The men spread out and formed a semicircle around my sister. Each one carried a gun, but they were too focused on Bria to do the really smart thing-like check and see if she had any backup. Or perhaps Jenkins had already ruled out that possibility for them by making sure Xavier was by the front door of the nightclub, instead of back here with Bria. With the giant out of the picture, the men probably thought that Bria would be easy pickings. Fools. They didn't realize how tough she really was-or that her big sister, Genevieve, was here and would do anything to protect her. Anything.
Either way, it was easy enough for me to hopscotch my way from shadow to shadow, circle around the parking lot, and slip up through the trees until I was right behind one of the SUVs. I stopped there, hidden behind the massive vehicle, a silverstone knife in my hand, with another up my sleeve, two more tucked into my boots, and a fifth hidden against the small of my back. Five knives for five guys. No problem.
"Why don't you put the gun down and come along quietly, detective?" one of the dwarves rumbled. A nasal, New Yawk accent colored his words, telling me that he was definitely not from around here. "Because I'd really hate to have to shoot you in that pretty face of yours."
Bria stiffened at his tone, her face tight with anger. "Who the hell are you and what do you want? You called me detective, so you obviously know that I'm a cop. You really want to do something as stupid as threaten me?"
The man let out a low, evil laugh and looked at his friends, who all snickered in response. For some reason, they thought this was a laugh riot.
I used their laughter and distraction to slide into the shadows next to the second SUV-the one that was closest to Bria. I peered around the edge of the vehicle, studying the men who surrounded my sister.
They reminded me of a set of Russian matryoshka dolls in that they were all more or less carbon copies of each other, with the short, stocky, muscular frames that dwarves always had. None of them was taller than five feet, but their size definitely wasn't relative to their impressive strength. They all had similar features-oily black hair that was slicked back over their foreheads, swarthy skin, and black eyes. Brothers, maybe, or cousins. And they were all dressed alike, in nylon Windbreakers in a variety of bright, neon colors, matching sneakers, and gold chains around their necks. They looked like pint-size extras from some old Sopranos episode, as though the dwarven mob had migrated south for the winter. The only thing that would have been worse was if there had been seven of them. Heigh-ho, heigh-ho.
My eyes dropped to the guns in their hands, the ones they had pointed at Bria. Glocks for the most part. The lead guy, the one who'd spoken to Bria, had a snub-nosed revolver. I didn't know who the men were, had never laid eyes on them before, but they still seemed familiar to me. They radiated the same kind of hard, predatory air as the guests did I'd seen at Mab's interrupted dinner party. Which made me all the more curious as to why they'd decided to ambush my sister-and made them all the more likely to die when I found out the answer.
The lead guy, the dwarven don of the group, as it were, gave Bria a grin that was as greasy as his unwashed hair. "Honey, everybody in Ashland knows that you're a cop. That's why we're all so interested in you."
Bria frowned at his words. "What are you talking about? What's the meaning of this?"
The five men laughed again, as if they were all in on some private joke that was just the funniest thing in the world. Real wise guys, this bunch.
"Don" jerked his head at Jenkins, who'd crept back and joined the semicircle of men surrounding my sister. "Why don't you ask him what's going on? After all, he's the reason you came here tonight."
Bria looked at Jenkins, but the informant wasn't daunted by the anger burning in her icy blue gaze. "What's going on, Lincoln? I thought that you had information on what was going down in Ashland. What the hell are you trying to pull?"
"I'm not trying to pull anything," he said. "Except earn myself a cool ten grand for leading my new friends here straight to you."
I frowned. The dwarven mobsters had paid Jenkins ten large to set up a fake meeting with Bria? Why? What for? What did they plan on doing with her?
Bria glared at him. "You sold me out, you son of a bitch."
Jenkins's lips pulled back in a wide grin, revealing the fake gold grill stuck on his teeth. "Sorry, baby, but I got to get paid."
My fingers clenched around the hilt of my knife. The only thing he was getting tonight was dead. Another minute, two tops.
"Why?" Bria snapped, turning her attention to the leader once more. "Why give Lincoln ten grand? I would have been happy to set up my own meeting with you."
Bria's hand tightened on her gun, her knuckles white against the black barrel, telling everyone exactly how that meeting would have ended. Despite the seriousness of the situation, I couldn't help the warm pride that filled me at her bravado. Bria was no more a coward than I was. Still, that gun wouldn't do her much good against five dwarves. Like giants, dwarves were strong enough to take a couple of bullets in the chest and keep coming at you.
"Well," Don said in his thick accent. "It's not exactly you that we're after. But we figured that you were the easiest way to get to the person that we really want, so here we are. So quit talking and drop your gun, detective. Or me and my boys will drop you."
I didn't have to imagine the horrible, brutal things that these men would do to Bria if she surrendered. All of them were eyeing her, their cold gazes flicking from her crotch to her chest and back down again, already salivating at the prospect of getting their hands on her. My sister made no move to lower her gun. She was too smart for that. She knew as well as I did what the men had in mind-and that they would swarm over her the second she showed any weakness.
Instead of giving up, I felt the faintest trace of cold power trickle off her, like ice melting in a glass. Bria was an Ice elemental, a magic that she'd inherited from our mother, just as I had. Now my sister was reaching for her power, getting ready to use it against the men. Another weapon to her, just like the gun in her hand-and one that was just as deadly. I'd once stumbled across a giant that Bria had blasted with her magic. He'd looked like a human Popsicle after she'd gotten done with him, and I had no doubt she could do the same thing to the dwarves. The only problem was that she'd get only one of them before the rest overpowered her.
Don must have seen the blue glow that tinged Bria's eyes because his expression hardened with resolve. "I'm going to count to three. After that, my boys are going to put a few rounds in you. And when we have you down on the ground, well, trust me when I say that you won't like what happens next."
Bria didn't say anything, but she kept her gun up and level with Don's chest.
"One," Don said. "Two-"
I didn't wait for three. I sprinted out from behind the SUV, grabbed the man closest to me, buried my hand in his hair, yanked his thick neck back, and cut his throat. Even a dwarf wasn't tough enough to survive a severed carotid artery. The man gurgled out a scream at the sudden, brutal wound, and everyone's head snapped around to see what the noise was all about.
For a moment, no one moved. Then everything happened at once.
Another one of the dwarves swung his gun toward me, apparently to try to shoot me through his dying buddy.
A soft puff-puff of air sounded, and the man hit the ground a second later, already dead from the two bullets that Finn had put through his right eye. I shoved the dwarf that I'd stabbed away from me. He slammed into the side of the SUV and slid to the pavement, twitching violently as his body shut down from the massive trauma it had just received.
"Take care of the bitch with the knife!" Don snapped. "I'll get the cop!"
Don pulled the trigger on his gun. Crack! Crack!
Bria threw herself to one side, and the bullets slammed into the Dumpster behind her. My sister rolled across the cracked pavement and came up on one knee, raising her own weapon to fire at Don. Her other hand was outstretched, and a blue light flickered there, as she formed a ball of elemental Ice to fling at him. Even across the parking lot, I could feel the cool caress of Bria's Ice magic calling out to my own.
But the bastard was quicker than she was. He rushed forward and slapped the weapon away before she could put a couple of rounds in his chest. The blow also broke Bria's concentration, and her hold on her Ice magic slipped, the blue light cascading away in a shower of icy sparks. My sister retaliated by bracing her hands on the pavement and kicking up with her foot. Her boot slammed into Don's knee, and he staggered back, hitting the hood of the SUV. But the dwarf never stopped moving, bobbing, weaving, and gathering himself for another strike at her.
Another puff-puff of air sounded, and Don grunted as two bullets slammed into his left shoulder. A rare miss for Finn, who had no doubt meant to put the bullets through his eye instead, but the dwarf was moving too quickly, too erratically for that. Two more puffs of air hissed out, but by that point, Don had tucked into a tight ball and launched himself back at Bria. The bullets punched through the hood of the SUV, hitting the radiator and making it steam.
Lincoln Jenkins cowered on the right side of the vehicle, hugging the chrome rim like it was a shield that would protect him.
That all happened in the three seconds it took before the other two guys turned and came at me.
They both raised their guns and fired, but not before I used my Stone magic to harden my skin into an impenetrable shell.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
The bullets pinged off my body and disappeared into the darkness. The dwarves exchanged a puzzled look, wondering what was going on, but I didn't give them any time to recover. I stepped forward, my knife flashing.
I used my blade to slice a path across the closest man's stomach. He screamed and tried to punch me in the face, using his gun for extra pop. I dodged his awkward blow, palmed a second knife, and buried that one in his heart, twisting and tearing through the thick, hard muscles in his chest to get to it. He screamed again, even as his limbs went limp, and I let him flop to the ground.
The second guy snarled with anger and threw his body into mine, tearing my knives out of my hands and smashing me up against the side of the SUV with his dwarven strength. He raised his gun up to put a couple of bullets into my face, but I grabbed the barrel and shoved the weapon back into his nose, breaking it. The gun slid out of his grasp and clattered to the ground. Blood spattered onto my face, just the way it had a hundred times before. A thousand times before. I grinned. Nothing gushed quite like a broken nose.
But the guy wasn't done for yet. He came at me again, this time trying to wrap his hands around my neck and choke me. I stepped up and sucker-punched him in the throat. He stumbled back, gasping for air, and a silver-stone knife from my boot ended the rest of his struggles.
With my two men eliminated, I turned my attention back to Bria and Don, who were still fighting. The two of them rolled back and forth across the pavement, punching each other, although Don didn't even grunt as Bria's blows connected with his chest. Not surprising, given his inherent dwarven toughness. Blood covered both their faces, and I couldn't tell who the majority of it belonged to. No more puffs of air sounded, and I knew that was only because Finn didn't want to risk hitting Bria with a shot meant for Don, not while they were grappling.
Good thing I had my knives for the up-close wet work.
I sprinted over to the two of them, and the second that Don got back on top of Bria, I kicked him off her. The dwarf rolled back before climbing to his feet once more, looking all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, despite his fight with Bria and the blood soaking the shoulder of his electric blue track suit.
Although I wanted nothing more than to see how badly Bria was injured, I stepped over my sister, putting myself between her and Don. Now that the other dwarves were down, I knew that Finn would come around the Dumpsters and see to her.
"Hey," I snarled. "Why don't you give me a whirl, if you really want to play?"
Don tilted his head from side to side, cracking his neck and considering me and the bloody knife in my hand. "Well, well, looks like I was right after all. The quickest way to get what I want and all the money that goes along with it is the detective here."
And then we danced.
He came at me, and I stepped up to meet him. Don was much better than I'd realized, moving with the speed and grace of a natural-born fighter and someone who'd gotten in a lot of practice along the way. The bastard had the muscled body of a true athlete, despite the cheesy nylon suit and pricey sneakers.
All of which meant that I couldn't immediately plunge my knife into him the way I wanted to. Normally, I tried to avoid this sort of hand-to-hand fight with a dwarf, as Don could do far more damage to me with his fists than I could do to him with mine. But I was still holding on to my Stone magic, still making my skin as hard as marble. His punches would hurt, but they wouldn't completely debilitate me like they would have if I wasn't using my elemental power to shield myself.
We moved back and forth on the cracked concrete, exchanging blow after blow. I punched him in the face. He landed a solid blow to my stomach. I followed with an uppercut to his chin. He turned and snapped his elbow into my chest. We broke apart, both of us bruised and more than a little bloody.
"Not bad for a dead man," I murmured. "Care to tell me what your interest is in the detective before I finish you?"
Don smiled, showing me a mouthful of bloody teeth that looked particularly garish against his swarthy skin. "Nah. What fun would that be?"
Before I could respond, he came at me again, swinging, swinging, swinging hard. I dodged his first two blows, then let the third connect on purpose. His fist thumped into my stomach again, and I crumpled to the ground in front of him. I didn't get up.
