"Any more charges on her credit card?" I asked.

Finn reached into the backseat and hit a button on his laptop. "Not since the last time you asked five minutes ago. How long are we going to wait? It's almost six thirty."

"All the campus buildings except the library close at six," I said. "If she's not at the library cramming, Violet Fox should be on her way here right now. We'll give her a few more minutes. This lot is almost a mile from campus. It takes a good twenty minutes to get here from the student center, and that's if you're hoofing it fast."

Finn sighed and settled a little deeper into his seat. I rolled down the window. It was still drizzling, and the wet sheen of rain made the night seem colder and gloomier than it really was. Even in the Aston Martin's plush confines, I could hear the vibrations of the concrete barriers and broken asphalt of the parking lot. Sharp, worrisome mutters that spoke of violence, blood, fear. This was a place where people got beaten, robbed, and mugged with alarming regularity, even for Ashland -

A figure passed through a gap in the concrete barriers.

A short, curvy woman with a mop of blond hair that had frizzed out to TBH - Tennessee Big Hair - proportions thanks to the drizzle. Violet Fox. She wore a heavy down jacket that didn't do enough to shield her from the rain.

Her purse was looped over her chest and shoulder. She stepped underneath the flickering light, and a small metal canister glinted in her right hand. Pepper spray, unless I missed my guess. Smart, sensible precautions. This was a girl who was used to walking through here at night.

But she wasn't alone. Another girl was with her. Blueblack hair, pale eyes, slim figure, designer jeans. I recognized her too.

"That's Eva Grayson," I said.

Finn's green eyes latched onto Eva. He smiled and sat up in his seat. "Really? Owen Grayson never told me what a looker his sister is."

"Then he knows you well enough to know not to do that," I replied.

As I watched, a man about my age followed the girls into the parking lot. His head swiveled right and left, and he stayed as close to Eva as her own shadow. His bulky windbreaker had ridden up, revealing a Glock tucked into the small of his back. Looked like Owen Grayson had gotten his sister that bodyguard after all.

Violet and Eva stopped in the middle of the lot and exchanged a few words. Violet said something that made Eva laugh. Then Violet waved her hand and started walking toward her aging Honda. Eva waved back. The man grabbed her elbow to escort her out of the parking lot, but Eva gave him a nasty glare and shook him off. The two of them turned, walked back through the gap in the concrete barrier, and disappeared from sight.

Since we'd already disabled the light in the front of the car, I opened the door of the Aston Martin and swung my legs outside.

"Well, she's alone now." Finn reached for his own door handle, but I grabbed his arm.

"Wait," I said in a low voice. "Let's see who else is around."

"You think the shooter is here?" he asked. "We would have seen him by now."

I shrugged. "Maybe. Depends on how good he is. He could have slipped in the other side of the lot. The point is he missed her at the Pork Pit and probably couldn't get to her on campus today. Too many witnesses, too many security guards. This is his last shot at her before she goes home for the night."

"And you think he's going to take it," Finn said.

"I would."

So we watched. Violet Fox was no fool. She approached her car cautiously. She looked right, then left, in front and behind her. She also stayed in the middle of the lot away from the sides of the parked cars. Making sure no one was sneaking up on her or was waiting underneath one of the vehicles to grab her ankles and pull her down. Smart girl.

But she wasn't quite smart enough. Violet Fox reached into her purse, and her steps slowed as she fumbled for her keys. She didn't immediately find them because she stopped, dropped her head, and peered into her bag.

And that's when I saw a shadow slither out of the bed of the monster truck and head toward her.

"There he is," Finn said, scrambling to open his door.

"He was hiding in the truck bed the whole time."

I didn't respond. I was already out of the car, running toward the girl.

Chapter Eight

Even as I started running, I saw the shadowy figure creep closer to Violet and take on the form of a short, stocky man. A dwarf. I was two hundred feet away. I wasn't going to make it in time. I was going to be too late.

Again.

I opened my mouth to shout a warning, when something skitter-skittered across the pavement. The dwarf must have stepped on a soda can. Violet froze at the noise, one of her hands still in her purse. Then she bolted.

Didn't look back, didn't check to see what the noise was.

She just ran.

She got maybe twenty steps before the man grabbed her by her frizzy blond hair. Violet shrieked in pain and turned to flail at him, her hands arced into claws. He let her slap at him. Those sorts of blows would mean nothing to a dwarf. Magic and weapons were the only things that got their attention. Violet paused half a second to draw in another breath to scream. That's when the man punched her in the face - hard. I heard the crunch of bone a hundred feet away.

Violet moaned, and the man hit her again. Her head snapped to one side, and she fell to her knees, retching.

The dwarf kicked her in the stomach, and the force lifted Violet off the pavement and threw her ten feet. She hit the hood of a rusty pickup and slid to the ground. She didn't move.

The dwarf cracked his knuckles and advanced on her again. He picked her up and splayed her out on the hood of the pickup. The motion snapped Violet out of her daze, and she moaned and looked at her attacker. One of the dwarf 's hands dropped to his pants. He wasn't using a gun this time. The dwarf was going to beat Violet to death - after he raped her.

I was fifty feet away and closing fast. I wasn't trying to be quiet, not anymore, but the dwarf was too intent on opening his fly to hear the swish-swish of my sneakers on the wet pavement.

But the deep, throaty roar of a vehicle rumbling to life somewhere behind me made him turn. The dwarf spotted me running at him, zipped up his pants, and stepped back. Waiting. Just waiting. Violet lay on the hood, her hands underneath her, trying to find the strength to push herself up, to run away. Blood covered most of what I could see of her face, and the bottom half of her nose was no longer in line with the top part. Her glasses barely clung to her face.

Since the dwarf was focused on me, I slowed my steps to a walk. When I was ten feet away, I stopped, palmed the knife hidden up my left sleeve, and studied the man before me.

Since he was a dwarf, he wasn't quite five feet tall, but his shoulders were wider than a chair. His biceps looked like they'd been carved out of steel and attached to his barrel chest. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt, and a large tattoo showed on his left bicep - a lit stick of dynamite. A rune. One I'd seen somewhere before, although I couldn't quite place it at the moment. Didn't much matter. I could study it in further detail when he was dead.

"This isn't your fight, lady," he spat. "This is between the girl and me. Run along before I do you too."

"Oh, but it is my fight," I replied in a cold voice. I shifted the knife in my left hand, moving it into position.

"Why's that?"

"Because you shot up my restaurant today."

The dwarf 's blue eyes narrowed. "So what if I did? What are you going to do about it?"

"For starters? This."

I threw my knife at him. The dwarf didn't flinch as the blade caught him in the chest and sank into his right pectoral. Damn. I'd missed his heart by at least an inch. Probably closer to two. I hadn't been retired that long, but I hadn't exactly been training every day either.

Looked like some rust had already gathered. Use it or lose it, Gin. Since I didn't want to lose anything, since I knew I couldn't afford to, I made a mental note to get in some throwing practice after this was over.

The dwarf stared at the knife in his chest. Then he smiled, pulled out the weapon, and let it clatter to the ground. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles again. The sound ricocheted like a gunshot off the concrete barriers around us. "I'm going to enjoy making you pay for that, bitch."

"Yeah, yeah," I said, palming the knife hidden up my right sleeve. "Let's dance."

The dwarf charged me. I waited until the last possible moment, then stepped to one side. My left foot lashed out, and I tripped him. But he was expecting it. The dwarf tucked into a ball, hit the ground, and rolled right back up. Bastard was quick. Bendy too.

"Nice."

He smiled. "I take yoga."

I smiled back. "Me too."

He came at me again. And then we got down to business.

The dwarf swung his hard fists at me. I ducked his blows, not out of cowardice but practicality. No way I was letting his sledgehammer of a hand connect with my face. I'd had my nose and various other body parts broken plenty of times already. I had no desire to repeat that particular pain tonight.

The dwarf swung again, but his foot slipped on a chunk of broken asphalt and he overextended his arm. I came up inside his defense and stabbed him in the chest with my silverstone knife. The smell of coppery blood filled the night air, overpowering the rain. But he jerked back before I could shove the weapon into his heart. The blade skittered across his ribs and caught on one of them.

I grunted, but it was like trying to slice through frozen meat. His chest muscles were just too thick and dense for me to do enough damage to put him down quick.

The dwarf chopped at my knife hand with the edge of his fist. I let go of the weapon. A sharp blow like that would shatter my wrist into matchstick pieces. He swung at me again. I ducked back and plucked a third knife out of the small of my back.

"Knives? Is that all you got, lady?" he drawled. "You can cut me all night long, and I'll stand right here and take it. All I need is one good punch, and you're mine, bitch."

He was right. We'd barely started, and my heart was already racing. My lungs hadn't started to burn yet, but it was only a matter of time. I just didn't have the stamina he had. Never would. The dwarf wasn't even sweating, and the wounds I'd inflicted on him were nothing more than paper cuts. I had to find a way to end this. Now.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large, dark shape creeping up the parking lot. The shape stopped. Waiting.

I slashed at the dwarf with my knife, forcing him toward a sedan a few feet away. He laughed, backed up, and crooked his index finger at me.

"Come on, bitch," he said. "I'm just getting warmed up."

I smiled at him. "Me too."

I braced my hands on the car hood and pushed off.

He wasn't expecting me to change tactics, and he paused, just for a second. All the opening I needed. My feet hit the dwarf in the chest with enough force to make him stumble back. His shoe caught on another break in the pavement, and he fell on his ass.

And that's when Finn ran him over with the truck.

While I'd been fighting the dwarf, Finn had made himself useful. He'd broken into and hotwired the monster truck that had been parked next to Violet Fox's Honda. Then he'd pulled the vehicle up into range, waiting for me to notice.

The dwarf thump-thumped under the truck's massive, oversize wheels. But Finn wasn't finished. He put the truck in reverse and backed over the dwarf. He went back and forth over the man three more times before I held my hand up, signaling him to stop. Finn pulled the truck forward.

He stayed inside the cab, waiting to see if I needed him again. I picked up my dropped knives and walked across the pavement to the dwarf.

The wheels had flattened out the man's thick, strong, compact body until now it resembled a fleshy, bloody pancake that had been pressed into the asphalt. Greasy black tire tracks covered his torso, and his arms and legs lay by his sides, crushed and useless. But Finn hadn't hit his head, and the dwarf was still alive. His blue eyes burned with pain and hate as he watched me come closer.

"Want to tell me who you're working for before I kill you?" I said.

The dwarf spat blood on my jeans.

"I'll take that as a no."

I leaned down and cut his throat. His eyes bulged, and he gurgled once, twice, three times before his head lolled to the side and the light leaked out of his irises. I gave him a minute to bleed out, then put my fingers against his lacerated neck to make sure. No pulse. As dead as dead could be. I wiped off my bloody hand on my jeans and gestured at Finn.

Finn killed the engine, got out of the truck, and walked back to me. His green eyes flicked to the dwarf 's body. "You still had to cut his throat? Tough little bugger, wasn't he?"

"He's a dwarf," I replied. "They usually are. Now, give me your cell phone."

Finn dug into his jacket pocket and handed me a slim, silver phone. I used it to snap a picture of the dwarf 's frozen face, along with the tattoo on his bicep, the one that resembled a lit stick of dynamite. It had been flattened by the truck tires, but there was still enough flesh there to get an idea of the original shape of the rune. I handed the phone back to Finn, then stuck my hand into the dwarf 's front pockets. No wallet, no money, no ID. Probably in his back pocket, but I wasn't going to peel him up off the pavement to look for them. Messier than I wanted to get tonight.

"Get the car," I told Finn. "We need to take the girl to Jo-Jo's."

Finn nodded and trotted off to retrieve his Aston Martin.

I walked over to Violet.

Sometime during my fight with the dwarf, Violet Fox had slid off the hood of the pickup. She sat propped up against the tire. Her fingers were stuck in her purse, as though she was trying to get her cell phone out to call the cops. I crouched down until I was eye level with her.