Haints and Hobwebs: An Elemental Assassin Story

by Jennifer Estep

  “All right,” I said. “See what you can find out.”

  Finn toasted me with his coffee mug, downed the rest of his brew, and left to get started on his mission. On his way out the front door, Finn passed someone coming into the Pork Pit.

  Owen Grayson.

  A smile creased my face at the sight of the sexy businessman, and all sorts of warm feelings flooded my veins – feelings that I didn’t want to examine too closely. Owen and I had been lovers for several weeks now, and it always surprised me how much I’d come to care about him in such a short time.

  But the really crazy thing was that he seemed to care about me just as much.

  Owen knew all about my violent, bloody past, present and future as the Spider, but it hadn’t made him run screaming in the other direction – yet. He never shied away or ignored who I was and what I did as an assassin, mainly because he’d done his own share of dirty deeds over the years to keep his younger sister, Eva, safe. Owen’s complete acceptance of me was one of the things I liked most about him, along with the fact that he always gave me the time and space I needed, whether I was stalking a target or trying to come to grips with our blossoming relationship.

  Still, despite all we’d been through, some small, cynical part of me couldn’t help but wonder when it would end. When Owen would get tired of the danger that I put myself in and all the nights that I came over to his house with blood spattered on my clothes. When he’d tell me that we were through. Sure, Owen cared about me, but I didn’t know that we were meant to last for ever.

  I wanted us to, though – more than I should have.

  As Gin Blanco, my deepening feelings for Owen were unsettling enough, since I’d never been the type to wear my heart on my sleeve. As the assassin the Spider, they were downright disturbing, since I knew just how very easily someone could take Owen away from me for ever. I’d already lost so many people – my mom, Eira, my older sister, Annabella, Fletcher. I didn’t want to lose Owen too. Not now, not ever.

  I smoothed my features and kept the troubling turmoil out of my eyes. “Hey there, handsome,” I drawled.

  “Hey there, yourself,” Owen rumbled.

  He leaned across the counter and gave me a quick kiss that made me wish we could skip the dinner reservations he’d made and go straight back to his house for dessert.

  He drew back, and I realized that the mountain girl had stopped her spinning and was staring at him. No surprise there. Oh, Owen wasn’t as handsome as Finn was, since few men could compete with my foster brother’s perfect features and smarmy smile, but there was something in Owen’s face that had attracted me right from the start. I’d never been able to figure out if it was the slightly crooked tilt of his nose or the thin scar that slashed underneath his chin. Or maybe it was his piercing violet eyes, which were further set off by his blue-black hair. Either way, once you looked at Owen, you didn’t want to stop. At least, I didn’t want to stop.

  “You ready?” Owen asked. “Our reservation’s at eight. I figured we’d swing by my place first so you could shower and change.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Shower, eh? You know, I never end up showering alone at your house. Why do you think that is?”

  A devilish grin spread across his face, and heat sparked in his violet gaze. “Well,” he said, matching my earlier drawl, “I wouldn’t want you to get lonely in there. Besides, you need someone to wash your back, and I’m more than happy to volunteer for that particular job.”

  I laughed. “Well, how can a gal refuse such a generous offer? Just let me close up for the night and get my bag.”

  Owen made a low, formal bow. “As you command, my lady. Now and always.”

  His voice dropped to a raspy murmur on the last word. The intense look in his eyes made my heart quiver with longing, but I pushed the wistful feeling aside. For what seemed like the thousandth time, I told myself not to care too much for Owen Grayson, even if I knew it was already too late.

  Sophia helped me turn off all the appliances before grabbing her own things and leaving through the swinging doors that led to the back of the restaurant. The goth dwarf would close up behind her, which left me to lock up the storefront.

  I was so busy laughing and talking with Owen that I forgot about the mountain girl until I stepped outside and turned to pull the front door shut behind me. She stood there in the doorway and I hesitated, wondering how rude it would be of me to reach through her translucent body to grab the knob.

  The mountain girl’s silvery eyes flicked to Owen, then to me. An aching sadness filled her face for a moment before her mouth flattened out into that determined line again. She reached over and touched the brick that lined the door of the restaurant, pressing her ghostly fingers into the stone as best she could. Then, she looked at me once more, raising her eyebrows in a silent question.

  I frowned, then reached over and put my hand on top of hers, so that we were both touching the brick.

  As always, my Stone elemental magic let me hear the clogged, contented murmurs of the brick – the ones that matched the stomachs and arteries of so many of my customers after eating at the Pork Pit. But there was something else in the brick now, some other faint emotion mixed in with the usual pleasure. I closed my eyes and concentrated, focusing on that sound, pulling it out of the stone and trying to make some kind of sense of it . . .

  Help him, a soft voice whispered in my mind. Please.

  Startled, I dropped my hand from the brick. My eyes snapped open, and I found the mountain girl staring at me once more. Who was him? Thomas? And why did she want me to help him? Thomas was dead and buried in the cemetery, just like Fletcher was. There was nothing I could do for either one of them now. I killed people – I didn’t bring them peace after the fact.

  “Gin?” Owen asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” I said, plastering a smile on my face. “Everything’s just fine.”

  Her ominous plea delivered, the mountain girl stepped back inside the restaurant. I hesitated a moment, then leaned forward, grabbed the knob and pulled the door shut.

  My hand trembled the faintest bit as I slid the key into the lock and turned the deadbolt. I looked inside at the haint once more. The mountain girl’s sad silver eyes were the last thing I saw before Owen put his arm around me and pulled me away from her for the night.

  “She’s definitely a haint all right,” Jo-Jo said two days later. “Definitely a haint and not a ghost.”

  “What’s the difference?” Bria asked.

  I was curious about that myself. Fletcher had always used the words “haint” and “ghost” like they were interchangeable, and so had I.

  “Well,” Jo-Jo said, bending over to put another coat of magenta polish on Bria’s nails. “For the most part, ghosts are just troublemakers. Mean old souls who like to scare the living. They rattle chains, they moan and groan, they break mirrors, and they generally make pests out of themselves. But haints, now haints have a specific purpose. A mission, if you will. They’re clinging to this life for a reason, and they can’t or won’t let go until that mission is completed, no matter how long it takes.”

  Well, that told me the mountain girl wanted something from me, but it still didn’t tell me what that something was.

  “And why do you think I can see her?” I asked. “I thought only Air elementals like you and Sophia could see haints or ghosts. Not someone like me, with Ice and Stone magic.”

  Jo-Jo stared at me. “It might be because you’re supposed to help her with her mission. It happens like that sometimes, no matter what kind of elemental magic you have or even if you have none at all.”

  I looked to my left. The haint was here today, of course, pacing back and forth across the room. She’d been shadowing me for three days now. Every time I turned around she was there – including when I’d been in the shower with Owen two nights ago. I would have knifed her for that little intrusion if I could have. She must have seen the murderous glint in my eyes, though, because she’d ba
cked off a little after that. I hadn’t seen her again until the next morning when I’d opened Owen’s bedroom door and found her slumped against the wall outside. Since then, though, she’d been my constant, silent companion.

  Now, the three of us – well four, if you counted the haint – were in Jo-Jo’s beauty salon, located in the back of her large antebellum house. Jolene “Jo-Jo” Deveraux made her living as a self-proclaimed drama mama. In addition to healing wounds, Air elemental magic was great for fighting the ravages of time, and Jo-Jo used her power to do everything from smooth out crow’s feet to get rid of pesky sunspots to put various body parts back up where they had been ten years and twenty pounds ago.

  Scissors, combs, tweezers, blow-dryers, curling irons and every other tool that could be used to cut, wax, pluck or exfoliate could be found in Jo-Jo’s salon, along with cherry-red chairs, stacks of beauty magazines and dozens of bottles of pink nail polish. Rosco, Jo-Jo’s pudgy basset hound, snoozed in a wicker basket in the corner.

  Like her sister Sophia, Jo-Jo was a dwarf, although she was pink and sugary sweet as cotton candy compared to Sophia’s darker gothic nature. Jo-Jo’s white-blonde curls were perfectly arranged on top of her head, and she wore a pink dress covered with enormous daisies. A string of pearls dangled from her neck. Even though it was January and the salon floor was cool to the touch, Jo-Jo’s feet were bare.

  Mountain girls, I thought and smiled.

  Jo-Jo had offered to give Bria and me manicures and pedicures so we could spend some time together. Bria Coolidge might be my long-lost baby sister, but she was also a detective for the Ashland Police Department – one of the few honest cops on the force. A few weeks ago, Bria had found out that not only was I, Gin Blanco, really her big sister Genevieve Snow, but she’d also discovered that I was the assassin the Spider.

  Needless to say, Bria had more than a few problems with my former profession and occasional pro bono deeds for the good citizens of Ashland. Still, we were trying to have some kind of relationship, trying to get to know each other again, and it was more than I’d ever hoped for.

  Jo-Jo had already finished my nails and was now working on Bria’s. I wasn’t much for manicures. As an assassin, I’d always kept my nails short, since it made getting rid of the blood that settled underneath them that much easier. But Bria had always loved playing with our mother’s make-up when we were kids, so I’d come to the salon and sat through Jo-Jo’s ministrations. The dwarf had also trimmed Bria’s blonde hair while she was at it, forming it into a bob that was sleek and tousled at the same time.

  “I heard of a few haints when I was living down in Savannah,” Bria said. “But nothing like what Gin’s describing. What do you think this one wants? What do you think her mission is?”

  I shrugged. I hadn’t told anyone about the whispered words the haint had sent me through the brick of the Pork Pit, but they’d echoed in my head ever since.

  Help him. Please.

  “Well, I don’t know exactly what she wants, but I know who she is,” Finn called out from the doorway.

  My foster brother swaggered into the salon, a cup of steaming chicory coffee in one hand and a thick manila folder in the other. He pulled up a chair so that he was sitting between me and Bria, then turned and gave my sister his most charming smile.

  “Love the new ’do, detective,” Finn murmured. “It really brings out your bone structure.”

  Bria snorted, but a spark of interest shimmered in her blue eyes. Finn had laid a very public, very passionate kiss on my baby sister a few weeks ago during a Christmas party at Owen’s house. Ever since then, the two of them had been engaged in their own sort of mating dance, with Finn running after Bria the way he did any beautiful woman who crossed his line of sight, and Bria just as easily resisting him.

  I didn’t know what the final outcome would be, but so far, it had been entertaining to watch their battle of wills.

  After another moment of ogling Bria, Finn turned his attention to me and held up the file.

  “You know, I didn’t expect this to be quite the challenge that it was,” he said. “I actually had to go over to the newspaper office and bribe one of my sources to let me into their morgue.”

  “Poor baby,” I murmured with false sympathy.

  Bria snickered at my tone. Finn glared at her a second before turning his attention back to me.

  “Seriously, Gin, do you know what a pain in the ass it is to go through microfilm? It took me hours to find the information. Hours I could have spent in the arms of a good woman – like sweet Bria here.”

  Bria rolled her eyes, and this time, Jo-Jo snickered.

  “You were the one who volunteered,” I said and plucked the folder from his hand. “So lay it out for me.”

  Finn batted his eyes at my sister one more time. “The guy who’s planted in the cemetery is one Thomas P. Kirkwood.”

  “I knew that already.”

  I opened the folder and found a black-and-white picture on top of a stack of papers. Thomas Kirkwood had been a handsome man. Thick curly hair, kind eyes, a nice smile. Even a couple of dimples in his cheeks. I could see why the haint had been drawn to him. Most women would have been.

  The mountain girl floated over to me. She bit her lip and stretched out her fingers, caressing Thomas’s face, even though it was only a photo. A silver tear slid out of the corner of her eye, streaking down her face like a falling star.

  “Yes,” Finn said in a smug tone. “But you don’t know how he died. You don’t know how he was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” Bria asked, bristling. “When?”

  “Relax, detective,” Finn said. “This was back in the twenties, well before you were a twinkle in anyone’s eye. Apparently, there was something of a feud going on between Thomas and another man, Homer Graves.”

  Jo-Jo stiffened at the name.

  “Do you know him?” I asked.

  The dwarf looked at me with her clear, almost colorless eyes and nodded. “I do. He’s a vampire. Probably around three hundred years old or so. Lives up on top of one of the ridges not too far from Warren Fox’s store, Country Daze.”

  Her words were innocent enough, but concern filled her middle-aged face. Whoever Graves was, he was a bad person – bad enough to worry even Jo-Jo, who was one of the strongest elementals around.

  “Anyway,” Finn continued, “Thomas was in love with a girl named Tess Darville. By all accounts, she was in love with him too, but her parents wanted her to marry Graves instead.”

  My eyes flicked over to the haint. She looked at me and nodded. Tess, I could almost hear her say. My name is Tess.

  “So what happened?” Bria asked.

  “Well, everyone thought that Tess and Thomas just up and ran off together.” Finn hesitated. “Until their bodies were found two weeks later. They’d both been tortured. Mutilated, really, with their throats slashed from ear to ear. But the worst part was that their, um, hearts were cut out of their chests and never found. Of course, Homer Graves was the prime suspect, but the cops could never prove anything. They just didn’t have the forensic science back then that they do now. It’s all there in the newspaper clippings.”

  Bria frowned. “Their hearts were cut out of their chests? Where were the bodies found?”

  Finn looked at her. “Out near the old Ashland Rock Quarry. Why?”

  Bria’s face tightened. “Because I got called out to a body dump there three days ago. Two victims, a young couple, both eighteen. They’d been missing for almost two weeks.”

  “And let me guess – their hearts were cut out of their chests,” I finished.

  Bria nodded. “I need to call in about this. See if Graves has any connection to my two victims.”

  Bria barely waited until her nails were dry before getting to her feet. She pulled out her cell phone and called Xavier, the giant who was her partner on the force, filling him in. Finn trailed my sister out of the salon, insisting that he was going with her, that he could tell her even more
.

  I waited until I heard the front door of the house shut behind them before I turned to Jo-Jo. “What else do you know? I saw how you tensed up when Finn said Graves’s name. He’s rotten, isn’t he, Jo-Jo? Rotten to the core.”

  She hesitated. “There was some other talk about Graves as well. Not only that he murdered that poor couple way back when, but about how he did it.”

  My eyes narrowed. “What kind of talk?”

  “That he was an Air elemental in addition to being a vampire,” Jo-Jo said in a low voice. The dwarf raised her clear eyes to mine. “That he . . . that he actually ate their hearts. Fried them up like hamburgers, put them on a bun and everything. Supposedly, cutting out their hearts helped him suck their souls out of their bodies. Eating them, well, I think he did that just for fun.”

  I’d seen a lot of bad things in my time as the Spider, and I’d done more than my fair share of dark deeds myself, but that turned even my stomach.

  “Can you . . . can you even do that with Air magic?” I asked. “Tear someone’s soul out of their body?”

  Jo-Jo slowly nodded.

  I rubbed my chest, which was suddenly aching, and glanced over at Tess Darville. The mountain girl floated over and took Bria’s chair. For a moment, her features blurred, and she looked exhausted. Just . . . exhausted.

  I had no doubt that Graves had murdered her and Thomas Kirkwood out of jealousy or spite or both. But I still had so many questions. Had the Air elemental vampire really sucked out Tess’s soul? Was that what I was looking at right now? And where was Thomas? Where was his soul or spirit or whatever? If he’d loved Tess as much as she did him, then why wasn’t he here with her right now, even if they both had been murdered?

  Tess stared at me, and I could tell exactly what she was thinking. See? This is why I’ve been haunting you. Because you’re the only one who can help me. Because you’re the only one strong enough to do what needs to be done.