I gestured at the dead men all around me. “You know, you really should get yourself some better help. All your boys are good for is target practice.”
“Take her,” Grimes ordered in a cold voice. “Alive.”
I grinned even wider and twirled my knives, flinging fat drops of blood off the ends of the blades. “Please,” I snarled, staring at the men behind him. “Step right up and die.”
Nobody made a move toward me. I let out a dark, happy chuckle, then clucked my tongue. “So hard to find good help these days.”
“Now!” Grimes screamed, his calm façade finally cracking.
Apparently, Grimes’s men were more afraid of him than they were of me, because they rushed forward.
Fools. I raised my knives again and stepped up to meet them. First, I’d take care of Grimes’s men, then Hazel and the big man himself—
“Now, Hazel,” I heard Grimes say.
A second later, thousands of hot, invisible bubbles brushed against my skin. I had just enough time to grab the man in front of me, turn him around, and use him as a shield before a ball of elemental Fire blasted into us.
The flames exploded on the man’s chest, burning away his clothes and immediately turning the upper half of his body into a charred, blistered mess. He started screaming and didn’t stop, so I shoved him out of the way and took a step toward Grimes and Hazel, who were holding hands, as if they were combining their magic.
That was all I saw before another blast of elemental Fire came my way. Then another one, then another one.
I managed to duck the first two balls but not the third one, which hit my shoulder like a red-hot sledgehammer and spun me around. Before I could move, before I could react, a fourth blast of Fire hit me square in the back.
This time, I screamed.
Because I was almost out of magic, and I didn’t have any way to stop the elemental Fire washing over me. The silverstone in my vest heated up as it soaked up the worst of the flames, but it didn’t absorb enough of the magic, not nearly enough.
The men attacking me fell back, as they started yelling and trying to get away from the flames before they leaped from my body and onto theirs. The stench and sizzle of my own charred flesh filled my nose, and smoke boiled up from my clothes, mixing with the lingering fog from my elemental Ice. The heat and pain were so intense that
I couldn’t tell which way was which, and before I could figure out where and whom to attack, a fist shot through the flames, slamming into my skull.
Mercifully, the world went black after that.
Chapter Twenty
The sun woke me.
It streamed in through the open window, as sweet and innocent as could be, warming everything that it touched with its soft golden rays. Outside, birds trilled out high, happy notes, accompanied by the low, steady bass beat of bumblebees and other bugs.
I cracked my eyes open. A painting of puffy clouds drifting across a summer sky covered the ceiling above my head, like they always did whenever I woke up at Jo-Jo’s house after a fight to the death. For a moment, I relaxed, even though part of me wondered why I was lying on the hard wooden floor instead of in the bed beside me. But the more I stared at the ceiling, the more it seemed like there was something slightly . . . off about it. Like the painting wasn’t the same one that I’d seen so many times before.
A soft summer breeze fluttered in through the window, ruffling the pretty, delicate lace curtains—and bringing the stench of death along with it. And I finally realized that I wasn’t in Jo-Jo’s house after all; I was in Harley
Grimes’s piss-poor substitute.
But instead of springing to my feet, I lay there on the floor and took stock of the situation, trying to force the rest of the fuzziness to fade from my mind. I still had on the same bloody clothes as before, although I could feel the breeze dancing over bare patches on my arms and legs from where Grimes’s and Hazel’s elemental Fire had seared through the fabric. The soft kiss of the wind made the burns and blisters that marred my skin start pulsing with pain, and I had to grit my teeth against the sensation. More cuts and bruises dotted my body, adding to my aching exhaustion. I’d put up a good fight, but it had left its mark on me.
Once I realized that I was more or less in one piece, I focused on my magic. My spider-rune ring was still empty and would be until I filled it up again, but being knocked unconscious had given my body a chance to regenerate some of my power, although it was still little more than scraps inside me, not nearly enough to let me go toe-to-toe with Grimes and Hazel with any hope of success—or survival.
I shifted on the floor and put a hand on my chest, patting myself down. I was still wearing my silverstone vest, and the front was largely intact. Then again, Grimes and Hazel had put most of their Fire power into my back. But all of my supplies had been fished out of the vest pockets, including my extra knives. Not surprising. I supposed I should be grateful they’d left my clothes on, burned and bloody as they were, instead of stripping me naked and shoving me into some sort of sundress and heels like they had done with Sophia. Actually, I wondered why they’d let me live in the first place. They should have grabbed one of my knives and cut my throat with it while I was still unconscious—
“Oh, good,” a voice purred. “You’re finally awake.”
I raised my head to see Hazel standing in the doorway, along with three men, all with guns pointed at me.
Hazel gave me an evil smile, then held out her hand.
Elemental Fire sparked to life on her fingertips, swaying back and forth like lanterns dancing in the wind. Even though she wasn’t actively roasting me with the flames,
I could still feel the intense heat blasting off them and brushing against my already burned skin, adding to my misery. The sensation made a snarl rise in the back of my throat, but I swallowed it down.
“Harley wants to see you,” she purred again. “Now, are you going to come along quietly, or do I have to . . . encourage you?”
The flames on her fingers burned a little brighter and hotter in anticipation. They matched the cruelty flickering in her dark eyes.
I sat up and immediately had to put a hand down on the floor to keep myself from toppling right back over.
After a moment, my head quit spinning, if not aching.
Whoever had punched me had done an excellent job of it, judging from the pain that radiated out from my jaw and throbbed up into my right temple. Slowly, very, very slowly, I got up onto my knees and then onto my feet.
The change in elevation made my head spin that much more, and I swayed from side to side until the white spots cleared from my vision and I found my balance. This was all not to mention how every single movement made my burned skin ache and how every shift of my singed clothes threatened to pop the blisters covering my arms, legs, and back.
So as much as I would have liked to have tackled Hazel, driven her to the floor, and strangled her to death with my bare hands, I didn’t have the energy for it right then. Besides, she and Grimes had kept me alive for a reason, and I wanted to know what it was.
“I think I’ll go with the first option,” I finally said when I could open my mouth without hissing with pain.
Hazel pouted, obviously disappointed by my cooperation, but she curled her hand into a tight fist, snuffing out the flames and causing the resulting bit of smoke to drift toward the ceiling.
“come on, then,” she snapped. “Nobody keeps Harley waiting—or me either.”
Again, I wondered why they’d bothered to let me live, but I supposed that I’d find out soon enough.