“Pick her up,” the dwarf ordered. “I want the bitch to see exactly what she’s dying for.”
Two giants stepped out of the shadows and lumbered over to me. I recognized them as two of Dawson’s men, the two that had come with him to Country Daze to brace Warren and Violet Fox. The giants hauled me to my feet. More pain blossomed in my shoulder and jaw, and I let out another low groan. But I didn’t offer any resistance to the giants. Not yet.
I was already injured, which meant I needed more of a plan than my usual method of hacking and slashing my way out of trouble. I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious, but Finn had surely realized things had gone to hell at Mab’s party. He was probably working his connections, trying to figure out where Tobias Dawson had taken me. Finn might even be on his way to the mine right now, with Sophia and Jo-Jo Deveraux in tow.
But I couldn’t count on them to save me. I wouldn’t.
In the end, the only thing, the only person, you could ever count on was yourself. Another lesson Fletcher Lane had taught me. Something else I’d already figured out for myself long before I’d met the old man.
The giants held me between them and carried me deeper into the mine. They hoisted me up so high my feet didn’t even touch the ground. While they carried me, I rubbed my thighs together. But the slots on my garter belt were empty. They’d taken the silverstone knives that had been strapped to my thighs. The ones up my sleeves were gone too. Something bumped against my hip, and I looked down. Dawson or one of his goons had been kind enough to loop my purse around my neck. The top flapped open, and I could see the empty space where my final knife had been. The bastards had been thorough, if nothing else. Too bad for me.
Dawson led the way, carrying a flashlight. The two giants also carried one apiece in their free hand. I eyed the flashlights. Not as weighty as a baseball bat, but a crack across the throat with one of those would be a good way to start cutting my captors down to size. Assuming I had the strength or guile to wrest a flashlight away from one of the three men.
We went down, down, down into the earth. The tunnel grew narrower, tighter. The bits and pieces of equipment on the floor vanished. So did the concrete support beams. Slowly, the violent mutters of the stone gave way to older, calmer vibrations. We walked through a natural tunnel now, instead of a man-made hole in the ground.
I noticed a light up ahead. A soft, white glow, like a beam of sunshine slanting through a cloud. Some sort of industrial spotlight that had been rigged up so folks could see what they were doing in the belly of the mountain.
Tobias Dawson rounded a corner and disappeared from sight. A moment later, the giants dragged me around it as well.
And my breath caught in my throat.
Because the narrow tunnel opened up into a circular chamber that was more than two hundred feet wide. The ceiling was just as tall, with thick stalactites that hung down like elegant stone icicles. That was beautiful enough by itself.
But the diamonds made it truly breathtaking.
The gemstones lay embedded in the rock walls. They were raw, of course, uncut and completely untouched by man. They lacked the polished look of a finished stone, but my Stone magic let me see the pure fire inside them, the beautiful potential they possessed. More seams of coal ran around the diamonds, making the gems seem as though they were resting on a velvet tray. I could also hear the diamonds. They resonated with the same sort of brilliance the stone in Tobias Dawson’s safe had. Often, the more intense a gemstone’s vibration, the more beautiful and valuable it was. If the song skipping through my head was any indication, there was several million dollars’ worth of uncut diamonds nestled in the heart of this mountain — just waiting for someone to come and claim them.
Tobias Dawson stalked to the center of the cavern. The giants dragging me followed along behind him. The dwarf snapped his fingers, and the two brutes threw me down.
I put my hands out to break my fall, but the stone still dug into my palms and scraped my already raw, bloody knees. Even being a Stone couldn’t protect me from being injured by my own element like that. I huddled on the ground, once again scanning the area for anything I could use. Any sort of weapon. Hell, I’d even take a bolt hole at this point. Folks who said you were a coward if you ran away from a fight usually didn’t live long themselves. I wouldn’t care if I was called a coward, as long as I was still breathing in the end.
The top of the cavern was damp, and phosphorescent mold covered most of the jagged stalactites, a strange, pale green contrast to the rest of the gray, brown, and black rock. A drop of water fell down from one of the stones and spattered onto my upturned cheek. I looked up, backtracked the drop, and realized a steady stream of water rushed down one wall of the cavern. Still more water dripped from other stalactites over my head. Hmm.
That might be useful.
Tobias Dawson walked in a loose circle around me.
His snakeskin cowboy boots clattered on the rough stone.
“Do you know where you are?”
I put my hands on the ground and pushed myself up to my feet. Spots swam in front of my eyes again, but I blinked them away. “I have a pretty good idea.”
It was hard to talk through my broken, throbbing jaw, and my words came out mushy and mumbled. Just the way my face felt.
The dwarf stared at me. “You broke into my office, into my safe.” His floppy mustache bristled with anger.
I shrugged. No use denying it now. If Tobias Dawson’s elemental talent for sensing and identifying others’ magic was as good as he claimed, no lie of mine would convince him otherwise. Besides, I was already on the hook here. If I played my cards right, maybe things would stop and end with me. I didn’t want Dawson to start thinking about who else might have been involved with me — and I didn’t want him going after Finn, the Deveraux sisters, the Foxes, or even Donovan Caine.
“Yeah, I broke into your office.”
“Why?” the dwarf snapped. “What were you looking for? Who are you working for? Did Warren Fox hire you to kill me?”
I stared at the dwarf and kept my eyes cold, my face expressionless. I might be on the express bus to dead, but I wasn’t going to snitch on the Foxes and take them with me. “I don’t know any Warren Fox.”
“Bullshit,” Tobias snarled. “I saw you at his store the other day.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You mean that shack by the side of the crossroads? Yeah, I was there. So what?”
“Why?” Dawson demanded.
“I had to pee,” I quipped. “And I didn’t feel like getting a briar in my ass by going in the woods.”
The dwarf stared at me, considering my words. “I don’t believe you.”
“Doesn’t much matter to me whether you believe me or not.”
Tobias spit a stream of tobacco juice out of his mouth.
It spattered against my bare, scraped leg. The dwarf was going to pay for that. I might die down here, but before I went, I was going to get at least one good blow in. Just for that.
“Who are you working for? What do you want?” Dawson asked again. “I have ways of making you talk, you know.”
My jaw twitched with pain, which kept me from rolling my eyes. Yeah, I’d figured out the dwarf could hurt me the first time he’d slammed his fist into my face. The memory was still fresh in my mind, even if it had apparently slipped his.
“I’m sure you do. As for what I want, well, it’s more about what my employer wants. Maybe we can work out some sort of deal.”
The dwarf stopped his circle to stand in front of me.
His pale blue eyes narrowed. “I’m listening.”