"Tell that to James Bond."
Finn shot me a dirty look as he pulled out onto the street.
It took Finn about twenty minutes to drive over to Jo-Jo's house. Jolene "Jo-Jo" Deveraux was Sophia's big sister - a two-hundred-fifty-seven-year-old dwarf and Air elemental of significant power, wealth, status, and social connections.
Given all that, Jo-Jo made her home in a ritzy subdivision by the name of Tara Heights. Within a few miles, we left the downtown grit and grime behind and entered an elegant area of carefully landscaped trees and spacious homes fronted by cobblestone sidewalks and yards big enough for the pros to play football in.
Finn eventually steered the car onto a street marked Magnolia Lane, and a few seconds later, Jo-Jo's house came into view - a three-story, plantation-style home straight out of Gone With the Wind. The sprawling, white structure perched at the top of a grassy knoll and featured a series of tall, round columns that supported the rest of the building the way a high-backed chair might prop up an old lady.
Finn parked the car and helped me drag the still-unconscious Violet Fox out of the backseat, up three steps, and onto the porch that wrapped around the spacious home. Thick, ropy tendrils of ivy and kudzu covered a trellis attached to the porch, along with the bare brown thorns of several rose bushes. A lone bulb burned on the porch. Out in the sloping yard, the cold, drizzling rain picked up, making the air smell of metal, dead leaves, and wet earth.
I let Finn take Violet's weight so I could pull open the screen door that fronted a heavier wooden one. Then I picked up the knocker and banged it on the interior door.
The knocker was shaped like a thick, puffy cloud - Jo-Jo's personal Air elemental rune.
I'd barely set the cloud rune back against the wood when the door wrenched open, and a woman stuck her head outside. Jo-Jo Deveraux looked like she'd planned on staying in for the evening. A short-sleeved, striped pink housecoat covered her stocky, muscular figure, while her bleached blond-white hair was done up in pink sponge curlers. Some sort of blue mud mask covered her face, and a pedicure pad held her toes out wide. She must have just painted her toenails, because the bright pink polish gleamed like it was still wet.
"About time you got here," the middle-aged dwarf said. "I've been pacing back and forth in front of the door for five minutes now."
"Why? Weren't there any parties or dinners on the society circuit tonight?" I asked, taking in the housecoat and curlers.
"Oh, there was a party or two," Jo-Jo drawled in a voice sweeter than clover honey. "But these old bones ain't as young as they used to be. Rain makes 'em ache. Besides, even I need a night off from the bullshit circuit every once in a while."
"Ahem."
Finn cleared his throat, his way of telling me to get down to business and that he was tired of propping up Violet Fox. Jo-Jo's pale gaze cut to the girl. Except for the pinprick of black at their center, the dwarf 's eyes were almost colorless, like two cloudy pieces of quartz.
"Hell's bells and panther trails," Jo-Jo said in a soft tone. "What happened to her?"
"She got on the wrong end of a dwarf 's fist - twice," I said, shouldering part of Violet's weight again. "Think you can fix her?"
Jo-Jo studied the girl a moment more, then nodded.
"Darling, I can fix anything short of death. But this one ain't going to be pretty."
Chapter Nine
Jo-Jo stepped aside so Finn and I could drag the unconscious Violet Fox into the house. The sweet smell of Jo-Jo's Chantilly perfume ticked my nose as we walked through a narrow hallway. A hundred feet later, the skinny corridor opened up into an enormous room that took up the back half of the house.
Padded chairs. Hair dryers. Counters crammed full of hairspray, nail polish, makeup, scissors, rollers, curling irons. A long mirror that ran down one wall. Towering stacks of beauty magazines. Photos of various hairstyles taped up everywhere. All that and more could be found in Jo-Jo's beauty salon, the place where the Air elemental used her magic as a self-proclaimed drama mama - someone who catered to the endless vanity of Southern women.
Debutantes, pageant contestants, bored trophy wives.
Jo-Jo served them all in a variety of ways. Perms, cuts, dye jobs, waxes, manicures, pedicures. If it had anything at all to do with beauty or making a woman's hair twice as big, tall, and hard as her head, Jo-Jo did it in her salon.
And then some. Air elemental magic was also terrific for fixing unwanted frown lines or putting someone's boobs back up to where they'd been ten years ago - temporarily, at least.
Of course, turning back the clock wasn't the only thing Jo-Jo did with her Air magic. The dwarf was also one of the best healers in Ashland. Hell, the whole South. Few people knew about her talents in that particular area, but Fletcher Lane had been one of Jo-Jo's oldest friends, and I'd inherited her, along with Sophia, when I'd taken over his assassin business. One sister to heal me, the other to get rid of the bodies I left behind. A nice arrangement.
Despite the sisters' hefty fees.
"Put her in one of the chairs," Jo-Jo directed before going over to the sink to wash her hands.
Finn and I hauled Violet Fox over to one of the swivel, cherry-red salon chairs. Then Finn grabbed a bottle of nail glue off the counter, pulled Violet's broken glasses out of his jacket pocket, and used the bonding solution to put the two pieces back together. I lifted Violet's purse from around her neck, perched on a stool a few feet away, and started going through it. Wallet, keys, breath mints, loose change, eyedrops, a compact. Nothing unusual or exciting.
A soft whine sounded in the corner. I looked over to see Rosco, Jo-Jo's fat, lazy basset hound, curled up in his wicker basket by the door. The old dog eyed the purse in my hands. His tail thumped once with hope.
"Sorry, dog," I said. "Nothing in here for you."
Rosco huffed in indignation, then dropped his brown-and-black head down on top of his tubby stomach and went back to sleep. His favorite pasttime, other than eating.
Jo-Jo pulled a chair over to Violet, clicked on a light, and gently unwound my T-shirt strips from her face. The damage looked more garish underneath the white fluorescent glow. The swelling had already set in, and Violet's face had puffed up to twice its normal size. Black and green and purple streaked out from her disjointed nose and sliced across her cheeks - what I could see of them underneath the dried blood.
"Hell's bells," the dwarf muttered again. "You said he only hit her twice?"
"Yeah," Finn said, holding the broken glasses together until the glue dried. "But he made them both count."