The dwarf stopped at the base of the stairs that led up to the wooden porch. He hitched his thumbs in the belt loops on his jeans and put a foot up on one of the stairs.
Black snakeskin boots covered his feet. Orange-red flames spread over the tops, while silverstone tipped the pointed ends. A black ten-gallon hat rested on the dwarf 's head, making him seem taller than his five feet, and the lariat tie around his neck featured a piece of turquoise almost as big as my fist. Somebody liked playing cowboy.
The dwarf 's hair was a curly, sandy blond mane that fell to his shoulders. His nose was a bulbous piece of flesh that puckered out from his face like a boil, and a wide, fuzzy mustache drooped over his lips. His eyes were a pale, piercing blue in his tan face.
"Warren," the dwarf rumbled.
"Tobias," the old man replied.
The two men looked each other square in the eye the way old enemies do. Squinting, staring hard, neither one willing to back down, look away, or even fucking blink first.
While Tobias Dawson and Warren T. Fox played eyeball chicken, my gaze flicked to the men standing behind the dwarf. The two shorter guys were human, although they probably had some giant blood mixed in them, from the looks of their powerful muscles and fists. Easy enough to put down with my knives. The giants standing behind them would be a bit more of a challenge - especially considering the fact each of their fists was only a little smaller than my head. I'd have to bob and weave with them, just like I'd done with the dwarven assassin last night. Still, nothing I couldn't handle.
My gray eyes rested on Tobias Dawson once more. He'd be the real problem, the real test. Especially since I felt the faintest bit of power trickling off him, like a piece of sandpaper just brushing against my skin. Magic. The blond, mustached dwarf had some kind of elemental magic.
Being an elemental myself, I could sense when others used their magic, of course. But there were some folks like Dawson who, well, leaked magic, for lack of a better word. Even when those elementals weren't actively using their power, magic still trickled out of them, like water from a leaky faucet. Drip, drip, drip. The magical runoff was easy to sense. Then there were people like me, whose magic was completely self-contained. No leaks, no drips, no runoff. My magic couldn't be felt at all unless I used it in an overt, forceful manner or someone had a particular knack for sniffing out elemental power.
Dawson's magic felt similar to my own, although I couldn't quite tell if the dwarf was a Stone or Ice. If I had to guess, I'd say Stone. The sensation rippling off him would have felt smoother, cooler if he'd been an Ice elemental.
Either way, I felt it. If things went badly, I'd go for the dwarf first, then his goons. With his magic and inherent dwarven strength and toughness, Tobias Dawson was definitely the greater threat.
My thumb rubbed over the hilt of the silverstone knife I'd already palmed. Even though I hadn't gotten in much practice with my knives lately, the weapon felt cold and comforting in my hand, just like always. An old, familiar friend.
Donovan Caine cleared his throat. Tobias tore his gaze away from Warren and stared at the detective. The dwarf gave Donovan the once-over, dismissed him as unimportant, and turned his attention back to Warren.
"Have you thought any more about my latest offer?"
Tobias Dawson asked in a voice that was pure twangy country.
Warren's eyes narrowed. "I'll tell you the same thing I've been saying for two months now. I'm not interested in selling a soda pop to you, much less my store. You coming down here and asking me every other day isn't going to change my mind. No matter how much money you offer me."
Tobias leaned forward and spit. Tobacco juice stained the wooden plank an ugly brown at Warren's feet. "Now that's a damn shame, especially considering the most recent, more-than-generous offer I made you. Why don't you do the smart thing and sell out, old man?"
"Because this store, this land, has been in my family for more than three hundred years," Warren replied in a testy tone. "And I'm not letting someone like you come in and strip-mine it like you have the rest of the mountain."
Tobias sighed. A long, drawn-out see-what-I-have-to-put-up-with sigh that sounded as phony as Jonah McAllister had at the Pork Pit. "Now, you know that it's not exactly strip-mining, Warren. It's called mountaintop removal, and there's nothing illegal about it. We're just getting the coal out of the ground the quickest way we know how."
"And leaving everybody else with your mess," Warren snapped. "Like I said, I'm not interested in letting you do that to my land. My whole backyard's turned into a damn sinkhole already from you and your mining."
Tobias's face hardened, and his mustache bristled with barely restrained anger. "I'm tired of waiting you out, old man. You can either sell out now, and get a good price for your land. Or - "
"Or what?" Warren snapped, cutting off the dwarf 's threat. "You'll send some of your boys over here to make me see the light of day? You've tried that before, and it didn't work. A couple of shotgun blasts in their asses sent your boys running for the hills."
Tobias glared over his shoulder at his men, who all shuffled on their feet and stared at the ground.
I looked at Warren with a little more respect. Violet had told me that Warren had fought off Dawson's goons by himself, but I hadn't realized the old coot had put buckshot in their hides. Brave but stupid of him. Because Warren's shotgun and sheer stubbornness must have been part of the reason why the dwarf had decided to go after Violet instead.
Tobias turned back to face us and spit another mouthful of tobacco juice onto the porch. "All I'm saying is it would be a damn shame if something was to happen to you - or your sweet granddaughter."
The dwarf leered at Violet, staring at her boobs like he wanted to bury his head between them. Behind him, the giants and other men did the same. Violet's face paled a little more, but she crossed her arms over her chest and lifted up her head. She wasn't backing down any more than her grandfather was.
"By the way, Miss Violet," Tobias drawled in his twangy voice. "You haven't seen my brother Trace around anywhere, have you? Short guy, looks a fair bit like me, has a stick of dynamite tattooed on his arm. Drives a great big ole truck."
My gray eyes narrowed. Dawson had a brother named Trace? With a dynamite tattoo on his arm? That must be the dwarf that Finn had pancaked in the parking lot last night. The one whose body Sophia had disposed of.
"He was going to take care of some business for me in Southtown, over near the community college," Tobias said. "But he didn't come home last night. I thought you might have seen him, seeing as how you take all those classes at the college."
Violet's eyes widened behind the frames of her black glasses. She'd just realized Trace was the dwarf who'd attacked her, and she didn't know how to respond to Tobias Dawson's veiled innuendos, hints, and threats. But Finnegan Lane, being the Southern gentleman he was, stepped forward and intervened.
"Southtown's a dangerous neighborhood," Finn said in a soft tone. "Who knows what could have happened to him in a place like that? Just about anything, I imagine. Rough crowd, down in that part of Ashland. Junkies, vampire hookers, pimps. Not safe for a man to walk those streets by himself."
Tobias fixed Finn with a hard stare. "I wasn't talking to you, son. And what the hell would you know about it anyway?"
Finn smiled. "I grew up down there."
The dwarf stared at Finn with open hostility and suspicion. The two giants and two other men sensed their boss's displeasure. They shifted forward on their feet, as if to storm past him and come up onto the porch. Tobias tensed, ready to give the order. I palmed another knife.
This was not going to end well.
But before the dwarf could tell his men to charge and take care of Warren T. Fox once and for all, Donovan Caine stepped down off the porch and pulled open his coat. The noontime sun made the gold badge on his belt glisten next to the dark shadow of his gun.
Tobias took in the badge and weapon. The dwarf 's pale blue eyes flicked to the sedan sitting in front of the store. He knew a cop car when he saw one too. "Who are you?"
"Detective Donovan Caine. I'm an old family friend of the Foxes."
Finn flashed another grin and pointed his finger at the detective. "Maybe you've heard of him. He was the one who killed Alexis James, that loopy Air elemental who was stealing from Halo Industries, her own company. Happened about two months ago. It was all over the news. Mayor even gave him a medal for his stellar investigative work."
Donovan grimaced at Finn's sly, mocking praise. The detective knew what had really happened. That I'd been the one who'd killed Alexis James and her flunkies in the Ashland Rock Quarry. And that he'd accepted the credit and accolades for something he didn't even do.
Tobias Dawson knew who the detective was, all right.
The knowledge flashed in his icy eyes. But Caine's status as a member of the Ashland police force made the dwarf reconsider his options. Ashland might be a dangerous city, and the cops might be as crooked as the surrounding mountain roads, but folks still stopped to think before they took out a member of the po-po. There were payoffs to consider, bribes, chains of command. Not to mention the fact Donovan Caine was something of a folk hero in the city - an honest cop among a sea of corrupt ones. Caine's death would raise a lot of questions, even for somebody as well connected as Tobias Dawson.
The dwarf 's eyes went to Donovan, then Finn, then Warren. He didn't glance at me or Violet. Evidently us mere womenfolk weren't much of a threat. Sexist bastard.
Still, Tobias could count as well as the next person.
Five of us, six of him and his men. Not great odds, even if we were saddled with an old man and two women.
But Donovan Caine's badge was the tipping point - for now.
Tobias stared at Warren again. "You have three days to think about my last offer. And it is my last offer. I suggest you think real hard on it. Before I have to come back and ask you to reconsider it."
The dwarf spit out another stream of dirty tobacco juice, turned on his snakeskin boot heel, and stalked back to the SUV. He made a circle gesture with his hands.
Round up and move out. One by one, his four goons turned and fell in step behind him.
Donovan Caine stayed where he was, face hard, hazel eyes cold and flat, until the vehicle pulled out of the parking lot. The driver took a right at the crossroads and zoomed out of sight. Once it was gone, the detective blew out a breath and rubbed a hand through his black hair.
"Well, that certainly was fun," Finn said in a cheery voice.
The five of us stayed on the porch a few more minutes, but Dawson and his men didn't turn around and come back. When I was sure they were gone, I tucked my silverstone knives back up my sleeves. Then I stepped off the porch and walked over to the spot where Tobias Dawson had stood so I could get a better sense of his magic.
The gravel underneath my feet hummed with so much power it made my skin tingle and the spider rune scars on my palms itch. So the dwarf was a Stone elemental then.
Someone who could control and manipulate the element.
Strong in his magic, just like me.
I wondered if the dwarf had any other magical or special talents I needed to know about - before I killed him. Either way, Tobias Dawson had just morphed from a challenging kill into an exceptionally difficult one. I'd have to take him out hard and fast before he even realized what was happening. Otherwise, I'd be the one who ended up six feet under.
"What are you doing?" Donovan Caine asked, watching me turn around in a circle in the spot where the dwarf had stood.
"Nothing."
The detective knew that I had magic, that I was an Ice elemental, but I'd never told him about my greater, Stone power. My magic wasn't something I advertised, and I still wasn't quite sure what my relationship with Donovan Caine was - or what it would ever be.
Violet Fox hugged her chest with her arms. The brave front she'd put on for Tobias Dawson's sake had vanished, leaving her round face ashen and sweaty, despite the fall chill. "You didn't do anything, Gin. Why didn't you do something? Why didn't you tell Dawson to back off and leave us alone?"
"Because I didn't want him to notice me," I said. "Not here, not now. That would make getting close to him later more difficult. The dwarf barely looked at me. He won't remember what I look like later, when I approach him again."
"You mean when you kill him," Donovan Caine said in a cold, flat voice.
"Yes," I said. "When I kill him."
Donovan stared at me. His eyes shimmered like liquid gold in his tight face. After a few seconds of scrutiny, he shook his head. "You know I can't let you do that. I can't let you go after Tobias Dawson."
I sighed. Despite the fact the detective and I had worked together before, we were once again right back where we started. With him clinging to his oh-so-high, moralistic ideals and standing in the way of me doing what simply needed to be done.
"I don't see how you have much of a choice, detective," Finn cut in. "Because Tobias Dawson isn't going to stop harassing the Foxes until he gets this land. Which means he's not going to stop until they're both dead. The bastard sent his brother to rape and murder Violet last night. A nineteen-year-old girl who's probably never hurt anyone in her entire life. And here you are trying to protect him, when you should be worried about a young woman and her grandfather. What's wrong with this picture?"
Donovan turned his hot glare to Finn, who stared back at the detective. Both men had their hands clenched into fists. I sighed again. Finn was on my side, of course, just like a brother would be, and his words and logic were dead-on. But there was only one way to get the detective to go along with the assassination of Tobias Dawson - one small step at a time. Which meant it was up to me to tap-dance Donovan Caine in the direction I wanted him to go.
