Elemental Assassin 04 - Tangled Threads

destruction. That’s what the stones of Mab’s mansion murmured of, punctuated by sly, smirking, confident whispers of power and money—both things that the Fire elemental had in abundance. But the most disturbing thing, the sound that made me grind my teeth, was the cackling of maniacal madness that rippled through the gray stones. Wave after wave of it, as though the rock had somehow been tortured until it was just as broken, burnt, and dead as Mab’s many victims.
    After a minute of listening to the stones’ wailing cries, I blocked out the damned, disturbing noise and got on with more important matters, like checking my weapons. As always, I carried five silverstone knives on me—one up either sleeve, one against the small of my back, and two more tucked into the tops of my boots. The knives were my weapons of choice on most jobs because they were sharp, strong, and almost unbreakable. Just like me.
    But Mab was a Fire elemental, which meant that she could create, control, and manipulate fire the sameway I could stone. And Mab wasn’t just any
mere
Fire elemental—she was rumored to have more raw magic, more raw power, than any elemental born in the last five hundred years. She could easily fry me alive with her magic before I got close enough to even think about plunging my silverstone knives into her burning black heart.
    I’d decided to play it smart and keep a healthy distance between us, just in case things didn’t work out exactly as I’d planned tonight. So I’d brought another weapon along with me—a crossbow. It looked like your typical crossbow—heavy, substantial, deadly—made even more so by the rifle scope that I’d mounted above the trigger and the six-inch-long, barbed bolt already in firing position. Since it was made out of silverstone, a particularly tough magical metal, the bolt would rip through anything that it came into contact with—glass, stone, flesh, bone.
    The crossbow currently sat on the window ledge, with the barb pointing inside. I’d been in firing position for more than fifteen minutes, and all I had to do to release the deadly bolt was pull the trigger.
    Good thing, as people were starting to arrive for dinner.
    The black velvet drapes had been drawn on either side of the window, letting me see into the dining room. Closing the drapes was something most folks didn’t bother with above the second floor. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy of Mab’s bodyguards not to see to a pesky little detail like that.
    I’d actually been inside Mab’s mansion once before, when I’d been stalking another target a few months ago, and the dining room before me was just as opulent as I remembered the rest of the house being. The room was ahundred feet wide, with a ceiling that soared high above it. Gold and silver leaf glinted in elaborate patterns on the ceiling, while several chandeliers dropped down from it and glistened like jewel-colored dewdrops above a polished ebony table. Three dozen place settings of fine china covered the table, along with matching flatware. Silver buckets filled with ice, champagne, and other expensive liquors were spaced down both sides of the table, so that everyone could have easy access to the booze.
    For the last ten minutes, tuxedo-clad giants moved through the area, bringing in plates, napkins, liquor, and everything else that may be needed. My gaze drifted over to a buffet table that had been set up on the far side of the room. Mab and her guests were dining on lobster tonight, among other delicacies.
    Finally, one of the giants opened the double doors at the end of the room, bowed his head, and held out his arm, ushering the guests inside. Time to get the party started, in more ways than one.
    Most of the guests drifted in individually, although a few were coupled up in groups of two or more. Men and women. Old, young, fat, thin, black, white, Hispanic, dwarves, giants, vampires. There was more variety to the crowd than I’d expected. Usually, all of Mab’s business associates looked the same—middle-aged men with more money than common sense and all the greedy, twisted appetites to match.
    But these people were different. Oh, they all looked like I’d thought they would—dressed to the nines in tuxedos and evening gowns, with expensive jewels, perfect makeup, and coiffed hair to match. But they didn’t actlike I’d thought they would. They didn’t mingle together, they didn’t start drinking and eating, and perhaps most telling, they