But the fight wasn’t over yet. Legs shaking, I got to my feet and stumbled on. Behind me, I heard Elektra scream with fury and surprise that I was still standing, still running, still breathing.
Elektra’s magic had dazed me more than I would have liked, which is why I didn’t have any particular plan in mind, other than to just run until I got away from her. But the assassin was in much better shape than I at the moment and closing fast, given that I’d almost been fried by her electrical magic.
And then, somehow, I heard it, even above the blood pounding in my ears and the slap of my boots on the loose gravel — a train whistle. Getting louder and louder with each second.
Sweetest fucking sound I’d ever heard.
I forced my legs to move faster, to pump harder, until my feet barely touched the ground. I veered right over to the edge of the train yard. I was running across the upper level, the flat plateau where the old depot was located. But there was a lower level to the yard too, some thirty feet below me, the place that all the trains passing through Ashland used these days since the depot had been closed. The lower rail yard was a straight shot through the city, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. On the far side of the lower level, the black waters of the Aneirin River rushed by, keeping time with the trains that chugged alongside it.
The whistle sounded again, a harsh scream in the night air, and five seconds later, I saw it. A train churned this way, moving through the lower level of the yard, a line of cars snaking along behind it like the sections on a fat, metal caterpillar.
The train was moving much faster than I was, and the front engine car drew up next to me in seconds. I grabbed hold of my Stone magic again, using it to harden my skin once more. And when one of the train’s many cars passed below me, I jumped.
It felt like I hung in midair for several seconds before finally falling.
I slammed into the top of one of the railcars. It was a thirty-foot fall, and since my body was already so hard and heavy with my Stone magic, I actually made a dent in the thick metal, a perfect, Gin-shaped groove with arms and legs spread out wide like a cartoon character. Wiley E. Gin.
For a moment, I just lay there and breathed, grateful that I’d timed the jump just right and landed on top of the car, instead of slipping in between two of them and getting run over by the relentless, churning wheels. I doubted even my Ice and Stone magic would have let me survive that.
But the train wasn’t moving quite fast enough.
Ten seconds later, Elektra LaFleur popped into view, running parallel on the level above me, powerful green lightning crackling in her hands once more. LaFleur stopped and reared back, ready to throw another ball of her deadly electricity at me.
By this point, I was weak, dazed, and utterly drained. I wasn’t sure I could bring enough Stone magic to bear to ward off LaFleur’s power again, especially since my silverstone vest was liquefied and the metal car I was lying on would probably conduct her electricity that much more. So I did the only thing that I could.
I rolled out of the Gin-shaped groove, toppled off the side of the car, and fell another fifty feet into the Aneirin River below.
As an assassin, provided you live long enough, you’re sure to experience déjà vu from time to time. When you kill someone the same way that you have a dozen people before. When you use the same disguise to get close to a target. When you feel your latest victim’s warm, sticky blood coat your hand.
I’d done another swan dive into the Aneirin River a few months ago, when one of my hits had turned out to be a trap, so I was familiar with exactly how chilly the river actually was. But I’ll be damned if the water wasn’t that much colder tonight. My mind, hell, my whole body, immediately went numb from the shock of it. The bitter chill surprised me, making me stupid and sloppy enough to open my mouth, and water poured down my throat, the icy, bone-rattling cold of it further freezing me from the inside out. The water also cooled down the melted silverstone in my vest, turning it heavy and solid once more, while the force of the fall peeled the black ski mask off my head.
Gagging on the fishy-tasting water, I forced my legs to kick upward in a steady rhythm, and a few seconds later, I broke the surface. The swift current had already pulled me several hundred feet away from LaFleur, although I could still see the green spark of her lightning flickering, getting farther and farther away with every second.
I wondered what would happen if the assassin threw her lightning at the river itself, if the whole length of it would light up with her electrical magic. I shuddered at the thought. Maybe she was too far away or maybe, like me, she just didn’t have that much juice left. But more seconds passed, and no lightning came arcing toward the river, something I was infinitely grateful for.
I was too dazed to do much of anything but go with the flow of the water. I drifted maybe a mile downstream before I finally saw a rocky outcropping I thought I could swim to. So I drew in a breath, turned my head, and flailed that way, making my arms and legs go through the motions, even if I couldn’t exactly feel them at the moment.
I didn’t quite reach the rocks, but I managed to get into shallow enough water to wade up onto the shore. I fell onto my stomach in the frozen mud and frosted cattails, panting from the effort, entirely disconnected from my own body. I didn’t feel anything anymore — not even the cold that I knew had invaded my body and was slowly killing me.
I don’t know how long I huddled there before I managed to summon up the strength to roll over onto my back and fumble with one of the zippers on the front of my vest. At this point, my whole body shook from the cold, even though I didn’t actually feel it. My hands trembled from the force of it, but apparently the message just wasn’t reaching my brain, because it wasn’t registering as an actual physical sensation to me. I didn’t feel anything but numb. Completely numb. Or maybe dead, if this is what being dead felt like. I’d helped a lot of people get that way over the years, but I hadn’t actually been on the receiving end of things myself — yet.
But the really weird thing was that the spider rune scars on my hands were glowing.
A small circle surrounded by eight thin rays, one embedded in either palm, and they were both as bright as the lights on Owen Grayson’s Christmas tree. The runes glowed with a cold, silver light — the kind of light that flared whenever I used my Ice magic. But … I wasn’t doing that right now. At least, I didn’t think that I was. Or if I was, I didn’t know why or how.
It kind of freaked me out, since the last time that my palms had glowed like this was when I’d finally broken through the silverstone embedded in my hands. The metal had been absorbing my Ice magic until I’d forced myself to blast right through it and had brought an entire coal mine down on top of myself and the men who were trying to kill me.
But this? Now? I had no idea what was going on. I stared at my glowing palms another minute.
Fuck. This couldn’t be good.
But I put my wonky magic out of my mind. I managed to unzip the pocket on my vest and pull out my cell phone. I squinted at the glowing screen, which meant that I still had a signal. Somehow Elektra LaFleur’s magic and my swim in the river hadn’t completely fried the device. Better than a Timex and much more useful right now. It took me three very slow, concentrated tries before I managed to hit one of the numbers on the keypad and then send the call.