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"It's okay, Gin," Finn whispered in my ear. "I'm taking you to Jo-Jo's. She'll heal you up, and then we can figure out what to do about Bria being in Ashland. You can relax now. Everything's going to be okay. "
Even though it felt like my own bones were stabbing me, I turned my neck, looked over Finn's shoulder, and stared at Bria. She was still busy berating the security guard, so she didn't see my pained gaze. My eyes landed on the primrose rune she wore around her neck. The blue and red lights made the silverstone metal gleam like a small moon in the semidarkness.
I never thought I'd see that rune again-much less my baby sister. But seventeen years later, seventeen years after the brutal, fiery murder of our mother and older sister, Bria was back in my life. The tightness in my chest swelled up again, stronger, colder, and harder than before.
The delicate primrose was the last thing I remembered seeing before the world went black.
Chapter Three
I felt like I was on fire-from the inside out.
Hot needles stabbed up and down my body in a slow, relentless, agonizing path. My raw face, my broken jaw, my cracked ribs. The needles swept over everything, like I was some sort of warped voodoo doll come to life. The hot tingles made everything hurt even worse than it had before.
I whimpered and thrashed, trying to get away from the horrible, burning sensation.
"Hold her still, Sophia," a voice commanded. "Or her nose is going to look like something from a Halloween shop. You too, Finn. "
A pair of iron hands tightened around my shoulders, immobilizing me. A larger but lighter set of hands clamped around my ankles.
"Hmph," someone grunted.
For some reason, it sounded like she was saying go ahead.
The burning continued a moment longer, then abruptly ceased. The sour stench of my own sweat filled my nose, and I panted with relief. A gentle hand smoothed back my damp, bloody hair, then cupped my cheek.
"Go to sleep now, darling. " This time the voice was low, warm, sweet, soothing. "Just sleep, Gin. "
So I did.
The next time I woke up, I was stretched out in an oversize salon chair that had been laid back like a recliner. Much better than lying on the cold grass of the college quad-or on a steel slab at the morgue.
My eyes drifted over the white and blue, cloudlike fresco painted on the high ceiling. Familiar as always. I knew where I was, of course. Jolene "Jo-Jo" Deveraux's beauty salon. This wasn't the first time I'd woken up in one of the cherry red chairs staring up at the cloud painting after being healed. I didn't think it would be the last time either.
Something rough and wet and warm scraped against my right hand. I craned my neck to one side. Rosco, Jo-Jo's pudgy basset hound, had dragged his fat, lazy ass out of his wicker basket in the corner long enough to come over and lick my hand.
"Good boy," I murmured and rubbed one of his long, floppy ears between my blood-spattered fingers.
Rosco grunted out a huff of pleasure and collapsed in a brown and black furry heap next to the chair. Walking the thirty feet across the room to me had plumb tuckered him out. I smiled and rubbed the hound dog's other ear.
"About time you came out of it," a feminine voice drawled off to my left.
A pair of bare feet strolled into view next to Rosco's inert form. Bright fuchsia nail polish covered her toes. Only one person I knew still padded around without socks in early December. I looked up to find Jo-Jo Deveraux looming over me. Well, as much as a dwarf who topped out at five feet could loom. Then again, Jo-Jo was rather tall for a dwarf.
Although she was two hundred fifty-seven and counting, Jo-Jo didn't look a day over one ninety-nine. She always reminded me of a Southern magnolia, aging ever so gracefully. Tonight the dwarf wore a long, fuzzy, pink flannel robe, topped off with a string of gravel-size pearls. Jo-Jo never went anywhere without her pearls. To her, they were the ultimate symbol that she was a true Southern lady. Even though it was getting late, Jo-Jo's bleached-blond-white hair still stood tall, teased, and prou
d in its usual helmet of curls, and her eye makeup looked as fresh as if she'd just applied it. Gloss covered her pursed lips. Strawberry, from the smell of it.
Most people would have thought Jo-Jo was just another aging debutante, still trying to be the belle of the ball and clinging to her youth despite the laugh lines around her mouth and eyes. They would have been wrong.
Everybody knew Jo-Jo Deveraux was an Air elemental who used her beauty salon and magic to help folks stave off the ravages of time on their faces, breasts, legs, and asses. Pure oxygen facials could do wonders for even the most stubborn crows' feet. But few people knew the dwarf was also the best healer in Ashland, capable of curing everything short of death. Even then, you had a better chance of Jo-Jo finding some way to bring you back to life than with anyone else.
Jo-Jo Deveraux had been fast friends with my mentor, Fletcher Lane. When I'd started doing the assassinating instead of the old man, Jo-Jo had transferred her healing services over to me. Of course, I always paid for her time, expertise, and magic, but the dwarf was family to me now. So was her younger sister, Sophia, who was a cook down at the Pork Pit, the barbecue restaurant Fletcher had left me upon his death. Sophia was also rather handy at disposing of the many bodies I left in my wake.
"How are you feeling?" Jo-Jo asked in her low, easy voice that oozed like warm honey.
"Like I got beaten by a giant. "
Concern flashed in her pale gaze. Except for the pinprick of black at their center, the dwarf's eyes were almost colorless, like two cloudy pieces of quartz set into her middle-aged face.
