As I steered through the trees and pulled back onto the icy road, I reached for my magic again. But not my Stone power. No, this time I grabbed hold of my other magic—my elemental Ice power—and let it fill the lower part of my body, particularly my left thigh. The cold magic flooded my veins, and the wounded area immediately went numb—so numb I couldn’t even feel that part of my body anymore. Or, more important, the pain pulsing through my thigh, and the blood pumping out of it with every beat of my heart. I sighed with relief.
For years, my Ice magic had been the weaker of my two abilities, until I’d overcome a block associated with it. Now it was just as strong as my Stone power. Numbing my own limbs so I wouldn’t feel pain was one of the recent tricks that I’d learned how to do with my Ice magic—the one that had helped me kill Elektra LaFleur when she’d tried to shock me to death with her electrical power.
LaFleur’s magic had been a bit of a fluke, as it wasn’t one of the four main areas—Air, Fire, Ice, and Stone—that most elementals were gifted in, that you had to be able to tap into to be considered a true elemental. But magic could take many forms, could manifest in all sorts of strange ways, and many folks were gifted in other areas, offshoots of the four main elements. Like water was an offshoot of Ice, and electricity was one of Air. The mechanics behind it all had never really concerned me. I was just glad I was still alive—and that LaFleur was rotting in whatever shallow, pauper’s grave Mab had dumped her in.
I’d only beaten LaFleur because I was the rarest of elementals—someone who could control not only one but two elements. Ice and Stone, in my case. Connected powers, but each with their own unique quirks.
My Stone magic had always been incredibly strong and let me do anything that I wanted to with the element, like hear the whispered vibrations in the rocks around me, make bricks fly out of a solid wall, or even turn my own skin into the equivalent of human marble.
My Ice power was different, in that it actually let me create elemental Ice with my bare hands—Ice that I could turn into all sorts of shapes, like cubes, crystals, and the occasional knife. My Ice magic also let me numb my body so that I would feel no pain, something that I was doing right now just to stay upright. Hell, maybe it would slow the blood loss too. I wasn’t familiar with all the ins and outs of this particular trick just yet. Maybe Jo-Jo could tell me more when I got to her.
If I got to her before I bled to death.
It was after midnight now, and the Ashland streets were deserted. Not surprising, given the icy conditions. Ashland was the southern metropolis that sprawled over the rugged corner of the world where the Appalachian Mountains cut through Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. From a distance, Ashland looked like a jewel-toned paradise, surrounded by emerald forests and sapphire rivers with a silver diamond of a city set into the middle of all the sparkling grandeur. But anyone who’d ever spent any time in Ashland knew exactly what kind of violent, gritty place it really was. The horrible, despicable things that only happened on the darkest, dingiest streets in other cities occurred on Ashland’s main thoroughfares—often in broad daylight.
The city was divided into two sections—Northtown and Southtown—held together by the rough circle of the downtown area and flanked on either side by suburbs full of soccer moms, spoiled kids, and other middle-class folks. Northtown was the rich part of Ashland, where the city’s social, magical, and monetary elite lived, died, and generally tried to screw each other over every which way they could. All sorts of evil lurked inside the sultan-size mansions in Northtown, made even more sinister by the immaculate facades and perfectly groomed lawns. Mab Monroe, of course, lived in the heart of Northtown in the biggest mansion in the city, given the fact that she was the queen bee of the Ashland underworld.
The folks were poorer in Southtown—much, much poorer—but that didn’t make them any less dangerous. Vampire hookers, pimps, gangbangers, elemental junkies strung out on their own magic who’d just as soon light you up with their Fire power as spit on you. Those were the people who called Southtown home. Still, I’d always had a begrudging fondness for the area. At least in South-town you knew exactly what dangers to expect, whereas in Northtown you might go over to someone’s house for a friendly cookout and end up with your ribs being the ones basted in the barbecue sauce.
It had been snowing in Ashland for several days straight. The February cold had been so bitter, biting, and unrelenting that what snow fell didn’t even begin to melt before the next arctic front blew in and dropped six more inches on top of it. By this point, the snowbanks on either side of the slick roads were taller than most dwarves—topping out at about five feet.
It was hard for me to drive in it, especially considering the absolute shit box of a car that I was in. Twice, the old, worn tires started sliding on the black ice, and it was only by the grace of whatever god was laughing at me that the car didn’t slam into one of the trees that lined the road. It also didn’t help matters that I could feel myself weakening and my attention wandering as more and more blood pumped out of my thigh. But I forced my hands to grip the steering wheel, the cracked leather digging into the spider rune scars on my palms, and drive on.
I went as fast as I dared, the car tires alternately crunching through or slipping on the snow and ice. Even though there was no one out tonight, it was still slow going, and it took me thirty long, precious minutes to make it to Jo-Jo’s.
Jolene “Jo-Jo” Deveraux was a two-hundred-fifty-seven-year-old dwarf with Air elemental magic who used her power to heal people on the sly. She also happened to be my only hope of getting the wound in my thigh to quit gushing blood before I ran out of the fluid altogether.
Like others of her monetary, social, and magically elite status, Jo-Jo made her home in an upscale Northtown subdivision called Tara Heights. Most of the subdivisions in Ashland had cutesy names like that, almost all of which had a Southern connotation. Like Lee’s Lament, another nearby subdivision. For some folks in Ashland, especially the vampires who’d lived through the era, the Civil War would just never, ever be over.
I steered the rattletrap car past the snowbanks that had been plowed up on either side of the subdivision’s entrance and made the appropriate turn onto a street marked Magnolia Lane. I started up the hill to Jo-Jo’s house, but the tires just wouldn’t grip the ice that coated the cobblestone driveway. For a moment, I was afraid that I was going to have to get out and walk—something that I didn’t have the strength or blood left for. But finally the squealing, smoking tires caught, probably for the last time in their miserable, rubbery lives, and the car lurched up the driveway.
I crested the hill, and Jo-Jo’s house came into view. The three-story, plantation-style structure looked even more elegant in the winter white dark, the layers of snow and ice swirling around it like buttercream frosting. The columns that supported the house only added to the effect, making the whole thing resemble a tiered cake. Normally, I would have enjoyed the ghostly view, but tonight the snow was just another obstacle to plow through.
By this point, I was fading fast. It took me two concentrated tries before I remembered to put the car in park so it wouldn’t roll back down the hill. Opening the door, crossing the yard, trudging up the steps that led to the porch that wrapped around the house—all of it took much more effort than it should have. By the time I raised the cloud-shaped door knocker that was Jo-Jo’s rune, a symbol of her Air elemental magic, I was cold and clammy with sweat and about to pass out. I rapped on the door as hard as I could, then sagged against the house, smearing blood all over the white paint in abstract, snowflake-like patterns.
I don’t know how long I stood there. Seconds passed, maybe minutes, before I heard heavy footsteps on the other side of the door. Even out here on the porch, I still caught a whiff of her Chantilly perfume. I breathed in the scent, comforted by the sweet smell, because I knew that I’d made it. Jo-Jo would work her Air magic once more and heal me the way she always did whenever I showed up at her house late at ni
ght an inch away from death.
A moment later, the door opened and a woman appeared. Like everyone else in Ashland on this cold, cold night, Jo-Jo had been bundled up and firmly ensconced in bed. A long-sleeved pink flannel housecoat swathed the dwarf’s stocky body from head to toe. Despite the late hour, a string of gravel-size pearls hung around her neck. In Jo-Jo’s mind, nothing proclaimed you to be a true southern lady more than a set of real pearls, and she never went anywhere without hers—not even to bed.
The dwarf’s bleached blond–white hair had been rolled up tight for the night in pink sponge curlers in a tidy formation that any general would have been proud of. For once, Jo-Jo’s middle-aged face was free of makeup, although the fuchsia polish on her toenails glistened in the semidarkness. The dwarf almost always went barefoot at home, even in the dead of winter.
Jo-Jo stuck her head outside, a turtle coming out of her warm, comfortable shell, obviously wondering who could be knocking on her door at this hour. Especially since I wasn’t scheduled to be doing anything tonight other than cozying up with my lover, Owen Grayson.
Jo-Jo’s eyes, which were almost colorless except for the pinprick of black at their center, widened when she spotted me on the porch—along with the blood that had pooled underneath my left leg.
“Gin?” Jo-Jo asked in a surprised voice. “Is that you?”
“Who else?” I drawled.
And then I collapsed at her feet without another word.
I was somewhat aware of Jo-Jo calling out to her sister, Sophia, and the younger dwarf picking me up and carrying me inside into the beauty salon that took up the back half of Jo-Jo’s sprawling house.
The older dwarf made her living as what she called a “drama mama,” using her elemental magic on all the southern debutantes, trophy wives, and grand old dames who frequented her popular salon. Cuts, perms, dyeing, waxing, exfoliating. If it had something to do with changing or improving someone’s appearance, then the dwarf was an expert on it. And if you really wanted your skin to glow for that special occasion, then you came to Jo-Jo’s for one of her signature Air elemental facials.
Cherry red salon chairs, beauty magazines stacked three feet high in places, buckets of makeup, every conceivable shade of pink nail polish. All that and more fought for space in the salon, cluttered together in a cozy way.
Rosco, Jo-Jo’s beloved basset hound, snoozed in his wicker basket in the corner. His brown and black ears twitched once, but he didn’t wake up at the sound of us entering the salon. Not surprising. If there wasn’t food involved or a chance to be petted in the offing, then Rosco wasn’t much interested in things.
I peered at the familiar furnishings, but everything seemed like it had a thick fog wrapped over it. Still, the blurry sight of the salon and Rosco comforted me, no matter how much my brain was distorting them right now.
“Put her in the chair,” Jo-Jo instructed her sister. “Quickly now. You can see how much blood she’s lost.”
“A little more than usual,” I murmured as Sophia hefted me into position. “Girl got in a lucky shot on me. My own fault, really, for not remembering that she was even there to start with.”
“Babbling.”
This time, Sophia Deveraux was the one who spoke, in a raspy, broken voice that sounded like she’d spent her entire life smoking cigars, chasing them down with barrels of mountain moonshine, then chugging antifreeze just for kicks. Of course, I knew that she didn’t actually do any of those things. Sophia didn’t talk much, given her grinding tone, and I’d always wondered what traumatic thing had happened to her to so completely ruin her voice. But I’d never asked. It couldn’t be anything good, not with the quiet, bone-deep sorrow that radiated off the dwarf at times. Still, I made the effort to roll my head to the side to look at her.
At a hundred and thirteen, Sophia was still in the prime of her life, unlike Jo-Jo, who was firmly entrenched in middle age. And that wasn’t the only difference between the two dwarven sisters. Jo-Jo was a southern lady through and through with her pearls and pink dresses, whereas Sophia had a fondness for Goth gear.
Tonight, Sophia wore a black terrycloth robe covered with smiling skeletons. Her hair was a short black stain that brushed up against the absolute paleness of her face, which was even more ashen tonight since her lips were free of the crimson or even black lipstick she sometimes wore. At five feet one, Sophia was tall for a dwarf and had a good inch on Jo-Jo. Sophia was also much stronger than her middle-aged sister, and the black fabric of her robe did little to hide her thick, sturdy body.
Jo-Jo, who’d stepped over to the sink to wash her hands, jerked her chin at her sister. “Get a good grip and hold her down. She’s lost a lot of blood, so this is going to hurt.”
Sophia nodded, moved forward, and put her hands on my shoulders, securing me to the salon chair. The dwarf’s grip was so strong, so firm, that it felt as if my entire upper body had been clamped down with a silverstone vise.
“Sorry, Gin,” Sophia rasped.
I would have shrugged my shoulders, telling her that it was okay, but my body wouldn’t move. Nothing ever did after Sophia got hold of it.
Jo-Jo finished washing her hands, then dragged a free-standing halogen light over to me, angling it down so that it illuminated my body. The dwarf picked up a pair of scissors from a stack of beauty magazines and cut open my cargo pants and other layers, exposing the ugly gunshot wound in my thigh. Despite the makeshift tourniquet that I’d applied, blood still trickled out of the hole in a steady stream.
Jo-Jo tilted her head and studied the wound. Then she pulled another chair over to me, sat down in it, and raised her hand. A buttermilk white glow coated the dwarf’s palm, and the same light filled her colorless eyes, as though clouds were drifting through her pale gaze. Her Air magic filled the room, as the dwarf fully embraced her elemental power.
The sudden influx of magic caused the spider rune scars in my palms to itch and burn, just like they always did whenever I was exposed to so much of another elemental’s power. That’s because the scars were made out of silverstone, a special metal that was highly prized for its ability to absorb all forms of elemental magic.
Although the silverstone had long since hardened in my flesh, it always seemed to me like the metal in my hands actually hungered for magic, as if the silverstone were some sort of parasite inside me just waiting for the chance to soak up all the power it could possibly hold—and then some. Having the metal in my hands was what had made it so difficult for me to use my Ice magic. For years, the silverstone had absorbed my power even as I brought it to bear, since Ice and Fire elementals almost always released their magic through their hands. It was only during a recent fight to the death with another Stone elemental that I’d been able to tap into enough of my Ice magic to blast through the blockage. Now, the silverstone scars held my Ice power instead of preventing me from using it.
A few weeks ago, the feel of Jo-Jo’s warm, healing Air magic, which was so different from my own cool Ice and Stone power, would have made me grind my teeth together. The dwarf’s magic just felt wrong to me, like a pair of shoes that were too tight.
But ever since I’d used my Ice magic to numb my body when I was fighting LaFleur, the feel of the dwarf’s magic hadn’t bothered me quite as much. Oh, it still annoyed me, still made that primal little voice in the back of my head mutter, but I didn’t snarl at the sensation anymore. At least, not as often. Or maybe that was because I knew that Jo-Jo was healing me, not hurting me with her magic like so many others had done over the years.
Jo-Jo leaned forward so that her palm was an inch above the black, bloody hole in my leg. Something hot sizzled to life on the surface of my thigh, the first prick of what morphed into a thousand needles stabbing deeper and deeper into my skin until it felt like my whole leg was on fire.
The sensation was just Jo-Jo using her magic. Air elementals healed people by tapping into all the natural gases in the atmosphere, especially oxygen, and making them circulate throug
h wounds. The dwarf was using her Air power, using the oxygen, to push the bullet out of my thigh, repair all of my broken blood vessels, and pull the ragged edges of my skin back together.
And it hurt like hell.
Even though Jo-Jo was healing me, her magic was still the opposite of mine. Two elements always complemented each other—like Air and Fire—and two elements always opposed each other—like Fire and Ice. The dwarf’s Air magic was the opposite of my Ice and Stone magic, and her using that kind of power just felt wrong to me, the same way that my magic would seem strange to any other Air or Fire elemental.
Even if I’d wanted to move, to squirm away from the dwarf, her elemental power, and the hot, invisible, healing needles stabbing me, I couldn’t have—not with Sophia’s hands clamped down on my shoulders.
So I gave myself over to Jo-Jo’s magic, drifting in and out of consciousness while the dwarf worked on me. Sometime later, something thunked into a metal pan—the bullet that Sydney had put into me. A few minutes after that, the needles of pain started dying down in my leg before disappearing. I sighed, my body going limp in the salon chair. Jo-Jo’s magic might not bother me as much as it had before, but I was still glad when she stopped using it.
“Leg’s done.” Jo-Jo’s voice seemed distant and far away, even though I knew that she was still right there leaning over me. “Let’s get that silverstone vest off her and look at those wounds in her shoulder now.”
“Uh-huh.” Sophia grunted her agreement.
Hands moved me around, unzipping my silverstone vest and stripping it off me. The snip-snip-snip of scissors sounded again, as Jo-Jo cut through more of my gray layers, and the warm air in the salon swirled against my bare skin.
Spider’s Revenge Page 4
