The dwarf got to her feet, wet a washcloth in the sink, and used it to wipe the blood off Violet’s face. The girl didn’t stir. She hadn’t made a sound the whole time Jo-Jo was working on her. Not surprising. Her body had gone through a serious trauma. She’d probably sleep for at least an hour, maybe longer. Being healed by magic always took a lot out of a person, as the body tried to adjust from being injured to suddenly being well again. And using as much magic as Jo-Jo just had would wipe out all but the strongest elementals.

That was one reason I tried not to rely on my magic too much, tried not to use it for big things. I didn’t like being left weak and helpless afterward, even if I had retired from the assassin business.

Jo-Jo finished cleaning up Violet and threw the bloody rag into the trash can. Finn slipped Violet’s glued together glasses on her face. Then he leaned back and gave her an appreciative glance.

“She cleaned up good, didn’t she?” he said in an admiring tone.

“She’s unconscious, Finn. At least have the decency to leer at her when she’s awake,” I said.

Finn laced his hands behind his head and grinned. “I’ll be sure and do just that.”

Jo-Jo washed her hands again in the sink. She grabbed another rag to dry them off, then turned to me. “Now,” the dwarf drawled. “You want to tell me who this girl is, and why someone was beating her?”

I filled Jo-Jo in on everything that had happened the last twenty-four hours, starting with Sophia and I foiling Jake McAllister’s attempted holdup of the Pork Pit, to Violet Fox coming in and asking for the Tin Man, to the shooting, to Finn and I tracking her down and saving her from the dwarven hit man.

“So that’s where Sophia went in such a hurry,” Jo-Jo murmured. “I thought it was strange she wanted to leave before the end.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“We were watching a western. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly with Clint Eastwood. Sophia hardly ever leaves before the big showdown at the end,” Jo-Jo explained.

“Her favorite part is when Lee Van Cleef dies.”

Sophia Deveraux, the Goth girl dwarf, was also quite the movie buff. Westerns, action flicks, mob movies. She loved them all. The more violent they were, the better.

“Anyway,” I said, finishing my story. “We left the dwarf ’s body for Sophia to dispose of and brought the girl here. Once she’s awake, I plan on asking her some serious questions about Fletcher and where she heard the name Tin Man.”

Jo-Jo stared at the girl. A frown made the blue mud mask on her face crack. She hadn’t bothered to wipe it off yet. “She looks… familiar. What did you say her name was again?”