Spider's Trap

by Jennifer Estep

He grabbed a toaster off the counter and tossed it at her. The appliance hit her hand, shattering her Ice gun and making her yelp with pain.

  At this point, I was starting to wonder if any of us were going to be able to kill Pike—

  Woo-woo. Woo-woo.

  Maybe we wouldn’t have to. The distinctive wail of a police siren blared in the distance. For once, I welcomed the sound.

  “Looks like the party’s over for you, Ray,” I said. “All we have to do is keep you pinned in here until the cops arrive. I’m sure that they have a nice cell waiting for you downtown. You should enjoy it, what with all those metal bars. It’ll be just like juvie all over again.”

  Rage flashed in Pike’s eyes, but he gave me a cold smile and flipped my knife end over end in his hand again. “One more lesson, then, before I go. You helped take my father away from me. Now I’m going to return to the favor and take someone away from you.”

  I sucked in a breath, knowing exactly what he was going to do. But I couldn’t stop him.

  I couldn’t stop him.

  Pike flipped my knife over in his hand a final time, then whipped around and threw it at Owen.

  But Owen realized that it was coming. Still wobbling on his injured knee, he snapped up his hand, his eyes glowing a bright violet with his own metal power.

  My knife stopped in midair a foot in front of him.

  “Owen!” I screamed.

  I started forward, but this time, my foot got caught in the bottom of a pan. My feet flew out from under me, and I hit the floor.

  Lorelei cursed, reaching into the freezer drawer for another elemental Ice gun, but her movements were slow and awkward, and she wasn’t going to be able to stop her brother.

  Pike tilted his head to the side and studied Owen with new interest. “Another metal elemental. How quaint.”

  His eyes burned an even brighter blue as he sent out another surge of magic, but Owen pushed back with his own power, and my knife hovered in midair between them. Sweat beaded on Owen’s forehead, lines of tension and pain grooving deeply into his face. I could feel how much magic he was using just to keep my knife from coming any closer.

  But it wasn’t working.

  Inch by inch, my knife slid forward through the air, swimming toward Owen like a hungry shark.

  I scrambled to my feet, hoping that I could put my body in front of Owen’s and take the blow meant for him.

  Too late.

  With a cold, hard rush, Pike’s power overcame Owen’s and blasted right through his defenses.

  Pike sent out a final burst of magic, and my knife zipped through the air and plunged into Owen’s chest.

  23

  “No!” I screamed. “No! No! No!”

  Owen staggered back against the counter. His feet slipped out from under him, and he slid to the floor, my knife buried in his chest.

  I started toward Owen, but Pike raised both his hands and sent out another blast of magic, one that ripped through the entire kitchen. Pots, pans, appliances. Anything that had the slightest bit of metal in it rattled, rolled, and tumbled to the floor.

  But it was nothing compared with my magic.

  My power erupted as I screamed, surging through every piece of stone that made up the mansion. The floor bucked and heaved, the walls shook, and deep cracks zipped through the ceiling.

  The vibrations threw Pike off balance and made him lose his grip on his magic, giving Lorelei enough time to grab another Ice gun and fire it at him. But the rippling floor spoiled her aim, and the bullet thunked into one of the cabinets instead of his skull.

  In the distance, the police sirens kept wailing, getting closer and closer, louder and louder. Pike growled, yanked his mace out of the cabinet, and plunged through the shattered glass patio doors. But I didn’t care about chasing after him.

  I didn’t care about anything but Owen.

  I swallowed down my screams, tossed my Ice dagger aside, waded through the debris, and sank down beside him. The mansion kept shaking, though, the stones still vibrating from my violent burst of power.

  Owen looked up at me, his violet eyes bright with pain. “Gin . . .” he rasped. “Gin . . . it’s not . . . your fault . . .”

  He coughed, more and more blood gushing out from the wound on his chest. Pike hadn’t hit his heart with the knife, but he’d come close enough. I knew exactly what would happen next. Owen’s lungs would fill with fluid, and he’d choke to death on his own blood—if he didn’t bleed out before then.

  He was going to bleed out in another minute, two tops.

  And I had no idea how to save him.

  Fear and grief crushed my heart and made my stomach roil, but I grabbed Owen’s hand and stared into his eyes, trying to come up with some sort of miraculous plan that would help him escape death the way I had so many times before. Tears slid down my face and plopped onto our entwined hands, smearing all the blood there. Owen opened his mouth, but I put my fingers against his lips.

  “Save your strength,” I whispered.

  He coughed up another mouthful of blood in response.

  Lorelei shimmied out from under the metal rack Pike had dropped on her. She started to run outside to check on Mallory, but her eyes widened as she realized just how much blood was pouring out of Owen’s wound. She changed course, hurried over, and fell to her knees beside me.

  She gave Owen the same critical once-over I had. “Forget the knife. You have to stop the bleeding—right now—or he’s dead.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” I snapped, my voice rising to a near scream that shook the entire mansion again. “Get me some towels! Now!”

  Lorelei gave me a cold look. “Unless you want to kill us all with your Stone power, stop screaming.”

  Another cry of fear and rage bubbled up in my throat, but I choked it down. She was right. If I didn’t get control of my emotions, I could collapse the entire mansion on top of us. Then Owen would be dead for sure.

  “All right,” Lorelei said, once I was calmer. “Forget about towels. You need to freeze the wound.”

  “Freeze it?”

  She nodded. “With your Ice magic. Freeze the wound, and lower his body temperature until you can get him to a healer. You know how kids and animals always fall into frozen rivers and ponds up north, then the rescue crews drag them out of the water and heat them back up? It’s like that, only a little different. My mom taught me how to do it, for when I would scrape my knees playing out in the woods.” Her voice dropped. “Or for when my dad would hit us.”

  In theory, it should work, but I’d never attempted anything like that before with my magic. Most of the time, I just blasted people with my power or used it to protect myself. Even though I’d been practicing using my magic in all sorts of different ways, I didn’t know if I had enough finesse and control to freeze Owen without killing him outright.

  “Do it,” Owen rasped. “Getting weaker . . . by the second. It’s the only way . . .”

  His words trailed off, and his eyes grew glassy and unfocused. My heart dropped.

  “Do it!” Lorelei snapped. “Now, before it’s too late.”

  Still, I hesitated, wondering if I could really do such a thing, especially to Owen.

  “Don’t be an idiot!” Lorelei snapped again. “I’ll show you what to do. Just follow my lead, and use your magic. I don’t have enough raw power to freeze him, but you do.”

  She reached out and ripped Owen’s shirt away, exposing the deep, ugly wound. Then she grabbed my hands, squeezed them once, and gently laid them on Owen’s chest on either side of my knife. I stared at her with wide eyes.

  “You saved me once,” Lorelei growled, putting her hands next to mine on Owen’s body. “You’re going to do the same for him. Right now, Gin.”

  I nodded and let out a tense breath, pushing my fear away. I focused on Owen, staring i
nto his eyes, then let loose with a small trickle of my Ice magic. In an instant, the cold crystals of my power coated his chest, like frost on a window. Beside me, Lorelei reached for her own Ice power, sending a small wave of it shooting down into Owen’s wound.

  If my magic was a frigid hammer, then hers was a cool, delicate chisel. I was already sweating from the effort of trying not to use too much magic on him at once, but Lorelei trickled her Ice into one side of his injury, then the other, as easily and expertly as she had made all those small pieces of her Ice gun and then assembled them together.

  Owen whimpered as our combined cold invaded his body, the sound tearing at my heart, and he started thrashing around, trying to escape the power that was freezing him bit by bit. Lorelei slid her hands up to his shoulders, leaning down and anchoring him in place.

  “Keep going,” she ordered. “It’s working.”

  Sure enough, her Ice had frozen the blood oozing out of Owen’s wound, making the drops look like rubies clinging to his chest. Lorelei pulled back on her power, leaving the rest up to me. I drew in a breath and let loose with another wave of my magic, this time sending the cold crystals shooting out across his skin and then down through his entire body, cooling his core temperature.

  Owen’s eyes fluttered closed, his breath puffed out in frosty gasps, and his skin took on an eerie silvery tint as my Ice magic slowly invaded his body. His head lolled to one side, and his shoulders sagged in a way that told me he’d lost consciousness, but I kept funneling my power into him. The trick was to use just enough magic to stabilize him without putting so much of my power into him that he would never thaw out again.

  “That’s it,” Lorelei murmured. “Slow and steady, Gin. Slow and steady.”

  I didn’t know how much time passed. All I was aware of was Lorelei’s soft words of encouragement and the waves of my Ice magic sinking through Owen’s body, one muscle and tendon at a time, trying to preserve him on the brink of death.

  Finally, Lorelei let go of Owen’s shoulders, grabbed my hands, and pried my numb fingers off his frozen chest.

  “That’s enough, Gin,” she whispered. “That’s enough.”

  I nodded, just hoping it would save him.

  Footsteps crunched on glass, and Mallory entered the kitchen. Nails studded the dwarf’s chest, but she didn’t seem to be injured at all.

  “I told you these silverstone vests would come in handy, sweetheart,” Mallory called out to Lorelei, thumping her fist on her chest. “Even if we did have to pay an arm and a leg for them . . .”

  Her voice trailed off as she caught sight of Owen. Lorelei squeezed my shoulder, then went over to check on her grandmother.

  Bria and Xavier rushed into the kitchen, guns drawn, with Finn and Silvio right behind them. They’d all gotten my text message and had come to help.

  Bria, Finn, and Silvio hurried over to me, while Xavier moved through the kitchen and then the rest of the house, making sure that Pike hadn’t doubled back. Shocked gasps rang out as my friends caught sight of Owen’s frosted form.

  “Gin,” Bria whispered. “What did you do to him?”

  “I saved him,” my voice came out as a strangled gasp. “I hope. We have to get him over to Jo-Jo’s. And call Cooper Stills. He’ll have to come and help her with Owen.”

  “I’m on it,” Silvio said, already dialing the numbers on his phone.

  “Owen’s strong,” Finn said, putting a comforting hand on my shoulder. “He’ll pull through this.”

  But the worry in his face matched the fear squeezing my heart.

  * * *

  Xavier came back into the kitchen, bent down, and carefully scooped up Owen in his arms. I stared at all the blood on the floor—Owen’s blood.

  “Come on, Gin,” Bria said in a gentle voice. “We need to go.”

  She put her arm around my shoulder. I shuddered and let her lead me out of the kitchen.

  Everything that happened after that seemed disjointed and far away, as though I had stepped out of my own body and was seeing things from someone’s else point of view. Xavier putting Owen in the back of a police sedan, then getting in the front. Me crawling into the backseat with Owen, cradling his head in my lap, stroking his stiff, frozen black hair back off his face. Lorelei on the other side of him, sending a small, steady trickle of her Ice magic into the wound to keep the knife frozen in place so that it wouldn’t move and kill him outright. Bria turning on the sirens and hauling ass over to Jo-Jo’s. Finn, Silvio, and Mallory following us in another car.

  All the while, I kept whispering to Owen that I loved him. That he couldn’t let someone like Raymond Pike be the end of us. I didn’t know if he heard me or not, but it seemed like some of the tense lines of pain on his face smoothed out. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part.

  Silvio must had called ahead, because all the lights were on at Jo-Jo’s house, and she was pacing back and forth on the front porch, waiting for us, along with Sophia and another dwarf with salt-and-pepper hair and rust-colored eyes: Cooper Stills, Jo-Jo’s gentleman friend and Owen’s blacksmith mentor.

  Xavier and Silvio carefully pulled Owen out of the backseat and carried him over to the porch. Jo-Jo, Sophia, and Cooper all sucked in their breath at the sight of my knife sticking out of his chest, but Jo-Jo took control of the situation. She opened the door and waved us on through.

  “Take him to the salon,” she said. “I’ve already set up a spot for him.”

  Xavier and Silvio nodded, hurried into the back of the house, and gently placed Owen on a cherry-red chair. I tried not to notice how the fabric matched the bloodstains covering his chest.

  Jo-Jo sank down into a seat next to Owen. Cooper, who was also an Air elemental, sat next to her, ready to help. She looked at him and nodded, and he reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, his eyes glowing an intense copper as he started feeding her his power. Jo-Jo reached for her own Air magic, and a milky-white glow coated her palm.

  Bria, Finn, Sophia, Lorelei, and Mallory also crowded into the salon. We all stood there, quiet and still, and watched.

  I felt the pins-and-needles of Jo-Jo’s Air power prodding at the mass of Ice in Owen’s chest and seeping through the rest of his battered body. I curled my hands into tight fists, digging my fingers into the spider rune scars embedded in my palms, resisting the urge to scream out all my grief, fear, and rage.

  Jo-Jo assessed the wound for the better part of three minutes, trying to figure out the best way to get my knife out of Owen’s chest without killing him in the process.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ve cleaned up as much of the damage as I can while the knife is still in there.”

  “Now what?” I whispered.

  “You let me worry about that, darling,” she replied. “All you have to do is pull the knife out when I tell you to.”

  She stared at Cooper. “When Gin pulls the knife free, we both need to flood the wound with our Air magic. I’ll do the hard part, stitching everything back together. You just keep feeding me your power, okay? Don’t stop. Not even for an instant.”

  Cooper nodded. “Anything you need, doll. Anything for Owen. You know that.”

  Jo-Jo flashed him a grateful smile, then looked at me. “Anytime you’re ready, darling.”

  It took me several seconds to unclench my fists, but I finally stepped forward, leaned down, and gripped my knife with my left, uninjured hand. The spider rune stamped into the hilt dug into the larger, matching scar on my palm, but for once, the sensation didn’t comfort me. Owen hadn’t stirred the whole time Jo-Jo had been working on him, but I kept staring at him, willing him to open his eyes—

  “Gin,” Jo-Jo prodded in a soft voice.

  I nodded, then tightened my grip and slid the knife out of Owen’s chest as quickly and gently as I could.

  Blood gushed up out of the wound but not nearly as
much as there would have been if Lorelei and I hadn’t used our Ice magic to stop the bleeding. The knife slipped out of my fingers and clattered to the floor. Finn grabbed the weapon, while Bria took hold of my shoulders and moved me back out of the way so Jo-Jo and Cooper could resume their work.

  The feel of Jo-Jo’s Air magic flooded the room, and everyone stood absolutely quiet and still again, not daring to move or do anything to interrupt her concentration. Seconds passed and turned into minutes, and I stayed rooted in place, as cold and frozen as Owen’s heart.

  The gushing blood slowed to a trickle, then stopped. The milky-white glow of Jo-Jo’s Air power burned as bright as a star in the center of Owen’s chest, and streaks of coppery red flickered in the mass of magic as Cooper poured his own power into healing Owen. With their combined strength, the jagged edges of the knife wound closed together, and the mark faded away completely.

  But there was still more work to be done thawing out the rest of him.

  Ten minutes later, Jo-Jo slumped forward in her chair, the milky-white glow snuffing out of her eyes and fading from the palm of her hand. The wound on Owen’s chest was healed, and his skin, while still pale, was a more normal color, free of the frozen crystals of my Ice magic.

  Jo-Jo got up and gestured for me to take her seat next to him. I sank down onto the chair and clutched his hand, a sigh escaping my lips when I felt the warmth of his skin. I leaned closer, expecting his eyes to flutter open and for him to make some teasing remark about how I’d almost killed him.

  Nothing happened.

  Owen’s eyes remained closed, although his chest rose and fell with a steady rhythm. Worry shot through me, and I wondered if I’d used too much Ice magic on him after all.

  “I’ve repaired the damage from the knife wound and raised his body temperature back up to where it should be,” Jo-Jo said.

  “But?”

  “But he was right on the edge of death when you froze him, and he lost a lot of blood.” She bit her lip. “Maybe too much blood.”

  “What about giving him a transfusion?” I asked, throwing my hand out wide and gesturing at my friends. “Surely one of us here has the same blood type as his.”