"You're safe now," I said in a soft voice. "He's not going to hurt you anymore. "
Violet Fox's face was a mess. Her nose had been pushed halfway across her face, while her jaw reached out in the other direction. Her skin looked like putty that had been stretched to the breaking point over her distorted features.
Blood covered the bottom half of her ruined face like a mask, and thick drops of it slid down her neck, staining her coat. Her glasses had been snapped in two in the middle. The glasses were still hooked around her ears, but the two halves dangled like earrings against her bloody cheeks.
Pain filled her brown eyes, and for a moment, I didn't think she'd heard me. But Violet turned her head and stared at me. She squinted, and recognition flickered in her dull gaze.
"You. . . " she mumbled.
"Don't try to talk, sweetheart," I said. "We're going to get you patched up, and then you can tell us all about why somebody wants you dead and how you know about the Tin Man. Okay?"
Violet Fox didn't answer me. She'd already passed out.
Finn brought the car over, and we stuffed Violet Fox into the backseat. I took her broken glasses off her face and passed them to Finn for safekeeping. Then I used one of my knives to cut a strip off the bottom of my long-sleeved T-shirt. I wound the cotton around the girl's face to catch the blood oozing out of her broken nose. She didn't stir.
"She's going to bleed all over the backseat," Finn muttered.
"Do you know how much I paid for this car?"
"Too much," I said. "And don't worry about your precious leather seats. I'm sure Sophia can get the blood out. "
"You going to call her to get rid of the dwarf 's body?"
Finn asked.
"Of course. Don't want to scare the coeds by leaving Pancake where he is and having them drive over him in the morning. "
I grabbed Finn's cell phone again and hit 7 on the speed dial. Three rings later, she picked up.
"Hmph?" Sophia Deveraux let out her usual grunt of a greeting. The dwarf didn't like to strain her vocal cords with things like conversation.
"It's Gin. There's something you might find interesting over in one of the parking lots near Ashland Community College. "
"Hmm. " Her interested grunt.
I waited a moment to see if she'd say anything.
"Number?" Sophia asked, referring to the number of bodies I wanted her to come dispose of.
The Goth dwarf 's voice came out in a harsh rasp, like she'd spent the last fifty years chain smoking and knocking back jugs of mountain moonshine. I didn't know why Sophia's voice was the way it was, especially since I'd never seen the dwarf light up or drink anything stronger than iced tea. Another mystery I wasn't sure I wanted to solve. Because I had a feeling that there was something real bad in Sophia's past. Some sort of horrific accident, trauma, or even torture. Those were the only things that I could think of that would so completely ruin her vocal cords.
I also wondered why Jo-Jo had never healed her sister.
Maybe she'd wanted to and Sophia wouldn't let her.
Maybe it had just been too late by the time Jo-Jo had reached her. Whatever it was, whatever had happened to the Goth dwarf, I knew that it couldn't be good.
"Only one, but you might have a little trouble scraping him up off the ground," I replied. "There was a very large truck involved. Think you can handle it?"
"Hmph. " Sophia's grunt was more guttural this time.
I'd offended her.
"Well, I have faith in you," I replied in a breezy tone.
"Are you at Jo-Jo's?"
"Um-mmm. " That was a yes.