Either way, it was easy enough for me to hopscotch my way from shadow to shadow, circle around the parking lot, and slip up through the trees until I was right behind one of the SUVs. I stopped there, hidden behind the massive vehicle, a silverstone knife in my hand, with another up my sleeve, two more tucked into my boots, and a fifth hidden against the small of my back. Five knives for five guys. No problem.

"Why don't you put the gun down and come along quietly, detective?" one of the dwarves rumbled. A nasal, New Yawk accent colored his words, telling me that he was definitely not from around here. "Because I'd really hate to have to shoot you in that pretty face of yours. "

Bria stiffened at his tone, her face tight with anger. "Who the hell are you and what do you want? You called me detective, so you obviously know that I'm a cop. You really want to do something as stupid as threaten me?"

The man let out a low, evil laugh and looked at his friends, who all snickered in response. For some reason, they thought this was a laugh riot.

I used their laughter and distraction to slide into the shadows next to the second SUV-the one that was closest to Bria. I peered around the edge of the vehicle, studying the men who surrounded my sister.

They reminded me of a set of Russian matryoshka dolls in that they were all more or less carbon copies of each other, with the short, stocky, muscular frames that dwarves always had. None of them was taller than five feet, but their size definitely wasn't relative to their impressive strength. They all had similar features-oily black hair that was slicked back over their foreheads, swarthy skin, and black eyes. Brothers, maybe, or cousins. And they were all dressed alike, in nylon Windbreakers in a variety of bright, neon colors, matching sneakers, and gold chains around their necks. They looked like pint-size extras from some old Sopranos episode, as though the dwarven mob had migrated south for the winter. The only thing that would have been worse was if there had been seven of them. Heigh-ho, heigh-ho.

My eyes dropped to the guns in their hands, the ones they had pointed at Bria. Glocks for the most part. The lead guy, the one who'd spoken to Bria, had a snub-nosed revolver. I didn't know who the men were, had never laid eyes on them before, but they still seemed familiar to me. They radiated the same kind of hard, predatory air as the guests did I'd seen at Mab's interrupted dinner party. Which made me all the more curious as to why they'd decided to ambush my sister-and made them all the more likely to die when I found out the answer.

The lead guy, the dwarven don of the group, as it were, gave Bria a grin that was as greasy as his unwashed hair. "Honey, everybody in Ashland knows that you're a cop. That's why we're all so interested in you. "

Bria frowned at his words. "What are you talking about? What's the meaning of this?"

The five men laughed again, as if they were all in on some private joke that was just the funniest thing in the world. Real wise guys, this bunch.

"Don" jerked his head at Jenkins, who'd crept back and joined the semicircle of men surrounding my sister. "Why don't you ask him what's going on? After all, he's the reason you came here tonight. "

Bria looked at Jenkins, but the informant wasn't daunted by the anger burning in her icy blue gaze. "What's going on, Lincoln? I thought that you had information on what was going down in Ashland. What the hell are you trying to pull?"

"I'm not trying to pull anything," he said. "Except earn myself a cool ten grand for leading my new friends here straight to you. "

I frowned. The dwarven mobsters had paid Jenkins ten large to set up a fake meeting with Bria? Why? What for? What did they plan on doing with her?

Bria glared at him. "You sold me out, you son of a bitch. "

Jenkins's lips pulled back in a wide grin, revealing the fake gold grill stuck on his teeth. "Sorry, baby, but I got to get paid. "

My fingers clenched around the hilt of my knife. The only thing he was getting tonight was dead. Another minute, two tops.

"Why?" Bria snapped, turning her attention to the leader once more. "Why give Lincoln ten grand? I would have been happy to set up my own meeting with you. "

Bria's hand tightened on her gun, her knuckles white against the black barrel, telling everyone exactly how that meeting would have ended. Despite the seriousness of the situation, I couldn't help the warm pride that filled me at her bravado. Bria was no more a coward than I was. Still, that gun wouldn't do her much good against five dwarves. Like giants, dwarves were strong enough to take a couple of bullets in the chest and keep coming at you.

"Well," Don said in his thick accent. "It's not exactly you that we're after. But we figured that you were the easiest way to get to the person that we really want, so here we are. So quit talking and drop your gun, detective. Or me and my boys will drop you. "

I didn't have to imagine the horrible, brutal things that these men would do to Bria if she surrendered. All of them were eyeing her, their cold gazes flicking from her crotch to her chest and back down again, already salivating at the prospect of getting their hands on her. My sister made no move to lower her gun. She was too smart for that. She knew as well as I did what the men had in mind-and that they would swarm over her the second she showed any weakness.

Instead of giving up, I felt the faintest trace of cold power trickle off her, like ice melting in a glass. Bria was an Ice elemental, a magic that she'd inherited from our mother, just as I had. Now my sister was reaching for her power, getting ready to use it against the men. Another weapon to her, just like the gun in her hand-and one that was just as deadly. I'd once stumbled across a giant that Bria had blasted with her magic. He'd looked like a human Popsicle after she'd gotten done with him, and I had no doubt she could do the same thing to the dwarves. The only problem was that she'd get only one of them before the rest overpowered her.

Don must have seen the blue glow that tinged Bria's eyes because his expression hardened with resolve. "I'm going to count to three. After that, my boys are going to put a few rounds in you. And when we have you down on the ground, well, trust me when I say that you won't like what happens next. "

Bria didn't say anything, but she kept her gun up and level with Don's chest.

"One," Don said. "Two-"

I didn't wait for three. I sprinted out from behind the SUV, grabbed the man closest to me, buried my hand in his hair, yanked his thick neck back, and cut his throat. Even a dwarf wasn't tough enough to survive a severed carotid artery. The man gurgled out a scream at the sudden, brutal wound, and everyone's head snapped around to see what the noise was all about.

For a moment, no one moved. Then everything happened at once.

Another one of the dwarves swung his gun toward me, apparently to try to shoot me through his dying buddy.

A soft puff-puff of air sounded, and the man hit the ground a second later, already dead from the two bullets that Finn had put through his right eye. I shoved the dwarf that I'd stabbed away from me. He slammed into the side of the SUV and slid to the pavement, twitching violently as his body shut down from the massive trauma it had just received.

"Take care of the bitch with the knife!" Don snapped. "I'll get the cop!"

Tags: Jennifer Estep Elemental Assassin Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net