“I’m the big dumb bastard who’s going to rip you to pieces,” Slater snarled, his hands curling into fists.
“Promises, promises,” I mocked again.
I needed the giant to focus on me. Not do something smart and use Finn as a human shield.
Elliot Slater charged at me. I waited until the last second, then threw myself to one side and rolled up. I turned and immediately flung one of my silverstone knives at him. The weapon sank into the giant’s chest. With a low snarl, he ripped it out and threw it to one side. I grabbed the knife in the small of my back and tossed that one at him too. It also landed in his chest, but I wasn’t done yet. Two more knives came out of the pockets on my vest and whistled in Slater’s direction as well.
Solid chest hits, all of them. If Slater had been human, he would have been dead by now. But he was a giant and a tough one at that. He merely pulled out the knives and let them drop to the floor at this feet. Once that was done, he smiled and started in my direction.
And that’s when I drew the swords.
Elliot Slater had kicked my ass twice now—once at the community college when I’d let him and then again at Bria’s house the night that he’d come to kill her. But I’d taken something away from both of those beatings—the fact that I couldn’t let the giant put his hands on me. Not if I wanted to win. Not if I wanted to live.
Sure, I could use my elemental Stone magic to harden my skin, to make it tougher than granite. But Slater was arguably the strongest man in Ashland. He could keep punching me until my magic wore down. And when it was gone, when my strength and magic were exhausted and my concentration slipped that one precious second, my skin would revert back to normal. And then the giant could kill me with one well-placed blow. I couldn’t let that happen, couldn’t let him get close to me. Which is why I’d grabbed the two long swords from Owen Grayson’s wall of weapons. I needed a way to cut Elliot Slater down piece by piece and keep out of reach of his long arms at the same time.
Now I was going to see if Owen was as good a craftsman as I thought he was. Going to stake my life on it, as a matter of fact.
Slater pulled up short at the sight of the silverstone swords glinting in my hands. Then a cruel smile spread across his face. “You think those little toothpicks are going to stop me?”
I twirled the swords in my hands. “Come here, you sick bastard, and we’ll find out.”
And then we danced.
Around and around we circled, our shoes squishing into the puddles of blood already on the carpet. Unlike his men, Slater didn’t rush at me, thinking his superior strength and size would be enough to carry him through the fight. Instead, the smart, cagey bastard feinted in and out, testing me, trying to see how good I really was with the swords. He got the message when I sliced his bicep with one weapon and nicked his thigh with the other one.
Slater’s hazel eyes narrowed. “There’s more to you than meets the eye, Blanco.”
I smiled. “Every day’s a new surprise.”
We kept testing each other. I got a few more wounds in, content to slowly bleed the giant out. Slater realized what my strategy was and decided to up the tempo and use his incredible speed to his advantage. He came at me swinging in a lightning-fast pattern. Punch-punch-punch. I dodged the first two, but his last quick blow caught me in the shoulder before I could sidestep away. The hard hit rocked my joint, and my arm and hand went numb from the sudden pressure. Owen’s beautiful sword slipped from my fingers and thumped to the carpet. I darted forward and kicked it back and behind me, well out of Elliot Slater’s reach. The speedy giant was dangerous enough by himself. If he got his hands on a sword, well, it wouldn’t be good for me.
“Seems like you lost your toothpick,” he mocked.
“And you’ve lost more blood,” I replied, trying to shake the numbness out of my arm. “I’d say that makes us even.”
Slater looked down at his shirt and pants. Blood covered both of them, and the rips that I’d made in the fabric made him look like a castaway whose clothes had been shredded by the elements. The giant smiled.
“Not for long, bitch,” he replied. “Not for long—”
And then the worst thing in the world happened—Finn decided to get into the fight.
While I’d been circling around and nicking Slater, Finn had managed to get the chain holding his hands up off the peg above his head. Finn’s hands were still bound together by the silverstone cuffs, but he used the heavy chain like it was a piece of garrote wire. He leaped up onto a sofa, threw the chain over Slater’s head, and crawled up on the giant’s back like a monkey.
I’d give Finn points for style, if not substance, because Slater immediately backpedaled and slammed him into the closest wall. Once, twice, three times in rapid succession. Finn groaned, and the chain slackened around Slater’s neck. The giant threw off the metal and Finn, who fell to the floor, completely limp. Slater turned and stomped on Finn’s ribs with his massive foot.
“I’ll deal with you soon, you cocky bastard,” he muttered.
I rushed forward, swinging the long sword above my head, but the giant was quicker than I was. So much fucking quicker. Slater used his massive forearm to block my attack, then punched me in the face. Pain and blood flooded my mouth. I wasn’t anticipating the blow and staggered back, momentarily stunned. The giant pressed his advantage, charging at me. I managed to bring the sword up to hold him back, but it was only a temporary maneuver. Slater ripped the weapon out of my hands, tossed it to one side, and kept coming.
Since I was out of weapons, I reached for the only thing that I had left—my magic. My Stone power flooded through my veins, and I pulled the power up through my tissue and bones and muscles and joints, letting it pour over my skin, hardening it. Slater stopped short and eyed the gray, chiseled appearance of my skin.
“Fuck, you’re an elemental too. Just full of tricks aren’t we—” The giant stopped his muttering and glanced over his shoulder at Finn, then back at me. Knowledge shimmered in his hazel eyes. “Well, well, looks like Mab had the wrong sister all the while, didn’t she? Just think how pleased she’ll be when I tell her that you’re the one with the Stone magic. What was the middle brat’s name again? Oh, yeah—hello, Genevieve.”
Fuck. Of all the things that could have happened, Elliot Slater guessing my real identity had not been at the top of my list. Neither was the way the truth energized him.
Slater let out a loud roar and threw himself at me. This time I couldn’t avoid him. The giant slammed me to the carpet and started punching me over and over and over again, just the way that I’d feared he would. He peppered my face and chest with blows, never slowing his cadence or losing his rhythm. Punch-punch-punch. Every sharp blow threatened to break through my hardened skin. My head already rang from his previous punches, and it took every thing I had to focus on my Stone power to keep myself from being beaten to death. I had no doubt that the giant could keep his promise to Finn. He could hit me for hours without tiring.
In desperation, I threw my hand to one side and reached for my Ice magic. A jagged knife formed in my palm, and I snapped my hand up, determined to drive the weapon into Slater’s eye or neck or whatever the hell I could reach. But the giant saw the motion out of the corner of his eye. Once again, his quickness saved him. He grabbed my hand, stopping the forward motion, and glanced at the crude weapon that I had clenched between my fingers.
“An Ice knife. Cute,” he said.
Then the bastard snapped my wrist.
It felt like someone had taken a hammer to my bones. I screamed with pain and fury. My control was slipping, and now it was only a matter of time before the giant killed me. But mainly, I screamed because Finn would die along with me. Because I’d brought my foster brother along for backup, and I’d failed miserably to protect him.
Elliot Slater drew back and smiled down at me. “Time to die, bitch—”
BOOM!
Something slammed into Slater’s chest and stomach, rocking him ba
ck. Blood sprayed onto my chest and face, and the acrid smell of gunpowder filled the air.
BOOM!
Another sharp retort spat out, knocking Slater back and off me. Cradling my broken wrist, I immediately scooted away from the giant, who pulled himself up onto a silver-colored sofa. My head snapped around, looking for my mysterious benefactor.
Roslyn Phillips stood in the middle of the living room, a large shotgun cradled in her hands. The vamp popped two more red shells into the gun and raised it up. I didn’t know where the hell she’d gotten the weapon or why she’d come back here when I’d told her to leave, but I was glad she had. Because the vamp had just saved my life.
Elliot Slater just looked at her in disbelief.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he snarled. “You’re supposed to be upstairs, bitch.”
“Sorry,” Roslyn replied. “Gin was nice enough to arrange a change of scenery for me.”
While Slater was distracted, I got to my feet and picked up one of Owen’s swords. The pain from my many injuries threatened to overwhelm me, but I ground my teeth together and pushed the hot, searing sensations down into the pit of my stomach. I’d deal with the agony later. Right now, I had Roslyn to think about.
I moved to stand beside the other woman. The vamp gave me a curt nod, but she never took her eyes off Elliot Slater.
The giant’s gaze flicked from Roslyn to me. His chest looked like hamburger meat—raw, uneven, bloody. A steady torrent of blood gushed from his wounds, not enough to kill him, but more than enough to weaken him. Roslyn was a better shot than I’d realized. Then again, it was hard to miss with a shotgun. Still, I wasn’t going to complain. Because I would have been dead by now if not for the vampire.
Slater knew the score just as well as I did, so he changed tactics. “Come on, baby,” Slater crooned to Roslyn. “Why are you doing this? I was just trying to teach you a lesson earlier. You know how much I care about you.”
“Yeah,” Roslyn spat out. “I know exactly how much you care about me, Elliot. The same way you cared about those other women you told me about tonight—all the other ones that you brought up here and raped and killed when you got tired of them.”
Slater’s chalky face tightened, and his hazel eyes narrowed with rage. “And you’re just another notch on my belt, bitch. You really think you’re going to get away with this? Mab Monroe will hunt you down and burn you to a crisp. You’ll all die for this. Put down the gun, Roslyn, and I’ll spare you. I’ll tell Mab that you were just trying to help me. She’ll believe me. She trusts me. If you don’t, you know what will happen. Mab will come after you, and then after that sweet little niece and sister you love so much. Xavier too. You’ll all be dead and burned and gone. Charred to fucking ashes by Mab.”
Roslyn just stared at the giant, an unreadable expression on her face. I stood beside her, but I didn’t say anything. This was the vamp’s fight now. She had to stand up to Elliot Slater now, or what had happened these last few days would haunt her the rest of her life. More so, anyway, than it already would. Roslyn swayed side to side, and the shotgun shook in her trembling hands. For a moment, I thought that she was lost. That Slater had won this final round of cruel torture.
But then, Roslyn’s face hardened underneath the blood and bruises, and a cold, terrible light filled her dark eyes. Her back straightened, her fingers tightened on the shotgun, and once again, I saw a glimmer of the hard-assed vampire that I remembered. The one who’d bared her fangs at me when I’d once dared to threaten her niece.
“Maybe I won’t get away with it,” Roslyn snarled. “But at least I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you’re dead. Go to hell, Elliot.”
Roslyn stepped forward and fired the gun.
BOOM! BOOM!
Elliot Slater’s head exploded in a mass of blood and brains and bone. The giant twitched once, fell to the floor, and was still.
29
Roslyn just stood there, staring down at what had been Elliot Slater’s melon-size head. I put my hand on the smoking gun and slowly lowered it.
“It’s over, Roslyn,” I said in a soft voice. “He’s dead now. You killed the bastard. You did it. You took care of him—forever. He’s never going to bother you again. Never. Do you understand me?”
After a moment, Roslyn pulled her gaze away from the dead giant and looked up at me. Tears filled her eyes, and her hands started shaking once more. I pulled the gun out of her hands, let it fall to the floor, and gingerly, slowly, carefully, put my arms around her, not sure if I should hold her, touch her. Not sure how I could help her through this, but determined to try nonetheless. The vamp sobbed and screamed and pounded her fists against my back. I let her, just let her get it all out. All the pain and fear and misery. All the rage and helplessness and terror. All the relief and horror and sorrow.
I don’t know how long we stood there, Roslyn screaming and crying, me just holding her. But eventually, her sobs quieted, and the vamp drew away from me.
“He might be dead, but he’s right,” she whispered. “I’ll never get away with this. Mab Monroe will come after me, after my family, after Xavier.”
“You’re right,” I replied. “You won’t get away with it.”
Roslyn gave me a look of pure horror.
“But then, you’re not going to be the one who’s done anything here tonight.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“This is what we’re going to do,” I said.
The torture was over—at least for now. I sat slumped in the chair, only the heavy ropes holding me upright. Sweat and tears dripped from my body like rain, and my hands felt like all the skin had been burned off them. Now I was glad that I was blindfolded so I couldn’t see my hands. Couldn’t see what a bloody, blistered mess had been made of them.
But the Fire elemental had gone, taking her cruel, pricking magic with her, vanished into some other part of the smoking house, leaving me tied where I was. Still, I knew that it wouldn’t be long before she came back and finally killed me—
A scream echoed through the house. Faint and small and weak, but I still recognized the high pitch in her voice, still recognized the person that it belonged to.
“Bria,” I whispered through my cracked lips.
Another scream sounded, and my breath caught in my throat. I strained my ears as hard as I could, listening, trying to determine where the sound was coming from. Then the cold realization hit me. The Fire elemental and her men. They must have found Bria where I’d hidden her. That was the only reason I could think of why my sister would be screaming.
At that horrible thought, new energy flooded my body. I struggled against the heavy ropes once more, even though I knew that it was no use, knew that I couldn’t get free of them. I ignored the searing pain in my hands and brought my stiff, blistered fingers up to my face, managing to slip the blindfold off my head. Smoke filled the room I was in like a dark, somber fog.
A third and final scream erupted from somewhere, before being abruptly cut off. I listened closely, but no more sounds came. No more sounds. I knew what that meant. That the Fire elemental had Bria—that my baby sister was being tortured even now.
At that awful thought, something deep inside me twisted and snapped, like a taut bowstring finally being loosened. This cold, great, terrible power filled me. More power, more magic than I had ever felt before. And then I started to scream.
I screamed for everything that had happened tonight. Everything that I had lost. Everything that had been done to me and my family. The power poured out of me the way my tears and sweat had a moment ago.
And it felt good … right somehow.
I kept screaming, pushing everything that I had left into that one echoing sound. All my pain. All my hurt and fear and rage and desperation and helplessness.
I felt the stones respond to me. Felt my magic rip through them like lightning, shocking them awake from their long, sonorous slumber, shattering them like they were made of the most fragil
e crystal. A deep rumble began in the earth below my feet, pushing upward, pushing outward. I couldn’t control the power, the raw magic flowing out of me, and I didn’t really want to. I just wanted to hurt someone, wanted to lash out at anyone who was left, hurt them like the Fire elemental had me and my family.
One by one, the stones above my head began to crumble and fall. My Stone magic spread outward, until the rest of the house’s stones were just as unstable. I felt the stones in the other rooms begin to crack, fall, and slip from the ceilings and walls. Once it started, I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t stop them. I knew the stones would bring the rest of the smoking house down with them, down on top of the Fire elemental and all her men.
I screamed again, this time in cruel, dark pleasure at the cold, awesome power that I was wielding—
“Are you ready?” Finn asked, cutting into one of my darkest memories.
“Yeah,” I replied, staring up at the rune before me on the stone wall. “I’m ready.”
An hour later, Detective Bria Coolidge was the first one to arrive on the scene. Her city-issued gray sedan skidded to a stop in front of Elliot Slater’s mountain mansion. Bria jumped out of the driver’s seat. Xavier got out on the other side. Guns drawn, the two cops rushed to the front door, which I’d conveniently left open in anticipation of their arrival.
Five minutes later, Xavier came outside, cradling Roslyn in his massive arms. The giant had wrapped a blanket over her, and he gently placed her inside the back of the sedan. Xavier started to pull away, but Roslyn grabbed his hand. After a moment, Xavier knelt beside her. He didn’t leave her side after that, and I knew that he wouldn’t for the rest of the night. Maybe for the rest of their lives.
Bria also came back outside, her cell phone clamped to her ear. I couldn’t hear her exact words, but the urgency of her tone drifted up to my hiding spot on top of the ridge overlooking the mansion, just inside the tree line. The same spot that I’d been in when Finn and I had first hiked up the mountain.
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