Jenkins thought he was doing the smart thing, but his tactics cost him precious time and slowed him down as well, when he would have been much better off just hot-footing it away from me as fast as his matchstick-thin legs would carry him. Still, he might have made it even tipping the cans over, if he'd been a little quicker or I'd been a little less determined.
Or if I didn't have my Ice magic.
We reached a spot in the alley where it was a straight shot for about a hundred feet with no garbage cans in sight. Up ahead, a light burned at the end of the corridor, indicating another street and possible escape for Jenkins. I was determined that the bastard wasn't going to make it that far, not after he'd sold out Bria. But by this point, the pain in my ribs had intensified until it felt like I was stabbing myself in the chest with my own knives, and I could feel myself slowing with every step.
Good thing I didn't have to catch Jenkins-only stop him.
I dropped to one knee, put my hands on the blacktop, and reached for my Ice power. A cold, silver light flickered underneath my palms, centered on the spider rune scars there. Snowflake-shaped Ice crystals spread out from my hands, zipping down the alley floor, coating the already frigid concrete faster than I could ever think about moving-and much, much faster than Lincoln Jenkins could ever dream of running.
The frosty, silvery crystals caught up with the petty thief ten feet from the end of the alley. Jenkins hadn't noticed the elemental Ice creeping up on him, and his sneakers squeaked, then slid on the slick sheet. His arms windmilled as he tried to stay upright. Didn't work, never did. A second later, his back smacked onto the cold pavement. His puffy jacket deflated like a popped balloon, and he let out a low groan. I smiled, my expression even colder than the Ice I'd just created.
Still, I approached Jenkins cautiously, just the way that Fletcher had taught me. Just because someone might be down didn't mean that he was out-a trick I'd pulled more than once.
But Jenkins wasn't all that clever, and he must have hit the concrete harder than I'd thought, because he was still moaning when I reached him. I crouched down on my knees and straddled him, putting just enough pressure on his ribs to make it difficult for him to breathe. The thief's eyes widened at the bloody silverstone knife in my hand, and panic tightened his pasty skin. He tried to grab my hand in his, but I slapped his cold, grasping fingers away and shoved the blade up against his scrawny neck.
"Be very, very still, and you just might make it out of this alley alive," I snarled.
It was a lie, but I needed something to break through Jenkins's fear-I needed something to get him to talk, other than the threat of his own imminent demise. My harsh words worked because he nodded his head in a frantic motion, as eager as a puppy to please me. I eased up a little on his ribs, although I kept my knife against his neck, ready to slash open his throat if he so much as twitched wrong. Even lowlifes like Jenkins could get in a lucky shot, and not taking that into account was how people got dead.
"Now," I said in a pleasant tone. "You and I are going to have a little chat about Detective Bria Coolidge. Starting with who those men were and what they wanted with her."
Jenkins stared at me, his hazel eyes dark and sullen in his face. Underneath his wispy goatee, his lips turned down into an exaggerated, almost comical pout.
"You cost me a payday," he whined. "A big one. I was going to get ten grand for turning on that cop."
I didn't tell him that cop happened to be my sister and that he'd just buried himself for the promise of that elusive ten grand. Instead, I cut him. Not deep, but there was enough of a sting in the wound to remind him of what I'd done to the dwarven mobsters in the parking lot-and that I wasn't just some chick with a knife who looked good in black.
"Start talking," I said in a mild voice, digging the silverstone blade a little deeper into his neck. "Or I'll peel the skin from your throat like it's an apple. Now, why did you sell out Detective Coolidge tonight? What did those men want with her-"
"Bounty!" Jenkins screamed, cutting me off. "There's a bounty on the cop! And one on the Spider too!"
My eyes narrowed. A bounty. Another f**king bounty. I should have known, should have guessed. After all, Mab had hired Elektra LaFleur, one of the best assassins around, to come to Ashland to kill me. No, the bounty on my head, on the Spider's head, didn't surprise me. But why would there be a price on Bria? Why now? Had Mab finally gotten tired of knowing that my sister was alive? Did the Fire elemental still think that Bria was the one who was supposedly destined to kill her? The Snow sister with both Ice and Stone magic?
"So Mab wants the Spider and a cop dead. Tell me something that I don't know." I used my knife to make a sawing motion against his neck, slowly drawing the blade through the blood already running down his throat, but not cutting him again just yet. "And tell me quick."
For a second, confusion filled Jenkins's eyes, as if I'd said something wrong.
"What?" I snapped. "What aren't you telling me?"
He started to shake his head, then thought better of it, given the knife. "No, that's not what's going down at all. Sure, Mab wants the Spider dead, but not the cop. She wants the cop brought to her alive."
There was only one reason I could think of that Mab would want Bria captured alive-leverage. To use my sister against me. To flush me out into the open so she could kill us both. So the Fire elemental had figured it out then. She knew that the Spider was really Genevieve Snow-or at least suspected it enough to want to get her hands on Bria to confirm the theory.
Fuck. Just... f**k. Jenkins's words spread through me like my own elemental Ice had coated the alley floor-cold, swift, uncaring. My heart clenched with dread and fear for my sister, but I didn't let any of what I was feeling show in my hard face. Instead, I dug the blade even deeper into Jenkins's neck, encouraging him to start talking-fast.
"Tell me everything that you know," I growled. "Before my hand slips even more than it already has."
"It was-it was just a job, you know?" he sputtered. "I've been laying low these past few days, what with all the bounty hunters in town."
"Bounty hunters?"
Jenkins nodded as much as he could, given the knife at his throat. "Yeah, yeah, bounty hunters. Mab's declared open season on the Spider. The last I heard was that Mab was offering five million to whoever brought the Spider to her dead. The number goes up to ten million if you manage to bring her in alive, but everyone would be pretty happy if she was dead. It's not worth the extra risk, ya know? I could spend five million just as easy as I could ten."