Spider's Bite

29

Jo-Jo Deveraux had been right. My knives weren’t going to help me this time. Only one thing could save me now — my magic.

I closed my eyes and reached for the elemental power flowing through my veins. The stone mumbled under my feet, sensing my rising magic. I concentrated on that stone, on its vibration, and let it feed my own magic, forcing my power through my veins onto my skin, hair, eyes, clothes. Making them as hard and unyielding as the rubble on the ground and the jagged stone walls that surrounded me—

The ball of Air magic slammed into my chest, right where my heart would be. Alexis James wasn’t messing around with me the way she had with Fletcher. She’d gone for the kill shot first.

It was like being hit by a fierce tornado, but worse. The force of the blast knocked me back on my ass and tore my knives from my hand, even as the wind screamed in my ears. The Air elemental magic slammed into me, trying to break through my Stone magic. Trying to overpower me and strip off my skin in one fatal blow.

Stone and Air didn’t mix, any more than Fire and Ice did. Opposing elementals never meshed, and I could feel Alexis’s power reacting to my own. The wind howled and thrashed against my body even louder than before. But I concentrated on my own magic, listening to the murmurs of the rocks underneath my body, drawing my strength from them. They were still here, despite being mined and blasted and dug into. Despite the passage of time and the harshness of the elements. Despite everything. They’d survived, and so could I.

I gritted my teeth and pushed back against the Air magic, against the wind battering my body and pricking my skin like cold needles. The silverstone metal in my vest also reacted to the surge of power, absorbing some, but not all, of Alexis’s magic. There was too much of it for that. The garment grew hot and heavy on my chest. I reached for more of my own Stone magic, using my power to drive the Air magic away, to push it back, to squeeze the life, the energy out of it.

It worked.

The wind, the ball of magic battering at my torso, dimmed and died, puffing away into nothingness. But I didn’t let go of my magic, my power. Slowly, I got to my feet, concentrating on my magic, my element, letting it make me as hard as I needed to be to survive this.

Alexis’s eyes narrowed. “I hit you square in the chest. Why aren’t you dead? Why isn’t your skin, your body, nothing more than a pile of mush?”

I didn’t answer. Let the bitch figure it out for herself. Alexis reared back and threw more of her Air magic at me. The blast of wind hit me in the chest again. Nothing wrong with her aim.

I didn’t fall this time, but my feet slid back on the rocks, as though they were made of ice. I pushed back with my Stone magic, waited until the wind died down, then started forward once more.

But Alexis wasn’t giving up. Since her Air magic wasn’t immediately working the way she thought it would, she reached into her cloak and pulled out a gun. She fired off three shots. One rattled off into the twilight. One of the bullets caught in my vest, adding to the heat on my chest. The sharp, painful blow was enough to make me lose my grip on my Stone magic, just for a second. But that was plenty of time for the third bullet to slam into my left shoulder, instead of bouncing off my rock-hard skin, like it would have if I’d been properly focused. Pain exploded in my body, and I could feel the hot blood spurting out of the wound and staining my shirt. But I shut it all out and grabbed my magic once more. Nothing mattered now but killing Alexis.

Alexis lowered the smoking gun. I was closer to her now, close enough for her to finally notice the silver magic burning in my eyes and the gray, chiseled tinge to my skin.

Alexis hissed. “You’re a fucking elemental.”

“Just like you, bitch.”

I started running and threw myself at her. Alexis wasn’t expecting the move, and she wasn’t able to get another shot off before I slammed into her. Her concentration broke, and the gun slipped from her fingers. She fell to the floor of the quarry with me on top of her. Kicking, punching, clawing. I might have been skilled, but Alexis’s magic and frustration had put her into a frenzy. She absorbed my sharp punches like I hadn’t even hit her and roared back with several of her own.

Kick. Slap. Punch. Punch.

We rolled round and round exchanging blows, when we weren’t throwing our magic at each other. Alex pummeled me with the wind. I shoved back with my Stone magic, blocking her vicious attacks.

After ten seconds, I was starting to get tired. Thirty seconds in, I was sucking wind. By the minute mark, it was all I could do to keep going. Using so much of my magic was quickly draining me. The bullet and the fire it caused in my shoulder weren’t helping matters.

Then Alexis got in a lucky, unexpected punch, and my head slammed back against the rock. For a second, the world went black. My Stone magic flickered and started to slip away, like water being swallowed up by arid sand. I struggled to hold onto my magic, my power, to focus on it and nothing else. If I let go of my magic, I’d get dead. Her Air power would wash over me and flay me alive, forcibly rip and tear the skin and muscle and bone from my body until I was nothing but a pile of ruined flesh.

Alexis saw me weakening. She positioned herself on top of me and hit me in the face again and again. The blows further dazed me, and my Stone magic weakened that much more. I could feel the Air magic now, lashing against my skin like a whip. Blisters started to form on my face, neck, and hands as the magic and the oxygen it contained forced its way underneath my flesh.

Alexis raised her hand, and her fingers flashed to life. Once again, her Air magic made them burn like a welder’s torch. She brought her hand up, positioning her fingers above my eyes. She was going to use her magic to put them out and tear the skin off my face.

Just like she’d done to Fletcher.

Her hand dipped downward, but I caught it with my own and shoved it back. I’d held onto enough of my magic so that her Air magic didn’t immediately rend my skin, but it was just a matter of time. A minute. Two, tops.

Back and forth, our hands seesawed, her burning fingers coming closer and closer to my face every single time until all I could see was their milky white glow. More blisters swelled up on my skin, threatening to burst. That was agony enough. I couldn’t imagine what the pain would be like when they ruptured. I wasn’t going to last much longer. Not like this.

Fletcher, I thought desperately. What would Fletcher do? Kill the bitch any way you can. I could almost hear his gruff voice murmuring in my ear.

“Give it up, assassin,” Alexis crowed. “My magic is stronger than yours. You can’t win. Air trumps Stone, in this case.”

And that’s when it hit me. That’s when I finally realized I’d been going about this the wrong way. I never would have done a hit by confronting someone head-on. Frontal assaults rarely worked in my line of business. Fletcher had taught me that. I was the Spider. The woman who hid in the shadows. Sneak attacks were what I did best. Outthinking people, outmaneuvering them, that’s what I excelled at. That was my real strength.

Time to go back to it.

I had enough juice left in me for one final burst of magic. Maybe two. So far, I’d been on the defensive, trying to block Alexis’s magic. I’d never liked being on the defensive. I needed to end this. Now.

So I threw my right hand out to the side, as far away as I could from her body and the Air magic howling around her like an invisible wolf. Alexis thought I was weakening that much more. She paused a moment to allow herself a triumphant chuckle.

That luxury cost the bitch her life.

With my outstretched hand, I reached for my other magic — my Ice magic. That element had always been far weaker than my Stone magic. All I could really do with it was make Ice crystals and cubes and other small shapes.

But it was enough.

The spider rune scar on my hand iced over. My fingers closed around the edge of the jagged icicle I’d created in my palm. Cold comfort. I snapped up my wrist and slammed the crude weapon into Alexis James’s heart.

The milky white flames on her fingertips snuffed out, like a candle doused by a stiff wind. The icicle broke off in her chest, so I threw my hand out to the side and made another one. This time, the cold weapon went into her neck. I turned my head to the side. Her blood spattered onto my left cheek, stinging it like hot wax. The pressure made some of the blisters on my face burst. I gritted my teeth against the searing pain.

Alexis James’s eyes widened, and she clawed at the cold cylinder in her neck. But I didn’t wait for her to pull it out. I formed another icicle and cut her throat with it.

She gurgled and put both hands over her windpipe.

Too little, too late.

I’d severed her jugular. Alexis might have been able to recover from it, if she’d known how to use her Air magic to heal instead of kill. But she didn’t. And a cut artery was one thing all her power, all her precious Air magic, couldn’t help her with. Alexis had been right. My magic hadn’t been stronger than hers. I’d just used it better.

Alexis pitched forward, and her blood soaked into my clothes, hair, skin. The last dregs of her magic erupted from her body, pummeling me a final time. The silverstone vest pressed down on my chest like a scalding rock. The metal had absorbed all the magic it could and had liquefied. It sloshed around like water and leaked out of the shell of the vest. I just lay there under Alexis, focusing on my own magic, using enough of the Stone power to shield myself from the screaming wind and superheated metal.

After about a minute, Alexis’s blood slowed to a trickle, and the wind whistled away. It always amazed me how quickly life, warmth, could turn dead and cold. I gathered up enough strength to roll the elemental off me and take off my melted vest. I threw the ruined material to one side. More silverstone leaked out of the fabric and pooled on the ground like a pale river.

I turned my attention to Alexis James. She’d flopped onto her back, staring up at the stars that had already started to populate the darkening sky. She coughed once, and more of her blood spattered on the rock around her. The stone under her body took on a harsh mutter.

I staggered to my feet, watching her die. I leaned down just before Alexis James slipped away and stared at her. The Air elemental’s pained gaze flicked to me.

“I don’t know where you’re going,” I said. “But if you see Fletcher Lane, tell him Gin says hello.”