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That was the only explanation that made sense. There was no other reason for someone of LaFleur's reputation, skills, and magic to sit in the dark for an hour. No, she'd been paid to be there-and I knew exactly who was footing the bill.
"Are you sure it was her?" Finn asked. "LaFleur? Here in Ashland?"
I nodded. "Yeah, it was LaFleur. She's the only assassin I know of who leaves a white orchid behind with her victims. It's her signature. Fletcher has a whole file of information on her. "
Fletcher Lane had been the assassin the Tin Man most of his life, until I took over the business from my foster father several years ago. But Fletcher had kept up with things in his own way, including compiling information on all the other top-level assassins currently working in the trenches and those who had supposedly retired like me. Strengths, weaknesses, vices, quirks, preferred kill methods. The old man had documented everyone and everything that he could find, just in case any of the others ever became a threat to us.
It wasn't unheard of for one assassin to be hired to take out another. A few months ago, an assassin named Brutus, aka Viper, had been sent to kill me, the Spider. I'd taken a contract to off a corporate whistle-blower, only my employer had decided to frame me for the murder instead, so she'd brought in Brutus to kill me at the scene of the crime, the Ashland Opera House. Viper-so nicknamed because of the rune tattoo of a fanged snake on his neck-had gotten the drop on me and would have killed me if he hadn't stopped to brag about how much better an assassin he was than me. Talking. It was always the bad guy's downfall.
I made a mental note to dig out Fletcher's file on LaFleur. I'd seen a demonstration of her electrical elemental magic tonight, but I wanted to know what other skills she might have.
"Okay, say it was LaFleur," Finn said. "There's only one person she could be working for, given the fact that she was waiting there for you tonight, given whose shipment that was supposed to be at the docks. "
"Mab Monroe. " I finished his thought.
Not surprising. After all, I had declared war on the Fire elemental and her organization. But the real kicker was that a few weeks ago, I'd taken credit for killing Elliot Slater, the giant enforcer who was one of Mab's top lieutenants. Mab couldn't let the giant's death slide-not and save face with the rest of Ashland's underworld. She had to get rid of me somehow, if only to let everyone else know that she was still queen bee of the city. I'd been waiting for her to react, to make some kind of move against me, and now I knew what it was. The Fire elemental had hired LaFleur to come to Ashland and kill me.
It was a smart play. Cold, calm, logical, with a high chance for quick, lasting success. LaFleur's ambush might have worked tonight. She might have gotten the drop on me, might even have killed me, if I'd been five minutes less patient. But I'd been trained by the very best, by the Tin Man himself. Waiting out an enemy was one of the first things that Fletcher had taught me-and it had certainly come in handy tonight.
And as much as I might hate Mab, I had to admit that the Fire elemental never did anything halfway. LaFleur was one of the best assassins in the business, and now I knew that she had elemental magic at her disposal, as well as the usual assortment of deadly skills assassins specialize in. LaFleur's electrical power had felt just as strong as my Ice and Stone magic. So strong that I didn't know which of us wo
uld still be standing at the end of this little game. A troubling thought, to say the least.
"But why would LaFleur kill the dwarf?" Finn asked. "Especially if they were both working for Mab?"
I shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe LaFleur was bored after having to wait so long for me not to show. Maybe all that electrical magic makes her twitchy. Maybe she just likes frying people. Her motives aren't important. What I want to know is who set me up. Who told you about Mab's shipment of drugs or whatever was in those boxes in the first place?"
Finn didn't say anything for a moment. "You're not going to like it. "
"Correction. He's not going to like it when I get my hands on him. Now, who told you?"
Finn looked at me. "Vinnie Volga over at Northern Aggression. "
I frowned. "The Ice elemental bartender?"
He nodded. "The one and the same. "
Finn was right. I didn't like it, mainly because I was friendly with Vinnie's boss, Roslyn Phillips, the vampire madam who ran Northern Aggression, Ashland's most infamous and upscale nightclub. I didn't think that Roslyn would take too kindly to my killing her favorite bartender.
I sighed. "And just how did this information get from Vinnie's lips to your ears? Did he tell you himself or was there a middleman involved?"
Information was the commodity that Finn traded in, and my foster brother had a network of spies throughout Ashland and beyond. Everyone from people he'd done favors for, to friends of friends, to folks looking to earn a few bucks by passing on what they knew about the city's power players. Finn was a master at separating the wheat from the chaff, or the solid info from the smoke screens. I rarely asked him where he got his intel from, though. I trusted Finn, and that was all that mattered to me. He wouldn't steer me wrong if he could help it.
Finn shrugged. "No middleman at all this time. I was sitting at the bar last night, chatting up all the sweet young things like usual. There was a lull in the action, so Vinnie and I started talking. He asked me if I ever, ah, imbibed something stronger than alcohol. He said he heard about some good stuff that was coming in down at the docks tonight. "
I looked at Finn. "Vinnie just blurted out that he knew when and where some drugs were coming into town? That sounds like a plant to me. Like Vinnie was spreading that line around to everyone to see who might bite on it. "
"I thought it was just bullshit myself, until the dwarf started unloading those boxes," Finn said.
"I think we both know it's a little more serious than that now. "
We fell silent as Finn left the downtown streets behind. The metropolis of Ashland sprawled over the corner of the Appalachian Mountains where Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia converged. The city was divided into two sections-Northtown and Southtown-held together by the circle of the downtown area.
The docks we'd just left were firmly entrenched in Southtown, the rough part of Ashland that was home to the poor, the down-on-their-luck, and the downtrodden. Southtown was the kind of place where people would slit your throat for your shoes. Anything in your wallet would just be gravy on top of that. Gangs and junkies littered the Southtown streets, along with more traditional forms of trash.
In comparison, Northtown was the rich, genteel, refined part of town, with high-end McMansions and immaculate estates that stretched out for miles. But that didn't mean Northtown was any safer. Because the rich folks there would kill you first with kind words before they actually plunged a dagger into your back.
Middle-class suburbs with more modest homes and income levels ringed Ashland on both sides, with all the requisite schools, shops, and businesses that you'd expect to find. Which is the general direction that Finn and I were headed in now.
