[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

The brick s slow murmur was one of muted, clogged contentment just the way the stomachs and
arteries of the Pork Pit s customers felt after eating a hot, thick, juicy barbecue sandwich. Over time,
emotions, feelings, and actions sink into the earth and especially stone, where they can linger indefinitely
until something else, some other action, comes along to add to, change, or overpower them. My
elemental Stone magic let me sense these vibrations, analyze, interpret, and even tap into them if I wanted
to. But the brief bit of violence that had happened earlier tonight hadn t lasted long enough or been brutal
enough for the brick to permanently pick up its vibrations. Good.
Still, I looked and listened a moment more, searching for the telltale shape of a half giant or some sort of
fire flickering in the shadows. But Jake McAllister wasn t waiting for me. Daddy was probably bailing
him out of jail right now. McAllister would be here sooner or later, though. I d gotten the better of him,
and he knew it. He wouldn t be satisfied until he d returned the favor. I hoped he tried. Might alleviate
some of the boredom that had settled over me these last two months during my retirement.
For a few minutes, anyway. Guys like Jake McAllister always thought they were tougher than they
actually were.
Satisfied the Fire elemental wasn t going to come gunning for me tonight, I dropped my hand from the
cold brick and headed home. I walked three blocks in the drizzling rain, cut through twice as many alleys,
and doubled back five times before I was positive no one was following me. Sure, I was a retired
assassin, but that didn t mean there weren t people out there who didn t want me dead.
As the Spider, I d killed my share of powerful men and women over the years, and I wasn t taking any
chances with my safety retirement or not.
Twenty minutes later, I retrieved my car a sturdy, silver Benz that I d recently purchased from one of
the parking garages near the restaurant and headed for Fletcher s.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Traffic was light on the downtown streets that ringed the Pork Pit. The bankers, businessmen, and other
corporate sharks had long since fled the city s spindly skyscrapers for the comfort of their posh homes in
Northtown.
Their secretaries and junior staff lived out in the suburbs that clustered around the heart of the city, while
the janitors, maids, and other menial workers made their homes on the rough streets of Southtown.
The city of Ashland spread over three states Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina. The official
borders might have shown it to be one cohesive city, but the area was really divided into two distinct
sections Northtown and Southtown. A holdover from the Civil War days that had just never faded
away. The sprawling, circular confines of the downtown area joined the two halves of the city together,
but they bore little resemblance to each other. The working poor and blue-collar folks populated
Southtown, along with vampire hookers, gangbangers, junkies, and all other manner of rednecks and
white trash. Most of them lived in run-down row houses and public housing units that resembled fallout
shelters. The Pork Pit lay close to the Southtown border.
While Southtown resembled the dregs in the bottom of a coffee cup, Northtown was the whipped
meringue on top of a chocolate pie. You had to have money to live in Northtown. Lots of it, to afford
one of the plantation-style mansions. Connections and a bloodline that went back a few hundred years
didn t hurt either. But for all their polish, the folks in Northtown weren t any better than those in
Southtown. They were all dangerous. The only difference was the people in Northtown would serve you
tea and cucumber sandwiches before they fucked you over.
The Southtown hoods were much more efficient. They d slit your throat, take your wallet, and be ready
to do it again to someone else before you even hit the alley floor.
It took me about twenty minutes to wind my way from the downtown district out into the suburbs that
lay northwest of the city. I drove past gated communities with cutesy names like Davis Square and
Peachtree Acres and eventually turned onto a rutted, gravel road that wound up one of the ridges that
slashed through the city.
I rode over the lumps and bumps in the road, used to the teeth-rattling sensation by now. Fletcher Lane
had liked his privacy, which was why his house squatted on the side of a cliff so steep a mountain goat
couldn t climb up it. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]