She smiled at my grim humor. We sat there staring at each other. Five seconds ticked by. Then, ten. Twenty. Thirty. Forty-five...
"Why don't you take off that ski mask?" Bria asked.
I raised my eyebrows. "And let you get a good look at my face? I think not, detective."
She smiled again. "Can't blame me for trying."
"Of course not," I replied. "So is this the part where you tell me what a bad, bad girl I've been, murdering people for something as common as money? Vow to bring me to justice no matter what and do the whole honorable cop shtick?"
Bria shrugged and winced at the pain the motion brought along with it. "Why would I do that? If it wasn't for you, I'd be dead right now. Beaten to death by Slater and his men. Believe me, I'm grateful for the intervention, even if it is by a self-proclaimed angel of death."
Well, that certainly wasn't the answer I'd been expecting. Donovan Caine would have already been planning which cell to stick me in down at the police station. Seemed my sister's morals were a little bendier than the detective's. But what surprised me more than her attitude was the emotion her words stirred in me-hope. Hope that maybe one day I could tell Bria who I really was and what I'd had to do to stay alive over the years-and that she would accept me despite all the bad things I'd done. And what I was prepared to do now to keep her, Finn, and the Deveraux sisters safe from Mab Monroe, Elliot Slater, and anyone else stupid enough to threaten them.
Fucking hope. Next thing you'd know, I'd be getting soft and sentimental and teary-eyed over puppies and kittens and rainbows.
"So you're okay with your savior being a bona fide assassin?" I asked.
Bria shrugged and winced again. "You saved me for whatever reason. I'm not prepared to think too much about it tonight. I know there are worse things, worse people in the world. I'll stop them first. Then, when that's done, maybe I'll get around to you-"
That was all Bria got out before the blood loss caught up to her, and she toppled over in a dead faint.
Chapter Twelve
"Knock, knock," Finn called out as he opened the front door to Bria's house. "Honey, I'm home-" He stopped at the sight of me kneeling over Bria's inert body. "What happened to her?"
"She passed out from the pain and blood loss," I said.
"Good thing," Finn replied. "Seeing as how we have company."
He stepped to one side, and Sophia and Jo-Jo Deveraux entered the living room. The two dwarven sisters stood in the doorway and surveyed the destruction and dead bodies in front of them. Sophia wore a pair of thick, black coveralls and heavy boots, while Jo-Jo was clad in a pink robe that looked fuzzier and softer than a baby's blanket. The older dwarf had stuck her feet into a matching pair of house shoes. She wasn't wearing socks, though, despite the chill of the December night.
Jo-Jo let out a low whistle. "Finn told Sophia that you'd made a mess, but I didn't think it would be quite this bad, Gin."
"You know me. I never do anything halfway," I quipped. "Now, come over here and see to Bria before she gets any worse."
Sophia pulled a pair of black rubber gloves out of one of the pockets on her coveralls and snapped them on with obvious relish. The Goth dwarf didn't smile, not really, but there was definitely a sparkle in her black eyes and a lightness to her steps. She was eager, happy even, to get to her disposal work. At least I'd made someone's night. Sophia dragged the bodies of the three dead giants over to the front door and flipped the couch back into its normal upright position. Then the Goth dwarf picked up Bria and put her on the sofa.
Jo-Jo found a chair that hadn't been splintered and carried it over so she could sit down and examine my blood-covered sister. Finn grabbed a tall lamp out of a corner and plugged it in so Jo-Jo could have enough light to see exactly what she was doing while she healed Bria. I moved around the living room, righting overturned furniture, picking up broken pieces of glass, stuffing the other splintered, bloody debris into some trash bags that I'd found under the kitchen sink.
Sophia bent down, put one of the dead giants over her shoulder in a fireman's carry, and got to her feet. The giant weighed several hundred pounds, but Sophia could have been carrying around a stuffed bunny rabbit for all the effort she seemed to be exerting.
Still, I thought I'd be polite and see what I could do to aid the Goth dwarf. "Do you need any help with them? Carrying them outside? Or doing whatever you're going to do to them?"
Sophia gave me a flat look with her black eyes. "Nuhuh." The dwarf's grunt for no.
With the giant still slung over her shoulder, Sophia opened the front door and stepped out into the dark night. Despite my curiosity about what the Goth dwarf did with the many bodies she disposed of, I didn't follow her outside. Even though I knew that Jo-Jo Deveraux was the best Air elemental healer in Ashland, I didn't want to leave Bria's side. Not until the bullet holes in her had been sealed shut, and she was sleeping peacefully.
"Nasty bit of business this is," Jo-Jo murmured. "Bullet nicked one of her kidneys, among other things."
The middle-aged dwarf had already unwrapped the crude afghan bandage I'd wound around Bria's midsection. Blood stained most of the fabric a dark crimson. Jo-Jo reached for her Air elemental magic, and her eyes began to glow a milky white in her face. The dwarf held her palm over Bria's midsection.
Air elementals could tap into all the natural gases in the air, including oxygen. That's how they healed people-by forcing and circulating oxygen in, around, and through wounds, using all those helpful little air molecules to sew ripped, torn, and ruined flesh back together again.
Jo-Jo reached for her Air magic again, and her palm began to glow the same milky white color as her eyes. The dwarf's power always felt like hot tingles washing over me, like part of me had fallen asleep and was just waking up. Tonight was no exception. I gritted my teeth at the odd sensation.
Jo-Jo's magic didn't cause me actual physical pain, not like being in the presence of Mab Monroe's Fire power did. But it still made me uncomfortable. Air and Stone were opposing elements, just like Fire and Ice. Jo-Jo's Air magic just felt strange to me, just like my Stone and Ice power would to her. The magical, elemental equivalent of nails on a chalkboard all the way around, as it were.
Jo-Jo's magic also made the silverstone spider rune scars on my palms itch and burn. Silverstone was a very special metal, capable of absorbing all kinds of elemental magic. In a way, silverstone was hollow, empty, and hungering for enough magic to fill it up. Lots of elementals had charms or medallions made out of the metal, in which they stored bits and pieces of their power. Sort of like magical batteries. My mother had used her snowflake rune that way. I eyed the primrose medallion that rested in the hollow of Bria's throat. I wondered if she had learned how to do that trick too, along with booby-trapping her freezer.