Finn leaned against the front door, reading a newspaper. The dead guard lay where I’d placed him. Finn had a foot propped up on the guy’s bloody back, which meant he’d already gone around the house and killed the last man. He wouldn’t have been standing there otherwise. I shook my head and straightened.
“Come on,” I told Caine. “The coast is clear.”
We went downstairs. Finn didn’t look up as the wood creaked and cracked under our weight. I snatched the newspaper out of his hands and tossed it aside.
“Hey,” he protested. “I was reading that.”
“Now you’re not.”
I stepped back so Finn and Caine could have a clear view of each other.
“Donovan Caine, this is my associate, Finnegan Lane. And vice versa.”
The two men stared at each other. Caine looked at Finn’s supple leather jacket, designer khakis, and custom-made polo shirt. Finn eyed the detective’s ratty duffel bag, the threadbare patches on his jeans, and the stains on his faded boots. Assumptions were made, judgments rendered, dicks measured.
After about twenty seconds of intense scrutiny, Finn stuck out his hand. Caine just looked at it, with his flat, deadpan, cop stare.
“Not a hand shaker, eh? Too bad.” Finn dropped his hand.
“The rear guard?” I asked.
“Dispatched, of course.”
Finn didn’t have much use for knives, but whenever he backed me up on jobs, he always carried a couple of guns with him. Usually a silencer as well, which is probably why I hadn’t heard him take out the rear guard. Among his many character quirks, Finnegan Lane happened to be an excellent shot.
He gestured at the dead man at his feet. “I take it all the others wound up like this one, Gin?”
“Of course.”
Finn grinned at me. “Touché.”
Donovan Caine stared at me. “Gin? Is that your real name?”
I realized I’d never told the detective my name, just my assassin moniker, the Spider. But he was going to have to call me something, since we were going to be working together, and it was too late now to concoct some sort of alias. “More or less.”
“Gin?” Caine asked again.
“Yeah, like the liquor.”
“Gin.” Caine said the word carefully this time, as though it were a fine wine he was tasting on his tongue, instead of a bastardized version of my real name. “It suits you.”
Despite the situation, I found his slow drawl low, warm, and inviting. “Glad you think so. Now let’s go.”
We skulked down the hill through the yard. The party next door was still going strong, although the radio now blared out “Free Bird.” A few more frat boys had stumbled outside and were sleeping off their drunken stupors on the lawn. Nobody appeared to have heard the gunshots or the sound of five men dying in and around Donovan Caine’s cabin. The southern rock music was so loud and twangy, I doubted anyone on the whole street could hear themselves think. Noisy neighbors. A blessing in disguise sometimes.
We reached the SUV. Finn got into the driver’s seat, while I slid into the passenger’s side. Donovan Caine paused, staring into the dark depths of the vehicle. He pulled in a breath, opened the door, and climbed into the backseat. He hesitated again and let out the same breath before he shut the door. No going back. That’s what he had to be thinking right now. Also short for what the fuck am I doing getting into an assassin’s car?
But the detective seemed to be sticking with his decision. With our truce. He pushed his bag down onto the floorboard and buckled his seat belt. The sharp snap reminded me of handcuffs clinking together.
“Now what?” Caine asked.
I turned to answer him and saw a pair of headlights headed down the street toward us. “Duck. Here they come.”
We scooted down in our seats until the vehicle passed. Another luxury sedan. It stopped next to the one parked at the bottom of Donovan Caine’s driveway.
“Are those more of our new friends?” Finn mocked. “They’re a little late for the party. I hate how we just keep missing them.”
“Let’s find out,” I said.
I picked up the night-vision goggles and peered through them. The driver’s side door opened, and the interior light winked on, showing me three guys. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy, not disabling that. I recognized two of the men. Charles Carlyle, the vampire who’d hit on coeds outside the Cake Walk today, and his friend who’d been reading the newspaper. Didn’t know the third guy, but he was dressed in a suit just like the other two.
“Three more goons,” I murmured.
The men got out of the sedan and talked to each other over the broad hood. A fourth figure remained shrouded in darkness in the backseat. My eyes narrowed, and the cold knot of rage in my chest tightened into a noose.
Get out, I thought. Get out and show yourself, you sadistic bitch.
“What about the Air elemental?” Donovan Caine asked. His breath brushed against my cheek.
“She’s sitting in the backseat,” I replied.
The leather-bound steering wheel creaked under Finn’s hands. “The one who—”
“Yes.”
I cut Finn off before he could say anything about Fletcher. Finn glared at me, but he pressed his lips together.
I kept watching. Carlyle went around to the back of the vehicle and opened the door. He held out his hand, and the woman took it and stepped up and away from the sedan, as though she were some debutante exiting her limo at her coming-out party. Pretentious bitch.
“Damn it,” I cursed. “She’s on the far side of the car with her back to me, and she’s wearing a long, black cloak. Who the fuck wears a cloak? This isn’t Dungeons & Dragons. The hood’s up. I can’t see a thing. Not her face, not her hair, not even her clothes. Nothing.”
The steering wheel creaked again. “We could take her out, right here, right now,” Finn said. “They won’t be expecting us. They won’t be expecting you.”
“No. I’m not taking on the elemental. Not tonight. She’d kill us all. And I’m not letting that happen to you.”
“But—”
“No, Finn,” I snapped. “Listen to me. You might think you know what an elemental can do, but you don’t. No matter what picture you saw. You don’t have a clue how vicious their magic can be. But I do.”
The image of Fletcher’s body flashed through my mind, followed by the burned, smoldering remains of my mother and older sister. The familiar grief pressed down on my lungs, trying to smother me. The spider runes on my hands itched, as though they were the real creatures wiggling underneath my scarred flesh, instead of just ghastly memories.
Donovan Caine’s hazel eyes flicked back and forth between us.
“But—”
Finn never got to finish his sentence. A gust of wind ripped out from the cabin, whistling like the swing of a death scythe. The blast of air flattened all the stunted pine trees in the yard before sweeping down the hill and rushing down the street like a miniature tornado. Trash cans overturned. Mailboxes ripped up out of the ground. One poor cat got picked up by the wind and tossed against the side of a pickup truck. It didn’t get back up.
The Air elemental had found the first body crumpled by the front door, and she wasn’t happy about it.
I squinted into the goggles, trying to get a glimpse of her face. The hood cast her face in shadow, but she’d pushed back the sleeves of her cloak. The ends of her fingers burned milky white with magic, as if each digit were an individual welder’s torch. The sort of concentrated power that would cause excruciating pain. The sort of magic that could strip flesh from bone. The sort of torture Fletcher had endured.