Jennifer Estep - Spider's Bite

That left me and Alexis alone in the quarry. I scrambled up, getting ready to throw both of my knives at her. I needed to kill her — now. Before she reached for her magic.

Too late.

Even as I came up on one knee, Alexis James’s eyes turned completely white as she fully embraced her power. The milky glow on her fingertips turned into magical flames, licking at her skin. In less than a second, the flames coalesced into a large ball of pure power, burning like a beacon between her fingers.

“Go to hell, bitch!” Alexis hissed and threw the magic at me.

Jo-Jo Deveraux had been right. My knives weren’t going to help me this time. Only one thing could save me now — my magic.

I closed my eyes and reached for the elemental power flowing through my veins. The stone mumbled under my feet, sensing my rising magic. I concentrated on that stone, on its vibration, and let it feed my own magic, forcing my power through my veins onto my skin, hair, eyes, clothes. Making them as hard and unyielding as the rubble on the ground and the jagged stone walls that surrounded me—

The ball of Air magic slammed into my chest, right where my heart would be. Alexis James wasn’t messing around with me the way she had with Fletcher. She’d gone for the kill shot first.

It was like being hit by a fierce tornado, but worse. The force of the blast knocked me back on my ass and tore my knives from my hand, even as the wind screamed in my ears. The Air elemental magic slammed into me, trying to break through my Stone magic. Trying to overpower me and strip off my skin in one fatal blow.

Stone and Air didn’t mix, any more than Fire and Ice did. Opposing elementals never meshed, and I could feel Alexis’s power reacting to my own. The wind howled and thrashed against my body even louder than before. But I concentrated on my own magic, listening to the murmurs of the rocks underneath my body, drawing my strength from them. They were still here, despite being mined and blasted and dug into. Despite the passage of time and the harshness of the elements. Despite everything. They’d survived, and so could I.

I gritted my teeth and pushed back against the Air magic, against the wind battering my body and pricking my skin like cold needles. The silverstone metal in my vest also reacted to the surge of power, absorbing some, but not all, of Alexis’s magic. There was too much of it for that. The garment grew hot and heavy on my chest. I reached for more of my own Stone magic, using my power to drive the Air magic away, to push it back, to squeeze the life, the energy out of it.

It worked.

The wind, the ball of magic battering at my torso, dimmed and died, puffing away into nothingness. But I didn’t let go of my magic, my power. Slowly, I got to my feet, concentrating on my magic, my element, letting it make me as hard as I needed to be to survive this.

Alexis’s eyes narrowed. “I hit you square in the chest. Why aren’t you dead? Why isn’t your skin, your body, nothing more than a pile of mush?”

I didn’t answer. Let the bitch figure it out for herself. Alexis reared back and threw more of her Air magic at me. The blast of wind hit me in the chest again. Nothing wrong with her aim.

I didn’t fall this time, but my feet slid back on the rocks, as though they were made of ice. I pushed back with my Stone magic, waited until the wind died down, then started forward once more.

But Alexis wasn’t giving up. Since her Air magic wasn’t immediately working the way she thought it would, she reached into her cloak and pulled out a gun. She fired off three shots. One rattled off into the twilight. One of the bullets caught in my vest, adding to the heat on my chest. The sharp, painful blow was enough to make me lose my grip on my Stone magic, just for a second. But that was plenty of time for the third bullet to slam into my left shoulder, instead of bouncing off my rock-hard skin, like it would have if I’d been properly focused. Pain exploded in my body, and I could feel the hot blood spurting out of the wound and staining my shirt. But I shut it all out and grabbed my magic once more. Nothing mattered now but killing Alexis.

Alexis lowered the smoking gun. I was closer to her now, close enough for her to finally notice the silver magic burning in my eyes and the gray, chiseled tinge to my skin.

Alexis hissed. “You’re a fucking elemental.”

“Just like you, bitch.”

I started running and threw myself at her. Alexis wasn’t expecting the move, and she wasn’t able to get another shot off before I slammed into her. Her concentration broke, and the gun slipped from her fingers. She fell to the floor of the quarry with me on top of her. Kicking, punching, clawing. I might have been skilled, but Alexis’s magic and frustration had put her into a frenzy. She absorbed my sharp punches like I hadn’t even hit her and roared back with several of her own.

Kick. Slap. Punch. Punch.

We rolled round and round exchanging blows, when we weren’t throwing our magic at each other. Alex pummeled me with the wind. I shoved back with my Stone magic, blocking her vicious attacks.

After ten seconds, I was starting to get tired. Thirty seconds in, I was sucking wind. By the minute mark, it was all I could do to keep going. Using so much of my magic was quickly draining me. The bullet and the fire it caused in my shoulder weren’t helping matters.

Then Alexis got in a lucky, unexpected punch, and my head slammed back against the rock. For a second, the world went black. My Stone magic flickered and started to slip away, like water being swallowed up by arid sand. I struggled to hold onto my magic, my power, to focus on it and nothing else. If I let go of my magic, I’d get dead. Her Air power would wash over me and flay me alive, forcibly rip and tear the skin and muscle and bone from my body until I was nothing but a pile of ruined flesh.

Alexis saw me weakening. She positioned herself on top of me and hit me in the face again and again. The blows further dazed me, and my Stone magic weakened that much more. I could feel the Air magic now, lashing against my skin like a whip. Blisters started to form on my face, neck, and hands as the magic and the oxygen it contained forced its way underneath my flesh.

Alexis raised her hand, and her fingers flashed to life. Once again, her Air magic made them burn like a welder’s torch. She brought her hand up, positioning her fingers above my eyes. She was going to use her magic to put them out and tear the skin off my face.

Just like she’d done to Fletcher.

Her hand dipped downward, but I caught it with my own and shoved it back. I’d held onto enough of my magic so that her Air magic didn’t immediately rend my skin, but it was just a matter of time. A minute. Two, tops.

Back and forth, our hands seesawed, her burning fingers coming closer and closer to my face every single time until all I could see was their milky white glow. More blisters swelled up on my skin, threatening to burst. That was agony enough. I couldn’t imagine what the pain would be like when they ruptured. I wasn’t going to last much longer. Not like this.

Fletcher, I thought desperately. What would Fletcher do? Kill the bitch any way you can . I could almost hear his gruff voice murmuring in my ear.

“Give it up, assassin,” Alexis crowed. “My magic is stronger than yours. You can’t win. Air trumps Stone, in this case.”

And that’s when it hit me. That’s when I finally realized I’d been going about this the wrong way. I never would have done a hit by confronting someone head-on. Frontal assaults rarely worked in my line of business. Fletcher had taught me that. I was the Spider. The woman who hid in the shadows. Sneak attacks were what I did best. Outthinking people, outmaneuvering them, that’s what I excelled at. That was my real strength.