Dixon also raised his gun to fire at me—just as Owen stepped out from the shadows.
“Eva!” Owen screamed. “Get down!”
Eva twisted out of Dixon’s grasp and immediately dropped to the ground. Dixon whipped around, searching for this new danger even as he brought his weapon up. Owen didn’t give him a chance to react. He raised his gun and shot the bastard in the face.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
With each shot, Owen stepped forward. He knew as well as I did that it took a lot of bullets to put down most giants, so he emptied the whole clip into Dixon, catching him in the face, throat, and chest. Owen might not have been as good a shot as Bria and Xavier, but Dixon was a big target and hard to miss, especially with Owen closing the distance between them.
The giant screamed and jerked as the bullets tore through his tan flesh. Shock and surprise filled his face—what was left of it, anyway. Owen had blown off a chunk of Dixon’s chin and peppered his throat with bullets. Good. It was time the giant got a taste of his own medicine.
Click.
The gun was empty, so Owen tossed it aside and grabbed another one from against the small of his back. He didn’t have to use it, though.
Dixon opened his mouth and tried to mumble something, but apparently, it’s hard to talk when the bottom half of your face is missing. He staggered back, tripped over Eva, who was huddled into a tight ball on the stone behind him, and did a header into the water.
“Dixon!” Clementine screamed. “Dixon!”
But it was too late for her nephew, and we all knew it. Owen raced forward and helped Eva to her feet. He shoved his sister behind him and started backing up, moving his gun back and forth between Opal and Clementine, ready to shoot them if they made a move toward him and Eva.
Across the distance, Owen’s eyes met mine. He hesitated, and I saw the worry and concern in his gaze as he debated whether to step away from Eva and try to help me. But I made the choice for him.
“Go!” I screamed at him. “Go! Go! Go!”
Owen hesitated a moment more before nodding, grabbing Eva’s hand, and heading toward the front of the boathouse, keeping to the outer circular path and darting from column to column and statue to statue for cover. I sprinted from the statue over to a column on the far right side of the boathouse so the giants couldn’t shoot all of us at once.
Clementine didn’t hesitate. She leveled her gun at me once more and squeezed off several rounds. Like Owen, she wasn’t going to stop with just a couple. But I kept behind the columns and statues as I moved, and all of her bullets just bounced off the marble and rattled every which way through the boathouse, ricocheting into other columns, the statues, even the ceiling high overhead.
Click.
This time, Clementine’s gun was the one that was empty. She screamed and tossed the weapon at me in frustration, but it landed in one of the pools of water with a loud plop. She whirled around to face Opal, who was staring at Dixon’s body, which was bobbing up and down in the river right next to a couple of white water lilies.
“Opal!” Clementine bellowed. “What are you just standing there for? Shoot her! Now!”
Opal shook off her shock and did as her mother asked.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
More bullets whistled through the air, but I grabbed a second knife from my thigh holsters and kept moving deeper into the boathouse, hiding behind the columns and statues again and letting Opal empty her whole clip at me.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The rest of Opal’s shots went wide, although I heard the marble scream as more and more bullets slammed into the columns, causing stone chips to zip through the air like shrapnel.
Click.
As soon as I heard that Opal was out of ammo, I rushed out from behind the columns, stepped onto the path that ran left to right through the boathouse, forming the top part of the T, and headed toward her.
Clementine finally realized what I was up to and why I was running toward Opal instead of away from her.
“Opal!” she screamed, waving her hand at her daughter. “Move! Get away from her! Now!”
But it was too late. Opal started backpedaling, trying to get back to regroup with her mother, but she didn’t look where she was going, and her foot caught in a rope that secured one of the paddleboats to its slip. She grunted and yanked her foot free, but those few precious seconds of delay were all I needed to catch her.
My knives arched up, the blades flashing underneath the lights as I slammed them into Opal’s chest. She threw back her head and shrieked with pain. Her gun flew out of her fingers, and her hands flapped around as though I were a bothersome mosquito she was trying to shoo away. I was hungry for blood, all right, and I yanked my knives out and stabbed her again. This time, I managed to slide one of the blades between her ribs and into the soft, sweet spot of her heart.
Opal’s shrieks abruptly faded into hoarse, rapid, pain-filled rasps. I pulled my knives out of her a second time. She lashed out with her fist, catching me in the jaw. The force of the blow spun me around and made me stagger back five feet, but the damage to her was already done.
Opal stared down in disbelief at her chest and all of the blood pumping out of her wounds. She put first one hand and then the other over her heart, then held them out, as if she couldn’t believe that there was so much blood on them. Finally, she looked over at Clementine, her light eyes already starting to dim with death.
“Mama?” Opal whispered.
Then she pitched forward, her body landing with a dull thump on the walkway. The current had dragged Dixon’s body over to where Opal was, and her hand slid forward into the water and landed on his broad back, almost as if she were reaching down to try to fish him out of the river.
Silence.
Clementine stood in the middle of the main walkway, slowly swaying from side to side. After a moment, she shuffled forward until she was standing over the bodies of her daughter and her nephew.
“Opal . . . Dixon . . .” she whispered.
While Clementine was caught up in her grief, I eased back the way I’d come, circling all the way around until I was standing in the front of the boathouse right next to the statue of the old man fishing. I didn’t want the giant to make a sudden move, charge past me, go after Owen and Eva, and try to get her revenge that way. No, this ended right here, right now. I watched her the whole time, just watched and waited for the rage that was sure to come.
To my surprise, a welling of tears cascaded down Clementine’s face, and she looked every one of her fifty-eight years as she stared down at the bodies.
“Opal . . . Dixon . . .” she said again, her voice dull and small. “They were the only family I had left.”
I hadn’t thought she would be so emotional, given how I’d seen her threaten, bully, and intimidate Opal and Dixon earlier tonight, but apparently, she’d cared about them more than I’d realized.
“You killed them. You killed them both,” she murmured.
Clementine raised her eyes to mine. Hate brightened her hazel gaze, and her mass of curls bristled around her head, giving her a wild, crazed look, like a rabid animal with its fur up, one that was about to attack. And I knew that there was only one thing that would satisfy her now: my blood.
Good. Because I felt the same way about her.
“Looks like it’s just you and me now,” I said, taunting her. “Let’s hope you have more fight in you than Opal there did. Why, I didn’t even break a sweat cutting her down.”
Clementine’s lips flattened out, her nostrils flared, and her eyes narrowed to slits. It was the same murderous expression I’d noticed earlier, when she’d been browbeating Opal and Dixon outside the vault. The mottled flush of her skin and her low, breathy snarls told me just how fully enraged she was, like a bull about to charge at a matador waving a red cape—or rather me in my ruined red dress.
“Come on,” I taunted her again. “Come on, already. What are you waiting for? Let’s dance, bitch.”
“Come over here and say that again, sugar.”
She let out a loud roar and charged forward.
25
I raised my blades and let her come to me. I also reached for my Stone magic and used it to harden my skin. Despite my mockery of her, Clementine was a dangerous enemy, made even more so by the grief, rage, and adrenaline pumping through her veins right now. I needed to put her down as quickly as possible, or I’d be in a world of hurt.
When she was in range, I stepped forward and slashed out with my knives, determined to end her with that first strike. But Clementine anticipated my plan and sidestepped me at the last second, so my weapons only sliced through empty air. I whirled around for another strike, but Clementine was already moving, moving, moving. Her fist slammed into my jaw, spinning me around and making a few stars wink on and off before my eyes. I stumbled back, but I managed to stay upright and keep my grip on my Stone magic.
Clementine came at me again, her fists raised in a classic boxer’s stance. For the better part of a minute, we bobbed and weaved back and forth, each one of us trying to end the other. Clementine wanted to plant her fist in my chin again, while I wanted to slice her from guts to gullet with my knives. But we both dodged this way and that, trading shallow, glancing blows and never giving each other a clear opening.
The longer we bobbed and weaved, the more I felt the dreaded exhaustion creeping up on me. My breaths grew hoarse and raspy, sweat trickled down my face, neck, and back, and my legs twitched with the effort of staying upright. It had been a long night already, and now here I was, locked in another fight to the death. Sometimes it just didn’t pay to leave the house.
Not for the Spider, anyway.
Back and forth and around and around, we do-si-doed in the front of the boathouse, neither one of us able to break through the other’s defenses.
At least, not until my boot slipped.
I didn’t know where the puddle came from. Maybe a paddleboat bumping into a docking station and spraying water everywhere, maybe a freakishly large wave arching up and spilling over onto the stone, maybe even a fish jumping in the river and doing a cannonball. But water had pooled on the marble walkway, making it as wet and slick as glass. I blocked the giant’s latest blow and stepped forward to deliver one of my own—and slipped. Even as I windmilled my arms and tried to stay upright, I lowered my guard, just for a second, and Clementine took the opening.
She slammed her fist into my face.
Since I was still holding on to my Stone magic, the blow didn’t crush my cheekbone, but it knocked me back all the same. Clementine immediately pressed her advantage. She slapped one of my knives away, then the other one. The weapons skidded along the stone walkway, the blades throwing up bright silver sparks as they tumbled end over end. Before I could reach for my other pair of knives, the giant was on top of me.
“You think you can kill my girl—my Opal—and get away with it? I’ll show you,” Clementine snarled. “I’ll show you.”
She grabbed my arms, lifted me into the air, and then slammed me into the ground with all the force she could muster. She would have splintered every bone in my back if I hadn’t had my magic to protect me. Even with my Stone power, I still felt like I’d plummeted out of a high window and hit the ground at warp speed—splat. Before I could even think about moving, much less fighting back, Clementine was straddling me.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
She pounded her fists into my body over and over again. Each punch seemed to add fuel to her rage, and every blow was harder and sharper than the one before it. Any one of them would have been enough to do major damage. The only thing saving me right now was my Stone magic and the hard shell of my skin, but that wouldn’t last long under a beating like this.
It was always a concern when fighting dwarves or giants, letting them get their hands on you. Because once they did that, it was just a matter of them wearing you down. Power was still power, whether it was a giant’s strength or an elemental’s magic. One always succumbed to the other in the end, and the loser died.
This time, the loser was going to be me.
Clementine kept hitting me and hitting me. She showed no signs of tiring. Or stopping.
But she quickly realized that something was wrong, since I wasn’t screaming with pain and gushing blood from every available surface. She snarled with disgust when she realized that her blows weren’t having the desired effect, and she finally noticed the magic glinting in my gray gaze.
“Stone magic,” she muttered. “I should have remembered that you have that. I fucking hate Stone magic. But don’t you worry. You’ll run out of that long before I get tired of hitting you.”
She stopped her assault and pulled back just long enough for me to throw my hand to the side, reach for my Ice magic, and use it to form a sharp, cold knife. I raised the weapon and drove it into her chest, but since I was flat on my back, I couldn’t put enough muscle behind the thrust to make it do any real damage.
Clementine stared down at the Ice knife sticking out of her chest a couple of inches above her heart. “Really? That old tired trick? Does that ever actually work for you?”
Her distraction let me reach down and fumble for the other weapons on my utility belt. I didn’t have much to work with. I’d emptied my gun during the firefight with the giants earlier in the museum hallway, and the metal baton was too long for me to slide it out of its loop. So was the flashlight that was tucked through another loop. But there was one other small tube hooked onto the belt: the pepper spray I’d taken off the first giant I’d killed.
Clementine pulled the knife out of her chest and crushed the Ice with one hand before flinging the melting bits off her fingers. “Is that the best you can do?” she mocked. “Why, that didn’t hurt any more than a little ole bee sting—”
I pulled out the tube, flipped the nozzle, and gave her a face full of pepper spray, even though the close proximity made my own eyes water and nose burn. Clementine cursed and slapped the spray out of my hand. It too disappeared into one of the pools of water. The giant looked at me, her whole face red, puffy, and soaked with tears.
She drew in a breath, and I thought she might start screaming with pain.
Instead, she laughed, leaned forward, and started hitting me again.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
I was flat on my back on the stone walkway, with Clementine on top of me, her knees squeezing in on my ribs. The irony was that I’d done this same thing more than once, used the weight of my body to slowly drive the air out of someone’s lungs. I usually ended things rather quickly with a knife to the heart, but Clementine seemed content to keep beating me until her fists punched all the way through my body and out the other side.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
She kept hitting me, her blows even, steady, and achingly hard as she got into the rhythm of the fight. And all I could do was lie there and take it. I couldn’t reach the knives strapped to my thighs with her on top of me, and she’d already shown me how useless an Ice knife was. Even the pepper spray hadn’t bothered her all that much. I was out of weapons. Right now, it was all I could do to concentrate on my Stone magic to keep her from pummeling me into a bloody smear. Soon that would be gone too.
Finally, though, Clementine grew tired of using me as her own personal punching bag.
“Fine,” she growled. “Your skin might be as hard as a rock, but let’s see how you do without any air, bitch.”
Still kneeling on me, she wrapped one hand around my neck and used the other to cover my nose and mouth. She might not be able to punch her way through my skin, but Clementine had a death grip on my throat and was slowly pushing her fingers into my windpipe with all her might. I clawed and clawed at her, drawing her blood with my short nails, but she was in the positio
n of power here, not to mention how much stronger she was than me. I didn’t have a chance, and we both knew it.
It was inevitable. All the fights I’d been through tonight, all the nicks and cuts and lumps and bumps I’d gotten. None of them debilitating or life-threatening, but they’d all chipped away at my strength, at my magic, until I had nothing left in the tank. And now the giant was cutting off my air supply. I’d be dead in another minute, two tops, unless I could figure out some way to get her off me long enough for me to regroup and grab one of my knives. Even then, I didn’t know if I’d have strength enough to kill her with one of the blades—
Strength.
The word rattled around in my mind, bouncing from one side of my skull to the other, and I remembered what Clementine had said to Owen earlier tonight in the vault.
This isn’t about strength, Mr. Grayson, it’s about finesse.
And I realized that’s what this fight really came down to—my strength versus Clementine’s. Physically, I wasn’t a match for the giant, especially not now, since she was using the weight of her body to pin me down. But maybe I didn’t need brute strength, raw force, sheer power, to beat her. Maybe all I needed was a little of that finesse she’d talked about earlier.
Or maybe the lack of air was already making me hallucinate, because I just couldn’t think of a way to stop her.
Still, I kept fighting—clawing, slapping, and punching with all my might. Clementine continued to laugh. Apparently, my weak, pitiful struggles amused her. She let go of my throat long enough to slap my hand away from hers, the blow so hard that it caused my knuckles to crack into the marble walkway—
Wait a second.
Marble—I was lying on a solid sheet of marble. In fact, the whole boathouse was made out of stone. I’d once collapsed an entire coal mine, so I knew that I could use my magic to do the same thing to the boathouse. But as satisfying as that might be, dropping a couple of tons of rock on top of Clementine’s head wouldn’t help me. The rocks would either crush us outright or shatter the walkway and drag us both down to the bottom of the river. I didn’t want to drown, especially not if Clementine was going to be trapped on top of me for all eternity.
Deadly Sting Page 22
