By a Thread

by Jennifer Estep

  The garage lay on the opposite side of the block from the front entrance to the skyscraper, but thanks to the blueprints I’d looked at, I discovered that the two were connected by a series of maintenance corridors, which meant I didn’t have to go anywhere near the skyscraper lobby to actually get inside the building.

  Always take the most unexpected route. That was something my mentor, Fletcher Lane, had told me more than once, and I expected it to work just as well tonight as it had so many other times in the past.

  Still, I’d thought that my target might have a few guards stationed in the garage, hence my business attire, but I didn’t see anyone as I walked down the ramp from the street to the basement level. A few security cameras swiveled around in slow loops on the walls, their red lights blinking like malevolent eyes, but it was easy enough for me to walk through their blind spots. Sloppy of him not to make sure the entire garage was covered by the cameras, even if it was on the other side of the block.

  My heels cracked against the concrete as I headed toward the elevator, the harsh sound bouncing around like a Ping-Pong ball someone had tossed into the middle of the garage. Despite the fact that I was in the downtown business district, muggings weren’t unheard-of here, and my eyes scanned the shadows, just in case there was anyone lurking around who shouldn’t be. Assassin or not, I had no desire to get blood on my clothes before I’d gotten close to my target. I was the only one getting away with any violence tonight.

  As a final precaution, I reached out with my magic and listened to the stone around me.

  People leave behind emotional vibrations in their surroundings, in the places where they spend their time, in the houses, apartments, and offices where they live, love, laugh, work, and die. All those feelings, all those emotions, especially sink into stone, whether it’s a concrete foundation of a house, the gravel that constantly crunches under the tires of a new convertible, or even an expensive marble sculpture prettily perched in a living room.

  As a Stone elemental, I can hear those vibrations and pick up on those emotions as clearly as if the person who had put them there was standing right next to me, telling me all about how he’d used that marble sculpture to bash in his wife’s brains just so he could collect on her life insurance policy.

  I reached out with my magic, and the usual sharp, worried murmurs echoed back to me. Nobody much cares for parking garages, and the low mutters told me just how many folks had fearfully clutched their bags and briefcases to their chests as they hurried to unlock their cars—and the ones who hadn’t made it before they’d been beaten, robbed, and left for dead.

  Still, there were no recent disturbances in the stone, and no indication that someone had set his sights on me. Satisfied, I shut the murmurs out of my mind, rounded the corner, and reached the elevator that led from the garage up into the office building on this side of the block.

  A man wearing a suit and carrying a silverstone briefcase waited in front of the elevator, watching the numbers light up as it slowly descended to our level. I gave him a polite nod, then pulled my cell phone out of my bag and started tapping the buttons on it, sending a message to no one.

  The elevator arrived a minute later, and the man stepped inside, holding the door open for me.

  “Going up?” he asked.

  I waved him off. “I need to finish this text first. My reception always gets cut off in there.”

  He nodded and let the doors slide shut. I hit a few more buttons on my phone, just in case there was anyone else behind me heading toward the elevator, but no one appeared. When I was sure that I was alone, I put the phone away and headed to the far end of the corridor and a door marked maintenance only.

  I looped my bag across my shoulder so that my hands would be free, held my palm up, and reached for my magic again—but not my Stone power. Most elementals are only gifted in one area—Air, Fire, Ice, or Stone—but I was among the rarest of elementals in that I could tap into two different areas. So now, instead of using my Stone magic, I grabbed hold of my Ice power and used it to form a very specific, familiar shape—one that would help me get through this locked door.

  A cold silver light flickered in my palm, centered on the scar there, one that was shaped like a small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. A matching scar was embedded in my other palm. The marks were spider runes, the symbol for patience. My assassin name and so many other things to me.

  A second later, the light faded, and I clutched two slender Ice picks in my fingers. Still keeping an eye and ear out for anyone else walking through the garage, I went to work on the door. I wasn’t as good at jimmying locks as Finnegan Lane, my foster brother, was, but I got the job done in under a minute. I threw the Ice picks down on the concrete where they would soon melt away and slid through the opening, letting the door close behind me.

  I stood in a long, narrow hallway set with flickering bulbs that gave everything an ugly, sallow tint. I paused a moment, listening for the footsteps of the maintenance workers who used these corridors. I didn’t hear any scuffles or other whispers of movement, so I started walking. Even if I ran into someone down here, I’d just claim to be a lost office drone, desperately trying to find my way back to the hive.

  But for once, my luck held, and I didn’t see anyone as I hurried through the hallways. Eventually I wound up in the basement of the skyscraper where my target’s office was. After that, it was just a matter of taking the service elevator up to the second floor, above the guards in the lobby. Then I leisurely walked the rest of the way up the emergency stairs until I reached the top floor.

  I cracked open the stairway door and found myself looking out over a sea of cubicles divided by clear plastic walls. I’d gotten here right at quitting time, and everyone was trying to wrap up their work for the day so they could be out the door by five sharp to get their kids, get dinner, and get home. Everyone hunched over their phones and computers, sending out a few last messages for the day, and no one noticed me slip out of the stairway, softly pull the door shut behind me, and stroll into their midst.

  I kept to the edge of the cubicle area and walked down a hallway until I came to a corner office that I knew was being used to store supplies. The office door was open, and I stepped inside like I had every right in the world to be there. I looked over my shoulder through the window, but no one so much as glanced in my direction, so I went into the private bathroom that was attached to the office and closed the door behind me.

  I stood there behind the door, counted off the seconds in my head, and waited to see if anyone had noticed me and had alerted security. Ten . . . twenty . . . thirty . . . forty-five . . . After the three-minute mark, I felt safe enough to move on to the next part of my plan. Now that I was in the building and on the appropriate floor, all that was left to do was get to exactly where I wanted to be.

  I removed a small electric screwdriver from my bag, climbed up onto the marble bathroom counter, and used the tool to open one of the air duct vents high up on the wall. Once that was done, I climbed back down, stripped off my suit and glasses, and reached into my bag and put on my real clothes for the evening—cargo pants, a long-sleeved T-shirt, a vest, and boots. All in black, of course. Yeah, wearing head-to-toe black might be a little cliché for an assassin, but you went with what worked—and hid the bloodstains.

  I looped my bag around my chest, got back up onto the counter, and hoisted myself up and into the air duct, making sure to close up the vent opening behind me. Like many buildings in Ashland, the ducts here were made slightly oversize, in deference to the city’s giant population, so I didn’t have any problems sliding inside. I slowly, carefully, quietly crawled through the air ducts until I reached the office that I wanted. Then I eased up to the vent and peered through the slats to the other side.

  The duct opened up into an office that was both impressive and elegant. A large desk made out of polished ebony stood in the back of the room. Pens, paper, a monitor, two phones. The usual office detritus covered the surface,
while two black leather chairs crouched in front of the desk. Even from here, I could see how rich and supple the fabric was. Matching furniture in varying shades of black and gray filled the rest of the room, along with elaborate metal sculptures, while a fully stocked wet bar took up the better part of one wall. Behind the desk, floor-to-ceiling windows offered an impressive view of downtown Ashland and the green-gray smudges of the Appalachian Mountains that ringed the city.

  The office was empty, just like I’d planned for it to be right now, so I didn’t have to be quite as quiet as I used my screwdriver to undo the grate on the duct and put the loose screws in my vest pocket. I practiced removing the grate from its frame until I was sure that I could do it without making any noise, then I slid it back into place. I also reached into my bag and drew out my weapon of choice this evening—a small gun made out of plastic.

  Normally I carried five silverstone knives on me at all times—one up either sleeve, one against the small of my back, and two tucked into the sides of my boots. I liked my knives, and those were the weapons I used on the majority of my jobs. But my target had an elemental talent for metal, which meant that he could sense whenever the element was near, just like I could hear the stone around me, no matter what form it took. In fact, metal was an offshoot of Stone, just like water was an offshoot of Ice magic and electricity was one of Air power.

  Since I didn’t want to give my target any hint that I was here, I’d decided to leave my knives at home. I wasn’t as good with a gun as I was with a blade, but the plastic device I’d brought along tonight would get the job done in the office’s close quarters.

  As a final touch, I reached into my bag and pulled on a pair of black gloves, making sure that the leather covered the spider rune scars embedded in my palms. The scars were really silverstone that had been melted into my flesh years ago by a particularly vicious Fire elemental. I didn’t think that my target would be able to sense the metal in my palms—not through the duct—but the gloves offered another small bit of protection, and I wasn’t going to take any chances tonight.

  With the grate and my gun in position, all that was left to do was settle down and wait for my target to arrive.

  I’d been in position inside the air duct for almost an hour when the office door opened, and two men carrying briefcases stepped inside. Both wore expensive tailored suits and shiny wing tips, marking them as the movers and shakers they were. My target was having an after-hours meeting with his moneyman to go over company financials and various other things. Too bad it was a meeting that neither one of them would live through.

  Through the grate, I watched a third man step into the office—a giant who was almost seven feet tall. He also wore a suit, although his wasn’t quite as nice as those of the other two men.

  The two businessmen hung back while the giant did a sweep of the office, peering behind the desk and wet bar, then going into the private bathroom and repeating the process by glancing into the shower. A moment later, the giant stepped back out into the office.

  “All clear, sir,” the giant said. “The rest of the floor has been swept and is empty as well.”

  My target nodded his thanks, and the giant left, closing the door behind him.

  The second man didn’t even wait until the door had been shut before he moved over to the bar, grabbed a bottle of expensive Scotch, and poured himself a healthy amount into a cut-crystal tumbler. He took a long swallow of the amber-colored liquor and nodded his head in approval. Then he turned his attention to his friend.

  “Any sign of her today?” the drinker asked.

  The other man, my target, shook his head. “Nothing so far.”

  The drinker grinned. “Well, since the Spider hasn’t come to call yet and it looks like you get to live another day, let’s get down to business. I happen to have someone waiting up for me tonight. I’m sure you know what I mean.”

  My target smiled a little at that, and the two men opened their briefcases. They spread the papers inside over a table in front of the wet bar, then sank down into the chairs on either side and got to work.

  “Now,” the drinker began, “as you can see from these latest tax and earnings figures . . .”

  I waited until the two men were thoroughly engrossed in their conversation before I slowly, carefully, quietly removed the grate from the air duct opening. I paused, waiting to see if they’d noticed the slight, furtive movement above their heads, but of course they hadn’t. Few people bothered to look up—even those being hunted by a notorious assassin like me.

  I put the grate to one side of the duct and made sure the gun was within easy reach in its proper slot on the front of my vest. Then I drew in a breath and slowly wiggled forward until I was at the edge of the opening. I drew in a final breath, let it out, and slid forward.

  I let my weight and gravity pull me down before grabbing the edge of the duct, flipping over, letting go, and landing on my feet, facing the two men. They’d barely had time to blink, much less get to their feet, before the gun was in my hand and trained on my target.

  Puff-puff.

  I double-tapped my target in the chest, and he dropped to the expensive carpet without a sound. I trained my gun on the second man, who immediately leaped to his feet, put up his hands in a placating gesture, and started backing away.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said, pleading with me. “You’ve proven your point already. I’ll pay you whatever you want to put the gun down now and walk away, you know that.”

  “I do know that.” A cold, cruel smile curved my lips. “But walking away is not nearly as much fun as this. You know that as well as I do.”

  “No, please, don’t—”

  I pulled the trigger twice, cutting off his protests, and he joined the first man on the floor.

  Silence.

  Then the protestor, the drinker, the second man I’d shot, let out a loud, unhappy sigh and climbed to his feet.

  “Really, Gin, did you have to ruin my suit?” Finn said. “This was a Fiona Fine original.”

  He stared down at the bright red paint splattered across the black fabric of his suit jacket and white shirt. Then Finn raised his head and glared at me, his green eyes as bright as polished glass in his ruddy face. I didn’t bother pointing out that the red paint from the gun had also splashed onto his face and up into his walnut-colored locks. My foster brother was just as obsessive about his hair as he was about his suits, and it just wouldn’t do for Finnegan Lane to ever look anything less than perfect.

  “I have to say I agree with Finn,” the first man rumbled and sat up. “I didn’t think our little experiment would get quite so messy.”

  Owen Grayson got to his feet, his chest covered in just as much red paint as Finn’s was. Still, despite his ruined suit, my eyes traced over him, from his blue-black hair to his intense violet eyes to his strong, muscled body. All the paint in the world couldn’t dampen Owen’s rugged appeal or the way he had of making me feel like I was the most important person in the world to him.

  I walked over, leaned against the desk, and pointed my paintball gun at Owen. “You were the one who agreed to let me test your security,” I told my lover. “And Finn was the one who bet me dinner at Underwood’s that I couldn’t kill you both by the end of the month. So you have only yourselves to blame.”

  Finn sniffed his displeasure again. “I still say that you didn’t have to ruin my suit.”

  “No,” I agreed. “I didn’t have to ruin it. That was just an added bonus.”

  Finn narrowed his eyes at me, but I just gave him my most innocent, gracious, beatific Southern smile.

  “Well, it’s getting late, and I’m supposed to head over to Bria’s,” Finn said. “And I obviously can’t go looking like this.”

  I rolled my eyes at his put-upon tone, but Owen just laughed.

  “Go,” Owen said. “Get cleaned up. We can finish our business tomorrow.”

  “Say hi to Bria for me,” I added in a sugary-sweet voice.

/>   Finn grumbled something under his breath about what I could do with various parts of my anatomy before packing up his papers and briefcase and leaving the office.

  “Well,” Owen said after Finn had shut the door a little harder than necessary. “You got us both, just like you said you would.”

  I grinned. “That’s what people pay me for. Or used to pay me for.”

  Owen raised an eyebrow. “Good to know that retirement hasn’t lessened your skills any.”

  I shrugged. We both knew that I couldn’t afford to let myself get rusty. Not now, when so many folks in Ashland and beyond would love nothing more than to see me dead. Back in the winter, I’d finally managed to kill Mab Monroe, the Fire elemental who’d been the head of the Ashland underworld for years. Mab had murdered my mother and sister when I was thirteen, and her death had been about revenge to me more than anything else. But the Fire elemental’s demise had left a power vacuum in the city, and now, every lowlife and not-so-lowlife was clawing for position, power, and prestige. Some of them thought the best way to do that was by killing me, Gin Blanco, the semiretired assassin known as the Spider.

  So far, I’d put all the challengers in the ground right next to Mab, but they just kept coming at me. A few weeks ago, I’d decided to test and update the security at all the places I frequented, including Owen’s home and office. There was no point in making things easy for my would-be murderers. Then Finn had piped up and suggested that we make it into a contest—with him and Owen trying to outwit me. Of course, that hadn’t turned out exactly like Finn had planned, but I was happy with the outcome. I always liked to win, no matter what game I was playing.

  “So give me the rundown,” Owen said. “Exactly how did you get into that air duct?”