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I groaned again and returned Owen's smile. More of the anger melted out of his gaze, and the tension between us lightened, like a dark cloud being blown away by a stiff gust of wind. For now, anyway.
"I'm sorry," I said. "You know I'm a little irrational where Mab's concerned. I saw an opportunity to take her out, and I couldn't pass it up. "
"I know, Gin," Owen said. "I know. "
He got up from his rocking chair and came over to the bed. He sat down and opened his arms to me, and I scooted into his embrace. The warmth from his body mixed with my own, and I breathed in, enjoying his rich, earthy scent, which always made me think of metal, if metal could ever have any real smell.
"I hate that she's after you," Owen murmured, his lips against my hair. "But what I hate more is that you went af
ter her alone. That no one was backing you up. Promise me you won't do that again. Okay, Gin? Promise me that the next time you go after Mab, you'll take someone with you. Me, Finn, Sophia. Someone, anyone, to help you. "
I could have lied to him. Maybe I should have. Because I had no intention of stopping until Mab was dead-even if she would probably take me down with her. But I didn't want to lie to Owen and ruin this fragile peace between us.
"All right," I said in a wry tone. "The next time I go after Mab, I'll take a buddy along to hold my knives. Happy?"
"For now," Owen rumbled, tucking me in even closer to his body. "For now. "
We sat there on the bed for a long time, just holding each other.
Owen had to get to work, since his business empire didn't run itself, and I had a barbecue restaurant to run, so we made plans to hook up later. But Owen was quieter than usual as he left Jo-Jo's, and I couldn't think of what to say to him without the words coming out wrong. So we left things as they were, unspoken and unresolved, with neither one of us knowing how to deal with the other.
By the time I showered, threw on some spare clothes that I kept at Jo-Jo's, and made my way to the Pork Pit, it was after two o'clock.
The Pork Pit barbecue restaurant was located in downtown Ashland, close to the unofficial Southtown border. It wasn't much to look at, just another hole-in-the-wall, but it was mine-my gin joint. The sight of the multicolored neon sign of a pig holding a platter of food over the front door brought a smile to my face. The Pit was the only real home I'd known since Fletcher had taken me in off the streets when I was thirteen. The old man had started the restaurant years ago, and I'd inherited it after his murder last year.
As I walked toward the front door, I brushed my fingers against the battered brick of the restaurant and reached for my Stone magic. As always, slow, sonorous notes rippled through the brick, whispering of the clogged, contented hearts, arteries, and stomachs of so many diners after eating at the restaurant. The familiar whispers soothed away the rest of my frustration. I might have screwed up last night, but I was still alive. I'd plotted more than one murder inside the Pork Pit. I'd go inside and get started on Mab's lickety-split.
I scanned the interior of the Pit through the storefront windows. Clean, but well-worn blue and pink vinyl booths. Matching, faded, peeling pig tracks on the floor that led to the men's and women's restrooms. A counter running along the back wall with an old-fashioned cash register sitting at one end. A battered, blood-covered, framed copy of Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls hanging on the wall opposite the cash register, along with a faded photo of Fletcher in his younger years. Everything was as it should have been.
The lunch rush was over, and only one person sat at the long counter. I stepped inside, making the bell over the front door chime, and he swiveled around and fixed me with a cold glare.
"It's about time you showed up, Gin," Finn snapped.
Finnegan Lane was just as handsome as Owen, but in a more polished, classical way. Finn wore one of his many power suits, since as an investment banker, he spent most of his daylight hours swindling people out of their money. Today's color choice was royal blue with the faintest houndstooth check pattern running through the expensive cloth, topped off by a silver shirt and blue-and-silver striped tie. Finn's thick, walnut-colored hair was styled just so, and his eyes were as slick, shiny, and green in his ruddy face as the glass of a soda pop bottle.
Finn crossed his arms over his chest and glared at me, much the same way that Owen had done earlier. Time for round two of the Gin Blanco firing squad.
I sighed and walked over to my foster brother. "Let me guess. You want to have a little chat about what happened with Mab last night. "
"Why, whatever gave you that idea?" Finn drawled in a deceptively light voice. "Perhaps it was because I was awakened at an unseemly hour this morning only to learn that someone tried to kill Mab last night while she was entertaining guests in the main dining room of her mansion. The very part of the mansion that I distinctly remember getting you the blueprints for just last week. "
Behind the counter, Sophia Deveraux grunted her agreement with Finn's pointed, acidic tone. Today, the Goth dwarf wore a black T-shirt covered with curved, white vampire fangs dripping blood. The crimson color of the blood matched the silverstone-spiked leather collar around her neck, as well as the cuffs on both of her wrists. Her lipstick was a red slash in her pale face, although bits of silver glitter glinted in her black hair.
I sighed. "Look, I'm sorry that I went off the reservation without you, all of you. But we all know that my getting that close to Mab was strictly a solo job. I didn't want either of you to get hurt if I missed. "
Sophia grunted again and shrugged her shoulders, while Finn's face softened just a bit. Then he sniffed, and I knew that there would be no sweet-talking him out of his snit. Finn had built up a good bit of righteous indignation, and he was determined to make me suffer through it.
"While we appreciate your concern for our safety, we're a team, Gin," Finn lectured me. "We always have been. You need to remember that because it's the only way that you're going to kill Mab-by all of us working together. Not by your taking off by yourself with no one to watch your back. "
I gave my foster brother a noncommittal shrug. "Not much chance of that happening, since I missed her last night. I imagine that she's upped her security considerably since then. "
"Mmm. "
This time, Finn was the one who was noncommittal. He reached down and took a sip from the mug of chicory coffee sitting on the counter in front of him. The warm, fragrant aroma of the caffeine brew filled my nose, making me think of Finn's father, Fletcher. The old man had drunk the same coffee in the same copious amounts before his murder as his son did. Even now, almost six months later, I still missed Fletcher. Missed seeing the old man leaning behind the counter at the Pork Pit, reading his latest book and telling me about the newest job he'd booked for me as the Spider.
There at the end, right before he was tortured to death by an Air elemental, Fletcher had wanted me to retire, to live in the daylight a little, as he had so eloquently called it. After I'd avenged the old man's death, I'd taken his advice and retired from being the Spider. At least, I'd tried to. I wasn't having much success so far. I might not kill people for money anymore, but I'd still managed to get myself into a whole lot of trouble in the meantime. Mostly by trying to help other people, good, innocent folks, deal with certain problems that had only one solution in a city like Ashland-one that involved my silverstone knives and someone losing a whole lot of blood. Permanently.
Finn took another sip of his coffee and stared at me, knowledge glinting in his sly green gaze. I rolled my eyes, walked behind the counter, and pulled a blue work apron on over my jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt.
