I raised my hand to shoot out a spray of Ice daggers, hoping that I could get lucky, punch one through her eye, and finally kill her, but she blindly lashed out with her claws, driving me back and spoiling my aim. The daggers slammed into the wall behind her, sticking there like cold, frozen arrows.
“Alanna!” Phelps yelled again. “Alanna!”
The footsteps grew quicker and louder. The men were almost here, and I was out of time. I threw my letter opener at Alanna, but it wasn’t as balanced as one of my knives, and it only lodged in her shoulder, instead of in her heart the way I wanted it to. She screamed again, staggered away from me, and yanked the letter opener out of her shoulder.
“Alanna!” Phelps yelled.
She kept backing away from me, blindly following the sound of his voice like they were playing some weird version of Marco Polo. I growled in frustration and started across the office to attack her again, but I was too late.
Phelps rushed into the doorway, snapped up his gun, and fired at me.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
I ducked down and headed in the opposite direction, toward a set of glass double doors at the back of the room. The bullets thunk-thunk-thunked into the furniture all around me, sending up sprays of expensive wood, fabric, and stuffing. Phelps’s gun clicked empty, and he cursed and stopped to reload.
“Get her! Now!” Alanna screamed, still blindly staggering around, trying to swipe the blood and crystal shards off her face.
Phelps slammed a new magazine into his gun. Behind him, more men appeared and started plowing through all the furniture I’d overturned.
Time to leave.
I reached one of the glass doors, shoved it open, and staggered out into the cold, snowy night.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I stumbled out of the office and onto the stone terrace without getting shot in the back.
The only problem was that there was no place for me to go.
The whole allure of the Eaton Estate was its picturesque—and remote—location. Sure, a road ran by the front of the estate, but I was standing on the back side of the mansion, more than a mile away from the road.
I also wasn’t close to the mansion’s spacious garage, much less the driveway or other parking areas out front, so I had zero chance of getting to a car before Alanna, Phelps, and the giants caught up to me. Even if by some miracle I did manage to find and hot-wire a car, they could always shoot out my tires or get into another vehicle, chase me down, and run me off the road. Then I’d probably be more injured than I already was, along with being trapped in a crumpled car.
I could head for the woods at the edge of the lawn and try to disappear into the trees, but given my many injuries and the obvious blood trail I was leaving behind, my enemies would easily be able to track me no matter how deep into the woods I went or how well I managed to hide myself. No doubt Alanna would enjoy hunting me. It would give her another sick little thrill to stalk me like I was a deer before she killed me.
Shouts and yells sounded from inside the mansion, getting louder and louder. I had maybe a minute, two tops, before Alanna and her men regrouped, reloaded their weapons, and charged outside after me—
Something moved in the shadows at the edge of the woods.
My head snapped in that direction, and my gaze locked onto the trees—the same ones that Fletcher had hidden in so long ago.
For a moment, that same eerie sense of déjà vu that I’d had at the auction swept over me, and I half expected to see the old man step out of the shadows with his rifle propped on his shoulder.
Longing filled me, clutching my heart like an icy fist, but I pushed the emotion aside. My eyes were just playing tricks on me. Fletcher was dead, and I would be too if I didn’t think of some way to escape.
So I hurried across the terrace, not really sure where I was going, other than away from the mansion. All the while, I looked back and forth over the landscape, but the scene didn’t change. Stone wall in front of me, grassy yard beyond that, woods off to my right, lake down the hill to my left.
A bit of hope flared to life in my chest, and I lurched over to the wall and stared down at the lake below. Maybe I didn’t need a car. Maybe I could hop into a boat and zoom across the lake. That would at least put some distance between me and Alanna and her men.
But my hope quickly sputtered out, as though it were a match being doused by the cold, steady breeze blowing off the lake. No boats were tied to the wooden dock, not so much as a rickety old canoe. Of course not. Given how frigid the January weather had been, no one in their right mind would take a boat out onto the water. Even if a boat had been tied up at the dock, I couldn’t have used it anyway, given the solid sheet of elemental Ice that covered the surface of the lake—
The Ice.
My gaze locked onto the Ice, which started at the sandy shore and stretched out like a smooth, shiny silver mirror as far as I could see. The elementals Alanna had hired to create the skating rink for the charity auction had done a bang-up job of it. They must have sunk a significant amount of magic into their creation for the Ice to still be intact more than twenty-four hours later.
I was going to find out just how much magic they had used.
A plan formed in my mind. Admittedly, it wasn’t a very good plan, since it would pretty much ensure my own death, right along with Alanna’s, but I’d rather go down fighting than be butchered and butterflied for her dinner.
“There she is! Get her! Get her!” Alanna’s voice rang out.
I glanced back over my shoulder and saw her standing at the office doors, waving her talon-tipped hand in the air, telling Phelps and the rest of the men to hurry. In less than a minute, they would all storm outside and chase after me.
I didn’t have a choice. I sprinted across the terrace and raced down the steps, heading down the hill toward the frozen lake.
* * *
Less than a minute later, I reached the bottom of the steps. Even though I’d been going down instead of up, I was still out of breath. That sedative from Alanna’s claws was working its way through my system, slowing me down, so I bit my own tongue, concentrating on that sharp sting of pain instead of the lethargy that was slowly creeping up on me.
“She went down to the lake!”
“Follow her!”
“Hurry!”
Shouts echoed across the terrace above me, and footsteps smacked against the stone. Alanna and her men would be down here any second, and I had to put my plan into action before they caught up with me. So I sprinted forward, my boots crunching through the cold, frozen sand—
My boot caught on a piece of driftwood half-buried in the sand, but I wrenched it free and kept going, still heading toward the frozen lake. The driftwood made me think of the last time I’d been here. Amelia Eaton had died in this very spot.
I just hoped that I wasn’t about to meet the same fate.
I plowed through the sand as fast as I could. Up ahead, the moon and stars, combined with the illumination from the mansion’s exterior lights, brightened the landscape enough that I could make out the grooves in the Ice where the skaters had performed their fancy leaps, spins, loops, and twirls during the charity auction. I reached the edge of the sand, drew in a breath, stepped forward—
And almost fell flat on my ass as my boots slipped treacherously on the slick, frozen surface.
For the third time tonight, I windmilled my arms and managed to catch myself, but the sharp, jarring motions made more pain spiral out from my many cuts, bumps, and bruises. I felt like there were dozens of ice-skaters sliding every which way over my body, cutting into my skin with their sharp blades, going a little bit deeper with every pass they made. I swallowed down a snarl, pushed the pain away, and kept moving forward.
Whether it was natural or made by an elemental, ice was still ice, and this sheet was smoother and slicker than most, given its exposure to the elements, especially the wind that continually gusted through the valley. I half walked, half skidded along
the elemental Ice, moving as fast as I dared. I kept my gaze glued to the surface, searching for any cracks or other telltale signs that the Ice wasn’t thick enough to hold my weight. So far, I didn’t see any—
Suddenly, several spotlights flared to life, bathing the shore, the lake, and me in their bright, dazzling glow. I threw my hand up against the glare and looked back over my shoulder. Alanna, Phelps, and the rest of the men had reached the bottom of the steps and turned on the lights.
Alanna stabbed her finger at me. “There she is! Get on the Ice and surround her! Now!”
So she didn’t want her men to kill me. She just wanted them to run me to ground for her. She thought that I was trapped out here on the lake, and she wanted her men to drag me back to shore so she could finish cutting me to pieces with her claws.
A grim grin lifted my lips, and I bared my teeth at her. Let the bitch come—let them all come. Because I had a special surprise in mind for every single one of these bastards.
Since it didn’t seem like Alanna or her men were going to shoot me in the back, I faced forward and kept plodding along, squinting at the Ice below my boots the whole time.
Walk, slide, walk, slide, walk, slide…
I got into a rhythm, and I was able to shuffle across the frozen surface at a steady clip, almost as if I had snowshoes strapped to my feet instead of my regular boots.
But Phelps and the other men were in much better, uninjured shape than I was, and the steady scrape-scrape-scrape-scrape of their boots on the Ice rang out behind me. I kept moving forward, doing my weird shuffle-skate, trying to get as far away from shore as possible, despite the sedative in my system, which was still slowing me down—
Click.
The distinctive sound of a hammer being thumbed back on a gun made me stop, especially since it was much closer than I expected. They’d already caught up with me, but that was okay. My plan would still work.
I hoped.
“Stop!” Phelps’s voice boomed out. “Or I’ll shoot you where you stand!”
I was exhausted, both from my injuries and from the sedative still coursing through my body. Despite the cold wind gusting over the lake, sweat ran down my face and neck, and blood dripped in steady trails from all the cuts on my arms, legs, back, and chest. Several drops ran down my fingers and plopped onto the frozen lake, staining the silvery surface a shocking scarlet.
I stared down at my own bloodstains, still searching for any telltale cracks in the Ice. I didn’t see any, but I did spot something else—the dark surface of the water, shimmering below the Ice. This would have to do.
I held my hands out to my sides and slowly turned around. “All right,” I said. “All right. You got me. Don’t shoot.”
Phelps was standing about thirty feet away from me, along with the giants. All of them had their guns drawn, and they slowly advanced on me, their boots tap-tap-tapping against the Ice like fingers drumming on a table. I held my breath, wondering if any of them would realize what I was really up to, but they kept coming at that same steady pace.
Phelps and his men moved forward until they were about five feet away, then spread out, forming a rough semicircle in front of me.
Clack-clack-clack-clack.
The familiar sound of Alanna tapping her talons together rang out, and the men slowly parted so that she could move forward. Thanks to the spotlights, the entire lake was illuminated, giving me a clear look at the damage I’d done to her.
Alanna was still wearing her fancy metal glove on her right hand, but she didn’t look nearly as smug as she had before. She couldn’t, given what a mess I’d made of her pretty face.
That crystal lamp I’d shattered had sliced up her skin every which way, and dozens of thin red lines crisscrossed her face from top to bottom. Blood oozed out of the wounds, most of which still had crystal shards embedded in them. The pieces puckered her skin, making her look like some victim from a slasher movie.
Oh, she was a victim, all right, my victim. She just didn’t realize it yet. I had helped create this monster, and tonight I was going to end her.
Alanna looked me over the same way. Her green gaze took in my bruised, sweaty face and the blood dripping out of the cuts she’d opened up in my skin. But she wasn’t quite sold that I was hers for the taking. Not yet. She was too smart for that, and she glanced around, staring out across the lake and into the forest beyond. But nothing stirred in the cold, quiet night, and I didn’t see any movement in the shadows like I had before up on the terrace.
Finally, after about a minute, Alanna turned back to me, apparently satisfied that she had me right where she wanted me. She didn’t realize that it was the other way around.
“Where did you think you were going?” she sneered. “Even if you made it across the lake, there’s nothing out there but trees and more trees.”
“I know,” I said. “And I’m actually quite happy about that. There’s no one around to hear you scream. I imagine that all of you will make quite a lot of noise as you die. Especially you, Alanna. You seem like a screamer to me.”
She let out a low, ugly laugh. “The only one who’s going to be screaming is you, Gin, darling.”
I tilted my head to the side and stared at her. “You know what? Your mother said something similar to me right before she died. Do you remember how I killed her? Surely, you do. After all, you were there.”
It was a cruel, heartless thing to say, but I said it anyway. Because, like it or not, my will to survive was stronger than anything, even my own guilt and shame.
Alanna’s jaw clenched, but she didn’t respond. Beside her, Phelps frowned, wondering what I was talking about, and the giants shifted on their feet, glancing around, nervous and wary, on the lookout for some kind of trap. But they were already snared in my web, and I was going to fucking kill them with it.
“Your mother was a strong vampire, a great fighter, just like you are,” I said. “I got in a situation where I couldn’t beat her. Not in a fair fight, anyway. But do you know what the good thing about being an assassin is? I don’t have to fight fair.”
Alanna’s eyes narrowed, wondering what I was getting at. For once, someone else’s curiosity was going to be the death of her.
“I realized that I couldn’t beat your mama in a conventional fight, so I decided to be unconventional. I tackled her and shoved her ass into the lake. And then I drowned her.” I grinned. “Just like I’m going to drown all of you right now.”
I dropped my hands to my sides, so that my palms were facing down toward the surface of the lake, and reached for my Ice magic. Alanna’s eyes widened as she spotted the bright, silvery flare of my power on my palms. In an instant, she realized what I was going to do with my remaining scraps of magic—and exactly how I was going to kill her, Phelps, and the giants.
“Shoot her!” she screamed. “Shoot her now—”
Too late.
I drew my hands up and reached for even more of my power. Then I snapped my hands right back down again and let loose with my magic, blasting the frozen lake with every single bit of Ice magic I had left.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I could do a lot of tricks with my Ice magic.
Create lockpicks, send sprays of daggers shooting out at people, even freeze someone’s skin with a touch of my hand. But in the end, my power boiled down to two simple things.
I could create Ice—and I could destroy it.
And that’s exactly what I did right now.
I sent wave after wave of my Ice magic shooting down at the surface of the lake. Dozens and dozens of daggers spewed out of my hands, driving themselves like spikes into the sheet of elemental Ice that we were all standing on.
One crack appeared in the Ice. Then two, then three, then half a dozen, all of them accompanied by loud, sickening pop-pop-pops!
The cracks zigzagged out farther and farther, like spiders drawing crazy, elaborate webs across the surface of the Ice. And of course, all that cold, cold lake water rushed in, fillin
g in and widening those tiny, tiny gaps, until—
CRACK!
The Ice split apart with a thunderous roar.
I’d angled my hands forward, trying to shatter the Ice under Alanna’s feet and take her out with that first strike. But she was quick, and she grabbed Phelps and shoved him forward. He yelped in surprise, and his feet flew out from under him. His head cracked against the edge of the Ice, and he disappeared into the water below. He didn’t resurface.
The giants turned to run back toward the shore. They might have actually made it if they had spread out and taken their time picking their way back across the Ice. But they clustered together in a tight group, and their combined, heavy weight only made things worse. I whipped my hands up and sent another blast of magic in their direction.
CRACK!
Another gaping hole opened up below their feet, and the lake swallowed them as well.
A few of the giants bobbed up to the surface like oversize apples, and they screamed and flailed around, trying to pull themselves back up onto what was left of the Ice. Again, they might have made it if they had spread out and taken their time. But in their panic, all they did was crack away more and more chunks of Ice. One after another, they slipped below the surface of the water. Some of them actually resurfaced a second time, but the lake quickly swallowed them up for good.
Alanna stared at me with wide eyes, but she knew better than to try to move. At least, not as fast as the giants had. Instead, she slowly slid one of her feet back, then the other one, holding her breath the whole time. Her stiletto boots scraped across the Ice, but they didn’t crack it and send her plunging down into the water.
I snapped my hands up and blasted the Ice again, but I was completely out of magic, including the reserves stored in my spider rune ring and pendant. Only a few pieces chipped off the edge of the chasm that I’d opened up between us.
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