“Think you can sell it?” Donovan asked her.
Roslyn laughed. The delicate, pealing sound reminded me of wind chimes. “Oh honey, selling myself was what I did for years. So yeah, I think I can manage it. You just tell me what you want me to say. By the time I’m done, the angels will be crying.”
I believed her. Donovan did too, because he nodded his head.
“Well, it’s nice and tidy all the way around,” I said. “You think your superiors will believe that bizarre fairy tale?”
Caine shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t fucking care. That’s the story I’m sticking with. Plus, I have this.”
He held up the flash drive. The detective must have picked it up off the quarry floor while I was having my reunion with Finn.
“It’s all the proof I need,” Caine said. “I already used my cell phone to call it in. The first units will be here in ten minutes.”
I grimaced. “Time for us to go, then.”
“Time for you to go, then,” he agreed.
Finn looked back and forth between the two of us. “I’ll get the car.”
He trotted over to the vehicle. Roslyn followed him. I swayed back and forth for a moment before finding my balance once more. My eyes met Donovan Caine’s. Gray on gold.
“I suppose this is good-bye, then,” I said.
“It is. Don’t let me catch you again,” he said in a harsh tone. “I won’t be so generous next time.”
There was that confidence again. One of many things I found so appealing about the detective. I tipped my head. “Don’t worry, detective. I’m the Spider. I know how to stay hidden in the shadows, remember?”
Guilt and a touch of regret flashed in the detective’s eyes, although he kept his face hard and remote. I did the same, even though a knife of emotion twisted into my heart.
Finn and Roslyn said their good-byes, and the vampire went to stand by the detective. Finn pulled the stolen car over to me. Somehow, I stumbled forward and picked up my various knives and the remains of my ruined vest. Then I yanked open the car door. I fell into the cushioned seat and flopped around like a rag doll, all the strength gone from my body.
Finn stared at me. “Gin—”
“Not tonight, Finn. Not tonight. Drive,” I said. “Just drive.”
I put my head back against the seat and closed my eyes.
31
Finn drove me straight to Jo-Jo’s. This time he had to help me up to the porch while he banged the cloud-shaped rune knocker against the door.
The familiar, heavy footsteps sounded, and a moment later, Jo-Jo Deveraux threw open the door. Her eyes widened at the sight of my battered, blistered face.
“Ding-dong,” I said. “The bitch is dead.”
Jo-Jo just smiled.
“Are you sure you couldn’t have killed her sooner, Gin?” Finn asked. “Before she made your skin look like you had the worst case of chicken pox and poison ivy ever?”
“I don’t know,” I sniped. “Why don’t we rewind time and see how you would have fared against Alexis James’s Air magic?”
Finn cocked an eyebrow. Jo-Jo sat in front of me, but I glared over her head at him.
“Shush,” Jo-Jo said. The dwarf’s eyes glowed white with magic. “It’s harder to concentrate while you two are having one of your spats.”
Jo-Jo had spent the last hour pouring her magic into me. Unlike Finn’s previous wounds, most of mine had been caused by elemental magic, which meant they were harder to heal, despite Jo-Jo’s own strength and expertise. Magic was always harder to undo than it was to create in the first place.
The dwarf using so much of her magic on me at one time also hurt like hell. Even though I knew Jo-Jo would never harm me, my body felt like it was still back in the rock quarry being thrashed with Alexis James’s Air magic. Which is why Sofia Deveraux stood behind me, pinning my arms to my sides so I wouldn’t move or try to get up out of the padded chair before Jo-Jo was finished with me.
She sent another surge of her Air magic into my left arm, working on the bullet that was still lodged in there. I gritted my teeth and looked for something to focus on besides the way Jo-Jo’s power made the spider rune scars on my palms itch and burn — along with the rest of my body. My eyes latched onto Sophia’s hands. Despite the Goth dwarf’s love affair with black, pale, little-girl-pink polish covered her short fingernails.
“Nice color,” I said.
Sophia grunted her agreement and tightened her grip on me. I bit back a groan. I could have been pinned under a Mack truck, and it wouldn’t have felt as strong and solid as Sophia’s hands. No wonder she could throw dead bodies around like they were plastic dolls.
While Jo-Jo worked, Finn filled the dwarven sisters in on everything that had happened the past few days.
“So Alexis James actually thought she was going to dethrone Mab Monroe?” Jo-Jo asked. “She’s not the first one to think that way. Poor girl was really touched in the head, wasn’t she?”
“Stupid,” Sophia agreed in her raspy voice.
I thought of the pure, raw power Alexis James had possessed. Her desire to take on Mab for control of Ashland didn’t sound as far-fetched to me as it once had. But Alexis was dead now, and that was all that mattered.
After Jo-Jo fixed the damage, Sophia let go of my arms, and she and Finn moved into the kitchen to get something to eat. Jo-Jo got up, went over to the sink, and washed my blood off her hands. I stayed where I was in the padded chair, relaxing.
“You were wrong,” I said.
Jo-Jo wiped her hands off on a paper towel. “About what?”
“About nothing being able to penetrate my Stone magic. Alexis James’s Air power did.”
The dwarf shrugged. “You said yourself your concentration broke. Next time, you’ll know what to expect. Besides, you’re still young, Gin. You’re just now fully coming into your power.”
“But Alexis was stronger than I was,” I protested. “Her magic was stronger. I felt it. You saw what she did to me with it.”
Jo-Jo gave me a sly look. “If she was so strong, how come she’s rotting out in the quarry and you’re sitting here in my chair?”
I didn’t have an answer to that.
The dwarf chuckled. “Pure strength is one thing, darling, whether it’s magical or natural. It’ll only get you so far. But how you use what you’ve been given — that’s what really matters. When you figure that out, ain’t nobody going to be able to touch you. Not even me or Mab Monroe.”
Jo-Jo threw her paper towel away and started puttering around the salon. While she worked, I just sat there in the chair pondering her words — and the cold fear they raised in me.
The Alexis James story played out for the next week. To say it was a circus would have been to underestimate the rabid appetite of the Ashland media. Story after story flooded the airwaves and newspapers about James and the trail of bodies in her wake. Donovan Caine must have been a better liar than I’d given him credit for, because the detective placed the blame for everything on Alexis, and nobody seemed willing to contradict him.
Haley James might have, if she’d been able to. But her home burned to the ground with her in it the night after the incident at the rock quarry. Only the house’s stone foundation survived the blaze, along with a few of Haley’s teeth. Everything else was totally obliterated by the heat. The fire was ruled an accident, and the coroner said Haley probably died from smoke inhalation, since he didn’t actually have her body to autopsy. But I had no doubt Mab Monroe had paid Haley a visit for hiding Alexis’s activities from her. So the very thing Haley had feared came true after all. Irony. What a bitch.
Finn made his own discreet inquiries into the matter, reaching out to his various contacts. He wanted to know if Haley had spilled her guts to Mab, if she’d said anything to the Fire elemental about Fletcher, Finn, or me. About what we did or what the James sisters had hired us to do. But evidently, Haley had never gotten the chance. Rumor had it that Mab had been so enraged at Haley’s part in the embezzlement scheme that the Fire elemental had fried her on the spot. No questions asked. And with Alexis and the rest of her men dead, there was no one else to tell the tale. Which meant that Finn and I were safe from anyone else nosing around or blowing our cover to Mab.