Thread of Death Read Free

Cemetery spread out over about two square miles, tombstones and grave markers looking like dull silver needles sticking up out of the rolling green landscape before the monuments ended and the rocky ridges of the Appalachian Mountains took over. The cemetery was located in Northtown, the part of the city that the rich and powerful called home, and those were the folks who were buried here, each one with a marker that was bigger and more intricately carved than the last. Competition among the rich just never seemed to end in Ashland, not even in death.
    We headed deeper into the cemetery, and I reached out with my Stone magic, listening to the whispers of the tombstones around us. Murmurs of old tears, old hurts and griefs, mixed with newer, rawer emotions echoed back to me. Common enough sounds in a place like this, although I also heard several notes of unease and worry rippling through the tombstones, reflecting the feelings of those who had gathered here today—something else I’d expected. With Mab gone, no one in the underworld knew quite what to do, now that her fiery fist wasn’t poised over their heads, ready to crush, burn, and grind them into ashes at any moment.
    The crowd was exactly what I’d expected it to be. I spotted many of the Ashland crime bosses milling around, folks like Phillip Kincaid, who owned the Delta Queen riverboat casino. Despite the occasion and the somber suit he wore, Kincaid had a cold, calculating smile on his face. In fact, most everyone was smiling and chatting with their neighbors, even the folks who’d been in business with Mab . . . well, if sharks showing their teeth could be considered smiling. With the Fire elemental gone, it was clear that it was a brand-new day in Ashland. I just wondered how I fit into things now.
    However, there was one person who wasn’t smiling—Jonah McAllister. The lawyer was one of those who’d chosen to sit in the red plush chairs that had been set up on the grass. McAllister sat alone in the frontrow of chairs, staring straight ahead, his unnaturally smooth face even blanker than usual. Mab didn’t have any living relatives that I knew of, and with Elliot Slater, her other number two man dead, I guessed McAllister was the closest thing she’d had to family—or even just a friend. Hence his position in the first row of chairs.
    All of the chairs had already been taken, except for the empty ones around McAllister that were reserved for those closest to the dead; but the rest of the crowd had spread out in a semicircle, so we were able to find a spot in the ring of people and see what was happening. Not much, since everyone was busy staring at the closed ebony coffin that stood in the middle of them all.
    Mab Monroe might be dead, but she was once again the center of attention.
    As she should be, at her own funeral.

     
    Mab’s funeral. I’d never thought I’d live to see this day. But here I was—and Mab too. Both of us together again, for the final time.
    Maybe it was morbid of me to attend the funeral of the woman I’d killed. Maybe it was impolite or in poor taste or just downright mean. I’d never come to the funerals of any of the other people I’d assassinated as the Spider . . . well, except to do recon on or take out another target. No doubt some folks would think that I’d come here today just to thumb my nose at Mab one last time before she was officially six feet under.
    But that wasn’t the case. I hadn’t come here to mock Mab: I’d come to say good-bye to her.
    In her own brutal way, the Fire elemental had been a part of my life since I was thirteen, and even more so these past few months while I’d been plotting how to take her down. Now that she was gone, I felt her absence, and I wanted to make my peace with the role she’d played in my life—and finally move on. In fairy tales, people always lived happily ever after once the witch was dead. They faded to black with everyone happy and smiling. It was a nice thought,