To my surprise, a welling of tears cascaded down Clementine's face, and she looked every one of her fifty-eight years as she stared down at the bodies.
"Opal . . . Dixon . . ." she said again, her voice dull and small. "They were the only family I had left."
I hadn't thought she would be so emotional, given how I'd seen her threaten, bully, and intimidate Opal and Dixon earlier tonight, but apparently, she'd cared about them more than I'd realized.
"You killed them. You killed them both," she murmured.
Clementine raised her eyes to mine. Hate brightened her hazel gaze, and her mass of curls bristled around her head, giving her a wild, crazed look, like a rabid animal with its fur up, one that was about to attack. And I knew that there was only one thing that would satisfy her now: my blood.
Good. Because I felt the same way about her.
"Looks like it's just you and me now," I said, taunting her. "Let's hope you have more fight in you than Opal there did. Why, I didn't even break a sweat cutting her down."
Clementine's lips flattened out, her nostrils flared, and her eyes narrowed to slits. It was the same murderous expression I'd noticed earlier, when she'd been browbeating Opal and Dixon outside the vault. The mottled flush of her skin and her low, breathy snarls told me just how fully enraged she was, like a bull about to charge at a matador waving a red cape - or rather me in my ruined red dress.
"Come on," I taunted her again. "Come on, already. What are you waiting for? Let's dance, bitch."
"You wanna dance?" Clementine asked, her hands closing into fists as she slowly advanced on me. "By the time I get done with you, there won't even be any bones left to feed the fish."
"Come over here and say that again, sugar."
She let out a loud roar and charged forward.
Chapter 25
I raised my blades and let her come to me. I also reached for my Stone magic and used it to harden my skin. Despite my mockery of her, Clementine was a dangerous enemy, made even more so by the grief, rage, and adrenaline pumping through her veins right now. I needed to put her down as quickly as possible, or I'd be in a world of hurt.
When she was in range, I stepped forward and slashed out with my knives, determined to end her with that first strike. But Clementine anticipated my plan and sidestepped me at the last second, so my weapons only sliced through empty air. I whirled around for another strike, but Clementine was already moving, moving, moving. Her fist slammed into my jaw, spinning me around and making a few stars wink on and off before my eyes. I stumbled back, but I managed to stay upright and keep my grip on my Stone magic.
Clementine came at me again, her fists raised in a classic boxer's stance. For the better part of a minute, we bobbed and weaved back and forth, each one of us trying to end the other. Clementine wanted to plant her fist in my chin again, while I wanted to slice her from guts to gullet with my knives. But we both dodged this way and that, trading shallow, glancing blows and never giving each other a clear opening.
The longer we bobbed and weaved, the more I felt the dreaded exhaustion creeping up on me. My breaths grew hoarse and raspy, sweat trickled down my face, neck, and back, and my legs twitched with the effort of staying upright. It had been a long night already, and now here I was, locked in another fight to the death. Sometimes it just didn't pay to leave the house.
Not for the Spider, anyway.
Back and forth and around and around, we do-si-doed in the front of the boathouse, neither one of us able to break through the other's defenses.
At least, not until my boot slipped.
I didn't know where the puddle came from. Maybe a paddleboat bumping into a docking station and spraying water everywhere, maybe a freakishly large wave arching up and spilling over onto the stone, maybe even a fish jumping in the river and doing a cannonball. But water had pooled on the marble walkway, making it as wet and slick as glass. I blocked the giant's latest blow and stepped forward to deliver one of my own - and slipped. Even as I windmilled my arms and tried to stay upright, I lowered my guard, just for a second, and Clementine took the opening.
She slammed her fist into my face.
Since I was still holding on to my Stone magic, the blow didn't crush my cheekbone, but it knocked me back all the same. Clementine immediately pressed her advantage. She slapped one of my knives away, then the other one. The weapons skidded along the stone walkway, the blades throwing up bright silver sparks as they tumbled end over end. Before I could reach for my other pair of knives, the giant was on top of me.
"You think you can kill my girl - my Opal - and get away with it? I'll show you," Clementine snarled. "I'll show you."
She grabbed my arms, lifted me into the air, and then slammed me into the ground with all the force she could muster. She would have splintered every bone in my back if I hadn't had my magic to protect me. Even with my Stone power, I still felt like I'd plummeted out of a high window and hit the ground at warp speed - splat. Before I could even think about moving, much less fighting back, Clementine was straddling me.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
She pounded her fists into my body over and over again. Each punch seemed to add fuel to her rage, and every blow was harder and sharper than the one before it. Any one of them would have been enough to do major damage. The only thing saving me right now was my Stone magic and the hard shell of my skin, but that wouldn't last long under a beating like this.
It was always a concern when fighting dwarves or giants, letting them get their hands on you. Because once they did that, it was just a matter of them wearing you down. Power was still power, whether it was a giant's strength or an elemental's magic. One always succumbed to the other in the end, and the loser died.
This time, the loser was going to be me.
Clementine kept hitting me and hitting me. She showed no signs of tiring. Or stopping.
But she quickly realized that something was wrong, since I wasn't screaming with pain and gushing blood from every available surface. She snarled with disgust when she realized that her blows weren't having the desired effect, and she finally noticed the magic glinting in my gray gaze.
"Stone magic," she muttered. "I should have remembered that you have that. I fucking hate Stone magic. But don't you worry. You'll run out of that long before I get tired of hitting you."
She stopped her assault and pulled back just long enough for me to throw my hand to the side, reach for my Ice magic, and use it to form a sharp, cold knife. I raised the weapon and drove it into her chest, but since I was flat on my back, I couldn't put enough muscle behind the thrust to make it do any real damage.
Clementine stared down at the Ice knife sticking out of her chest a couple of inches above her heart. "Really? That old tired trick? Does that ever actually work for you?"
Her distraction let me reach down and fumble for the other weapons on my utility belt. I didn't have much to work with. I'd emptied my gun during the firefight with the giants earlier in the museum hallway, and the metal baton was too long for me to slide it out of its loop. So was the flashlight that was tucked through another loop. But there was one other small tube hooked onto the belt: the pepper spray I'd taken off the first giant I'd killed.
Clementine pulled the knife out of her chest and crushed the Ice with one hand before flinging the melting bits off her fingers. "Is that the best you can do?" she mocked. "Why, that didn't hurt any more than a little ole bee sting - "
I pulled out the tube, flipped the nozzle, and gave her a face full of pepper spray, even though the close proximity made my own eyes water and nose burn. Clementine cursed and slapped the spray out of my hand. It too disappeared into one of the pools of water. The giant looked at me, her whole face red, puffy, and soaked with tears.
She drew in a breath, and I thought she might start screaming with pain.
Instead, she laughed, leaned forward, and started hitting me again.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
I was flat on my back on the stone walkway, with Clementine on top of me, her knees squeezing in on my ribs. The irony was that I'd done this same thing more than once, used the weight of my body to slowly drive the air out of someone's lungs. I usually ended things rather quickly with a knife to the heart, but Clementine seemed content to keep beating me until her fists punched all the way through my body and out the other side.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
She kept hitting me, her blows even, steady, and achingly hard as she got into the rhythm of the fight. And all I could do was lie there and take it. I couldn't reach the knives strapped to my thighs with her on top of me, and she'd already shown me how useless an Ice knife was. Even the pepper spray hadn't bothered her all that much. I was out of weapons. Right now, it was all I could do to concentrate on my Stone magic to keep her from pummeling me into a bloody smear. Soon that would be gone too.
Finally, though, Clementine grew tired of using me as her own personal punching bag.
"Fine," she growled. "Your skin might be as hard as a rock, but let's see how you do without any air, bitch."
Still kneeling on me, she wrapped one hand around my neck and used the other to cover my nose and mouth. She might not be able to punch her way through my skin, but Clementine had a death grip on my throat and was slowly pushing her fingers into my windpipe with all her might. I clawed and clawed at her, drawing her blood with my short nails, but she was in the position of power here, not to mention how much stronger she was than me. I didn't have a chance, and we both knew it.
It was inevitable. All the fights I'd been through tonight, all the nicks and cuts and lumps and bumps I'd gotten. None of them debilitating or life-threatening, but they'd all chipped away at my strength, at my magic, until I had nothing left in the tank. And now the giant was cutting off my air supply. I'd be dead in another minute, two tops, unless I could figure out some way to get her off me long enough for me to regroup and grab one of my knives. Even then, I didn't know if I'd have strength enough to kill her with one of the blades -
Strength.
The word rattled around in my mind, bouncing from one side of my skull to the other, and I remembered what Clementine had said to Owen earlier tonight in the vault.
This isn't about strength, Mr. Grayson, it's about finesse.
And I realized that's what this fight really came down to - my strength versus Clementine's. Physically, I wasn't a match for the giant, especially not now, since she was using the weight of her body to pin me down. But maybe I didn't need brute strength, raw force, sheer power, to beat her. Maybe all I needed was a little of that finesse she'd talked about earlier.
Or maybe the lack of air was already making me hallucinate, because I just couldn't think of a way to stop her.
Still, I kept fighting - clawing, slapping, and punching with all my might. Clementine continued to laugh. Apparently, my weak, pitiful struggles amused her. She let go of my throat long enough to slap my hand away from hers, the blow so hard that it caused my knuckles to crack into the marble walkway -
Wait a second.
Marble - I was lying on a solid sheet of marble. In fact, the whole boathouse was made out of stone. I'd once collapsed an entire coal mine, so I knew that I could use my magic to do the same thing to the boathouse. But as satisfying as that might be, dropping a couple of tons of rock on top of Clementine's head wouldn't help me. The rocks would either crush us outright or shatter the walkway and drag us both down to the bottom of the river. I didn't want to drown, especially not if Clementine was going to be trapped on top of me for all eternity.
Still, there had to be some way to use my magic against her without killing myself in the process. Oh, I'd sacrifice myself if it meant murdering her too, but I wasn't ready to give up yet. Not until my air was almost completely gone and I had no other chance of stopping her.
I moved my head left and right, my gaze shooting every which way, but there wasn't much to see. Just the marble ceiling over my head, the columns on either side of the boathouse, and the statue of the old fisherman to the left of Clementine -
The statue.
My gaze locked on it, but it wasn't the figure of the old man I was interested in - it was the spear clutched in his hand. I hadn't made a dent in the giant with my silverstone blades or Ice knife, but that spear looked to be at least six feet long and three inches thick. That spear would take down anyone, even a giant as tough and strong as Clementine Barker.
All I had to do was find a way to finesse it right into the bitch.
I quit fighting the giant, quit clawing at her hands, quit kicking and punching and trying to buck her off me. I even quit using my Stone magic to harden my skin. Instead, I gathered and gathered the power inside me, combining it with all the Ice magic I had left, added to what was stored in the spider rune ring on my right index finger.
Clementine noticed that my skin had reverted back to its normal texture. She paused and drew her hand away from my nose and mouth. I sucked down breath after breath, but all the while, I kept reaching and reaching for my magic, getting ready to make one final strike with it.
She grinned. "Out of magic already, Gin? How disappointing. I thought that the legendary Spider would be tougher to beat than this. Why, I haven't been hitting you more than three minutes now. Going to let me beat you to death after all? Pathetic. But I have to thank you. This will be so much more fun than simply smothering you."
She drew back her fist and drove it into my chest.
Thwack.
One of my ribs cracked.
Thwack.
Another rib splintered.
Thwack.
She went for my shoulder that third time, and pain exploded in the socket and reverberated along my collarbone and down into my arm. Fuck. I hated having a broken collarbone.
