in the blood that covered my vest, shirt, and gloves.

"Problems?"

I shook my head. "Vaughn used some of his Stone magic to try to fight me off, but I was able to get him in the end. I'm not even injured, so we don't have to go to Jo-Jo's tonight."

I told him everything that had happened, including Vaughn's mysterious visitor.

"Harry?" Fletcher asked, his green eyes sharpening with interest until they glinted like a cat's in the semidarkness. "That was the cop's name? You're sure?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"No reason."

Fletcher's voice was as easy as ever, but he had hesitated a second too long before answering me. I studied him the same way that he'd looked at me when I'd first gotten into the van. I wondered what he knew about Harry that I didn't.

"This cop gave Vaughn a file?" Fletcher asked. "What kind of file?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't get a look at it or any of the information inside before Vaughn stuffed it into his safe."

"I'll have to see if I can get my hands on a copy of the police report, then," Fletcher murmured. "It might make some mention of the safe and what's inside it."

"But it doesn't much matter now, does it? The job is done, and Vaughn is dead. You thought this a.s.signment would be a problem, but see? Everything is fine-just like I'd told you it would be."

Fletcher stared out through the windshield and drummed his fingers on the top of the steering wheel. Thinking. "Maybe. But I'd still like to know what was in that file that got Vaughn so hot and bothered, especially if it had something to do with the restaurant accident."

"The cop, Harry, mentioned a crime scene."

I deliberately used his name again to see if Fletcher would react, but he didn't so much as twitch an eyelash. Maybe I'd only imagined his earlier hesitation.

"He had to be talking about the restaurant."

"No doubt." Fletcher nodded, as if he'd made some sort of decision. "But you're right. The job is done-for tonight. Let's get you home so you can get cleaned up."

He turned the key in the ignition, and the van rumbled to life. Fletcher rolled out of the parking lot, turned right, and drove by the construction compound. The guards were no longer sitting inside their shack at the main gate, and it looked like all of the lights had been turned on inside the building. No doubt, the guards were searching every room, office, and hallway for their boss's killer. But I hadn't left anything behind for them to find-except Vaughn's body.

I grinned, and more of that dark satisfaction surged through me. Vaughn was dead, Charlotte was safe, and the job was finished. Who ordered the hit and why, that was all just background noise now, and it would soon fade away.

Fletcher leaned over and flipped on the police scanner attached to the van's dashboard. Another one of his safety precautions.

"We've got a call at Vaughn Construction," a voice crackled over the line. "Dead body."

Another voice crackled back. "Roger that. Just down the street from that location. On my way there now."

In the distance, a siren started to wail. A few seconds later, a pair of flashing blue and white lights popped into view about three blocks away, heading toward us. My hands curled around the armrests, and worried tension replaced my satisfaction-I was still covered with Vaughn's blood, and the cops could always set up a roadblock.

"Yep," Fletcher said in a calm voice, completely unconcerned by the commotion. "Definitely time for us to leave."

He stopped the van at the sign at the end of the block. The old man waited until the police car blasted by us, lights flashing and siren still wailing, then sedately made the turn toward home.

12.

The death of Cesar Vaughn was big news in Ashland.

Bigger than I'd thought it would be, actually. Coverage consumed the newspapers and airwaves for the next few days, as story after story recapped all the grisly facts about the murder and then speculated about who had done it and why.

Of course, the most obvious thought was that one of the family members of the terrace collapse victims had decided to take matters into his own hands. The cops dutifully investigated each and every person who might have a grudge against Vaughn because of the tragedy, but they came up empty. Another reason that I'd decided to do the job on a Tuesday night: there was less chance of one of the victims' loved ones not having an alibi. People tended to wait until the weekend to get up to no good.

That was also why I'd done the job at Vaughn's office and had been so careful not to leave any evidence behind, so it would look exactly like the contracted hit that it was. I might be an a.s.sa.s.sin, but I didn't frame people for the crimes I committed. That was another part of Fletcher's code and one that I wholeheartedly agreed with. The people who'd lost their loved ones at that restaurant had already suffered enough. They didn't deserve to get blamed for Vaughn's murder too, even if one of them might have been behind the hit. Another reason that I'd used a knife on the job. That sort of stabbing attack was brutal, vicious, and, above all, up close and personal. Anyone could point a gun and pull the trigger from a distance, but not everyone could twist a knife into a man's heart, face-to-face, and watch the light leak out of his eyes.

Still, the cops investigated, and they got nowhere, like I knew they would. Fletcher had a couple of sources in the police department, so he was able to keep track of the investigation. But I wasn't worried. He had trained me too well, and no one had seen my attack on Vaughn.

The next day, I went about my regular routines as though nothing had happened. Waited tables at the Pork Pit, schlepped home to Fletcher's for a few hours, then schlepped back over to the community college for my usual cla.s.ses.

Going to college was another part of my cover, since that's what most people my age did, and it was something that the old man had insisted on. Apparently, he thought that it would make me more well-rounded or something. You know, in case the whole a.s.sa.s.sin thing didn't work out.

But I didn't mind too much, especially when it came to the literature cla.s.ses. Fletcher would read the same books that I was a.s.signed, and then we'd talk about them during lulls at the restaurant. I loved our discussions, since it was another way that I could be close to him that Finn couldn't-or wouldn't.

Once my evening cla.s.ses were done, I went back home for the night. And then I repeated the whole cycle again and again, just as I would until the next a.s.signment came along.

The only thing I did that was out of the ordinary was read all of the articles about Sebastian Vaughn.

He appeared in story after story, both in the newspaper and on TV. And in every story, in every interview and sound bite, he was quite vocal about the p.i.s.s-poor job he thought that the cops were doing in their so-far-unsuccessful attempt to find his father's killer-me. Sebastian even vowed to hire his own team of investigators to track down the culprit, but I wasn't worried. He'd never connect the waitress he'd flirted with once upon a time with the a.s.sa.s.sin who'd so coldly killed his father.

Still, I couldn't help but watch interview after interview with him on TV, and I read every single newspaper article that so much as mentioned his name. Sometimes two or three or even four times over, searching for any hint in his words about how he was doing, how he was feeling, now that his father was gone. I'd felt such an intense spark, such an immediate connection with Sebastian. I supposed that I wanted to keep feeling it, even though I'd never see him again.

One photo that ran over and over again in the newspapers was of Sebastian leaving his father's office the morning after the murder, a briefcase clutched in one hand. His mouth was set in a hard line, his dark eyes fixed on something outside the frame. He had his free arm around Charlotte's shoulder, holding her close, as though he could somehow protect her from the hurt, shock, and bewilderment that the camera had captured in her young, heartbroken face.

I wasn't exactly sure what prompted me to cut out that photo and tuck it in between the pages of the latest book I was reading, Murder for Christmas by Agatha Christie, for my detective fiction cla.s.s. But the book and the photo stayed on my nightstand. Every night, I would read another chapter or two, before using the photo as a bookmark. Sebastian's handsome, determined face was the last thing I saw before I shut the book.

Maybe it was crazy, but I wanted to reach out and help Sebastian, even though I didn't dare to-and even though I was the one who'd caused him so much pain in the first place. Oh, I didn't regret killing his father, not really, not when he'd been hurting his own daughter. But my heart still ached for the shock and suffering that I'd inflicted on Charlotte and Sebastian. So I kept tabs on him as best I could, hoping that his grief would slowly fade over time and knowing that he and especially Charlotte were better off without their father.

So life went on for me, Sebastian, Charlotte, and everyone else-except Cesar Vaughn.

Four days after the job, Sat.u.r.day, I was alone in the Pork Pit and closing down the restaurant for the night when the bell over the front door chimed. I sighed, wishing that I'd thought to lock the door already, but I finished wiping down the counter, fixed a polite smile on my face, and turned around.

"Sorry, but we're already closed-"