Given her status as the city's richest and deadliest citizen, Mab Monroe lived in the biggest, most impressive home in Ashland. The gray stone structure soared fifteen stories into the air, making it taller than some of the downtown skyscrapers. The mansion's three equalsize wings formed a wide, upside-down W-shape. Tall, skinny windows fronted each floor, along with crenellated balconies. A twelve-foot-tall stone fence ringed the mansion itself, which was set back more than a mile from the main road. From the research Fletcher Lane had done over the years, I knew the expansive, manicured grounds featured several gardens, three greenhouses, an aviary, a golf course, copses of woods, and a small lake. Along with giant patrols, guard dogs, assorted magical trip wires, and some other nasty surprises.
A light spotlighted a red banner draped over one of the balconies in the center wing of the mansion. The enormous piece of heavy fabric featured a rune done in shimmering gold - a round circle surrounded by several dozen curled, wavy rays. A sunburst. The symbol for fire. Mab Monroe's personal rune. The same one on the invitation in my purse.
The driver fell into the flow of traffic going through the open wrought-iron gates that designated the entrance to Mab Monroe's estate. The yellow taxi seemed out of place among all the stretch limos crawling up the curving driveway like fat, black beetles. It took twenty minutes for the driver to maneuver all the way up and stop in front of the entrance.
My gray eyes flicked over the security. Five giant guards roamed through the line of limos, opening doors, helping people out of their vehicles, directing traffic, and making sure the waiting drivers weren't getting into too much trouble drinking or smoking on the sly. Two more giant guards stood by the front double doors that led into the mansion, flanking a smaller human holding a large clipboard.
"That'll be twenty bucks," the driver growled.
"Twenty bucks? You only drove me a couple of miles."
Earlier this evening, I'd taken the precaution of parking a car on the side of the road just beyond Mab Monroe's estate. An old, battered burner vehicle with fake registration and fake plates. I'd put a white trash bag in the window, left the hood up, and scattered a few tools by the side of the road. All designed to make it look like the car had broken down and someone was coming right back for it. The car was my insurance policy, in case I needed to make a quicker getaway than the one I had in mind. Once I'd put the car where I wanted it, I'd hiked over to the closest anonymous coffee shop and called the cab to bring me here.
"Twenty bucks," the driver said again.
Since I didn't want him to remember me, I quit arguing, paid him, got out, and walked toward the stairs that led up to the main entrance of the mansion. I could hear it, of course. With fifteen stories of solid, stacked stone looming above me, I'd have to be deaf not to. The stone whispered of power and money, the way I'd always thought it would. But there were other vibrations in it too.
Fire, heat, death, destruction. But perhaps most disturbing was a touch of madness that trilled like a whippoorwill's cry through the solid rock, as though the stone itself had somehow been tortured until it broke. The murmurs grew louder, harsher the closer I got to the mansion, until all I could hear was the stones' wailing cries.
I gritted my teeth and blocked out the noise of the stones' unending pain. My only concern was Tobias Dawson, getting close enough to kill him, and getting away afterward.
Not the insanity that permeated the foundation of Mab Monroe's mansion - or why it made me want to seriously hurt the Fire elemental.
I walked up the steps and stopped in front of the double doors.
"Invitation?" the man with the clipboard asked.
I pointed to the black velvet choker around my throat - the one with the heart-and-arrow rune on it. "I believe this is all the invitation I need, sugar. But here's the hard copy too." I gave him a winsome smile and handed over the engraved invitation Roslyn Phillips had slipped me.
The man stared at the heart-and-arrow rune a moment; then his eyes swept over the rest of my body. Behind him, the two giants also leered at me. Looked like Tobias Dawson wasn't the only one here tonight with a thing for busty blondes.
The man with the clipboard pulled his attention away from my boobs and checked the name on the invitation.
"I assume you know the rules for tonight, Candy?"
I nodded. "Yeah, sugar, I know how to behave myself. I'm a pro."
Before Finn and I had left the nightclub, Roslyn had given me a list of rules Mab Monroe had sent her for the party guys and girls. Basically, Roslyn's hookers were to make themselves available to anyone at anytime during the course of the evening and do anything - anything -
Mab's guests wanted. Those guys and girls who went home with one of Mab's guests for the night would be generously compensated after the fact. All outstanding bills, hospital and otherwise, would be paid in full by Mab.
The man with the clipboard jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Go on in."
One of the giants pinched my ass as I walked past.
Although I wanted nothing more than to palm one of my silverstone knives and slit his throat for putting his hand on me, I deepened my smile.
"Now, now." I waggled my finger at him. "I'm here for the guests, sugar. Not the hired help."
His face flushed at my insult. The giant stepped forward, but the other one put a restraining hand on his shoulder.
"She's right," the second man rumbled. "Mab will be pissed if you touch her. Remember what she did to Stevenson last time? Do you want that to be you?"
The giant paled. Evidently, whatever Mab Monroe had done to Stevenson had made an impression on the rest of her guards. The giant shot me a sour look, but he stepped back. I winked at him and headed inside the mansion.
The insane shriek of the stones washed over me again, so loud the spider rune scars on my hands itched from the sound of it. But I gritted my teeth and pushed the noise away, buried it so deep that it was nothing more than a murmur in my head. I needed to concentrate on my mission, not wonder what Mab Monroe had done in her own house to make it sound like that.
A hallway that was at least a hundred feet wide cut through the center of the massive mansion. Despite the relatively early hour, the party was in full swing. The trill of laughter and the murmur of conversation resonated through the house, low and mellow, like hidden cicadas cooing in the tall grass in the summertime. It helped drown out the stones' insane shrieking.