Startled by the shots, Mab's head whipped around, wondering what had just happened to her two men, but everyone else was just as distracted as the Fire elemental. Except maybe Jonah McAllister. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the lawyer staring at me, his face suddenly pale. He took a step back, then another one. What was McAllister up to? Running away? Or something more devious?
A giant off to my right charged me, his hands arching into claws like he wanted to wrap them around my throat and just squeeze. I had no more time to think about McAllister. I palmed one of my silverstone knives and turned to meet him. The blade sank into his chest before I ripped it out and used it to lay open his throat. He died with a gurgling scream, and I shoved his body back into the ring of men surrounding me. They scattered like the vultures they were as he thumped to the ground at their feet.
"Who's next?" I snarled, the giant's hot blood still dripping off my knife.
A couple of the bounty hunters on the far edge of the ring looked at each other and started easing away from me. Apparently, my words hadn't been enough, and it had taken more of a visceral display to make them see the light. However much Mab was paying them, the money wouldn't do them a damn bit of good if they were dead.
"Get her, you fools!" Mab screamed at her men. "Now!"
The bounty hunters exchanged another glance. They hesitated, then bucked up their courage and started toward me once more. My hand tightened around my knife.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Three more bounty hunters went down, each one sporting a neat, round hole right between their eyes. Warren Fox, no doubt, helping Finn with his sniper duties, just like we'd planned. The old man had proudly claimed that he was a hell of a shot and would be more than happy to help Finn thin out the ranks a bit. He hadn't been lying about how good his aim was.
From outside the ring of men, back behind Mab and even Gentry and Bria, a low, guttural battle cry sounded, rising to a fierce bellow that reminded me of a Viking horn. A moment later, Sophia ran into view, swinging her fists into every single person that she could reach. And she wasn't alone. Owen charged into the fray right behind her, wielding his blacksmith's hammer, while Xavier and his massive fists brought up the rear.
"Get Bria!" I screamed at them, even though they were already moving in that direction.
Given a choice between me and the new people in the courtyard, the bounty hunters and giants decided to take the easy way out-they all rushed by Mab, heading for Bria and the others. But the Fire elemental didn't turn and follow her men. Not this time. Instead, she started walking toward me-and I toward her.
We met there in the middle of the courtyard, only five feet of empty air separating us from each other.
All around us, the courtyard was in total chaos, as Sophia, Owen, and Xavier fought the bounty hunters and giants, even as my allies slowly retreated and took Bria with them. This had been the plan all along. To make it seem like I'd come here alone, then let my friends sneak in behind and get Bria to safety while I battled Mab. I just hadn't counted on Gentry making things a little easier for us, but I figured luck owed me at least this much. So did the bounty hunter for my sparing her and Sydney that night outside Mab's mansion.
Nobody had particularly liked the plan, especially the part about leaving me behind to face Mab by myself. But we all knew that this was how it had to be. I was the only one with a chance of stopping the Fire elemental, the only one whose magic was strong enough. It was just-inevitable. Maybe it had been since the day the Fire elemental had murdered my mother and older sister just because I was some vague, nebulous threat to her. A threat she'd made a reality by her cruel actions.
Mab and I stood there in the middle of the battle, somehow untouched by all the blood and bodies flying through the air around us in the chaos of the courtyard. It was as if the rest of the world didn't even exist anymore, except for me and her and the snow slowly swirling in between us.
"Before we finally do this," I said. "There's one thing that I have to ask you."
"And what would that be?" Mab asked in a low, dangerous voice.
I stared at her, my gray eyes burning into her black ones, our mutual hatred writhing in the air between us like a living, pulsing, beating heart of darkness.
"Did you ever stop and think that maybe you brought all this on yourself?"
Mab tilted her head to one side, making her hair spill over her slim shoulders. The bright coppery color of her wavy locks reminded me of blood.
Everything about her reminded me of blood and death and fire and that horrible night when she'd so casually destroyed the people I'd loved, leaving nothing behind but dirty, crumbled ash and the hollow echo of my hoarse screams.
The spider rune scars embedded in my palms itched and burned at the brutal memories, the way that they always did. Or maybe that was because Mab was now fully embracing her elemental Fire magic. Her black eyes smoldered like coals in her beautiful face, fueled by her enormous power and her supreme satisfaction at finally arranging a face-to-face meeting with me.
"Whatever do you mean?" Mab asked in her low, sultry voice.
"Did you ever read about Oedipus? You know, the tragic Greek hero who was supposedly destined to kill his father and marry his own mother?"
"What's your point?" Mab snapped, more than ready to get on with the business of burning me alive.
I really couldn't blame the Fire elemental for her impatience. Seventeen years had passed since the first time she'd tried to murder me. A long time for anyone to wait to off her mortal enemy.
I shrugged. "It always struck me that Oedipus's parents went about things the wrong way. Instead of sending their son off to die, they should have kept him at home and loved him. That way, he would at least have known what his own father looked like. Then maybe he wouldn't have killed dear old dad when he met him on the road years later. But Oedipus thought that his father was just another stranger and not anyone important."
Mab frowned, not seeing my point.
"That's the thing that's always bugged me about the Greeks and prophecies in general. The more you try to prevent them, the more you hasten them along. Happens all the time in classic mythology," I said. "So I ask again. Did you ever think that if you hadn't come to my house that night, if you hadn't murdered my mother and older sister, if you hadn't tortured me, maybe we wouldn't be here today?"
Mab stared at me, the black fire burning even darker in her eyes now, sucking in even more of the twilight that streaked the wintry landscape in brooding purples and impartial grays. The snow fell silently around us, a steady torrent of fat, fluffy flakes that seemed at odds with the tension in the air. Despite the cold, I could still feel the intense heat radiating off Mab's body. Her Fire magic pricked against my skin like thousands of needles stabbing me one after another-a relentless wave of red-hot agony.
But I didn't reach for my Stone magic to block hers. Not yet. I'd need every ounce of power that I possessed if I had any hopes of defeating Mab, and I wasn't going to waste any of it now while we were still just taunting each other. No, I'd summon up my magic when she threw her elemental Fire at me-that's when I'd need it most. So I swallowed down the primal snarl that clogged my throat at the feel of the invisible, fiery needles against my skin and continued with my musings.
I figured that I could be forgiven my odd quirk of sentiment just this once. It wasn't like I'd ever get the chance to confront Mab again-as one of us would kill the other in another minute, two tops.
"Because let's face it. Me living on the streets, getting taken in by an assassin, becoming an assassin myself, becoming the Spider. That all goes back to one thing-you killing my family," I said. "If you hadn't done that, well, who knows what would have happened? I might have grown up to help people. Become a doctor or something. Learned how to save lives instead of being so very good at taking them."
"None of that matters," Mab scoffed.
"Of course it does-it's all that matters. Especially here in this place. Especially now."
Mab's eyes narrowed to slits, but the elemental Fire still burned in the smoldering depths of her gaze. "And why is that?"
"All the people that I've killed over the years? Yeah, I did most of them for the money, because being an assassin was a job and one that I was good at. But the biggies, all the folks that I've taken on in recent months, Alexis James, Tobias Dawson, Elliot Slater, Elektra LaFleur. You see, I've gradually come to realize something about them-and how they've each been different from everyone else that I've battled over the years."
"And what would that grand revelation be?" Mab asked.
This time, I tilted my head at her and smiled. "That they've all just been practice for you, bitch."
We stared at each other, the Ice and Stone magic in my gray gaze a perfect, natural enemy for the elemental Fire flickering in Mab's black eyes.
"Well, then," she said in her silky voice. "Let's see just how much you've learned, little Genevieve."
Mab brought up her hand and curled it into a fist. Fire spilled out from between her clenched fingers and dripped down them like water before falling away to the ground. Plop-plop-plop. The stones underneath our feet shuddered, snarled, and screamed as her Fire burned into them. The rocks' angry mutters blended in perfectly with the steady, evil hiss of the melting snow. Ribbons of steam twisted up into the frigid air between us, delicate ropes binding us together.
I never took my eyes from Mab's black gaze, watching her the way one gunfighter would another, waiting for that small twitch that would tell me that she was ready to draw down on me. I drew in a breath and got ready to reach for my own power.
Mab smiled at me a final time, confident in her magic, her strength, her unmatched, raw elemental power. Then she drew back her fist and hurled everything that she had at me.
A second later, the elemental Fire hit me, and the scorching flames engulfed my body, just like they had my mother and older sister before me.
And I screamed.
Chapter 28
Mab's magic slammed into me with the force of a thousand infernos, each one blazing brighter than the sun, each one burning out of control, with the sole purpose of frying me alive.
She almost succeeded.
Despite everything I knew about Mab, despite all the long hours that I'd studied her, despite what I'd seen her do to my mother and older sister, despite the damage she'd inflicted on me at the country club last night, none of that prepared me for the raw elemental force of her Fire. The heat, the intensity, the sheer, unrelenting strength of it took my breath away like no one else's magic had ever done before. Not that of Alexis James, Tobias Dawson, or even Elektra LaFleur. Those other elementals had all been strong, incredibly so, when I'd battled them.
But Mab-Mab was just elemental Fire and flames and fury herself. She was in a completely different league from all the others I'd faced before.
At the last second, I reached for my Stone magic, bringing all of it to bear, hardening my skin, head, hair, eyes, and every other part of me into an impenetrable shell, just the way I'd done so many times before.
And it saved me once again.
Mab's raging Fire didn't immediately kill me. But it still hurt, worse than any pain I'd ever experienced before, even the shocking jolts of LaFleur and her electrical elemental magic. Even through the shell of my Stone magic, I could feel Mab's flames licking at my skin, eroding my magic, burning through all the many layers of my Stone power. I staggered back from the sheer force of the blast, and the silverstone in my vest immediately liquefied from the heat. Sweat streamed down my face, and it was all I could do to hold on to my own magic, to not be overwhelmed by the deadly surge of Mab's power. She'd gone for the kill shot first, and I knew that I'd been lucky to survive it.
Mab had more raw power, more pure magic, than any elemental born in the last five hundred years, so she didn't stop her assault on me. Not for a second. Instead, she raised her hands, elemental Fire spewing out of her fingertips in a steady, unrelenting stream, every bit of her power, every bit of her fury, directed at me in a molten ball of heat, flames, and death.
My vision went red from the Fire crashing into me, and I flashed back to that fateful night when Mab had murdered my mother. I remembered in excruciating detail how her magic had just kept getting closer and closer to Eira, slicing through my mother's Ice magic, until the hungry flames had washed over and consumed my mother completely. Then Annabella. Both charred to ash in an instant.
That's how elementals fought-by flinging their raw power at each other until one elemental finally succumbed to the other's magic-and that's how Mab and I were fighting now. But I wasn't just an elemental-I was an assassin too. I was the Spider, trained by the best, trained by Fletcher Lane, the Tin Man himself. If there was one thing the old man had taught me, it was that it didn't matter how you killed your opponent, as long as she was dead and you weren't when the bleeding was done. My Stone magic wasn't going to save me from Mab, it wasn't going to help me kill her in the end. Not really.
Fletcher was-just the way that he'd always intended. The old man had trained me for this one moment, for this one fight, for years. Now, I just had to figure out a way to kill Mab and live up to the faith that he'd always had in me.
"Give it up, little Genevieve," Mab said in a mocking tone. "You're no match for me. You never were, just like your miserable excuse for a mother. One of the happiest days in my life was when I finally killed Eira. Today is going to rank right up there with it. Because not only will I get rid of you, but I'll burn that sweet little sister of yours to death too. Along with the dwarves, Owen Grayson, that shyster banker you call a foster brother, and anyone else who was stupid enough to come here with you. They won't escape me, Genevieve. None of them will. Not a single one. Your charred remains won't even have to time cool before I send the rest of them to join you."
