Heart of Venom

Chapter Nineteen

When I was sure that Owen, Warren, and Sophia had a good head start on Grimes’s men, I stepped out into plain

view on the top of the ridge, my knife in my hand, making sure that everyone in the clearing below could see me.

Crack!

Crack!

Crack!

Crack!

A few bullets pinged harmlessly off the ridge farther down the slope. Most of the men seemed to be armed with revolvers, so they weren’t really in range yet, but they surged forward, scrambling up and over the rocks, trying to fix that. I stood there and let them come.

My gaze scanned over the men, and I counted at least a dozen headed my way, each armed with at least one gun.

There were probably more of them at the east and west ends of camp, slogging through the woods and racing toward my position, but they wouldn’t be a factor right now.

Twelve on one. Not bad odds, considering.

“This is for you, Fletcher,” I said. “I hope that I make you proud.”

Crack!

Crack! Crack!

More bullets pinged off the rocks, although they were slowly getting closer to hitting the mark. Still, I waited.

Until finally—crack!—a bullet chipped into the stone at my feet.

I grinned. Now thatwas definitely close enough. Still, I waited until most of the men had climbed a few feet higher before I crouched down and held my hand up.

A silver light flared in my palm, centered on my spider rune scar, as I reached for the Ice magic flowing deep inside my veins. I studied the glowing circle and eight thin rays of silverstone embedded in my skin, watching the shimmer of magic grow and grow as I grabbed hold of more and more of my power. I wondered if this was the last time that I’d ever see my own rune.

Well, if it was, I was going to make it count.

I reached for the closest rock. The stone steamed and sizzled with cold, as though I were searing my spider rune into it with the icy brand of my hand. In a way, I supposed that I was. It took less than a breath before cold crystals started spreading out from my palm, encasing the rock that I was touching, then flowing on to the next craggy stone and the one after that and the one after that.

Jo-Jo had always told me that I was one of the strongest elementals she’d ever seen, and I’d proven that to myself when I’d gone toe-to-toe with Mab and her Fire and lived through the fight. So it was easy for me to coat the rocks around me with an inch of elemental Ice. What wasn’t so easy was pushing my power outward over the whole ridge and then even farther out into the woods beyond the rocks.

But I had a plan for that too: the silverstone spider-rune ring on my right hand, the one that Bria had given me. I tapped into the magic that was housed in the metal there, adding it to the Ice power that was already flowing out of me. The reason silverstone was so prized was that the metal had a special property, the ability to absorb and store all forms of magic. That’s why so many elementals wore rings, necklaces, and watches made out of silverstone, so they could have an extra boost of power when they needed it, say, for an elemental duel.

So many people had tried to kill me in the past few months that I’d taken to putting a bit of my Ice and Stone power into my ring every morning when I got up and again every night before I went to bed. As a result, the ring held more of my magic than it ever had before, and

I intended to tap into every single bit of it.

It was a risk, using up all of my magic this way, but I wanted to give Warren, Owen, and Sophia the best possible chance to get off the mountain and back to Roslyn’s car. I figured that turning the whole damn ridge into a field of elemental Ice was the best way to do that.

I kept reaching and reaching for my magic, watching the Ice crystals leapfrog from one rock and one patch of earth to the next, pushed forward by my Stone power like soldiers marching into battle. Below me, the men started shouting as the Ice approached and then rushed on past them like a cold crystal wave. A few weren’t quite quick enough to let go of their handholds on the ridge, and their hands froze to the rocks and were trapped there by the thick layer of Ice. I hoped their fingers rotted, turned black, and fell off from frostbite. It would serve these bastards right for all the horrible things they’d done.

People thought assassins were evil, but at least my violence was mostly contained to my targets and whatever bodyguards they employed. Grimes and his men hurt everyone who’d ever crossed their path, whether they’d deserved it or not, like all those poor college kids they’d kidnapped and brought up here over the years. And Hazel, well, she liked to use her Fire magic for the sadistic little thrill that it gave her. I wondered how many folks had been innocently hiking through the woods when they’d stumbled across the camp, never to leave it again.

The thought made the black rage rise in me once more, and I dug down even deeper inside myself. It only took me a moment to release another cold blast of power, this one even stronger than before. The rest of the ridge iced over, and the crystals kept right on going, spreading out into the woods beyond and the clearing below, until the rocks, trees, grass, and leaves glittered like polished glass.

Still, despite the elemental Ice, one man actually managed to climb all the way up to the top of the ridge. He stopped short of pulling himself up and over the crest.

Instead, he held on to the cold, slippery rocks with one hand, while he raised the gun in his other hand to fire at me.

Before he could pull the trigger, I rose to my feet and kicked him in the face, smashing my boot into his nose.

The sharp jab made his body arch back, and he lost his grip on the slick rocks. End over end, he plummeted to the clearing below. I’d hoped that he would plow into a few of his friends on the way down and knock them off the ridge too, but I’d kicked him too hard, and he fell clear of the rocks.

Snap.

I heard his neck break all the way up where I was. I grinned again. One down. Many more to go.

I crouched down over the ridge again, sending wave after wave of Ice magic out into the rocks and trees and grass below. cold sweat soaked my clothes, my lungs burned, and my head began to pound from the effort of concentrating so long and so hard, from the sheer will that it took to force all of my magic out in all directions at once.

Steam rose from the Ice, shrouding the ridge, the woods, and the clearing below in a cold, eerie, misty fog.

Well, that should give my friends a bit more cover as they trekked down the mountain.

Still, despite my best efforts, it wasn’t enough.

If only it had been a cloudy day, my crystalline creation might have lasted a little longer, but the July sun was already beating down on the ridge and slowly baking it once more. I’d made the Ice as thick as I could, but it wouldn’t be long before it melted away. But I’d done all that I could do to help Sophia, Owen, and Warren escape. The rest was up to them.

So I let go of the few remaining scraps of my Ice power.

My spider-rune ring was completely empty of magic. I had a bit of Stone power left, but it wouldn’t do me much good now, unless I wanted to use it to harden my skin, protect myself from the bullets that were still coming my way, and dash off into the woods.

But I wasn’t going to run. I might have given Sophia and the others a good head start, but her injuries, combined with Warren’s, would make their escape a slow one.

I still needed to give Grimes, Hazel, and their men something else to focus on for at least a little while longer: me.

I slid my knife up my sleeve, grabbed the guns from where I’d placed them on the rocks, and waited for

Grimes’s men to come.

After seeing what had happened to their buddy with the broken neck, Grimes’s men quit trying to climb up the frozen rocks to get to me. But they had just as hard a time getting back down again, and several slipped off the ridge and fell to the ground below. Moans, groans, and high pitched whimpers drifted up to me, along with the sharp, satisfying snap-snap-snap of bones breaking. My elemental Ice hadn’t killed any more of the men, but I’d put at least a few of them out of commission. Hard to think about chasing after someone when your own femur was sticking up out of your skin like a lollipop gushing blood.

I looked down dispassionately at one man, who was crying, rocking back and forth, and clutching his leg. I could see the white of his bone from where I was. He wouldn’t be getting up without an Air elemental to heal him. Even then, the process of being healed would be as excruciating as the broken leg itself. They should just shoot him. It would be kinder—

Crack!

A bullet zinged off the rocks to my right, and I realized that one man had already made the trek through the woods and up the side of the ridge.

Crack! Crack!

Too bad he had lousy aim. The bullets pinged off the rocks around me, but none of them actually came close to hitting me.

I ducked down behind a boulder, then scrambled on top of it and launched myself through the air. The man raised his gun, but I hit his body before he could pull the trigger, and we both went down on the ground. I was the only one who got back up.

Footsteps crunched through the leaves on the trail to my right, and shouts rose from that direction, like a pack of hounds baying out their location.

“Up here!”

“There she is!”

“Get that bitch!”

Men darted out of the woods and headed toward me.

I raised the guns in my hands and took aim.

Sophia. Jo-Jo. Fletcher.

That was the mantra I chanted in my head as I fired off shot after shot, carefully aiming at every person who came within range of my weapons and trying to make every single bullet count. Man after man went down, tumbling to a stop at my feet with holes in their heads, necks, and chests, but all too soon, my guns click-click-clicked empty.

I threw them away, palmed the knife that I’d tucked up my sleeve, and grabbed another one out of a pocket on my vest. More properly attired, I twirled the weapons in my hands and stepped forward.

Sophia. Jo-Jo. Fletcher.

I whirled first one way, then the other, cutting into every man who got within arm’s and knife’s reach of me, trying to make every single slice and stab as devastating as possible. Blood spattered everywhere, on me and especially on the rocks. Below my feet, the stone began sing— ing a dark, rousing tune about all the death that I was dealing out, and I found myself merrily, loudly humming along in time to it, even though I was the only one who could hear the vicious chorus.

I sang, but the men screamed, the sounds rending the air like my knives did their flesh, the high, sharp echoes reverberating around the ridge and then rattling off into the trees and forest beyond. I hoped Sophia could hear these bastards’ terror. I hoped it put the same hard, merci— less smile on her face that it did on mine.

Sophia. Jo-Jo. Fletcher.

Time ceased to have any meaning. There were just enemies to cut down, one after another, as quickly, brutally, and efficiently as I could, before moving on to the next

man standing. I stabbed arms and legs and chests. Drove

my blades into throats and ripped them out again. Even punched my knife through one man’s eye. His screams were among the loudest and most satisfying.

That man fell, and I whirled around to face my next foe—and realized that Grimes and Hazel stood behind me, flanked by several more of their gang.

Grimes’s gaze scanned over his dead men at my feet, then flicked up to me. His expression was unreadable, but I knew exactly what I looked like. Strands of dark brown hair falling out of my ponytail and sticking to my sweaty, blood covered face and neck. Even more blood spattered across my hands and arms, with still more soaked into my vest and the rest of my clothes. Even my socks squished with blood, and my boots had left behind an intricate pattern of dull brown stains on the gray rocks, as though I’d been tracing a complicated dance routine over and over again.

“Who the hell are you?” Hazel asked.

I grinned. “Your worst fucking nightmare.”

The men standing behind Grimes and Hazel shifted uneasily on their feet. Their leaders might not be afraid of me, but they were—and with good reason.

I gestured at the dead men all around me. “You know, you really should get yourself some better help. All your boys are good for is target practice.”

“Take her,” Grimes ordered in a cold voice. “Alive.”

I grinned even wider and twirled my knives, flinging fat drops of blood off the ends of the blades. “Please,” I snarled, staring at the men behind him. “Step right up and die.”

Nobody made a move toward me. I let out a dark, happy chuckle, then clucked my tongue. “So hard to find good help these days.”

“Now!” Grimes screamed, his calm façade finally cracking.

Apparently, Grimes’s men were more afraid of him than they were of me, because they rushed forward.

Fools. I raised my knives again and stepped up to meet them. First, I’d take care of Grimes’s men, then Hazel and the big man himself—

“Now, Hazel,” I heard Grimes say.

A second later, thousands of hot, invisible bubbles brushed against my skin. I had just enough time to grab the man in front of me, turn him around, and use him as a shield before a ball of elemental Fire blasted into us.

The flames exploded on the man’s chest, burning away his clothes and immediately turning the upper half of his body into a charred, blistered mess. He started screaming and didn’t stop, so I shoved him out of the way and took a step toward Grimes and Hazel, who were holding hands, as if they were combining their magic.

That was all I saw before another blast of elemental Fire came my way. Then another one, then another one.

I managed to duck the first two balls but not the third one, which hit my shoulder like a red-hot sledgehammer and spun me around. Before I could move, before I could react, a fourth blast of Fire hit me square in the back.

This time, I screamed.

Because I was almost out of magic, and I didn’t have any way to stop the elemental Fire washing over me. The silverstone in my vest heated up as it soaked up the worst of the flames, but it didn’t absorb enough of the magic, not nearly enough.

The men attacking me fell back, as they started yelling and trying to get away from the flames before they leaped from my body and onto theirs. The stench and sizzle of my own charred flesh filled my nose, and smoke boiled up from my clothes, mixing with the lingering fog from my elemental Ice. The heat and pain were so intense that

I couldn’t tell which way was which, and before I could figure out where and whom to attack, a fist shot through the flames, slamming into my skull.

Mercifully, the world went black after that.