“Your acid magic,” I said in a blunt tone.
It had taken me a while to figure out exactly what kind of magic she had, but acid was an offshoot of Fire, Mab’s power, so it made sense that Mab’s daughter could be gifted in acid magic. And it would certainly explain the unending burning sensation I’d felt when Benson forced me to swallow that Burn pill. I’d never met anyone with acid magic before, though. It was a rare ability, as rare as me being gifted in two elemental areas.
Madeline smiled even wider. “Very clever of you to figure that out, Gin. Would you like a demonstration too? Here. Let me show you.”
I tensed, but Madeline only reached for the mug she’d been drinking her coffee out of, dragging it closer. It was a sturdy cup, made of solid ceramic that would survive being dropped on the floor. Madeline held her finger up over it. Her eyes flashed a bright, wicked green, and I felt a gust of magic roll off her, the same powerful, burning sensation that had coated her fork that first day she came into the restaurant.
Pale green drops of liquid oozed out of Madeline’s index finger, drip-drip-dripping onto the surface of the cup. One drop was enough to cause acrid green smoke to rise from the white ceramic surface. Two drops made it start to bubble, and three drops made it start to melt. A minute later, the handle of the mug collapsed down into the rest of the ceramic puddle, and her acid was also starting to eat into the actual surface of the table.
“Anyway, I’m so glad that we were able to have this little chat and clear the air,” Madeline purred. “But I’m afraid that I really must be going. I’m finally moving into the Monroe family mansion, and I want to be there to oversee everything. Plus, there just always seems to be some sort of paperwork to sign, per my new lawyer.”
A horrible, horrible thought occurred to me. “Your new lawyer?”
“Well, I suppose that’s not quite right, since he’s someone we’re all quite familiar with.”
Madeline waved her hand at the window. I looked through the glass. One of the back doors of the Audi opened, and a man got out of the car. He wore a suit and was clutching a silverstone briefcase, like any other sixty-something businessman. But his most distinctive feature was the elegant mane of silver hair that swirled around his head, seeming at odds with his smooth, unlined face.
Jonah McAllister, Mab’s old lawyer and my personal nemesis.
McAllister saw me staring at him and gave me a mock salute before bowing low. Malice glimmered in his cold brown eyes, and I knew that he was enjoying my absolute shock and surprise at this little bombshell that Madeline had just dropped in my lap.
“I have big plans for Jonah,” Madeline said. “No one knows more about my mother’s business dealings than he does. He’s been helping me get up to speed on all sorts of things in Ashland.”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Not at that moment. Instead, I looked at the three of them in turn.
Madeline Monroe. Emery Slater. Jonah McAllister.
My worst nightmare come back to life.
I stayed rooted in my seat, but Madeline gracefully slid out of the booth and got to her feet.
“As I said before, it was so lovely to meet you in person, Gin. I’m sure that we’ll be seeing more of each other very soon.”
She gave me one more smile, then headed for the door, which Emery was already opening for her. My two newest enemies strolled out into the fall night to greet my oldest one. As the door shut behind them, the bell attached to it chimed merrily, as if announcing the start of a new boxing round.
Ding-ding-ding.
Madeline had definitely landed the first punch. All I could do was hope that I could withstand the rest of the fight—and the knockout blow that was coming sooner rather than later.
32
Their business concluded, Madeline, Emery, and Jonah got into the Audi and drove away.
I sat in the booth for several minutes after they left, thinking about my conversation with Madeline and all the not-so-veiled threats on both sides. Silvio cleared his throat, then got up, walked over, and slid into the opposite side of the booth from me. He watched what was left of the ceramic mug continue to bubble as the green acid burned through it and the tabletop.
“I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with Ms. Monroe,” he murmured. “As well as her earlier one with Ms. Slater.”
“You couldn’t help it?”
He shrugged. “Vampiric hearing has its uses.”
I didn’t respond. Silvio cleared his throat again.
“Obviously, she wants to kill you,” he said. “But she also wants to wipe out everyone and everything that you care about to send a message to everyone else in Ashland. She wants to hurt you in the worst way possible. So does the giant. They were talking about their plans for you during dinner. Monroe wants to make an example out of you to the entire underworld, so that she can more easily take control of things. She’s not going to kill you immediately. She wants to make you suffer first. She wants to eat away at you a little bit at a time, much like the acid on that cup, until there’s nothing left but a brittle shell that she can easily smash and destroy at her leisure.”
“I would expect nothing less from the daughter of Mab Monroe.”
Silvio shifted in his seat. “Not just Mab Monroe.”
My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”
He looked around the restaurant, making sure that no one was listening to us, then leaned forward. I did the same.
“I heard her talking to Beau the first time she came to the mansion to do business with him,” Silvio said in a low voice. “He knew that she was Mab’s daughter, but she was really trying to impress him, so she told him about her father: Elliot Slater.”
I couldn’t keep my mouth from gaping open at the revelation. “Elliot Slater was Madeline’s father?”
Silvio shrugged again. “Well, I gather it was in genetic material only. Apparently, he and Mab had a victory celebration one night when he was drunk, and she was thinking about what sort of man might give her a strong, worthy heir to the Monroe family name. So she decided on him. That’s the story that Madeline told Beau. She made it sound like it was a rather spur-of-the-moment sort of thing on Mab’s part. But here Madeline is, all the same.”
So not only did Madeline have magic, but she also had giant blood running through her veins, which meant that she was even stronger than I’d feared.
Silvio didn’t say anything else, although he kept his gray gaze focused on me. He knew what Madeline’s coming to town meant for me. No doubt, he knew some other little tidbits about the acid elemental too, since he’d watched Benson deal with her over the past several weeks. Maybe Silvio was right. Maybe I did need an assistant after all.
I roused myself from my troubled musings and stared at him. “That file of information that you gave me on Benson. Is that something you’d like to do again?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I want to know everything there is to know about Madeline Magda fucking Monroe,” I growled.
I didn’t add that I would need the information if I had any hopes of figuring out what her next move was—and how I could kill the bitch.
Silvio nodded. “I did something similar for Beau. He was insistent on my compiling very thorough dossiers on all his enemies. He wanted to know just as much about them as he did about his drugs and experiments. It was actually one of the few parts of my work that I liked. I’ve always enjoyed research. In another life, I might have become a librarian, if you can imagine that, maybe even worked in Cypress Mountain or somewhere like that.”