Two weeks ago, I’d been kidnapped and held hostage by Hugh Tucker, a vampire who claimed he was part of “the Circle,” a secret group that supposedly pulled the strings on the underworld and everything else in Ashland. That had certainly come as news to me, since I was supposedly the head of the underworld these days. But Tucker had claimed that the Circle was a group of criminals so high and mighty that no one could touch them, especially not a lowly assassin like me. The vamp had also said that the Circle monitored everything from behind the scenes—and that they could kill me and my friends anytime they wanted to.
But the most shocking thing he’d told me was that my mother, Eira Snow, had supposedly been one of them.
My mother was murdered when I was thirteen, and it was a deep loss that I still felt to this day. But I’d viewed my mother like any other kid. She was my mom—nothing more, nothing less. I’d never really thought about who she was, much less about what kind of person. The good things she did, the bad things, how she felt about all of them. I didn’t know any of that. But Tucker had turned my world upside down with his accusations, and I wanted to know how true they were: I had to know if my mother had been the good person I’d always assumed she was, or just as rotten, dirty, and depraved as the rest of this shadowy Circle.
“You know, we could just go knock on his door and ask him about all of this,” Phillip said.
I snorted. “He wouldn’t tell me anything. Nothing I could trust anyway. He hates me too much for that.”
Phillip shifted in his seat again. “Well, at least we could get this over with and go home for the night. That would certainly keep my balls from turning into ice cubes—”
A pair of headlights popped up in the rearview mirror. I gestured at Phillip, and we both slouched back down in our seats.
A black SUV cruised down the street, passing us. The vehicle went down to the end of the block and made a right, disappearing from sight. Phillip started to sit back up, but I held out my hand, stopping him.
“Wait,” I said. “Let’s see if they come back.”
He rolled his eyes but stayed still. “Why would they come back? It’s probably just somebody who lives in the neighborhood—”
Headlights popped up in the rearview mirror again and that same SUV cruised by our position. This time the vehicle turned left at the end of the block.
“Maybe they’re lost,” he said. “All these cookie-cutter Northtown streets and mansions look alike, especially in the dark.”
I shook my head. “They’re not lost. They’re seeing how quiet and deserted the area is for whatever they have in mind. They’ll be back. You’ll see.”
We sat still in the van, watching our mirrors. Sure enough, a minute later, that same SUV cruised by us again. Only this time, the vehicle didn’t have its headlights on, or even its parking lights. It whipped a U-turn in the middle of the street, pulled over to the curb, and stopped—right in front of the mansion we were watching.
“Hello,” I murmured. “What do we have here?”
The doors opened, and two people got out of the front of the SUV, both wearing long black trench coats akin to Phillip’s. They were giants, each one roughly seven feet tall with thick shoulders and broad chests. Most likely they were the muscle and bodyguards for whoever was in the back of the vehicle.
Sure enough, one of the giants opened a rear door, and a shorter, thinner figure emerged, also sporting a black trench coat. This person also wore a black fedora and had a matching scarf wrapped around their neck. I peered through my binoculars, but the person’s back was to me, so I couldn’t see their face, although from the size and gait, I did get the impression that it was a woman.
“Some late-night visitors here for a hush-hush meeting with our old friend?” Phillip drawled.
“Maybe.”
One of the giants squatted down. At first, I wondered what he was doing, but then the woman in the fedora and scarf ran over to the giant, who hoisted her up into the air. Ms. Fedora grabbed hold of the top of the iron gate and swung her legs up and over it with all the grace of an Olympic gymnast. Landing deftly on her feet in the yard on the other side, she straightened up and started striding toward the mansion with graceful purpose.
I cursed, realizing that I was about to lose my one and only lead on the Circle. I’d considered the possibility that someone might come here looking for him, but part of me hadn’t thought that it would actually happen, since everything else I’d tried to track down the members of the Circle had been a dead end.
“Not a meeting,” I growled. “They’re here to kill him.”
Since Fedora was already past the gate, I didn’t have time to ease out of the van, sneak through the shadows, and stab the giants in the back the way I normally would have.
Thus I kicked my door open, barreled out of the vehicle, and started running down the street toward the SUV.
“Gin! Wait!” Phillip shouted, scrambling to get out and follow me.
But I needed to get to the man in the mansion before Fedora did, so I tuned him out. The giants whirled around at the sound of Phillip’s voice and spotted me racing toward them. They cursed, pulled guns out from underneath their trench coats, and snapped up the weapons.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!
I zigzagged, and the first round of bullets went wide. But when the giants paused to take more careful aim, I reached for my Stone magic and hardened my skin into an impenetrable shell.