I immediately suspected Blanco had had something to do with Jake's death, given his problems with her, although I couldn't figure out how she had gotten past security and into the mansion. She certainly wasn't the sort of person who normally got an invitation to one of Mab's parties. Despite my suspicions that she was somehow involved, no one believed me and no one listened to me - not Mab and not Elliot. But I knew in my heart who had killed my son, and I was determined to get my revenge. I might not have particularly cared for Jake - might have always found him to be a bitter disappointment, a small-minded buffoon with no self-discipline or real ambition - but he was still my son, and nobody messed with the McAllisters.

Ever since then, planning Ms. Blanco's death was an amusing pastime of mine. I was quite happy when Elliot finally beat and questioned her about Jake's death one night at the community college. But Blanco's fake whimpers, crocodile tears, and ragged whispers of fear fooled the others, and Mab didn't let Elliot kill her then the way I wanted him to. Now the giant was dead - blasted to hell with a shotgun, thanks to Blanco - and so was Mab.

I stared at the portrait of the Fire elemental. Even in death, her face was as familiar to me as my own. Sometimes it felt like I'd spent a lifetime intensely staring at Mab's features, trying to interpret what the slightest quirk of her mouth or the faintest lift of her eyebrow really meant. I'd had to, in order to keep her happy without getting burned myself - in more ways than one. Mab had never been shy about showing her anger - and magic - to those who displeased her.

In some ways, I was relieved she was dead. I'd been her father Marcus's lawyer first, and when Mab killed him in an elemental duel and took over his business interests, I quickly swore my allegiance to her in the name of self-preservation. I think it amused her to keep me on, knowing that I would do anything to please her - and anything to save myself from her fiery wrath.

Still, it was never easy working for Mab. More than once, I went into a room with her wondering if I would live to walk out of it again. And more than once, I saw her use her Fire magic to its full and deadliest effect. I never quite got used to the stench and sizzle of burning flesh, but those things might as well have been Mab's perfume and anthem, as often as I smelled and heard them over the years.

The stress of working for her father and then Mab herself took its toll - aging me before my time. I was gray by the time I was thirty and looked sixty when I was forty - at least until I started a strict regimen of diet, exercise, and Air elemental facial treatments. I kept the silver in my hair, though. It gave me a gravitas I enjoyed.

Despite the stress, I was smart and shrewd and most important I was a survivor. More than once, I blamed my mistakes on someone else, even planting the evidence to back up my charges, if necessary. Mab then took out her fiery rage on the other party accordingly, instead of me. If she knew I was really the one who'd screwed up, well, she either didn't care or she liked watching me dance to her tune too much to murder me. Dance, Jonah, dance. At least, that's what I told myself.

But now the reality of the situation, of a life without Mab, was staring at me - hundreds of eyes, in fact, all staring at me.

Everyone who was anyone in the Ashland underworld had turned out for the funeral, as well as those in legitimate business circles in the city and beyond, but I paid attention only to the other crime bosses. Folks like Ron Donaldson with his bad comb-over and bulging belly; the always mysterious Beauregard Benson; and Lorelei Parker, her soft, lush body at odds with her ruthless nature.

I greeted them all in turn as they arrived, shaking hands and exchanging meaningless pleasantries, but I heard the not-so-subtle whispers as soon as I turned my back to them.

"Not so high and mighty these days, is he?"

"Not without Mab."

"Poor Jonah. It must be hard to know how irrelevant he is now."

Yes, all the other bosses were there supposedly to pay their respects to Mab, but really they were all just sizing each other up and plotting how they could take the Fire elemental's place. Now they were all staring at me, sitting alone in the front row, without Mab beside me.

It was still hard for me to believe that she was gone. I kept turning to my right, expecting her to be perched next to me, ready to ask her if she needed anything, ready to peer into her eyes, study her face, and sweat about what I needed to do to keep her happy today. But Mab was dead, thanks to Blanco, and I was all alone. I knew what the other bosses were thinking: that I would be easy to dispose of now that the Fire elemental was gone.

I was determined to show them just how wrong they were.

Oh, I knew that I wasn't a leader. Not really. I didn't have the brawn or the raw magic for that. Not as a human, not in Ashland, with all its dwarves, giants, elementals, and vampires. No, I was much better in a managerial position, taking care of legal matters that inevitably cropped up whenever you got your hands dirty with drugs, gambling, prostitution, extortion, and all the other crimes everyone loved to commit, oversee, and profit from in the city.

I'd put out a few subtle feelers, offering my services and expertise to some of the more established and respected crime bosses, including Phillip Kincaid, but all my advances had been rebuffed thus far. Kincaid had declined my services, as had Benson. At least they knew enough to be polite about things. Donaldson had laughed in my face, while Parker had had her giant bodyguards simply pick me up - chair and all - remove me from her office, take me outside, and dump me in the street like trash. I wasn't going to forget those slights. No, I had plans for Donaldson, Parker, and everyone else who'd mocked me these last few weeks.

I'd had a few offers for work come in, but all from those I considered beneath me, minor thugs who were too stupid to last very long, like Wallace Conroy, a vampire pimp who had on the most garish black crushed-velvet suit I'd ever had the misfortune to see. He looked like he was wearing a love seat for a jacket. Conroy noticed me staring at him and waved at me, as if it were perfectly polite to flap his hand around during a funeral service. Even worse, the motion caused the thick gold bracelet on his wrist to flash in the light. No class, no manners, and absolutely no brains. I turned away in disgust.

Either way, most everyone wanted to assume Mab's mantle of power on their own, without any help from me. Fools. With my knowledge of Mab's businesses, legitimate and otherwise, I could have made things so much easier for them. But of course they couldn't see that - they couldn't see the big picture like I could, like I'd always been able to. They didn't have the discipline to plan and plot and think ahead like I did. I'd had to do those things just to stay alive in Mab's employment. Skills that would serve me well, now that she was gone.

Still, if the other bosses wanted to disregard my offers of information and try to climb to the top of the crime ladder themselves, that was fine with me. I'd just sit idly by and wait until they'd killed each other off one by one. Once the dust settled and a clear winner emerged, I would reassess things.

In the meantime, there was one thing I was determined about: that Gin Blanco was going to die.

I stared past the minister at the troublesome bitch. I'd thought she might show up here today. Part of me had hoped she would, and I'd been eager to see her, eager to see just how much Mab had hurt her. If Ms. Blanco couldn't be dead, then being horribly scarred, burned, and a small, pitiful shell of her former self would have been the next best thing. I would have been somewhat satisfied with that - for a time, anyway.

But of course Blanco had gotten some Air elemental to patch her up, probably Jo-Jo Deveraux, that old beauty queen dwarf who was standing with the rest of the bitch's group of misfits. Blanco looked no worse for wear. In fact, her skin was positively glowing, and she looked as fresh and relaxed as if she'd spent a long weekend at a spa. Envy stabbed through me, along with disappointment.

But my disappointment soon turned to anger. I'd been in the rubble-filled courtyard with Mab and Blanco when they had their elemental duel. Once the two of them started in on each other with their magic, I got myself to safety, determined to finally, happily, watch Mab kill the woman who'd caused me so many problems.

But Blanco won instead. Somehow, she did something I didn't think anyone could do: she killed Mab.

That was shocking enough, but what really surprised me was how far and fast I fell as well. With Mab gone, so were all the things I'd enjoyed while serving the Fire elemental: my status, my position, my power, and most important the way I could merely look at someone and see him tremble knowing exactly who my employer was and what she was capable of. Working for Mab had been stressful, but I'd enjoyed those particular perks. I'd earned them over the years with all the messes I'd cleaned up for the Fire elemental and all the long hours I'd spent soothing her raging ego.

But that was all gone, crumbled to ash just like Mab was. Now people didn't look at me with fear in their eyes. Instead, they snickered at me behind my back. Blanco was the reason I'd lost all those precious things - and she was how I was going to get them back too.

I doubted Blanco had thought ahead to what would happen to her now that Mab was dead, but I had - and I'd already sowed the seeds of discontent among the underworld. All I had to do was kill the bitch - or, rather, arrange for it to be done. I've never liked getting my hands dirty that way. I've always found much more pleasure in orchestrating someone's death, rather than actually pulling the trigger myself. Anyone can buy a gun and shoot someone. It takes skill and finesse to take down your enemies from a distance and get away clean, with no one knowing - or at least being able to prove - that you were ever involved.

Ms. Blanco didn't know it, but Mab's wasn't the only funeral I'd been planning recently. She'd find out soon enough, though - and so would everyone else here today.

Calmer now, I turned my attention back to the minister and focused on his words once more. This was a funeral, after all.

An occasion worthy of respect.

Gin Blanco

Jonah McAllister dropped his eyes from mine, shifted in his seat, and stared at the minister again. Despite the minister's somber words, McAllister's thoughts must have been happy ones, because his mouth curved up into a thin smile, despite the smoothness of his features.

I frowned. The lawyer was up to something. I didn't know what yet, but I knew it probably involved me - and my messy death. It seemed like McAllister was always planning that. If that was the case, he was once again going to be sorely disappointed, because I had no plans to follow Mab to her grave anytime soon.

A flash of light caught my eye. I blinked, thinking that it was just the sun reflecting off someone's necklace or tie pin, but the light flashed again, and I realized it was coming from up in a towering maple tree about twenty feet behind the coffin. I squinted against the midafternoon glare, trying to see through the leafy branches and figure out exactly what was making that bright spot.

Suddenly a beam of light slashed across the ground, and a small red dot appeared on Owen's arm before zooming over to my chest - a sight that was all too familiar to an assassin like me.

"Get down!" I screamed, and immediately threw myself on top of my lover.

Crack! Crack!

Two gunshots shattered the solemn silence, drowning out the minister's words and kicking up tufts of grass and dirt where Owen and I had just been standing.

A second later everyone was in motion. Surprised shouts and screams ripped through the air as the semicircle splintered and folks scrambled to take cover behind the tombstones and trees that dotted the landscape. The giant bodyguards shoved their clients down onto the grass, covering their bodies with their own larger, bulkier ones. By the time five seconds had passed, the cemetery looked deserted, as if no one were there instead of everyone hiding behind whatever they could. Whether they lived in the genteel confines of Northtown, the rough projects of South-town, or somewhere in between, most everybody in Ashland recognized the sound of gunfire when they heard it. You didn't live long in this city if you didn't know how to duck and cover when the shooting started.

More red dots popped up here and there in the cemetery as the sniper kept firing, spreading his shots out over the crowd. At first, I thought he was just picking targets at random, but he focused several shots in the direction of Ron Donaldson and Lorelei Parker, even though they were both on the ground being protected by their giants. But not all the crime bosses were cowering behind or underneath their bodyguards. Beauregard Benson remained where he was, his arms crossed over his chest and a smile on his face, as if he were enjoying the chaos and the screams of those around him. Phillip Kincaid was also standing, peering around the side of a statue of an angel as if trying to figure out where the shots were coming from. I couldn't quite tell from this angle, but I thought Kincaid had a gun in his hand, like he wanted to take out the sniper himself.

Roslyn and Jo-Jo had both ducked down behind a square headstone, and Jo-Jo had one hand on her hat, trying to keep it in place. Sophia stood her ground, looking for the source of the shots, since her thick musculature would stop most bullets before they reached anything vital. Beside me, Finn had put himself on top of Bria and had already drawn the gun out from against the small of his back, although my sister was trying to wriggle out from under him and was reaching for her own weapon.

"Sniper!" I yelled at Finn. "In the maple tree! Cover me!"

Finn nodded, rose to one knee, and trained his gun in that direction. I got to my feet and sprinted across the grass.

Crack! Crack!

Chapter Four

More shots rang out. I saw wood splinter on the tree ahead of me, and I knew that Finn was laying down the cover fire I'd asked him to, giving me a chance to get to the sniper.

Finn and the sniper exchanged a few more shots before the shooter pulled back behind a branch high up in the tree. He was probably reloading. I picked up my pace, leaping over the folks still cowering on the ground. Even the minister had taken cover, hunkering down behind Mab's coffin. He knew the score in Ashland just like the rest of us did.