Black Widow

by Jennifer Estep

  “Kind of sad, Maddie. You always getting other people to do your dirty work. I’m beginning to think that you just can’t kill me yourself.”

  “You want to see what I’m truly capable of, Gin?” Madeline said, her voice chillingly soft. “Let me show you.”

  She reared back and tossed a ball of acid at me, larger than any of the ones before. I could feel the corrosive power emanating from the pulsing green mass, so I did the smart thing and ducked out of the way instead of trying to block it with my own magic. The ball of acid sailed through the air over my head and slammed into the middle of the staircase. The ivory carpet disintegrated, and the stone shrieked with agony as the acid spattered all over its slick, glossy surface and began to eat right through the marble.

  And the same thing was going to happen to me unless I found a way to stop it.

  Madeline threw another ball of acid at me. Then another, then another, as though we were playing a game of dodgeball. Acid splattered everywhere. On the dance floor, on the stairs, even on some unlucky folks in the crowd. More than one person ripped off their tuxedo jacket or tore at the skirt of their dress, shucking out of their clothes before the acid started eating into their skin.

  I ducked Madeline’s attacks again and again, my mind whirring, trying to figure out how I could best block her magic without completely depleting my own power. My thoughts turned back to the one other time I’d been exposed to Madeline’s magic—when Beauregard Benson had made me swallow one of the Burn pills that contained her power. Madeline’s acid magic had been the secret ingredient in the addictive drug, and it had almost cost me my life, since my inherent power had reacted so badly, so violently, to hers. I’d only survived the drug by using my Ice magic to numb my body from the inside out and block its effects. I could try to do that again now, but I didn’t know if it would work. Because the Burn pill—the entire batch of pills—had only contained a few drops of Madeline’s blood, and right now, she was unloading on me with everything she had.

  I didn’t know if I was strong enough to end her outright, but I had to try.

  So I reached for my Ice magic, directing it outward, until I could feel the cold crystals of my power coating my skin like a web of snow. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the terrace doors, and it occurred to me that I looked like the proverbial ice queen come to life. My skin shimmered with an almost silver-blue glow from where my own magic was shielding me. I just hoped that it was enough.

  I dodged Madeline’s latest blast of acid and stepped forward, determined to tackle her and beat her head against the marble floor until her skull cracked open and she bled out. But she was quicker than I was, and she snapped up her hands again before I could launch myself at her. But she didn’t create another ball of acid or fling more drops in my direction.

  No, this time her hands erupted into flames.

  A shocked gasp escaped my lips, and I froze in my tracks, my eyes widening at the flickering green flames dancing across her fingertips. But more disturbing than that, I realized that she’d been sandbagging me this whole time, using just enough of her power to fool me into thinking that we were evenly matched and that I could actually defeat her with my own raw strength. Now she was finally letting me feel the full extent of her magic, and I realized just how much of it she truly had.

  Madeline hadn’t been lying.

  The bitch was even stronger than Mab had been.

  More important, she was stronger than me.

  Once again, I’d underestimated her. Even as I’d sprung my trap by challenging her to a duel, Madeline had already started to outmaneuver me again. She’d only been playing with me before, testing the limits of my power and my response to her acid magic, but now—now she was going in for the kill.

  27

  I wasn’t the only one who could feel Madeline’s power. Everyone could see the acidic green flames burning, burning bright on her hands, and all the other elementals in the room—including Bria, Sophia, Jo-Jo, and Owen—could sense her strength as well. I didn’t have to look at my friends’ faces to know that they were as shocked as I was.

  Madeline let out a delighted peal of laughter at the horrified expression on my face. “What’s the matter, Gin? Not quite what you were expecting?”

  “You are strong,” I admitted. “Probably the strongest elemental I’ve ever faced. Certainly stronger than Mab was. Why, I imagine that you could burn this entire mansion to the ground with your acid flames, if you wanted to.”

  Madeline gave a modest shrug, causing the flames to cast an eerie green glow onto her face. “Well, that would have been one way to get the remodeling done a bit quicker, wouldn’t it? Maybe I’ll take your advice and do that. Just destroy the whole damn thing and start fresh—after I’m finished with you.”

  She drew her hands back, then shoved the acid flames at me. Once again, she was quicker than I was, and all I could do was stand there and take the full, brute force of her magic.

  The flames washed over me, searing through all the Ice crystals that I’d coated my skin with, and forcing me to reach for my Stone power to harden my skin just to keep Madeline from incinerating me on the spot. Even then, the pain was intense, but I gritted my teeth and endured it. I even tried pushing back with my own magic, throwing my Ice power at her time and time again, but the acid flames gobbled it up before the cold could so much as nip at her fingers.

  I was losing—badly.

  Good thing it was all part of Plan C.

  Madeline kept throwing and throwing her magic at me, in wave after hot, caustic wave, and it was all I could do to stay upright. But I held my ground. I might be losing now, but I was going to kill her in the end.

  All because of Madeline’s vanity.

  I looked past the roaring green fire of her magic at her crown-and-flame necklace. The emerald seemed to almost be glowing with the same power that was coating her fingers, and the gold chain glimmered like a strand of sunshine around her throat.

  I focused on that shiny band, reminding myself that I’d already won. Because her necklace was made out of gold—not silverstone.

  Pretty is as pretty does, and as expensive as that necklace was, it might as well have been tinfoil wrapped around her throat for all the good it truly did her, along with her matching ring. Because they were both gold, which meant that they couldn’t hold any of Madeline’s power, and she wasn’t wearing any other jewelry.

  But I was—and mine was all silverstone.

  My spider rune ring rested on my right index finger, while my spider rune necklace was nestled in the hollow of my throat—and both of them were filled to the brim with my Ice and Stone magic.

  Madeline didn’t have any extra reserves of magic like I did. All the power she had, all the acid she was using, was what was naturally in her body. To be sure, it was impressive, certainly more raw magic than I had, but it wasn’t going to be enough.

  Every time she’d confronted me before, Madeline had been wearing a silverstone necklace and ring. But she’d been so sure that I was dead that she’d lowered her defenses and started wearing gold ones instead. As soon as Silvio had shown me a photo of Madeline sporting her new gold jewelry, I knew that this was how I could finally challenge her to a duel and win. This was how I could finally finish her.

  Arrogance will get you, every single time.

  I didn’t have to beat Madeline with my magic. Didn’t have to punch her. Didn’t have to touch her at all. Oh, I would have been happy if I’d managed to kill her any of those ways, but those were just the feints I’d used to sucker her into my ultimate trap. My plans within a plan, just like all the ones she’d used on me.

  Because the truth was that all I had to do was outsmart her, outlast her, just like I had the fire in the Pork Pit.

  Then she’d be mine for the killing.

  So I pulled back on my power, using the bare minimum to keep Madeline’s acid from melting me where I stood. It was agony, since I could still feel the acid flames licking at my body, co
uld still sense my skin blistering, could still smell my own flesh burning. But I used just enough of my Ice and Stone magic to let me endure the horrid sensations. I even staggered around, then fell to one knee, as though I were finally weakening. Through the green flames, I saw Madeline’s crimson smile widen and the white flash of her teeth as she stepped forward, eager to finish me off.

  I grinned back, although I doubted that she realized it. If I could have, I would have whispered the age-old adage: Step into my parlor, said the Spider to the fly.

  Madeline just didn’t realize yet that she was the fly.

  But she kept coming and coming, completely focused on directing every single scrap of power she had at me. The acid flames intensified. So did my pain, and doubt filled my mind, just as it had in the restaurant when the fire had come for me. I wondered if I’d miscalculated. If she had more power in her body than I did in mine and in all my silverstone jewelry put together.

  If she was going to incinerate me with her magic after all.

  But this was the path I’d chosen, and there was no turning back now. Even if I’d wanted to try to fight her with my own power, there was no point. Not anymore. Her acid was so hot, so caustic and corrosive, that it would eat right through whatever Ice and Stone magic I could summon up, other than what was keeping me alive at the moment.

  So I huddled there on the floor and concentrated on my own magic and the low, urgent whispers of the stone around me. The marble had experienced the cruelty of Madeline’s power, just as I was feeling it now, and they wanted me to end it and her just as badly as I did. I thought that the crowd was screaming for my death—and my friends were just screaming—but I couldn’t tell. The world had reduced to a solid wall of acid green fire, creeping closer and closer with every passing breath.

  I don’t know how long I crouched there on my knee with one hand braced on the floor, steadying myself. It could have been a minute, it could have been an hour. There was just pain and the stench of my burning flesh and then more pain. So I concentrated on the feel of my power. On that hardness deep down inside me that was Stone, perfectly matched and married to the bitter cold that was Ice. Two complementary elements brought together in one person, and now, in the one protective shell of my magic.

  Madeline towered over me, more and more acid flames erupting from her hands, like fireworks exploding in my face over and over. But I maintained my control, and I held on.

  And eventually, finally, at last, she started to falter.

  It was just a small tremor, just the faintest hiccup of her power. As though one gas tank were empty, and she was plugging herself into another one for round two. Maybe that’s exactly what she was doing.

  But that’s the moment I knew that I’d finally won—once and for all.

  I drew in a breath, careful not to suck in any of the green flames, and let loose with a bloodcurdling scream, as if I were mere seconds away from fully succumbing to Madeline’s unending waves of acid. I screamed again and again, then let my voice choke off, as if I were suddenly overcome with more pain than any person had a right to bear.

  I tried to rise up. I could have made it if I’d really wanted to, but it was all part of my plan. I tried again. Then, on my third try, I let my feet slip out from under me and crumpled to the floor, as though I were on my deathbed.

  I wasn’t, but Madeline was—she just didn’t know it yet.

  But she was so eager to finish me off that she never even thought that I might be playing possum. She took another step forward, then another, then another, coming closer and closer.

  I let her come.

  I wanted her to come.

  Then she did the one thing that was most important of all—she started pushing even more and more of her acid into the flames, thinking that my end was near and that all she needed to finish me off was a big enough dose of magic, one that would finally blast through the protective shell of my Ice and Stone power.

  I lay there on the floor and let the world burn around me.

  Finally, there was another little hiccup in Madeline’s magic. Another faint tremor. I waited, wondering if she might have guessed my plan, if she might be trying to sucker me in the same way that I was her. But the hiccup came again, and again, and again, like a car that was out of gas and sputtering along as far as it could before it ran out of juice completely.

  Good thing, since I was almost out of magic myself.

  My own natural power was long gone. So was what had been housed in my ring. One by one, I’d emptied all the links in my necklace, and all the magic that I had left was what was still stored in the spider rune pendant.

  Finally, just when I thought that I couldn’t last another minute, Madeline let out a great, heaving breath, as though she was as exhausted as I was. The flames on her hands died down, and she staggered back a few steps before she was able to regain her footing.

  I huddled there on the floor, which had long ago been burned all the way down to the foundation. Slowly, the black and white and green stars faded from my vision, the roaring in my ears ceased, and I could hear the whispers of the crowd.

  “Is it over?”

  “Is Blanco dead?’

  “She’s burned, but it doesn’t seem too bad to me.”

  Madeline stood there in front of me, panting with exhaustion. But still, I didn’t move, didn’t speak. All I did was breathe and breathe and gather up what was left of my magic.

  Finally, I lifted my head. Gasps rippled through the entire room, and Madeline’s face paled as I managed to lurch up and onto my feet.

  “You—you—you should be dead !” she sputtered. “I heard you scream. I saw you fall to your knees, to the fucking floor. I used all my magic on you! How can you possibly still be alive?”

  I grinned. “Because sometimes, to win, it’s better to play defense than offense. At least, until the final horn is about to blow.”

  Madeline frowned, wondering what I was talking about. Then she reached for her magic, still determined to kill me. But she’d burned through all of her power, and all she could muster up were some weak drops of acid that flickered like sparklers on her fingers. I looked at her, as tired and bone-weary as she was.

  “This isn’t over,” she hissed. “You’re not dead, but you haven’t won either. Not while I’m still alive. You can’t possibly have any more magic left than I do.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t. Not in my own body, anyway. But do you know what the difference is between you and me?”

  I reached for my spider rune pendant, holding it away from my neck and out to her. “I came prepared to win.”

  Madeline’s eyebrows knit together in confusion, her green gaze locked onto the pendant as I let it go. The spider rune swung back and settled into the hollow of my throat, the silverstone rune a cool balm against the red burns and blisters that marred my skin.

  Madeline’s fingers crept up to her own necklace, and she finally realized what I meant. She sucked down a breath to scream, probably for Emery to come finish me off, or save her, but it was already too late.

  “Good-bye, Madeline.”

  Before she could move, before she could react, before she could fight back, I reached out and clasped her hands with my own.

  The flames of her acid magic licked at my skin, but I ignored the pain, even though it felt as though my fingers were melting, melting off. Madeline gritted her teeth and brought what was left of her magic to bear.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  Oh, her acid still burned me terribly, and the silverstone branded into my palms heated up, as the magical metal absorbed as much of her power as it could to try to protect me.

  Madeline was right. I’d exhausted all of my natural magic fending her off, but I still had the reserves tucked away inside my spider rune. When Owen had given me the necklace for my birthday, I’d appreciated its beauty and the thought and sentiment he’d put into crafting something so exquisite for me. But I’d also seen it as the weapon that it truly was.

&n
bsp; One that I finally put to good use.

  I reached for the magic that was stored in my pendant. I gathered and gathered and gathered up all that cold, hard, chilling power, imagining cupping it in the palms of my hands.

  Then I shot it out at Madeline.

  Her hands froze first, since that’s where I let loose with the power. In an instant, my Ice and Stone magic had turned her delicate fingers a cold, bitter blue, and I knew that her skin and bones would shatter if I so much as blew a breath of air onto them.

  In the next second, the Ice and Stone had traveled up her arms and started spreading across her chest before zipping down her torso, pooling in her legs, and spreading out through her bare feet onto what remained of the marble floor. In another second, she was anchored in place, even as she desperately struggled to move.

  I could feel her pushing back with her own power, forcing more and more acid magic out of her hands, but this time, it wasn’t enough to overcome the elemental Ice that I was encasing her with. Still, I added another three inches of it around her hands, just to be sure.

  Madeline opened her mouth. Maybe to scream at Emery to help her and kill me, or maybe just at the unfairness of how I’d used her own tricks to beat her. But I sent out another wave of Ice magic, more powerful than all the rest. A bright silver light flared, so intense that I had to shut my eyes against the cold burn of it.

  When I opened them, it was done, and Madeline Magda Monroe was fully encased in my elemental Ice.

  My hands were still clasping Madeline’s frozen ones, and I could see her green eyes darting back and forth behind the Ice as she tried to think of some way to escape. But there was none. I’d made sure of that.

  So I held hands with my mortal enemy and watched as the frantic movements of her lips, nose, and eyes grew slower and slower, and weaker and weaker, until she finally died, frozen in place by the cold, hard fury of my Ice and Stone magic.

  28

  When I was sure that it was done, and that Madeline was dead, I drew in a breath and finally let go of what little magic was left in my spider rune.