“Don’t worry, Gin,” Bria said in a low voice, trying to reassure me. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
I just stared at my sister and the determination blazing in her blue eyes. If she only knew that I was the reason all this was happening in the first place. That I’d thumbed my nose at Jonah McAllister once too many times. That I was the Spider, the assassin who was going around killing Mab Monroe’s men. That I was the one with the Ice and Stone magic Mab had so desperately wanted to snuff out. That I was the reason why the rest of our family was dead. I wondered if Bria would be so eager to rescue me then. Probably not.
But I had a bad, bad feeling she was going to find out all that and more before the night was through.
Elektra LaFleur climbed into the limo and sat across from us. One of the giants was next to her, with the other two crowded in on either side of Bria and me. Elektra tapped on the roof of the car with her fist, and the limo pulled away from the curb.
Elektra regarded the two of us a moment before reaching into the small wet bar housed in the back of the limo. She pulled out a crystal glass and poured herself a couple of fingers’ worth of a pale blue liquor.
“Gin,” LaFleur said, toasting me, before taking a long pull on the cold drink.
I hoped she choked on it.
“Where are you taking us?” Bria demanded.
Elektra leaned back against the limo seat and smiled. “Somewhere nice and deserted where no one will hear you scream, detective.”
Bria didn’t say anything, but her eyes narrowed. Her whole body tensed, as though she was getting ready to launch herself across the seat at the other woman. I reached down and put a hand on her thigh, warning her. Bria’s head snapped around to me, and I gave a small shake of my head. No, I was telling her. Taking her on is suicide right now. Don’t do it. Don’t you dare. My sister frowned, but she seemed to get the message in my sharp gaze because her body relaxed the slightest bit.
“Aw,” Elektra pouted over the rim of her glass of gin. “I was really hoping that you’d be stupid enough to try something, detective. But don’t worry. I’m going to shock the fight right out of you, among other things.”
Bria opened her mouth, but before she could let out another angry retort, someone’s cell started chirping. LaFleur rolled her eyes, then dug in her coat pocket, pulling out a small silver phone.
“What!” she snapped into the receiver.
I couldn’t hear the voice on the other end, but it had to be Mab by the way that LaFleur suddenly straightened up in the black leather seat.
“I was just getting ready to call you with an update, Mab,” Elektra said, confirming my suspicion.
My lips tightened. Damn and double damn. If Elektra told Mab she had Bria and me, the Fire elemental would probably want to meet the assassin wherever she was taking us just so she could watch Bria’s death in person. Just so she could be sure it had actually happened this time. And then we’d both get dead — in a hurry.
I had to do something to prevent that from happening. Elektra and her giants would be hard enough to take out. I didn’t want to have to face Mab tonight too. Not when Bria was here in the line of fire with me.
“Minion,” I said in a mocking voice just loud enough for the other assassin to hear. “You’re nothing but Mab’s little minion and Jonah’s little bitch. Who are you going to roll over and open your legs for next, Elektra? One of the giants here?”
Bria frowned and stared at me, obviously wondering what I thought I was doing, antagonizing the other assassin. But I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Elektra had showed me her temper once before in the alley. It was the only real weakness I’d seen in her so far — one that I was desperately trying to exploit any way I could.
Elektra’s green eyes narrowed, and she regarded me for a long moment. Then she straightened up. “You know what, Mab? I’m getting rather tired of your constant need for updates. All you need to know is that I’m working on it. I’ll call you back when it’s done and not a second before.”
Then she snapped her cell phone shut and tossed it down onto the seat between her and the giant. A moment later, it started ringing again. Elektra regarded it with a venomous look.
“Aren’t you going to get that?” one of the giants rumbled. “Mab doesn’t like it when her calls get ignored. Trust me. I know. I had to have Air elemental skin grafts for a week after she got done with me.”
Elektra snorted. “Fuck what Mab wants. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m busy doing her dirty work right now. So she can wait. Unless you’d like to answer the phone and tell her yourself? Although I have to warn you, it will be the last thing you ever do. Because I don’t like it any more than Mab does when people disobey me.”
Lightning flickered in LaFleur’s green eyes, bringing the promise of death along with it. The giant swallowed and stared at the window. The phone rang five more times before Mab’s call went to voice mail. Elektra glared at it again before pouring herself some more gin.
I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. One problem solved.
Now I just had to figure out how to get my cuffs off, get Bria to safety, and kill LaFleur before Mab came looking for the other assassin.
All in a night’s work for the Spider.
25
We rode for about fifteen minutes, the limo twisting and turning through the downtown area like a large black beetle scuttling ever closer to its ultimate destination. Nobody said anything, but the giants kept their eyes on Bria and me the whole time, ready, willing, and eager to slap us around if one of us tried to do something stupid.
Now that we were captured and officially on the way to our deaths, LaFleur seemed to have lost interest in us. The other assassin drank more of her blue gin and stared out the window the whole time.
With every passing mile, I could feel Bria’s 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.