Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies (12 page)

I let Finn take Violet’s weight so I could pull open the screen door that fronted a heavier wooden one. Then I picked up the knocker and banged it on the interior door.

The knocker was shaped like a thick, puffy cloud—Jo-Jo’s personal Air elemental rune.

I’d barely set the cloud rune back against the wood when the door wrenched open, and a woman stuck her head outside. Jo-Jo Deveraux looked like she’d planned on staying in for the evening. A short-sleeved, striped pink housecoat covered her stocky, muscular figure, while her bleached blond-white hair was done up in pink sponge curlers. Some sort of blue mud mask covered her face, and a pedicure pad held her toes out wide. She must have just painted her toenails, because the bright pink polish gleamed like it was still wet.

“About time you got here,” the middle-aged dwarf said. “I’ve been pacing back and forth in front of the door for five minutes now.”

“Why? Weren’t there any parties or dinners on the society circuit tonight?” I asked, taking in the housecoat and curlers.

“Oh, there was a party or two,” Jo-Jo drawled in a voice sweeter than clover honey. “But these old bones ain’t as young as they used to be. Rain makes ’em ache. Besides, even I need a night off from the bullshit circuit every once in a while.”

“Ahem.”

Finn cleared his throat, his way of telling me to get down to business and that he was tired of propping up Violet Fox. Jo-Jo’s pale gaze cut to the girl. Except for the pinprick of black at their center, the dwarf ’s eyes were almost colorless, like two cloudy pieces of quartz.

“Hell’s bells and panther trails,” Jo-Jo said in a soft tone. “What happened to her?”

“She got on the wrong end of a dwarf ’s fist—twice,” I said, shouldering part of Violet’s weight again. “Think you can fix her?”

Jo-Jo studied the girl a moment more, then nodded.

“Darling, I can fix anything short of death. But this one ain’t going to be pretty.”

9

Jo-Jo stepped aside so Finn and I could drag the unconscious Violet Fox into the house. The sweet smell of Jo-Jo’s Chantilly perfume ticked my nose as we walked through a narrow hallway. A hundred feet later, the skinny corridor opened up into an enormous room that took up the back half of the house.

Padded chairs. Hair dryers. Counters crammed full of hairspray, nail polish, makeup, scissors, rollers, curling irons. A long mirror that ran down one wall. Towering stacks of beauty magazines. Photos of various hairstyles taped up everywhere. All that and more could be found in Jo-Jo’s beauty salon, the place where the Air elemental used her magic as a self-proclaimed
drama mama
—someone who catered to the endless vanity of Southern women.

Debutantes, pageant contestants, bored trophy wives.

Jo-Jo served them all in a variety of ways. Perms, cuts, dye jobs, waxes, manicures, pedicures. If it had anything at all to do with beauty or making a woman’s hair twice as big, tall, and hard as her head, Jo-Jo did it in her salon.

And then some. Air elemental magic was also terrific for fixing unwanted frown lines or putting someone’s boobs back up to where they’d been ten years ago—temporarily, at least.

Of course, turning back the clock wasn’t the only thing Jo-Jo did with her Air magic. The dwarf was also one of the best healers in Ashland. Hell, the whole South. Few people knew about her talents in that particular area, but Fletcher Lane had been one of Jo-Jo’s oldest friends, and I’d inherited her, along with Sophia, when I’d taken over his assassin business. One sister to heal me, the other to get rid of the bodies I left behind. A nice arrangement.

Despite the sisters’ hefty fees.

“Put her in one of the chairs,” Jo-Jo directed before going over to the sink to wash her hands.

Finn and I hauled Violet Fox over to one of the swivel, cherry-red salon chairs. Then Finn grabbed a bottle of nail glue off the counter, pulled Violet’s broken glasses out of his jacket pocket, and used the bonding solution to put the two pieces back together. I lifted Violet’s purse from around her neck, perched on a stool a few feet away, and started going through it. Wallet, keys, breath mints, loose change, eyedrops, a compact. Nothing unusual or exciting.

A soft whine sounded in the corner. I looked over to see Rosco, Jo-Jo’s fat, lazy basset hound, curled up in his wicker basket by the door. The old dog eyed the purse in my hands. His tail thumped once with hope.

“Sorry, dog,” I said. “Nothing in here for you.”

Rosco huffed in indignation, then dropped his brown-and-black head down on top of his tubby stomach and went back to sleep. His favorite pasttime, other than eating.

Jo-Jo pulled a chair over to Violet, clicked on a light, and gently unwound my T-shirt strips from her face. The damage looked more garish underneath the white fluorescent glow. The swelling had already set in, and Violet’s face had puffed up to twice its normal size. Black and green and purple streaked out from her disjointed nose and sliced across her cheeks—what I could see of them underneath the dried blood.

“Hell’s bells,” the dwarf muttered again. “You said he only hit her twice?”

“Yeah,” Finn said, holding the broken glasses together until the glue dried. “But he made them both count.”

Jo-Jo shook her head. “Well, let’s hope the poor girl remains unconscious for the next little bit. Because putting her face back the way it’s supposed to be is going to be just as painful as what he did to her in the first place. No need to traumatize her more than she’s already been tonight.”

Jo-Jo examined Violet’s face another minute before she went to work. She drew in a deep breath and held her hand in front of the girl’s ruined features. Her palm hovered just above Violet’s skin. A second later, the dwarf ’s eyes began to glow an opaque white, as though thick clouds wisped through her bright gaze. A similar buttermilk-colored glow coated her open palm. Jo-Jo brought even more of her power to bear, until I could feel it crackling through the salon like static electricity, just itching to zap me. I scooted my stool back another foot from the dwarf.

Of the four elements, two were opposites, and two were complementary. Fire and Ice didn’t go together, but Fire and Air did, just like Stone was the natural companion to Ice. Each element also had various offshoots, like metal for Stone, water for Ice, and electricity for Air, that some folks could tap into. Jo-Jo Deveraux was an Air elemental, which meant her magic was the exact opposite of my cool Stone and Ice power. Being in the presence of someone using so much of an opposing element always made me twitchy and unsettled. Jo-Jo’s power just felt wrong to me, as would any Air or Fire elemental’s magic.

Just like my Stone and Ice power would seem foreign to them.

But the worst part was the spider rune scars on my palms. As Jo-Jo brought even more of her power to bear, the silverstone metal embedded in my skin began to itch and burn. Silverstone was a very rare metal, with the unusual property of being able to absorb and store all kinds of magic. Many elementals wore runes made out of silverstone and used them to contain bits and pieces of their power that they could use when needed. Sort of like magical batteries. My mother, Eira, had used her snowflake rune that way, although it hadn’t saved her in the end.

But silverstone not only absorbed the magic—it hungered for it, as though the metal was hollow and eager, aching even, for elemental power to fill it up and make it whole. I could feel the silverstone’s desire for more magic, for more power, even though the skin on my palms had long ago grown over the metal that had been melted into my hands. I curled my fingers around Violet’s purse, hoping the imitation leather would shield my hands enough to block the burning sensations in my palms. Didn’t work. Never did. So I sat there and watched Jo-Jo.

The dwarf slowly passed her palm over Violet Fox’s face. Air elementals made great healers because of their ability to tap into and use all the natural gases in the air—including oxygen. Right now, Jo-Jo was using her magic to force oxygen into Violet’s body, making it circulate under the skin of her face, using the air molecules to heal what had been so viciously broken.

Again and again, Jo-Jo moved her hand over Violet’s face. Every time she did, the girl’s nose got a little straighter, her jaw a little squarer. The swelling eased, and the nasty streaks of color faded from Violet’s cheeks.

Watching Jo-Jo work always reminded me of a book I’d had as a child. One that featured a cartoon character. If you looked at the pages one at a time, the character didn’t move. But if you flipped through the sheets fast enough, he’d walk from one side of the paper to the other.

Ten minutes later, Jo-Jo dropped her hand. Her eyes dimmed and lost their milky, magical glow. So did her palm. “There,” the dwarf said in a low voice. “It’s done.”

“He also kicked her once,” I said. “In the stomach.”

Jo-Jo nodded. “He bruised her kidneys bad, but I fixed that too.”

The dwarf got to her feet, wet a washcloth in the sink, and used it to wipe the blood off Violet’s face. The girl didn’t stir. She hadn’t made a sound the whole time Jo-Jo was working on her. Not surprising. Her body had gone through a serious trauma. She’d probably sleep for at least an hour, maybe longer. Being healed by magic always took a lot out of a person, as the body tried to adjust from being injured to suddenly being well again. And using as much magic as Jo-Jo just had would wipe out all but the strongest elementals.

That was one reason I tried not to rely on my magic too much, tried not to use it for big things. I didn’t like being left weak and helpless afterward, even if I had retired from the assassin business.

Jo-Jo finished cleaning up Violet and threw the bloody rag into the trash can. Finn slipped Violet’s glued together glasses on her face. Then he leaned back and gave her an appreciative glance.

“She cleaned up good, didn’t she?” he said in an admiring tone.

“She’s unconscious, Finn. At least have the decency to leer at her when she’s awake,” I said.

Finn laced his hands behind his head and grinned. “I’ll be sure and do just that.”

Jo-Jo washed her hands again in the sink. She grabbed another rag to dry them off, then turned to me. “Now,” the dwarf drawled. “You want to tell me who this girl is, and why someone was beating her?”

I filled Jo-Jo in on everything that had happened the last twenty-four hours, starting with Sophia and I foiling Jake McAllister’s attempted holdup of the Pork Pit, to Violet Fox coming in and asking for the Tin Man, to the shooting, to Finn and I tracking her down and saving her from the dwarven hit man.

“So that’s where Sophia went in such a hurry,” Jo-Jo murmured. “I thought it was strange she wanted to leave before the end.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“We were watching a western.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
with Clint Eastwood. Sophia hardly ever leaves before the big showdown at the end,” Jo-Jo explained.

“Her favorite part is when Lee Van Cleef dies.”

Sophia Deveraux, the Goth girl dwarf, was also quite the movie buff. Westerns, action flicks, mob movies. She loved them all. The more violent they were, the better.

“Anyway,” I said, finishing my story. “We left the dwarf ’s body for Sophia to dispose of and brought the girl here. Once she’s awake, I plan on asking her some serious questions about Fletcher and where she heard the name
Tin Man
.”

Jo-Jo stared at the girl. A frown made the blue mud mask on her face crack. She hadn’t bothered to wipe it off yet. “She looks… familiar. What did you say her name was again?”

“Violet Elizabeth Fox.” I plucked the girl’s driver’s license out of her wallet and passed it to Jo-Jo.

The dwarf scanned the laminated card. Her frown deepened, and bits of blue mud flaked off her cheeks and settled on her pink housecoat. “She lives up on Ridgeline Hollow Road.”

“Do you know her?” Finn asked.

Jo-Jo shook her head. “No, but I’m pretty sure I know the crotchety old bastard who’s her grandfather.”

10

Finn and I looked at each other. “Grandfather?” we asked in unison.

Jo-Jo nodded. “Warren T. Fox, of the Ridgeline Hollow Foxes. The girl looks a fair bit like him in the face. I see it, now that the blood’s gone.”

“And who is this Warren T. Fox?” I asked.

“He used to be a friend of Fletcher’s,” the dwarf said.

“But they had a falling out a long time ago. Haven’t spoken since, to my knowledge.”

Jo-Jo stared at Violet, who was still unconscious in the chair. An emotion flickered in the dwarf ’s pale eyes. Regret.

I wondered why. Jo-Jo shook her head. More mud mask flaked off her face.

“C’mon,” the dwarf said. “Let’s make the poor girl comfortable, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

———

Since Jo-Jo was stronger than either Finn or me, she picked up Violet, carried the girl into the downstairs den, and arranged her on an overstuffed sofa. I pulled off Violet’s bloody jacket and shoes; then Jo-Jo covered her with a soft, warm quilt. The dwarf trudged into the downstairs bathroom to wash the blue mud off her face. I stepped through the doorway that led into the kitchen.

Most people went straight to Jo-Jo’s salon when they came to the house, but my favorite room had always been the kitchen. A skinny room with a rectangular butcher’s block table set in the middle surrounded by several tall stools. Appliances done in a variety of pastel shades ringed three walls, while the fourth opened up into the den where Violet Fox snoozed. Runelike clouds could be found everywhere, from the placemats on the table to the dish towels piled next to the sink to the fresco that covered the ceiling. When I was younger, I used to lie on the kitchen floor for hours and stare at the painting on the ceiling, pretending the clouds really were moving. One of the few childish fancies I’d allowed myself after the loss of my mother and older sister.

Finn was already in the kitchen, pouring himself a cup of chicory coffee. Jo-Jo always kept a pot on in case Fletcher dropped by. Now that the old man was gone, Finn drank his share—and then some. I breathed in, enjoying the warm, comforting caffeine fumes that always reminded me of Fletcher Lane. Then I went over to the refrigerator, pulled open the door, and peered inside.