Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies by Jennifer Estep

Author:Jennifer Estep [Estep, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Pocket
Published: 2010-05-25T04:00:00+00:00

19

For a moment I froze, crouched there on the floor, the diamond vial in my hand. The alarm continued to blare like a police siren wailing in my head. Donovan Caine kept sorting through the papers, as if he couldn’t hear the unending, violent shrieking. He’d have to be deaf not to hear it.

I frowned and stared at the granite safe. The stone’s low murmur had transformed into a sharp, piercing alarm. A rune flashed to life on the front of the safe, on the slab I’d cut out of the rest of the block. A tight, spiral curl burned a cold gray in the middle of the black granite like some sort of all-seeing eye. A spiral curl—the rune for protection.

Tobias Dawson had used his Stone magic to ward his safe with a protection rune, one that would alert him if anyone tampered with the granite. I’d done the same thing to protect myself on more than one occasion. Even used the same rune as the dwarf.

Donovan Caine wasn’t an elemental, wasn’t a Stone, so he couldn’t hear the alarm, couldn’t see the rune. But I could, and I knew what they both meant—trouble headed this way.

“Fuck,” I cursed out loud this time. “Give me the papers.

Now.”

“What? Why?” Donovan asked in a distracted tone.

“There’s some interesting stuff here—”

“Because I’ve tripped some kind of silent alarm,” I interrupted him. “So give me the papers right now.”

To his credit, the detective didn’t ask any questions.

Instead, he shoved the documents over to me. I stuffed them back into the hollow space inside the granite, wiped my fingerprints off the diamond vial, then put it inside as well. Although I wanted to, I didn’t take the stone. The cowboy dwarf might not pursue us so hard if he still had the diamond. Big, big maybe, but it was the only hope I had.

I hastily wiped down the granite slab and safe with my jacket sleeve, then hefted the stone slab I’d cut out back into its original place. There was no time to be subtle, so I blasted the rock back in place with my magic, sealing it up tight once more. With his Stone magic, Dawson would be able to sense what I’d done immediately, but he shouldn’t be able to trace it back to me—or more importantly, the Foxes.

Donovan held out a hand and helped me to my feet.

“We need to get out of here,” I said. “Now.”

We scurried down the hallway and into the front of the building. I turned my flashlight off and peered through the thin slats in the blinds. Two flashlights bobbed in our direction. Giants, considering the fact the lights were about even with my head. Beside me, Donovan turned off his own flashlight and drew his gun.

“Put that away,” I said. “Open the door and head straight toward the back of the basin, where we climbed down. Outrunning them is our best chance. Not engaging in a firefight.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Make sure they don’t follow us.

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