Deadly Sting

The two men both wore security-guard uniforms. Well, that confirmed my suspicion that Clementine had gotten some of her men hired on as guards for tonight’s event and had taken out the rest. With them out of the way, she and her crew could rob the museum at their leisure, without worrying about setting off any alarms or someone calling the police.

  Even if someone did manage to summon help, Clementine had a whole rotunda full of hostages to use as leverage, and there were enough important people here tonight to make the cops think twice about simply storming the museum. None of the underworld bosses would appreciate being collateral damage, especially since so many of them paid the po-po to look the other way when it came to all of their illegal activities.

  No, Clementine had been smart about things—just not quite smart enough, since I was still alive and eager to mess up her plans.

  One of the men standing by the door opened it. Dixon pushed Owen through the opening, and the two guards went inside behind him. Clementine turned to the two giants who’d followed her here from the rotunda.

  “Tanner, you go inside with the others and help them get set up. Gary, you go over to the security center and see if Rose needs any help monitoring the camera feeds. We’ve got the museum locked down tight, but I want some extra eyes on the hostages in the rotunda, just in case any of them get any dumb ideas about playing hero.”

  The giants nodded and did as she commanded, heading down the hallway and leaving her alone with her family. When the others were out of earshot, she turned to Opal and Dixon.

  “How did we make out with the jewelry?” she asked.

  Opal lovingly patted the silverstone case she was carrying. “At least five million in this case and another five to ten million easy in the garbage bags. Maybe more.”

  Clementine nodded. “Good. Go back and deal with the jewelry. I want it out of the rotunda and secured as soon as possible. Dixon, you know what to do with that case.”

  “Sure thing, Aunt Clem.”

  Dixon expectantly stretched his hand out to his cousin. Opal’s fingers clenched around the handle of the case for a moment before she finally passed it over to him. Dixon smirked at her, his swollen nose and the dribbles of blood on his face making his orange skin look even more cartoonish. Opal coldly eyed him like she wanted to rip the case out of his hand and make him eat it. Definitely no love lost there.

  Clementine checked her fancy watch. “If everything goes according to plan, it shouldn’t take Grayson more than an hour to work his magic. Most of the art should be loaded into the trucks by then. Then the rest.”

  Opal and Dixon both smiled at her words, their faces creasing with dark delight.

  The rest? What else did they have planned? And what did they need Owen for? I also wondered why Clementine was so concerned about making sure she had all of the hostages’ jewels, when her men were busy robbing the entire museum. But I shrugged the questions away. I’d find out the answers soon enough—body by bloody, bloody body.

  “All right,” Clementine said. “I’m going to go motivate Mr. Grayson. You two know what to do, so go do it.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Opal said.

  Dixon also murmured his agreement, and Clementine went through the door and closed it behind her.

  For a moment, the two cousins stared at each other, before Opal stepped up to Dixon.

  “You’d better take good care of that case,” she said in a low, ugly voice. “Or I’ll pull your insides out through your nose—while it’s still broken.”

  Dixon winced, and his hand crept up to his swollen face. “Geez. Relax, Opal. Everything’s going just fine so far. Even I couldn’t screw up this job. It’s easy money, just like Aunt Clem said it would be. And the best part is that we don’t have to share.”

  I frowned. Don’t have to share? What about all the other giants? I doubted they were working for free, so what was Dixon talking about?

  Opal cocked an eyebrow. “That remains to be seen. But know this—if you do screw up, it’ll be for the last time. I’ll make sure of that. This is a dangerous job. Plenty of chances for . . . accidents to happen.”

  She smiled then, her face soft, pretty, and pleasant, despite the shimmer of violence in her hazel eyes.

  Well, well, well. It looked like Opal had the same ruthless streak her mama did. It was certainly enough to scare dear cousin Dixon, who winced again.

  “And go clean up and wipe that blood off your face,” Opal snapped. “You look like a pig gorging on a trough full of tomatoes.”

  Dixon nodded vehemently. “Sure, I’ll go do that. Just as soon as I take care of the jewelry.”

  He clutched the case to his chest and backed away several steps before turning and scurrying down the hallway as fast as he could without actually running.

  “Idiot,” Opal muttered before walking in the opposite direction.

  I waited until they were both out of sight and the cameras had pivoted away before slipping around the corner and hurrying over to the door. I tried the handle, but it was secured from the inside. Frustration surged through me; it was a sturdy, high-end lock, not the sort of thing I could finesse open with a couple of elemental Ice picks. Finn could have managed it, but I wasn’t as good with locks as he was. Plus, an electronic card reader was attached to the wall to the right side of the door, something else I couldn’t easily bypass.

  Well, just because I couldn’t open the door didn’t mean that I couldn’t see what was going on inside—and exactly what Clementine was making Owen do.

  I hurried down the hallway, heading in the same direction as Gary, the giant who’d left for the security center. With cameras covering the entire museum, there had to be at least one that would let me see what was happening behind that door with Owen.

  Despite my desperate need to make sure he was okay, I still made myself be cautious and quiet about things. Looking, listening, and creeping from one pool of darkness to the next. It was frustrating, especially since I had to keep dodging the security cameras, but I wouldn’t be able to help anyone if Clementine and her crew spotted me before I was ready for them to.

  Finally, I reached the end of a hallway next to the security center. I stopped in another blind spot, drew in a breath, and peered around the corner.

  Gary stood in front of a steel door with a sign that read Security Center—Authorized Personnel Only.

  “Come on, come on,” he muttered, patting down the pockets on his uniform.

  At first, I wondered what he was doing, but then I realized another electronic card reader was mounted on the wall beside the door. He must be looking for some sort of key card to slide through the device. He should have found it already, because his lapse was going to cost him his life.

  All I had to do was figure out a way to kill the giant—on camera—and get away with it.

  Yet another security camera was mounted in the hall, high up on the wall across from the door. I studied its slow movement, which was an arc pattern just like the others. I could sneak up and kill the giant while the camera was turned the other way, but there was no way I could get rid of his body before it swiveled back around.

  I cocked my head to one side. Unless it didn’t swivel back around.

  I thought about my idea for a moment, but it seemed solid enough. Besides, the giant would find his key card any second now, and I didn’t have time to think of anything else. So I tucked my knife back into its holster, laid my hand on the marble wall, and reached for my Ice magic.

  A bit of cold silver light leaked out from underneath my palm; it only took a second for small crystals to spread out from underneath my palm, run up to the top of the marble wall, and snake down the hallway toward the camera. I alternated looking at the camera and at the giant, but he wasn’t an elemental, so he didn’t sense me using my magic.

  I waited until the camera was turned away from the giant before I pushed even more of my power outward. A second later, an inch of elemental Ice encased the camera, freezing it in its tracks, so to speak.


  As soon as the camera was Iced over, I grabbed my knife and headed for the giant. I let the cold, black rage rise in me once more, even as I crept up behind him, my bare feet as soft and quiet as silk skimming across the marble floor, since I was still carrying my heels in my other hand. The giant had a gun in a holster on his leather belt, along with his own fists and whatever other weapons he might have.

  It really wasn’t fair—to him.

  “Where is the stupid thing?” he muttered, still digging in his pockets.

  He was so distracted that he didn’t hear the faint rustle of my skirt or see my shadow sliding up the wall next to him like a murky movie monster about to gobble him up. I stopped about five feet behind him. Then I stood there and waited—just waited for the right moment.

  “Finally! There it is—”

  I dropped my shoes on the floor.

  The giant whirled around at the sharp crack-crack-crack-crack of the heels hitting the marble, a plastic key card clutched in his long fingers. “What the—”

  I stepped up and buried my knife in his throat before he could utter another word.

  As I ripped the weapon out of his windpipe, blood gushed through the air, spraying onto the gray floor and walls and soaking into my scarlet dress. The giant gurgled and clawed at the fatal wound, frantically pressing the plastic card against his neck as if the small rectangle could keep all the important fluid inside his body. Card or not, there wasn’t enough pressure in the world for that.

  His hand slipped off his bloody neck, and the card dropped from his fingers and clattered onto the floor. The giant staggered back and hit the wall. His legs buckled, and he slowly slid down the marble until he came to rest on the floor, like a puppet whose strings had been severed. The sightless glaze of death already coated his dark eyes.

  I paused, looking left and right, but I didn’t see anyone, and no heavy footsteps thumped in this direction. I padded over to the door and pressed my ear against it, but I didn’t hear any movement on the other side. The metal was too thick for that. Good. That meant that whoever was inside the security center probably hadn’t heard us either.

  Too bad I had no idea how many more of Clementine’s men might be inside. One, two, a dozen. I had no way of knowing, but it was a chance I had to take. I needed to make sure Owen was okay, and I needed to see exactly what Clementine was making him do that was so important. Both of those things would help me plan my next move.

  I dropped to a knee beside the dead giant and started patting him down—another calculated risk, but I was hoping that it would be at least a couple of minutes before someone decided to investigate why the frozen camera wasn’t working. There were at least fifty giants in the museum, and I needed some more weapons to kill them with.

  But there wasn’t much to find. He didn’t have any ID on him, and the only thing of real value or interest was the leather utility belt he wore. In addition to the gun I’d noticed earlier, the belt also contained an extra clip of ammo, a metal baton, a small bottle of pepper spray, and, most important, a walkie-talkie. The device was turned on, but currently no squawks or cracks of static echoed from the black plastic.

  I unbuckled the belt and tugged it out from underneath the giant’s body. I stood and cinched it around my waist, looping it as tight as it would go. Even then, it sagged and rode low on my hips. Good enough.

  Then I did something that would have made Finn wince with agony and shriek with despair: I chopped up my dress.

  Using my bloody knife, I sliced off the bottom half of the skirt, so that the fabric ended just above my knees. I also made several more slits in the skirt, making it easier for me to reach through them and get to the second knife I had strapped to my thigh. Finn would no doubt bitch and moan when he saw what a hack job I’d done on the beautiful gown, but the long skirt just wasn’t practical for fighting. Besides, the giant’s blood had already ruined it, and I imagined I’d get the garment quite a bit more messy before the night was through. More like before the next two minutes were up.

  I also used my knife to cut the extra fabric into long strips, threading a couple of them through the straps on my heels and tying them to the left side of the utility belt. I couldn’t risk wearing the shoes, but I didn’t want to wander around barefoot all night either. I stuffed the rest of the fabric strips into a pouch on the belt.

  As a final measure, I checked the giant’s gun, making sure the safety was off and that there was a round in the chamber. I also practiced drawing it out of the holster a few times until I could do it quickly and smoothly. I didn’t much care for guns, but I’d use them if the situation called for it—and it certainly did tonight.

  When I was ready, I leaned over and grabbed the key card from where it had landed next to the giant’s body, using the edge of my shortened skirt to wipe the blood off the plastic. Then I turned toward the door and drew in a breath.

  I wasn’t sure what I would find behind the metal, but I was as ready as I could be to face it—and to kill whatever danger might be coming my way.

  11

  I slid the card through the reader. A light on the top flashed a bright green, and the door snicked open. I stuffed the card into a pouch on the utility belt and tightened my grip on my knife.

  I rushed through the opening, my knife up and ready to slice into whoever was standing inside. But instead of cutting down another giant or two, I found myself in an empty hallway.

  Actually, it was more like an antechamber, a wide stub of a room. A wooden coat rack stood in the corner, its empty arms making it look like a scalped tree. A series of metal lockers lined the left wall, fronted by a long metal bench.

  My gaze snapped to the second, interior door ahead of me, and I waited, just waited, for someone to open it.

  But no one did.

  No one came to investigate. No one poked a head out of the interior room to ask a question of a fellow robber. No one ambled over to the snack machine that hummed against the right wall, its fluorescent bulbs flickering like a bug zapper.

  Well, if they weren’t going to come out to me, I had no problems going in to them.

  Still moving as quietly as possible, I pulled the exterior door shut behind me and headed for the one at the far end of the chamber. This door was made of wood instead of metal, and I could hear music playing, some twangy country song about a woman getting revenge on a man who done her wrong. Even worse, whoever was on the other side was singing along in a very loud, very screechy, very off-key voice. I winced. Somebody needed some singing lessons. A chorus of dogs howling and cats hissing would have sounded better. But the caterwauling told me that there was only one person inside. No one else would have put up with the country-western karaoke act.

  I shut the awful screeching out of my mind, reached forward, and tried the knob. It turned easily, and I opened the door just a crack. The actual security center wasn’t much bigger than the antechamber, and a series of monitors took up the back wall, along with several keyboards, joysticks, and a control panel, all arranged on a long table. Another table stood at a right angle to the first one. It too was covered with monitors, although all of those screens were fuzzy with snow.

  No wonder, since they were peppered with bullet holes. I eyed the monitors and the blue and white sparks flickering inside them. Judging from the blood spatters on the broken glass, someone had been shot in front of the monitors. Maybe even more than one person, given the amount of blood.

  A couple of chairs squatted in front of the screens that were still working, but only one was occupied. The offending singer was another giant, one who was tossing her long black hair from side to side as she rocked back and forth in her chair to the music like she was some kind of country diva. An iPod blared on the table. I eyed the device. That was going to be the second thing in here that I killed.

  I held my position, waiting to see if the giant would sense me watching her, but she was too engrossed in her song, so my gaze moved past her to the bank of monitors. A few of the screens we
re dark, but almost all of the cameras that were on were focused on the rotunda, showing the hostages from several different angles. One screen on the top row of monitors was fuzzy, as though there was a thick film covering the lens. That must be the camera in the hallway that I’d Iced over. I also spotted Clementine and Owen on one of the monitors in the far bottom left corner, although I couldn’t tell what they were doing from this distance.

  The song on the iPod finally came to an end, and, mercifully, so did the giant’s singing. She leaned forward and grabbed the device, as though she was going to cue up another song. While she was distracted, I tucked my knife back into its slot and grabbed the gun out of the holster on my belt. I used the nozzle of the gun to push the door open slowly the rest of the way. Three in the head, dead, dead, dead, just like Dixon had said—

  The door creaked.

  The giant’s eyes immediately flicked to one of the blank monitors, and I knew she could see my reflection there. I raised the gun, but it was already too late.

  More quickly than I would have imagined, she whirled around and chucked her iPod at me. I ducked the sailing bit of plastic, stepped forward, and raised the gun again, but the giant kicked out with her foot, causing me to jump to the side. My hip slammed into the corner of the second table off to the right, causing a hiss of pain to escape my lips. The table rocked back and forth, causing more sparks to shoot out from the broken monitors.

  Before I could raise the gun a third time, the giant barreled out of her chair and chopped her hand down, smacking the weapon out of my fingers. She charged at me again, spreading her arms out wide and trying to catch me in a bear hug and squeeze the life out of me. She probably expected me to retreat, but instead I stepped forward and leaped up, head-butting her in the chin. She growled and staggered back, but she didn’t quit. Once more, she surged at me.

  This time, I let her come.

  Just before the giant put her hands on me, I sidestepped her and hooked my right foot around hers, making her stumble. Grabbing her utility belt, I played off of her own momentum and shoved her into the still-sparking monitors. Her head slammed through one of the glass screens, and a shower of white and blue sparks erupted. Hisses, cracks, and pops sounded, and the giant screamed as her body started convulsing. I took a few steps back, making sure that I was clear of the electricity surge. She screamed a second time, the sound as high, sharp, and whiny as a power saw. I winced again, as if that would somehow protect my eardrums. At this point, I’d kill her just to get her to stop making that awful noise.