"And so here we are," I murmured.

We stood there staring at each other, our eyes locked, green on gray. Neither one of us looking away, neither one of us moving a muscle, neither one of us even breathing. At this moment, we were just like two gunslingers out in the middle of a dusty, deserted street, ready for a duel at high noon. Only one of us would walk away, and I was determined it was going to be me.

"Well," Elektra said in a light, happy voice. "I suppose we should get on with things. Before Detective Coolidge gets too far away, and I have to chase her down. I really hate running, especially in these shoes."

There was no way she was getting past me. No way in hell she was putting one finger on my baby sister. No matter what I had to do, no matter what I had to sacrifice to keep that from happening.

"Bring it on, bitch," I snarled.

Elektra LaFleur gave me another smile. Green lightning flashed to life in her hand once more.

And then we danced.

Chapter 27

LaFleur reared back and threw her ball of green lightning at me. The other assassin wasn't messing around anymore. Now that she knew I was really the Spider, she was going for the kill shot first. Smart of her.

But I was expecting it. I dived forward, tucked into a ball, and rolled back up onto my feet, all in one smooth motion. The lightning sailed over my head and streaked off into the darkness. My momentum carried me within arm's reach of the other assassin, and I slashed at her with my silverstone knives, trying to end this with two swift cuts.

But she was expecting my move as well and caught my wrists. We stood there, her hands locked onto my arms, seesawing back and forth, with me trying to plunge the knives down into her body, and her holding my hands back. LaFleur was just as strong and determined as I was. Neither of us could get any kind of real advantage, merely grappling the way we were. So Elektra decided to up the ante.

She smiled, and lightning flashed once more in her green eyes.

I was able to grab hold of my Stone magic and use it to harden my skin the split-second before she slammed her elemental magic into me, using her hands like two conduits.

This wasn't the first time I'd been blasted by magic. A few months ago, I'd gone toe-to-toe with Alexis James, an Air elemental who liked to use her power to flay people alive, to force oxygen under people's skin and strip it from their bones one slow inch at a time. That's what Alexis had done to Fletcher when she'd tortured and killed him inside the Pork Pit. She'd tried to do the same to me when we'd had our inevitable confrontation at the old Ashland rock quarry. But Alexis James hadn't been as strong as Elektra LaFleur.

I felt every bit of the other assassin's power surge into me, crackling against my own, arcing around me like lightning attracted to a metal rod, trying to break through the protective shell of my Stone magic. Even though my Stone power was blocking her attack and keeping the electricity from killing me outright, it didn't do anything to stop the pain of it from filling my body. And it still hurt so fucking much, the shock of it arcing and arcing through my body as though I were holding on to a power line. I'd been wrong before when I'd thought you couldn't electrocute a rock-because that's exactly what was happening to me right now. My muscles spasmed, my teeth clattered together, and my whole body twitched and cramped and screamed from the agony of the electricity zipping through me again and again and again.

My silverstone vest absorbed some of the other elemental's magic, growing heavy and warm against my chest, as the metal sucked in the electrical power coursing through it. But the vest didn't take in enough juice to keep me from screaming over and over again.

And, of course, LaFleur had finally sensed my magic since I was using so much of it just to ward her off. Just to keep breathing. Just to keep my heart from stopping and my skin from catching fire.

"Well, she's an elemental to boot," Elektra muttered. "Another surprise. But it won't save you, Spider. Nothing will. Not from me."

And then the bitch snapped up one of her hands and punched me in the face.

It was the proverbial straw. I stumbled back at the sharp blow, and one of my knives slipped from my hands. My twitching, spasming feet skidded on the gravel, just like the giant's had earlier tonight, and I went down on one knee. LaFleur came at me. One, two, three. Hard, bone-cracking blows, all with the extra oomph of her electrical magic behind them. One knocked the other knife out of my hand. The second caught me in the stomach. And the third connected with my jaw, shattering my concentration on my Stone magic.

Green sparks sputtered like fire from her clenched fists every time she hit me. And on the third, final blow, her power finally broke through my own.

For a moment, my vision went pure, hot, pulsing green as LaFleur's magic coursed through me, and I screamed again as the electricity seared every single nerve ending in my entire body. I convulsed once, twice, three times, before I fell to the ground, my limbs twitching violently from the unexpected burst of energy. If she'd been going for the kill shot then, I would have been dead.

But instead of finishing me off, LaFleur actually let go of me-and more importantly, her electrical magic. Her third mistake. When you've got someone down, don't stop until she's good and dead.

"Out of Stone magic already? Tsk, tsk, tsk." Elektra clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and walked around me in a tight circle. "Disappointing, Spider. Very disappointing."

I was too busy trying to get my spasming limbs under control to come up with a witty response. But I did manage to reach one of my hands around my body to the small of my back. Somehow, I made my still-twitching fingers wrap around a bit of metal there.

"I don't know how much you know about me, Spider, Gin, whatever you want to call yourself," LaFleur said, still circling around me. "But unlike you, I don't use weapons to kill. It's so ... ordinary. So common. Don't you think? Instead, I like to use my electrical magic to finish people off. It's so much more visceral that way. Not to mention that I enjoy the light show as well. But I bet you've already guessed that little fact about me, given the way you're writhing around on the ground."

"Yeah," I rasped. "I'd noticed that about you."

Elektra smiled, then slid her hand inside her green jacket, which she was still wearing. I knew exactly what she was reaching for. The bitch thought that she'd already won. How wrong she was.

Sure enough, Elektra drew a single white orchid out of the depths of her coat. I don't know how she had managed to keep it from getting smushed during our struggle, because it was just as soft, white, and exquisite as the others I'd seen her with. Maybe she used her electrical magic to make the petals perk up just the way she wanted them to. Didn't much matter either way. She was going to be dead in another minute, two tops. My fingers tightened around the bit of metal in my hand behind my back, getting ready to make my move-

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Elektra reacted immediately to the whine of bullets zipping through the air and threw herself down to the ground, rolling, rolling, rolling across the loose gravel to make herself a smaller, harder target to hit. Just the way I would have done. The white orchid that she had been holding flew out of her hand and twirled to the ground like a helicopter.

My head snapped up, and I spotted Detective Bria Coolidge standing about fifty feet away, her arms up and loose, her feet hip-width apart. A classic shooter's stance. Somewhere along the way, my baby sister had gotten a gun-one that she'd turned on LaFleur. I couldn't deny the fact that I was happy to see Bria, even if I had told her to get out of here.

Bria advanced toward us, taking aim at LaFleur, who'd used her momentum to roll back up into a low crouch. A dark stain marred the right shoulder of the other assassin's green coat, slowly spreading outward. Bria had winged LaFleur with one of her bullets.

And my sister wasn't done. Even though the assassin was still moving, she leveled the weapon at LaFleur's chest and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Empty. The gun was empty already. Another reason I rarely used guns. They always ran out of bullets too quickly for my liking.

Bria cursed, threw the gun away, and reached around behind her back, coming up with the silverstone knife I'd given her in the railcar. She hesitated a moment, then chucked the knife at LaFleur, who had started toward her. To Bria's surprise and mine, she actually hit the assassin. LaFleur jerked to one side, but not before the blade sank into her shoulder-the same shoulder that had already been pierced by Bria's bullet.

But instead of shrieking from the pain, Elektra LaFleur let out a low laugh, the power of her electrical elemental magic still crackling in her voice. She wasn't close to being dead. Not yet. More of the damn eerie green lightning flashed to life in the assassin's hands, and she threw the ball of elemental power at Bria.

My sister's eyes widened. She hurled herself to one side out of the way of the ball of energy, but it hit the ground where she'd been standing. The lightning slammed into the rails and zipped along them, heading straight for Bria. A second later, a muffled shriek filled the air, and I saw my sister's body twitch and convulse on top of the metal. The lightning flickered around her for another two seconds, before sparking up into the night. I watched, my heart in my throat, my breath completely gone.

"Come on," I whispered. "Come on."

Bria didn't get up, and she didn't move.

My heart felt like it was being ripped in two inside my chest, and I wanted nothing more than to scream and scream and scream. But I couldn't do that. Not until LaFleur was dead.

Once she realized that Bria was down, LaFleur walked back over to me. Then the assassin pulled the blade out of her shoulder, just the way her brother, Brutus, had done once upon a time, when I'd wounded him with one of my knives. Elektra dropped the weapon. It landed on the ground three inches away from my left hand.

Her fourth and final mistake. The one that was finally going to cost the assassin her life. Never, ever leave a weapon within arm's reach of an assassin, especially not the Spider.

"Uh-oh, Gin. Looks like Detective Coolidge didn't take your advice and was stupid enough to come back to try to rescue you."

Elektra smiled down at me, her green eyes glowing as smugly as a cat's in her face. She was oh so pleased with herself.

"Well, I don't think that little jolt I just gave her was enough to kill the detective, but it will keep me from running after her at the very least. Mab's going to be so happy when I tell her that I've killed the two of you. And in one night. I'll have to make sure that she gives me a bonus for killing the elusive Spider-"

And that's when I made my move.

With my still-twitching left hand, I reached out, snatched up the fallen knife, and slammed it into her foot, driving the blade all the way through her fucking stiletto boot to the other side. Elektra hissed with pain and tumbled to the ground beside me, clawing at the knife. She pulled it out and tried to turn it on me, but I slapped it away from her.

With my right hand, I yanked the silverstone handcuffs out of the back pocket of my jeans. Then I grabbed one of her flailing arms and snapped the cuff around it. Elektra hissed again, this time with surprise, and jerked her arm back, but not before I clinked the other cuff around my own left wrist.

"What the hell-" she sputtered.

"Here's another thing I've noticed," I snarled in her face. "I don't have to live to win. I just have to make sure you die."

Elektra screamed with fury then, threw herself on top of me, and unloaded on me with every single thing that she had. All her green lightning, all her electrical power, all her elemental magic. The silverstone cuffs around our wrists absorbed some of her power, but not enough to make a difference. The cuff grew hot against my wrist, as did the vest on my chest, as the pieces of silverstone started to heat up from all the energy pouring into them. The vest wasn't going to be enough to save me. Not again. Because now, LaFleur was going for the kill shot, and she had all her attention and energy fixed on me.

Instead of reaching for my Stone magic, this time I grabbed hold of my Ice power, pulling it up through my veins, sending it into every single part of my body just the way I would my Stone magic. Instead of hardening my skin like my Stone power did, my Ice magic had a very different, very surprising affect.

It made me cold to the touch-and completely, utterly numb.

Ever since Elektra had unloaded her electrical magic on me the first time in the train yard, I'd been thinking about her power-how much it had just hurt, even though I'd used my Stone magic to insulate myself from it. She'd done the same thing with it to me again tonight. Hurting me, even through the shell of my Stone magic. So I'd known there wasn't any point in reaching for my Stone power again.

Maybe it was using my Ice magic to help me break out of the silverstone handcuffs, but somewhere along the way tonight, I'd started to think about what Jo-Jo had told me. About what I'd done the night I'd fallen into the Aneirin River, about how I'd used my Ice magic to wrap myself in the cold, to preserve my body from the harshness of the elements. I'd felt nothing that night, not even the cold seeping into and shutting down my body.

The simple fact was that LaFleur's magic just hurt too much. I couldn't concentrate on killing her when I was busy thinking about how much agony she was causing me, how her electricity was frying me one cell at a time. So this time I'd decided to use my Ice magic not to feel anything at all.

It was a long shot-but it worked.

I didn't feel anything. Not hot, not cold, and certainly not the other assassin's electrical magic slamming into my body again and again and again. Oh, my vision went green the way it had before, but that's because LaFleur was lighting us both up like we were a Christmas tree. She was using everything she had against me.