Elemental Assassin: Unraveled Part 2

Once again, Phillip followed me, although we hadn't taken five steps before McAllister started hissing at me.

"Blanco!" he said, his sharp voice dissolving into a bitter wail. "You can't do this! You can't leave me here! Not again! I can't take it! Not again!"

I kept right on walking.

Phillip glanced over his shoulder. "You should be happy," he murmured. "McAllister is leaning against the doorframe and clutching his chest like he's about to have a heart attack."

I snorted. "He'd have to have a heart first."

Phillip grinned, but he kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye. "I know why you told him no," he said. "But don't make this about me. McAllister's not the one who shot me."

"No, but he set up the whole art heist, and you got hurt as a result of his plan. Not to mention the innocent people who died just because he wanted to hide the fact that he was embezzling from Mab's estate and didn't want Madeline to find out about it. That makes him responsible for the whole shebang. And now he wants a get-out-of-Ashland-free card for all of that? For some tenuous information about Tucker that probably won't tell me anything that I don't already know about the vampire? No-no way."

Phillip didn't say anything else as we crossed the lawn, and the only sound was the crunching of the ice-coated gra.s.s under our boots. After the warmth and light of McAllister's office, the night seemed colder and blacker than before. The drizzle picked up again, turning into more of a steady, icy rain, and our breaths hovered around us in chilly clouds. Or maybe it was just my own sense of failure that made everything feel dark, dreary, and desolate.

Phillip had shot through the lock on the iron gate and shoved it open on his way into the mansion, so we stopped at the entrance and looked up and down the street. But there was no sign of Fedora, the giants, or the SUV, and all the neighboring houses were still dark. No one had heard the gunshots or seen us skulking around. Good. One less headache to deal with tonight.

Phillip and I hurried down the street and slid inside my van. I cranked the engine, turning the heat up as hot as it would go, but the warm air did little to dispel the frigid despair and weariness that filled my body.

"So now what?" Phillip asked. "You're not really going to leave McAllister out here all by himself, are you?"

I looked over at Phillip.

He held up his gloved hands."Don't get me wrong. Being murdered in his own home couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Frankly, I'd like to strangle him to death with my bare hands for what he put Eva, Owen, and everyone else through that night at Briartop."

"But?"

"But I know how important finding out about this Circle is to you, and especially learning the truth about what your mom was involved in. I would feel the same way, if it were me." Phillip drew in a breath and slowly let it out. "I've always felt the same way about my own parents. I looked for them for years, but never got anywhere. It took me a long time to accept the fact that they were probably dead. Or just didn't care enough to try to find me themselves."

He growled out the last few words, but I could still hear the hurt in his voice. His shoulders slumped, and his body seemed to deflate, like air slowly leaking out of a balloon. He stared out the windshield instead of looking at me, but a muscle in his jaw ticked, as if he were grinding his teeth to keep from showing any more emotion. Something that I had more than a little experience with, especially these past few weeks.

Phillip had been abandoned as a toddler and had grown up in some bad foster-care situations before finally running away and living on the streets. That's where he'd met Owen and Eva, and the three of them had formed their own family, along with Cooper Stills, Owen's blacksmith mentor. Phillip didn't know anything about his parents, although he thought that one of them must have been a giant and the other a dwarf, given his own enormous strength.

I reached over and squeezed his gloved hand with my own, telling him that I understood his pain, anger, and frustration. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, squeezed my hand back, and slipped his fingers out of mine.

"Enough of that," he said, his voice a little lighter than before. "Wouldn't want Owen to get jealous."

"Someone has a rather high opinion of himself."

"Always." Phillip grinned at my teasing, then jerked his head at the mansion again. "But what are you going to do about McAllister? If Tucker and the rest of the Circle want him dead, then he has to know something about them, right? Maybe he just doesn't realize that he does."

The thought of what the slimy lawyer might or might not know sent little spikes of pain shooting through my temples. I rubbed my aching head. "I don't know. I just don't know anymore. Maybe McAllister knows something, maybe he doesn't. Maybe Tucker just wants McAllister dead to prove a point. To prove that he can reach out and kill me and anyone else he likes anytime he wants to."

"But?" This time, Phillip asked the question.

"But you're right. I have to do something about him, as much as it pains me."

I sighed, pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket, and hit a number in the speed dial. He answered on the first ring, as though he'd been sitting by his own phone, waiting for my call. He probably had been. He was annoyingly efficient that way.

"Yes, Gin?" the smooth voice of Silvio Sanchez, my personal a.s.sistant, filled my ear. "I take it that something happened with Jonah McAllister."

I glanced over at the mansion. McAllister had disappeared back inside, shut the patio doors behind him, and cut off all the lights, as if that would keep him safe.

"You might say that. Someone tried to kill him."

Through the phone, I could hear Silvio pounding away on his keyboard. Even though it was after nine o'clock, he was still busy working, although I had no idea what or why he was typing right now. Most sane people would have been sprawled across the couch, watching TV or reading a good book, but the vamp was always available and always on his computer, no matter how late I called.

"Hmm," Silvio murmured. "Well, that's not an entirely unexpected development. You thought that the Circle might come after him to keep him quiet."

"I don't think that he actually knows anything about them," I said. "That's the real problem."

I filled the vampire in on everything that had happened, including Fedora's a.s.sa.s.sination attempt on the lawyer.

When I finished, Silvio kept typing for several more seconds before finally stopping. "I've made a note to see if Bria and Xavier can get me the traffic-camera footage from the area in the morning. Perhaps we can at least get a license plate on the SUV they were driving."

"I applaud your efforts, but I'm not holding my breath."

Detective Bria Coolidge, my baby sister, and Xavier, her partner on the force, had been helping me with my search for the Circle, especially Bria, who wanted answers about our mother just as badly as I did. Over the past few weeks, Bria and Xavier had scoured all sorts of police databases, trying to find info on Tucker and anyone he might be a.s.sociated with. But so far, the two cops had come up empty, just like me, Silvio, and the rest of our friends.

"So what do you want to do about McAllister, Gin?" Silvio asked. "There are any number of options available to you."

He was right. Since I was the head of the underworld, I could do anything I wanted to with Jonah McAllister, from going back inside his mansion and killing him myself, to having any number of underworld flunkies do it for me, to simply leaving the lawyer to simmer in his own fear, paranoia, and misery the way I had been for the last several months now.

That was the real kicker, the brutal, bitter irony of this whole situation. Everyone thought that I was the big boss, that I was the head honcho, that I was the one in charge, but I knew the dark, dirty truth. That I was just a front man, just a puppet, just a convenient prop for the Circle to hide behind while they merrily continued on with their own machinations behind the scenes. I'd told Tucker that I would never, ever work for the group the way that Mab had, but the Circle was still using me all the same. The thought further soured my mood.

"Gin?" Silvio asked again. "What do you want to do about McAllister?"

I looked back at the mansion, which was as dark and silent as all the others on the street now. No doubt Jonah was still wide-awake, though, hiding in a closet somewhere and clutching a gun. The lawyer was probably still wearing his garish Christmas sweater and silverstone vest, desperately hoping that Fedora wouldn't come back and finish him off.

I doubted that she'd be back tonight since she thought that she'd already killed him, but she would come back, and I had to prepare for that. If McAllister did know something about the Circle, something he might not even realize that he knew, then I wanted another chance to pry it out of him.

Oh, I didn't think that I could stop Fedora from killing McAllister if she was truly determined to do it. I couldn't watch or protect him 24-7, not even if I dragged him kicking and screaming to a safe house somewhere. But even if Fedora did succeed in offing the lawyer, then maybe I could at least learn more about her, which might lead me back to Tucker and the rest of the Circle. At this point, I'd take whatever bread crumbs I could get.

"Gin?" Silvio asked for a third time.

"Call Jade Jamison and ask if she can spare a couple of folks who work out in this neighborhood to keep an eye on McAllister. She probably already has some cooking, cleaning, and other people in the mansions out here, especially this time of year."

Jade Jamison was an underworld figure who ran a variety of cleaning and other service businesses throughout Ashland. In this neighborhood, cooks, housekeepers, gardeners, and even security guards would be as invisible as holiday snowmen, and no one would give them a second look. Not McAllister and hopefully not Fedora, when or if she came back to try to kill him again.

"But tell Jade that I only want her folks to watch McAllister," I added. "I don't want any of them trying to save him if he gets attacked again by Fedora or someone else. He's not worth their lives, and neither is any information that he might or might not have."

"Roger that." Silvio started typing again. "Anything else?"

"Nah. Although this can all wait until morning. You should go to bed. Get some rest."

"Mmm-hmm." The vampire started typing even faster than before, completely ignoring my suggestion.

I sighed, knowing that I couldn't stop him from calling Jade the second we hung up. Silvio didn't like to procrastinate about anything, not even for a few hours. It was one of the things that made him such a great a.s.sistant, even if it sometimes annoyed me.

"I'll see you at the restaurant in the morning," I said, giving in to the inevitable.

"Of course. And I'll have an update for you first thing. See you then."

We both hung up, and I looked over at Phillip.

He frowned at me. "Eyes only on Jonah? That's not your usual style. I'm surprised that you're not storming back in there right now and asking him some more pointed questions with your knife at his throat."

Maybe that's what I should have done, but I just didn't have the energy to be intimidating tonight. Not when the Circle had already outsmarted me again. Besides, I wouldn't trust a word that McAllister said right now, and there was no way to be sure how much he would try to play me just to keep on breathing.

"What can I say?" I drawled. "It's a Christmas miracle."

Phillip laughed as I put the van in gear and drove away into the cold, icy night.

3.

I dropped Phillip off at the dock to the Delta Queen, his home and riverboat casino, then drove along the river until I reached a paved lot that fronted a small park and a wooded area. I pulled in there and stopped, peering out the windows.

I was only a few miles away from the Delta Queen, but I might as well have driven to the moon, given the startling differences. Instead of a gleaming white riverboat, high-end shops, and gourmet restaurants, abandoned buildings, cracked sidewalks, and busted-out streetlights dotted the landscape. I was squarely in Southtown now, the part of Ashland that was home to gangs, hustlers, and other violent, dangerous folks.

Normally, I would have expected to see a couple of homeless guys huddled over the trash cans at either end of the parking lot, burning the garbage inside to stay warm. But it was too wet and cold for that tonight, so the area was completely deserted. Good. I didn't want anyone to see me or especially to realize where I was going.

Silvio could-and did-track my phone, so I turned it off and left it in my car, which the vamp could also track, thanks to the GPS locator he'd hooked to the undercarriage. He might be home working, but I had no doubt that Silvio was checking his phone every so often, just to see where I was. I admired the vampire's efficiency and dedication, but knowing that he could keep tabs on me so easily creeped me out a little. Besides, a girl had to keep some secrets to herself.

Especially when it came to the Circle.

I got out of my car. It had finally stopped raining, but the ice acc.u.mulations made the air even colder than before, so I pulled up my jacket collar, yanked down my toboggan, and stuck my gloved hands into my coat pockets, trying to seal in all my body heat. That worked for about five seconds, then the first gust of wind slapped me across the face and sliced through all my many layers of clothes. I shivered, put my head down, and started walking.

I left the parking lot behind and headed over to a winding path that ran along the river. During the warmer months, the wooded area was popular with walkers, joggers, and cyclists, but no one in their right mind would be out here tonight, given the weather. Then again, I was rarely in my right mind, according to Phillip, Silvio, and the rest of my friends.

The path was covered with ice, so I walked through the gra.s.s to the side, judging that to be safer. I kept an eye out, but everyone had taken what shelter they could find for the night, and I was the only person hurrying through the dark.

It took me about thirty minutes to reach the end of the path, which fed into another small, wooded park. I stood in the shadows of a weeping willow, scanning this area as well, but it was also deserted. So I trudged through the piles of wet, slick leaves and over to the ten-foot chain-link fence that cordoned off the park from the industrial area next door.

Despite the ice that crusted the metal, I easily scaled the fence, swinging my legs up and over the top, and dropping down to the other side. I crouched in the shadows, just in case anyone was on this side of the fence, but I was as alone as before, so I straightened up and darted forward.

I sprinted across a hundred feet of open s.p.a.ce until I reached a large metal container, the first of many housed in this sprawling shipping yard. I plastered myself up against the side of the container, looking in all directions, but no one appeared, and no shouts broke the cold quiet. No one had seen my initial trespa.s.sing, so I felt safe enough to keep going.

I rounded the far end of that container only to be greeted by hundreds more, all stacked on top of each other in neat rows. During the day, the metal boxes would have shown their true colors of dull, rusty reds, yellows, and oranges, but they were all a washed-out gray in the semidarkness. Lights had been rigged up throughout the shipping yard to deter trespa.s.sers like me, but they cast more shadows than they banished, and I was easily able to move from one pool of darkness to the next. In the distance, I could hear the steady rush of the Aneirin River, but that was the only sound that echoed through the night.

I moved through the area until I reached the end of the container maze, then stopped. More open s.p.a.ce stretched out in front of me, leading to a large warehouse in the center of the shipping yard. Lights blazed in the warehouse, and I spotted a giant guard sitting in a small wooden shack by one of the loading-dock doors. He was as bundled up as I was and seemed to be watching something on his phone, although he did glance around every minute or so, checking on things.

I looked around, but I didn't see any more guards, so I slipped back into the container maze, moving through the rows until I came to a lone container set off by itself underneath a large maple tree. This container was battered and dented in several places, as though it had been dropped on its sides more than once, and looked to be abandoned, a discarded piece of junk that the workers hadn't yet gotten around to taking to the sc.r.a.p yard.

I sidled up to the container, crouched down, and reached for my Stone magic, examining and listening to all the rocks that I'd strategically placed around the container. The rocks were in the same places as before, and they only whispered back to me about the cold, along with faint, steady rumbles from all the cranes, forklifts, and other heavy machinery that moved through the area daily. No dark mutters of malice or murder rippled back to me, which meant that no one had been near the container since the last time I'd been here a few days ago. Good. I got to my feet, pulled a key out of my jacket pocket, opened the padlock, and slipped into the container, pulling the door shut behind me.

The inside of the container was pitch-black, but I moved along the wall until I came to a small table. I pulled off my gloves, reached down, and flipped the switch on the battery-powered lantern that I'd brought in here several days ago, along with some other supplies.

Light flooded the inside of the container, and I blinked several times, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the sudden, harsh glare. Instead of being barren, the inside of the container featured a couple of tables, several chairs, and a metal rack with a bottle of gin and some plastic cups perched on the shelves. All put together, it looked as though some homeless person had wandered in here and made this place his new home.

In a way, that's exactly what I'd done.

According to Hugh Tucker, the Circle knew all about me, which meant that they knew about the Pork Pit, Fletcher's house, and where the rest of my friends lived and worked. They might even know about the various safe houses that I used around Ashland from time to time. So I'd wanted some place that they couldn't possibly know about, some place new, some place secure, some place where I could sit, think, and compile all the information that I had on them. I'd stumbled across this container several days ago. Since I'd killed Dimitri Barkov, the previous owner of the shipping yard, this had seemed like a perfect spot to make my supersecret Circle headquarters.

It wasn't any warmer in here than it was outside, and my breath frosted in the air, but at least the thick metal walls blocked the wind. I could have turned on the small heater that was sitting next to one of the tables, but I decided not to. Maybe being cold and uncomfortable would motivate me to figure out the answers to all my questions. Worth a shot, anyway.

I switched on a few more lanterns, then turned my attention to the large dry-erase board that was pushed up against one of the walls. I'd gotten the idea from Bria, who'd had something similar in her house back when she'd first returned to Ashland and had been trying to find me, as well as take down Mab Monroe. She'd had photos, papers, and more tacked up to her board, a visual display of all the leads she was running down.

But my board was depressingly empty.

Oh, it had a photo of Hugh Tucker, and underneath that I'd written the few facts I knew about the vampire. But that was all the concrete information I had. The rest of the board was covered with questions.

Oh, the questions.

Who belongs to the Circle? Number of members? Are they only in Ashland? Who's the leader? What's the power structure? What illegal activities are they involved in?

The questions went on and on, all scribbled in my horrible handwriting. According to Tucker, the Circle had let Mab be the head of the underworld so that all the other criminals would focus solely on her. So I was guessing that all the tribute-all the money-from the bosses' activities had flowed through Mab to the Circle on the sly. I wondered how much that missing income stream was hurting the group. Probably not much, if they were as rich and powerful as Tucker claimed, but I had no way to know for sure. Only one thing was certain-Mab had only been one head on this monstrous hydra, and I'd have to cut off all the others to finally kill the Circle for good.

I stalked back and forth in front of the board, looking at all the questions in turn, and ma.s.saging the cold, aching scars embedded deep in my palms-each one a circle surrounded by eight thin rays. Spider runes, the symbols for patience-something that I was in short supply of these days.

My fingers crept up to the ring on my right hand, which was also embossed with my spider rune, and I twisted it around a few times before grabbing the spider-rune pendant around my neck and sliding it back and forth on its chain. The silverstone ring and pendant both pulsed with my Ice and Stone magic that was stored in the metal, but all my elemental power hadn't helped me solve the riddle of the Circle.

The more I looked at the questions, the more depressed I became. But the fidgeting certainly wasn't helping anything, so I dropped my necklace, stepped forward, and grabbed a dry-erase marker from the shelf that ran along the bottom of the board.

I made a new box on the board and drew a crude hat in it. Fedora, I wrote under the box. a.s.sa.s.sin. Acrobatic. Good with guns.

And . . . and . . . and that was all that I knew about her. Those were the sum total of facts I had about the woman. Once again, I cursed myself for not being faster, stronger, smarter. For not being able to at least capture and question her.

As an a.s.sa.s.sin, information was key. Who your target was, where he lived, the number of bodyguards he had, his family, friends, pets, habits, even his hobbies. All of that was important and useful in planning a hit on someone. But I didn't have any of that when it came to the Circle.

I didn't have anything.

I glared at the stupid hat I'd drawn, more disgusted than ever before. Part of me wanted to swipe my marker across it and the rest of the board, until I'd blotted out Fedora, Tucker, and all my d.a.m.n questions. But that would have been childish, and I would just have had to erase everything and start all over again.

I still drew devil horns on top of Tucker's head, though. Just because I could. I put them on top of the hat too.

It actually made me feel a little bit better, and I stared at the board, wondering how else I could mark up Tucker's photo- Creak.

I whipped around to the container door. That sounded like someone had taken hold of the handle and tried to yank the door open but hadn't quite succeeded, given how thick and heavy the metal was.

Creak.