“Now,” Elliot rumbled. “Do you want to reconsider what you know about Jake McAllister’s death? Maybe you have something new to add?”
“I don’t know anything about Jake’s death,” I mumbled through a mouthful of loose teeth. Blood spewed out of my split lips and cascaded down my navy fleece jacket. “I swear.” I made my voice as low, weak, and whipped as I could.
Jonah McAllister stepped forward and peered at me. Malicious glee shimmered in his brown gaze. “Keep hitting her. I want the bitch to suffer.”
Elliot Slater nodded and stepped back.
The giant spent another two minutes hitting me. More pain, more blood, more cracked ribs. As I coughed up another mouthful of coppery blood, it dawned on me that Slater just might beat me to death, right here in the middle of the campus quad. Jonah McAllister certainly wouldn’t have any objections to that. Damn. Looked like I was going to have to go for my knives, blast them with my elemental magic, and blow my cover after all, if I still had the strength to do that—
“Enough.”
A low voice floated out from somewhere deeper in the shadows. A soft, breathy sound that reminded me of pieces of silk wisping together. I knew that tone, that sultry cadence, knew exactly whom it belonged to. So did my inner psyche. Enemy, enemy, enemy, a little voice muttered in the back of my head. A strange, primal, elemental urge flooded my body, the desire to use my Stone and Ice magic to lash out and kill whoever and whatever was within striking distance.
Elliot Slater ignored the command and hit me again, adding to the pain that racked my body.
“I said enough.” The voice dropped to a low hiss that crackled with power, menace, and the promise of death.
Elliot froze, his hand pulled halfway back to hit me again.
“Let her go. Now.”
The two giants who’d had their hands clamped around my upper arms dropped me like I had the plague. I lay on the ground, my blood soaking into the frosty grass. Despite the pain, I managed to roll over onto my side. I also slid one of my silverstone knives out of my jacket pocket and palmed it. The weapon felt cold and comforting against the thick scar embedded in my palm.
Something rustled, and Mab Monroe stepped out of the shadows to my left.
The Fire elemental wore a long wool coat done in a dark forest green. Her red hair gleamed like polished copper, but her eyes were even blacker than the night sky. A bit of gold flashed around her pale throat in between the folds of her expensive coat.
I couldn’t see that well, given the stars still exploding in my vision, but I knew what the gold flash was. Mab Monroe never went anywhere without wearing her signature rune necklace. A large, circular ruby surrounded by several dozen wavy rays. From previous sightings, I knew the intricate diamond cutting on the gold would catch the meager light and make it seem as though the rays were actually flickering. Or perhaps my vision was just that screwed up at the moment.
Still, I knew what the rune was. A sunburst. The symbol for fire. Mab Monroe’s personal rune, used by her alone.
At the sight, the silverstone scars on my own palms started to itch and burn. Mab wasn’t the only one here with a rune. I had one too. A small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. A spider rune. The symbol for patience. The rune had once been a medallion I’d worn on a chain around my neck, until Mab had used her Fire elemental magic to superheat and burn the silverstone metal into my palms like it was a cattle brand. That’s how she’d tortured me the night she’d murdered my family. I was looking forward to returning the favor — someday soon.
Enemy, enemy, enemy; the little voice in the back of my head kept up its muttered chorus.
Mab Monroe walked over and stood beside Elliot Slater and Jonah McAllister. She glanced down at me with all the interest she might give a cockroach before she crushed it under the toe of her boot. Her dark eyes swallowed up the available light, the way a black hole might. I lay very, very still and tried to look like I was a mere inch away from death. Not much of a stretch tonight.
“I said enough, Jonah,” Mab said. “Or have you forgotten that you and Elliot work for me?”
After a moment, Elliot Slater stepped back and bowed his head in deference. The other two giants did the same. But Jonah McAllister was too angry to heed the hard edge in Mab’s breathy tone.
“This bitch made problems for my son, and I think she knows something about his death,” McAllister barked. “I want her to pay for that. I want her to die for that.”
Mab stared down at me again. “You’re letting your emotions cloud your judgment, Jonah. Ignoring the facts. It’s most unbecoming.”
“And what would those facts be?” McAllister demanded.
“That Ms. Blanco is just a woman, a mere, weak woman with no elemental magic or other notable strength or skills. Otherwise, I’m sure she would have used everything at her disposal to keep from being so viciously beaten tonight. She’s not the person you’re looking for, Jonah. More importantly, she’s not the woman I’m looking for.”
McAllister’s brown eyes glittered. “You and your obsession with that blond whore. Why can’t you accept the fact that she’s dead? Buried somewhere in that coal mine, just like Tobias Dawson and his two men were?”
Mab’s eyes grew even blacker. She reached for her Fire elemental magic, holding the power close to her like she might a lover. As an elemental myself, I could feel her magic, especially since she was consciously embracing it. Just the way Mab might have been able to sense my Stone and Ice magic, if I’d been stupid enough to actually reach for any of it.
Of course, I would have felt Mab’s magic anyway, since she was one of the elementals who constantly gave off waves of power. The Fire elemental literally leaked magic, the way water would drip from a faucet. Unlike me. As long as I didn’t draw upon my own elemental strength, didn’t use it in any offensive way, others couldn’t sense my power. A trait that had saved me more than once over the years.
Mab’s magic pricked my skin like hot, invisible needles, adding to my misery, but I stayed still, giving no indication I could sense it — or that I knew what they were talking about.
“I doubt that hooker was a real hooker, and they never found her body in the rubble of the collapsed mine,” Mab replied in a cold voice. “Until I see her body, she’s not dead. I’m going to find her, Jonah, and then we can both have our revenge. She killed Dawson, and she’s the one who killed your son. Not Ms. Blanco.”
They were talking about the night of Mab’s party, when I’d dressed up as a hooker to get close to Tobias Dawson, a greedy mine owner who was threatening some innocent people. Dawson was the one I was supposed to kill that night, but Jake McAllister had spotted me before I’d had a chance to do the hit. Mab had caught me in the bathroom a few minutes after I’d stabbed Jake to death. Evidently, the Fire elemental had put two and two together and realized that I’d stiffed Jake, then done the same to Tobias Dawson later on in his own mine. Not good.
“I agreed to this little test with the understanding that Ms. Blanco would live through it, should she prove herself to be innocent of your son’s murder,” Mab continued. “She’s done so, at least to my satisfaction. Nobody would willingly let herself be beaten the way she has.”
So Mab didn’t understand the concept of self-sacrifice. Not surprising. I might have laughed, if it wouldn’t have hurt so much. Still, I was doubly glad that I’d let Elliot Slater hit me. Otherwise, I would have been dead by now, ambushed from the sidelines by Mab and her elemental Fire magic.