Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd

by Web of Lies (pdf)

  I ticked off the seconds in my head. Thirty . . . forty—

  The girl cleared her throat again and held out the

  “Um, this might sound strange, but is there an old ticket I’d written her order down on.

  man who works here?” she asked. “Maybe in the back or

  “Was there something wrong with your food?” I asked. something?”

  “Because it doesn’t look like you ate a lot of it.”

  Fletcher. She was asking about Fletcher. Not unusual.

  “oh, it was fine.” She shifted on her feet. “Guess I just The old man and the Pork Pit had been a downtown Ashwasn’t as hungry as I thought I was.”

  land institution for more than fifty years. Fletcher Lane I frowned. Everybody got hungry in the Pork Pit. No had been gone two months now, and people still came in true Southerner could resist the combination of spices, and asked about him. Where he was. How he was doing. grease, and artery-clogging fat in the air. But the girl When he was coming back. I stared at the copy of Where couldn’t be a Yankee. Not with that soft drawl that made the Red Fern Grows that adorned the wall beside the cash her voice ooze like warm preserves. More than likely, register. Fletcher had been reading the book when he’d she’d thought there was something off about the food, died, and the old man’s blood had turned the paperback considering no one else had been brave enough to come pages a rusty brown.

  in and try it today. I’d never met Jonah McAllister, but I

  “No,” I said in a quiet voice. “The old man isn’t here already disliked the man.

  anymore.”

  I rang up her total. “That’ll be $7.97.”

  “Are you sure?” she persisted. “He might . . . he might The girl dug through her wallet and handed me a call himself something. Tin Man, I think.”

  credit card. I raised an eyebrow.

  Tin Man. That got my attention. Enough to make me

  “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I don’t have any cash on me.”

  palm one of the silverstone knives tucked up my sleeve. I glanced at the name on the card. Violet Fox. I swiped Every assassin has a moniker, a discreet name they go by the card through the machine and passed the girl the to ply their services and perhaps give potential custompaper slip to sign. Her cursive was a loopy, feminine swirl. ers a clue as to how they operate or off their victims. Tin I tucked the slip under the corner of the battered cash Man had been Fletcher’s name because he’d never let his register and gave her my standard, y’all-please-come-back heart, his emotions, get in the way of a job. But once he’d smile. “Have a nice day.”

  taken me under his wing and started training me to be an Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 56-57

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  assassin, the old man had cut back on his own jobs and The girl, Violet, forced out a smile that wilted under eventually retired from the business altogether. Nobody my cold gray gaze. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”

  had asked for the Tin Man in a long, long time.

  “There’s nobody here by that name. No old man, either.”

  Except this girl.

  Not anymore.

  For the first time, I really looked at her. Girl probably out of sight below the counter, my thumb traced over wasn’t the right term for her. With her ample breasts, wide the hilt of the silverstone knife that I’d palmed. Violet Fox hips, and curved booty, she was a full-grown woman. Still might look about as dangerous as a wet kitten, but that young, though. Eighteen, maybe nineteen. She probably didn’t mean she wasn’t working for someone else. Maybe thought she was twenty pounds too heavy, but the extra someone who wanted to hire the mysterious Tin Man. weight rounded her face and filled out her chest. Someone looking for revenge. or maybe even the cops. Square black glasses gave her a slightly brainy air. Her Didn’t much matter who. If the girl breathed wrong, she sandy blond hair was cropped short, and the rain outside was going to die where she stood.

  had turned it into a mound of frizz. Her dark brown eyes Violet chewed her lower lip. For a moment, I thought and pecan-colored skin whispered of some Hispanic or she might ask me about Fletcher again. But after a momaybe even Native American heritage. The Cherokee still ment, her shoulders drooped in defeat.

  inhabited the mountains around Ashland, and more His“Doesn’t matter,” she said in a tired voice. “He couldn’t panic folks came to the city every summer to pick strawberhave helped me anyway. Sorry to bother you.”

  ries, tomatoes, and other crops. once the picking season She turned to go. I glanced at Finn, who shrugged. He was over, lots of the migrants stayed and put down roots. didn’t know what to make of it either. Sophia grunted I continued my examination. She wore jeans faded and turned back to her celery.

  from wear, not design, and a heavy black turtleneck

  “He couldn’t have helped you with what?” I called out. sweater that made her eyes seem darker than they were. Curiosity. Something the old man had instilled in Scuffed sneakers, a heavy jacket, some silver hoops in her me over the years. Fletcher Lane had always wanted to ears. Nothing on her cost more than fifty bucks. Which know everything about everyone, and he’d taught me to didn’t inspire confidence about her even being able to afbe the same way. Now it was the one emotion that always ford an assassin like the Tin Man.

  seemed to get the best of me, no matter how hard I tried The words Tin Man had also gotten the others’ atto squash it. tention. Finn peered at the girl over the top of the finanThe girl, Violet, turned to look at me. “oh, um, well, cial section. Sophia looked up from the celery she’d been it’s sort of personal—”

  chopping for her macaroni salad.

  That’s all she got out before someone started shooting

  “Tin Man?” I asked. “That’s a funny name.”

  at us.

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  Sophia stood by the back counter and kept chopping celery. She didn’t even look up at the crack of the gunshot. Bullets didn’t worry her. Dwarves were even tougher 5

  than giants, and Sophia could take a couple bullets in the back. They’d catch her in hard muscles long before they hit anything vital. Elemental magic was just about the only thing that could quickly penetrate a dwarf’s thick skin. And even the majority of that would only make her angry, instead of doing any real damage.

  Smack!

  Smack! Smack!

  Three more bullets slammed into the front of the restaurant. I looked up, trying to judge where the shots were coming from, but the angle from the floor was all wrong. A bullet smacked into one of the storefront windows. I could see the storefront windows, but not who or what The sharp, sudden burst of sound caught the girl’s atlay beyond them. tention. Her head snapped toward the front of the restauMy eyes flicked to the projectiles. A large caliber, probrant. “What was that—”

  ably a fifty, from the looks of them. And whoever was That was all the Violet got out before I darted around shooting knew what he was doing. Despite their size, the the counter and threw myself on top of her, forcing her bullets formed a small, circular cluster about the size of to the floor.

  my fist. Kill shots, all of them.

  “oof!”

  The four metal missiles had cracked and caught in We hit the ground hard. I knocked the wind out of the the storefront glass, which kept them from punching girl, but I didn’t care. Until I figured out what she wanted through into the Pork Pit itself. Still, the sharp, sudden with the Tin Man, Violet Fox needed to keep breathing. impacts had ruined the windows. Macabre patterns ran I didn’t have to worry about Finn. Like me, he knew out from the silver bullets, as though a swarm of spiexactly what that particular sound was and had heard it ders were stringing their delicate webs through the thick too many times before to ignore it now. Somehow, he’d glass.

  already wormed under one of the tables, with several I shook one of
my sleeves, and a knife slipped into my chairs further shielding him. Finnegan Lane had an excelother hand, the hilt resting on the scar on my palm. I lent sense of self-preservation.

  hoped the bastard got tired of shooting through the winEstep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 60-61

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  dows and decided to come inside and finish the job. He’d to one side to a section of glass that hadn’t been cracked be in for a nasty surprise. one he wouldn’t recover from. by the bullets and peered outside.

  With every breath, I expected more bullets to slam There. Across the street, curtains flapped against an into the windows. or for the door to be yanked open and open window on the second floor of an apartment buildsomeone to storm inside. Jake McAllister, most likely, trying. Not an unusual sight—in the summer. But it was ing to make good on his threat to come back and kill me. November. Fifty degrees out, with a steady drizzle of cold Instead—silence.

  rain. Nobody in his right mind would have his window I counted off the seconds in my head. Ten . . . open on a day like this unless he had a good reason. Like twenty . . . thirty . . . forty-five . . . trying to kill me.

  The girl shifted, trying to get out from underneath Made sense. I hadn’t heard a car peel away from the me. or at least get her face up off the floor. I rolled off curb after the shots had been fired, and I didn’t see any her so she could catch her breath, but I kept one hand on new tread marks on the street outside, which meant it her back, holding her in place.

  hadn’t been a drive-by. Jake McAllister had been station“Be still,” I snapped. “He could be waiting for us to get ary when he’d put four bullets into the front of my resto our feet before he fires another shot.”

  taurant. My eyes focused on the flapping curtain. Time to Violet nodded and lay on the floor, sucking in deep see if the cuckoo had left his nest or not. breaths through her open mouth.

  “Stay here,” I told Finn.

  After ninety seconds had passed without another gun“Where are you going?” Finn asked from underneath shot, I rose to my knees and looked outside. The cracked the table.

  glass distorted my vision, but I didn’t see anyone standing I gripped my knives a little tighter. “To find the basdirectly outside the restaurant, gun in hand. No parked tard who just ruined my storefront windows.”

  cars idling at the curb. No one running down the sidewalk. Normally, I wouldn’t have gone out the front door of the I stood up and examined the bullets. Fifty caliber all Pork Pit. Not after somebody had just shot up my winthe way around, probably from a rifle. Not what I’d exdows. That was just asking for trouble, for the shooter to pected from somebody like Jake McAllister. He struck put a bullet in my chest when I stepped outside to invesme as an Uzi kind of guy. Something showy, something tigate. But I was angry, and I had my elemental magic. flashy, something to prove what a badass he was. So I reached for my Stone power, pulling it up into my I also noticed the bullets hadn’t hit the glass dead-on. veins, letting the cool magic spread out over my skin. It They’d struck at a downward angle, which meant they’d took less than a second for the magic to harden my finbeen fired from somewhere higher up. Hmm. I moved off gers, torso, toes, and everything in between, to turn my Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 62-63

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  body into a rock-hard shell. As long as I held onto my west stairs, staying to the shadows. The building smelled magic, kept concentrating on it, even my hair would stop like bleach mixed with garlic and urine.

  a bullet.

  I reached the second-floor landing and another empty Then I yanked open the door and stepped outside. hallway. The walk across the street and up the stairs had I stood by the front door a few seconds, my eyes scancooled my anger. My skin might be as hard as stone, but ning the block again. Nothing. No runners, no parked all it took was one moment, one waver, one second I let cars, no flash of light from a rifle scope in the window my magic slip to get dead. Fletcher Lane had drilled that across the street.

  into me. Jake McAllister might be a punk, but that didn’t After another thirty seconds, when no more bullets mean he couldn’t get lucky and kill me. I wasn’t going to zipped through the air, the people who’d been on the give him that chance, so I paused to listen and evaluate. street when the shooting started slowly raised their heads. Muted quiet. Most of the building’s tenants were out one by one, they eased out from behind the parked cars working at their day jobs, trying to come up with enough and metal mailboxes that they’d ducked behind, got to cash for next month’s rent. My fingers tightened around their feet, and hurried on about their business. the knives in my hands, and I crept forward. Since he Since the gunman hadn’t taken the easy shot I’d ofhadn’t taken a shot at me when I’d crossed the street, there fered him, I marched across the street to the apartment was a very slim chance Jake McAllister was still in the building, an older structure with small, dingy windows apartment. But I continued to move cautiously, quietly. and chipped façade that hadn’t been upgraded or renoThree apartments on this floor faced the street. I tipvated since it had been built forty years ago. I pressed my toed past the first two doors to the third one—the one hand against the stone that framed the entrance, listenI wanted. ing to the murmur of the cold, wet brick underneath my I paused in front of the beige-painted door, waiting bare fingers. A mishmash of emotions greeted me. Childand listening. More silence. I put my hand on the stone ish shrieks of glee. older, adult grumbles. Sharp, worried that framed the door, but its murmur was low and muted. murmurs. A babble of English and Spanish. It all added Nobody lived here, judging from the lack of emotions up to the noises of a typical apartment building. Nothing and vibrations, which was probably why Jake McAllister unusual so far.

  had picked this apartment to fire from.

  older buildings often lacked good security features, I closed my hand around the knob. The cold metal and this one was no different. There wasn’t even a lock tickled the spider rune scar on my palm. The knob on the glass door to keep out the homeless stragglers. The turned, and the door opened.

  door led to a small hallway with stairs branching off eiI nudged the door inward with my boot, careful to ther side, and an elevator lying at the end. I headed up the stay to one side of the door frame. It didn’t even creak as Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 64-65

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  it swung open. I stayed in the hall and waited, counting gusting in through the open window. Not bleach, not off the seconds in my head. Ten . . . twenty . . . thirty . . food, nothing. I frowned. Not what I’d expected. Jake

  . Noises from the other apartments farther down the hall McAllister didn’t strike me as a patient person—much leaked out to me. A television blaring out some children’s less the kind to pick up after himself. If the Fire elemental cartoon. Another one tuned to a soap opera. A couple had been up here for any length of time, there should arguing about Ralph drinking too much and getting fired have been some evidence of it. Beer cans, cigarettes, an from his latest job.

  empty soda bottle, some candy bar wrappers. Instead, I stayed outside three minutes. Empty. The apartment there was nothing. I didn’t even see any roach traps hidwas empty. If Jake McAllister had been inside to see or den in the corners.

  hear the door open, he would have come out to investiI dropped my Stone magic and let my skin revert back gate by now. Most people weren’t good at waiting. They to its normal texture. Then, I moved to the back of the moved too soon, too quickly, and then they got dead. apartment and the open window where the shooter had A minute was enough to unnerve most people. Three, been when he’d fired into the Pork Pit.

  enough to drive all but the most consummate profesAgain, there was nothing. No cups, no wrappers, no sional assassin crazy with adrenaline. Even I didn’t like evidence anyone had been inside the apa
rtment today or waiting three minutes for something to happen. But there anytime in the recent past. I peered under the window. was a reason Fletcher had dubbed me the Spider—beHe’d even policed his brass, picking up the spent shell cause I could be infinitely patient. Because I had that casings from the bullets he’d fired. Again, not something internal restraint. Because I could wait those long, long I would expect from a reckless, twitchy, Fire elemental three minutes, if it meant getting to my target—or not hothead like Jake McAllister.

  becoming one myself.

  Dingy exposed brick outlined the window, and I I slipped inside the apartment and closed the door bepressed my hand against it. The uneven stone bit into hind me.

  my palm, and I closed my eyes and reached for my magic It was a small space, divided up into even smaller again, letting the cool power flow through me, attuning rooms that reminded me of a rat’s maze. Knives in hands, myself to the smallest vibrations embedded in the brick. I slipped from one room to the next, checking them all Nothing. Just calm. I concentrated, going deeper and with extreme caution and care.

  deeper into the stone, until it felt like a part of me. A Empty. The place was totally empty.

  natural extension of myself I could examine and analyze No furniture, no appliances, not even a couple of fastthe way I might my own fingernails. I felt more calm and food wrappers crumpled and discarded on the linoleum

  . . . the sense of someone waiting. Not particularly bored, floor. It didn’t even smell of anything except the cold rain but not excited either. Just waiting . . . for the right moEstep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 66-67

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