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"Now you sound like Stuart. "
"Who is Stuart?" he asked, a puzzled look on his face.
"I'll tell you all about him and his friend Richie - outside," I said. "Now, come on. We have some peacocks to deal with. "
Chapter 5
Phillip and I left the bump and grind of the dance floor behind and stepped outside. I breathed in, enjoying the freshness of the summer night air after all of the smoke and sweat inside the club.
The interior of Northern Aggression might have been all lush elegance, but the exterior was surprisingly featureless, like a corporate office building. The only thing that set the building apart was the neon sign over the entrance, which was shaped like Roslyn's rune. The heart with an arrow through it burned a bright, bloody red, then a sunny yellow, then a burnt orange, casting its intense light out over the folks waiting to get past the red velvet rope at the entrance to the club.
A few people looked up from their phones, cigarettes, and conversations as we walked past but quickly lost interest and turned their hopeful attention back to the giant bouncer manning the velvet rope. I filled Phillip in on Stuart the giant and Richie the dwarf and their plans for Gin as we headed toward the parking lot.
When I finished, Phillip let out a low whistle. "So now they're following her around Ashland, just waiting for her to let her guard down long enough to try to kill her? Sounds like some folks are getting a little desperate to get rid of the Spider. "
"I don't know why. It's not like Gin is trying to take Mab's place or anything like that. All she wants is to be left alone. "
Phillip shook his head. "That's not going to happen, and we both know it. Not until someone steps up and takes control of the underworld. Right now, everyone is just trying to hold on to what they have and position themselves as best they can. As much as I hate to say it, at least with Mab around, there was some semblance of order. You don't want to know how many men I've lost these past few months to fools storming onto the riverboat, thinking that they can rob me and intimidate my customers. Not to mention what happened to Antonio. "
A shadow passed over his face, causing guilt to cut through my stomach like one of Gin's knives. Antonio Mendez had been Phillip's right-hand man on the Delta Queen, but more important, the giant had been Phillip's friend. Salina had used her water magic to suck all of the moisture, all of the life, out of Antonio, and he'd died on the riverboat's main deck. Salina might have been the one who actually killed the giant, but I still felt responsible for his death - the same way that I felt responsible for all of the hurt that Eva, Phillip, Cooper, and Gin had experienced because of Salina.
Because of my foolish faith and trust in her.
There was nothing that I could do for Antonio. Not now. But the same wasn't true for Gin, so I pulled my keys out of my pocket and popped open the trunk of my Mercedes-Benz. The trunk was a mess, full of tools and odd bits of metal I had picked up here and there, but I knew exactly what I was looking for and precisely where it was. Like Gin and her knives, I never went anywhere without my weapon of choice these days. I reached down into the mess, and my hands closed around a smooth, firm, familiar hilt. A moment later, I pulled my blacksmith's hammer out of the trunk and into the neon glare cast by the heart-and-arrow sign.
The hammer wasn't a traditional weapon, but it was mine. After spending so many hours, so many years, in my forge, it felt far more comfortable in my hand than a gun or a knife ever would. Besides, with so many giants and dwarves in Ashland, it was good to have something that would really pack a punch and level the playing field. Drive the hammer into someone's knees, and he would go down screaming, no matter how tall or tough he was. Slam it into someone's head, and his skull would crack like an eggshell, no matter how thick and strong his bones were.
I twirled the hammer around and around, moving it from one hand to the other and limbering up my shoulders. After being hunched over in the booth, it felt good to move, to stretch - and to be doing something to help Gin, rather than hurt her again.
The hammer was made of solid silverstone, although you couldn't really tell, given how much soot and ash had blackened it over the years. And there was something else that made the hammer special: my magic.
Over the years, I'd imbued the hammer with my own elemental talent for metal, so that whenever I was working in the forge, the hammer was an extension of my arm, my magic, my will. All of that flowed from me, through the hammer, and into whatever piece of metal I was working with, until the sheets of iron, copper, and silverstone took on the exact shape that I wanted them to.
Phillip eyed the hammer. "I thought you just wanted to talk to these guys, tell them to back off. "
"We can try that," I said. "But I doubt it will work. They'll want their money too badly to walk away from this chance to kill Gin. Does that bother you?"
He grinned. "Not at all. In fact, that's exactly the sort of party that I like. Although I hate to go empty-handed. What other junk have you got in your trunk?" Phillip snickered, then leaned down and peered into the mess. "Hey, what's in here?"
"Nothing - "
Before I could stop him, he reached down and popped open the lid on a silverstone case that lay on the right side of the trunk. Five knives were nestled in black foam inside the case. They glinted dully in the flashing neon still streaming out from the club's sign.
"Knives?" Phillip's eyes narrowed. "Do I even have to guess who these are for?"
He plucked one of the knives out of the foam and held it up to the light. He turned it around and saw the symbol stamped into the hilt. A small circle surrounded by eight thin rays. A spider rune - Gin's rune - the symbol for patience.
"You made her some more knives?" Phillip scoffed. "Really? The five you made her for Christmas weren't enough?"
"Have you met Gin?"
He shrugged, conceding my point. "Still, Owen, knives? Again? Really? Were you not listening before when I mentioned flowers, candy, and jewelry?"
"Gin isn't exactly a flowers-candy-and-jewelry sort of woman," I said. "And I didn't make the knives for her. "
Phillip snorted. "Right. Because someone else wants a set of knives with her rune stamped into the hilts. If these knives are part of some half-assed plan you have to get back into Gin's good graces, then I gotta say, it's a little lame. "
I ground my teeth. That was exactly what I'd been thinking about doing with the knives, giving them to Gin as an apology for everything that I'd done. I knew that it wouldn't make up for everything - not for anything, really - but it was all I could think of.
