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A surprised scream ripped through the air, along with a sharp smacking sound. The pain-filled moan that followed told me that someone had just gotten hit.
"Don't move, and don't even think of going for any of the alarm buttons," a low voice growled. "Or I'll put a couple of holes in you - all of you. Maybe I'll do that anyway, just for fun. "
Well, now, that sort of threat implied that the person making it had a gun - maybe even more than one. I perked up at the thought, and a genuine smile creased my face for the first time today. For the first time in several days, actually.
I cracked open the fitting-room door so I could see what was going on. Sure enough, a man stood right in front of the jewelry case. He was a dwarf, a couple of inches shy of five feet tall, with a body that was thick with muscle. He wore jeans with holes at the knees and a faded blue T-shirt. A barbed-wire tattoo curled around his left bicep, which looked like it was made of concrete rather than flesh and bone. He held a revolver in his right hand, the kind of gun that could definitely put a large hole in someone, especially if you used it at close range.
Since it didn't look like the dwarf was immediately going to pull the trigger, my gaze went to the other people in the boutique. Blondie was the closest to the gunman. She had one hand pressed to her cheek, probably from where the dwarf had reached across the counter and slapped her, while her other hand was clamped over her mouth to hold back her screams. She wasn't entirely successful at that, though, and a series of high-pitched squeaks filled the air, almost like a dog whimpering.
Finn stood about ten feet away from the dwarf. He must have been talking to Red when the gunman entered the store, because he'd put himself in between her and the dwarf. Red had the same stunned, horrified expression on her face that Blondie did.
Finn had his hands up, although his eyes were narrowed, assessing the dwarf and the danger he presented, just like I was.
The first thing I did was look past the gunman and through the boutique windows, just in case he had a partner waiting outside, but I didn't see anyone loitering on the sidewalk or sitting in a getaway car by the curb. A solo job, then.
The second thing I did was study the dwarf to see if it looked like he was searching the store for someone else - me, Gin Blanco, the assassin known as the Spider.
By killing Mab, I'd inadvertently made myself a popular target in the underworld, and more than one of the crime bosses had put a bounty on my head, hoping to establish themselves as Ashland's new head honcho by taking me out. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility to think that the dwarf had followed Finn and me to the boutique on someone's orders.
But the only thing the dwarf was interested in was the jewelry. His eyes glinted, and his mouth curved up into a satisfied smile as he glanced down at all the expensive baubles. So this was nothing more than a simple robbery, then. Plenty of those in Ashland, even up here in the rarefied air of Northtown. Really, if the Posh owners were going to keep all those diamonds around, then they should have at least hired a giant or two to guard them.
"Move!" the dwarf barked, pointing his gun at Blondie. "Over there with the others. Now!"
Blondie, who'd been behind the counter, hurried around it and stopped next to Red, putting the other woman and Finn between her and the robber. Well, at least she had a good sense of self-preservation. Red knew it too; she gave her coworker a hostile glance over her shoulder.
I turned my attention back to the robber, wondering if he might have any magic to go along with his inherent dwarven strength and the hand cannon he was sporting. But the dwarf's eyes didn't glow, and I didn't sense anything emanating from him. No hot, invisible waves of Fire power, no cold, frosty blasts of Ice magic, and nothing else to indicate that he was an elemental. Good. That would make this easier.
"Give me the key!" the dwarf snapped at Blondie as he moved behind the counter. "Now!"
Blondie stepped around the others and over to the robber, pulling a set of keys out of her pants pocket and holding them out to him at arm's length, her hands shaking. The dwarf grabbed the keys and used one of them to open the lock on the jewelry case, instead of just smashing the glass and setting off the alarms. He threw the keys down on the floor and started shoving bracelets, rings, and necklaces into his jeans pockets.
I looked at the knives I'd piled on the bench inside the fitting room alongside my clothes. Normally, I carried five silverstone knives on me - one up either sleeve, one against the small of my back, and two in the sides of my boots - but I'd removed them when I'd started trying on the dresses. I couldn't exactly go outside with a knife in my hand, since that would ruin whatever element of surprise I had, and there was no time to change back into my regular clothes. Cursing Finn under my breath, I hiked up the long skirt of the dress I was wearing and opened the fitting-room door.
"Darling!" I squealed, rushing into the front of the store. "Isn't this dress just the most divine thing you've ever seen?"
I twirled around and managed to put myself in between Finn and the robber. With the yellow dress, I might as well have been a mother duck, watching over her little ones.
"'Darling'? I thought you said she was your sister!" Red hissed.
A dwarf had threatened to shoot her and was now robbing the store, and Red was still more worried about Finn's marital status than all that. Someone's priorities were a little skewed.
Finn winced and gave her an apologetic shrug, but he never took his eyes off the dwarf.
The robber's head snapped up at the sound of my voice, and the gun followed a second later. He stepped to the end of the counter and grabbed hold of my bare arm, his fingers digging into my skin as he pulled me next to him. His hot breath wafted up my nose, reeking of onions and garlic. I hoped he'd enjoyed whatever he'd had for lunch today, because he was going to be eating through a straw soon enough.
"Who the hell are you?" he growled, shoving the gun in my face. "Where did you come from?"
"I was . . . I was . . . I was in the back, trying on some evening gowns," I said in the breathiest, most terrified and helpless voice I could muster. "I don't want any trouble. Please, please, please, don't shoot me!"
The dwarf stared at me for several seconds before he lowered his gun and let go of my arm.
"Just so you know, that's the ugliest damn dress I've ever seen," he said. "You look like a daffodil. "
He shook his head and reached inside the case to grab another handful of jewelry. The second his eyes dropped to the diamonds, I stepped forward, yanked the gun out of his hand, and drove my fist into the side of his face.
With his dense, dwarven musculature, it was like smashing my knuckles into a cement block. My punch didn't have much effect, except to make him stop looting the jewelry case and focus all his attention on me, but that was exactly what I wanted.
"Stupid bitch!" he growled, stretching his hands out to grab me. "I'll kill you for that - "
