Tangled Threads (Page 64)

"Uh-oh, Gin. Looks like Detective Coolidge didn’t take your advice and was stupid enough to come back to try to rescue you."

Elektra smiled down at me, her green eyes glowing as smugly as a cat’s in her face. She was oh so pleased with herself.

"Well, I don’t think that little jolt I just gave her was enough to kill the detective, but it will keep me from running after her at the very least. Mab’s going to be so happy when I tell her that I’ve killed the two of you. And in one night. I’ll have to make sure that she gives me a bonus for killing the elusive Spider-"

And that’s when I made my move.

With my still-twitching left hand, I reached out, snatched up the fallen knife, and slammed it into her foot, driving the blade all the way through her f**king stiletto boot to the other side. Elektra hissed with pain and tumbled to the ground beside me, clawing at the knife. She pulled it out and tried to turn it on me, but I slapped it away from her.

With my right hand, I yanked the silverstone handcuffs out of the back pocket of my jeans. Then I grabbed one of her flailing arms and snapped the cuff around it. Elektra hissed again, this time with surprise, and jerked her arm back, but not before I clinked the other cuff around my own left wrist.

"What the hell-" she sputtered.

"Here’s another thing I’ve noticed," I snarled in her face. "I don’t have to live to win. I just have to make sure you die."

Elektra screamed with fury then, threw herself on top of me, and unloaded on me with every single thing that she had. All her green lightning, all her electrical power, all her elemental magic. The silverstone cuffs around our wrists absorbed some of her power, but not enough to make a difference. The cuff grew hot against my wrist, as did the vest on my chest, as the pieces of silverstone started to heat up from all the energy pouring into them. The vest wasn’t going to be enough to save me. Not again. Because now, LaFleur was going for the kill shot, and she had all her attention and energy fixed on me.

Instead of reaching for my Stone magic, this time I grabbed hold of my Ice power, pulling it up through my veins, sending it into every single part of my body just the way I would my Stone magic. Instead of hardening my skin like my Stone power did, my Ice magic had a very different, very surprising affect.

It made me cold to the touch-and completely, utterly numb.

Ever since Elektra had unloaded her electrical magic on me the first time in the train yard, I’d been thinking about her power-how much it had just hurt, even though I’d used my Stone magic to insulate myself from it. She’d done the same thing with it to me again tonight. Hurting me, even through the shell of my Stone magic. So I’d known there wasn’t any point in reaching for my Stone power again.

Maybe it was using my Ice magic to help me break out of the silverstone handcuffs, but somewhere along the way tonight, I’d started to think about what Jo-Jo had told me. About what I’d done the night I’d fallen into the Aneirin River, about how I’d used my Ice magic to wrap myself in the cold, to preserve my body from the harshness of the elements. I’d felt nothing that night, not even the cold seeping into and shutting down my body.

The simple fact was that LaFleur’s magic just hurt too much. I couldn’t concentrate on killing her when I was busy thinking about how much agony she was causing me, how her electricity was frying me one cell at a time. So this time I’d decided to use my Ice magic not to feel anything at all.

It was a long shot-but it worked.

I didn’t feel anything. Not hot, not cold, and certainly not the other assassin’s electrical magic slamming into my body again and again and again. Oh, my vision went green the way it had before, but that’s because LaFleur was lighting us both up like we were a Christmas tree. She was using everything she had against me.

Through it all, I held on to my Ice magic. I didn’t know how much damage she was doing to me, how badly she was frying my skin or burning me, and I didn’t care. All that mattered was keeping her here shackled to me so that she couldn’t hurt Bria any more. All that mattered was stopping the other assassin-for good.

While her lightning crackled around me, Elektra also used her free hand to hit me. Over and over and over again, she slammed her tight fist into my face, my chest, and every other part of me that she could reach.

But because of my Ice magic, I didn’t feel any of the blows. Not a one.

Still, I had to do something. Sooner or later, I would exhaust my magic, and I didn’t know if it would be before or after Elektra ran out of juice herself. Somehow I pushed her away as far as I could, then rolled over onto my hands and knees, half-dragging Elektra with me. A steady burn of light caught my eye, and I stared down. My left hand was open, and the spider rune scar on my palm was glowing a bright silver, just like it had that night in the coal mine when I’d finally broken through the block of the silverstone metal in my hands.

I looked past it to my goal-the silverstone knife that I’d slapped away from Elektra. The only one I had left. But the only problem with not being able to feel my body was that I seemed to have zero control over it as well. It was like I was floating above myself, watching all this happen to someone else, and not being able to affect the outcome one bit.

Fuck that.

I needed that knife, and I was going to get it, numb body or no numb body. So I stared at my fingers harder than I had ever looked at anything in my life, willing them to move with the force of my gaze, to curl up, to just twitch.

And somehow they did.

Even though I couldn’t feel them, I somehow made my fingers move, just by the sheer force of my mind. My thumb inched closer to the dagger, dragging the rest of my hand along with it. I got one fingertip on the weapon, then another, then another. All the while, LaFleur kept hitting me, kept raining blows onto my back and head. I ignored her the way a dog would a flea jumping around on its ass. The assassin wasn’t important right now. Getting my hands on my knife was all that mattered.

Twenty agonizing seconds later, my hand closed around the hilt of the silverstone dagger. I might have only imagined it but I could have sworn that I felt the spider rune stamped on the hilt sear my skin with a magic that was even colder than my own.

Meanwhile, LaFleur was still trying to fry me with her electrical magic, even as she kept pummeling me with her free fist. I drew in a breath, concentrating one last time, gathering my strength for this one last thing.

And then I rolled back over and shoved the knife into her side.

It was an awkward blow and certainly not one of my best, given the fact that we were shackled together. Fletcher would have shaken his head sadly at my utter lack of form. But it got the job done. Most anything would, if you put enough muscle behind it. And even though I couldn’t feel my arms, I knew that I’d driven the knife into her with everything I had.