I wondered what would happen if the assassin threw her lightning at the river itself, if the whole length of it would light up with her electrical magic. I shuddered at the thought. Maybe she was too far away or maybe, like me, she just didn't have that much juice left. But more seconds passed, and no lightning came arcing toward the river, something I was infinitely grateful for.
I was too dazed to do much of anything but go with the flow of the water. I drifted maybe a mile downstream before I finally saw a rocky outcropping I thought I could swim to. So I drew in a breath, turned my head, and flailed that way, making my arms and legs go through the motions, even if I couldn't exactly feel them at the moment.
I didn't quite reach the rocks, but I managed to get into shallow enough water to wade up onto the shore. I fell onto my stomach in the frozen mud and frosted cattails, panting from the effort, entirely disconnected from my own body. I didn't feel anything anymore-not even the cold that I knew had invaded my body and was slowly killing me.
I don't know how long I huddled there before I managed to summon up the strength to roll over onto my back and fumble with one of the zippers on the front of my vest. At this point, my whole body shook from the cold, even though I didn't actually feel it. My hands trembled from the force of it, but apparently the message just wasn't reaching my brain, because it wasn't registering as an actual physical sensation to me. I didn't feel anything but numb. Completely numb. Or maybe dead, if this is what being dead felt like. I'd helped a lot of people get that way over the years, but I hadn't actually been on the receiving end of things myself-yet.
But the really weird thing was that the spider rune scars on my hands were glowing.
A small circle surrounded by eight thin rays, one embedded in either palm, and they were both as bright as the lights on Owen Grayson's Christmas tree. The runes glowed with a cold, silver light-the kind of light that flared whenever I used my Ice magic. But ... I wasn't doing that right now. At least, I didn't think that I was. Or if I was, I didn't know why or how.
It kind of freaked me out, since the last time that my palms had glowed like this was when I'd finally broken through the silverstone embedded in my hands. The metal had been absorbing my Ice magic until I'd forced myself to blast right through it and had brought an entire coal mine down on top of myself and the men who were trying to kill me.
But this? Now? I had no idea what was going on. I stared at my glowing palms another minute.
Fuck. This couldn't be good.
But I put my wonky magic out of my mind. I managed to unzip the pocket on my vest and pull out my cell phone. I squinted at the glowing screen, which meant that I still had a signal. Somehow Elektra LaFleur's magic and my swim in the river hadn't completely fried the device. Better than a Timex and much more useful right now. It took me three very slow, concentrated tries before I managed to hit one of the numbers on the keypad and then send the call.
He picked up on the third ring. "Hello?"
But it wasn't Finn's voice on the line-it was Owen's. I must have hit the wrong number on my speed dial, because I'd wanted to call Finn, not Owen.
"Ow ... Ow ... Owen," I managed to get out through my chattering teeth-teeth that I couldn't even feel at the moment.
"Gin? Where are you? Are you okay?" Concern filled his voice.
"T-tr-train yard. I-I-jumped in river. Down-downstream now. Finn-Finn has the girl."
I knew that I wasn't making a lot of sense, but I just couldn't think. I couldn't move, I couldn't do anything. My whole body, my mind, everything was just numb. Dead and numb.
"Are you hurt? Where are you?"
The phone slipped from my deadweight fingers and plopped onto the muddy riverbank.
"Gin? Gin?"
Owen's voice was the last thing that I remembered hearing before the world went completely cold, dead, and black.
Chapter 19
"Gin!" the hoarse, worried whisper roused me out of the liquid blackness I'd been so peacefully drifting along in. "Gin! Are you out here?"
The sound of my own name startled me the rest of the way awake, and my eyes snapped open. At least, I thought that they opened. I certainly wanted them to. But since the world still remained pitch-black, I wasn't quite sure about that.
After a moment, the events of the night filled my mind, vague flickers and flashes of images that should have made more sense to me than they did. McAllister and LaFleur eating at the Pork Pit. Me sneaking into the rail yard. Finding Natasha. Torching the old depot to create a distraction. LaFleur's eerie green lightning racing along the metal rails toward me. That last one made me shudder. Her power had hurt so much-
"Gin!" the voice called again.
And now someone was out here looking for me in the dark-but was it friend or foe?
"We've looked everywhere," a second voice said. "She's not here, and she's not answering her cell."
A woman. That was a woman talking.
My mind wasn't working quite the way it should, but I knew I didn't want a woman to find me. Didn't want Elektra LaFleur to find me. I shuddered and curled into an even tighter ball, barely daring to breathe. If the other assassin discovered me now, she'd finish me off with her lightning. Then LaFleur would go after Bria, Finn, and everyone else I cared about, and there would be no one to stop her. I wouldn't be around to stop her-
"Let me concentrate," the first person rumbled again. A man, given the deep pitch of his voice.
Some small part of my mind frowned. That voice sounded ... familiar. Why? Why did it sound so familiar? Why did I like the deep, rumbling sound of it so much? Why did I want to call out and answer it?
I felt a bit of magic surge to life somewhere nearby. But it wasn't LaFleur's crackling electrical power or Mab Monroe's red-hot Fire magic. Surprisingly, this magic felt similar to my own Stone power-cold, still, calm, comforting. Not exactly the same, but it wasn't the complete wrongness of another element either.
"This way."
Something rustled over my head, and I heard heavy footsteps. Someone's boots squished in the mud, getting closer and closer with every step. I tried to bring my hand up to my vest to grab one of the silverstone knives hidden in the zippered pockets, but my hand just wouldn't work. Wouldn't move, wouldn't grasp, wouldn't do anything but lie by my side like a dead fish. No part of my body worked. It dimly occurred to me once more that I couldn't feel anything-not my fingers, not my toes, and especially not anything else in between.
"There! There she is!"
Someone rustled through the cattails I was lying in, sending clumps of dirt raining down on my face, but I didn't even have the strength to reach up and brush them away. I got the sense that someone was standing over me, though, looking down at my cold body.
"Why-why are her hands glowing like that? With that silver light?" the woman whispered in an awed tone.
"I don't know," the man rumbled. "Go start the car and turn the heat on full blast. Now."
Another pair of footsteps scurried away, hurrying back up the muddy bank. Again I tried to summon up the strength to move, to protect myself, or even to just open up my eyes and see exactly what this new threat was. But I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do anything right now.
Strong arms lifted my body up out of the frozen mud. I breathed in, and a rich, earthy scent filled my nose. His aroma, the one that always made me think of metal, if metal could ever have any real smell to it.
"Owen?" I mumbled.
At least, I thought that I mumbled his name. My lips were so cold and stiff that I didn't actually feel them move. I tried to open my eyes again but found I couldn't. Something had glued my eyelids together. Ice probably, frozen in my lashes, from my foolhardy swim in the Aneirin River.
Silence.
Then a warm hand smoothed down my cold, wet hair. "Hang on, Gin. Just hang on-"
The world went black once more.
I don't really know what happened after that. I was dimly aware of riding in a car, someone's hands yanking at my heavy, wet, ice-crusted clothes. Every once in a while, I woke up long enough to hear people talking. Odd bits of conversation I probably should have understood but that just made no real sense to me.
"I'm driving as fast as I can."
"Use that cloud knocker."
"Put her in the tub."
"She's so cold."
Sometimes I thought that I heard Owen's voice. Other times I could have sworn it was Eva Grayson talking. But what would the brother and sister be doing at the train yard? I'd gone there to meet Finn, not them. I just couldn't make sense of anything.
Slowly, the cold receded from my body, an inch at a time, and warmth enveloped me once more. My fingers and toes and everything in between started to tingle as my circulation was slowly restored. I gritted my teeth as the fiery needles stabbed me one after another in an unrelenting wave.
"It's okay now, darling," a soothing voice whispered. "You can let go of your Ice magic now. You're safe, Gin. Relax. Just relax."
So I did and drowned in the darkness once more.
* * *
The next time I tried to open my eyes, I was actually able to do it, with no problems or struggles of any sort. After a few seconds, the world snapped into focus and I realized I was lying in a bed. Above my head, puffy white clouds drifted across a cerulean blue sky on the fresco on the ceiling. The dreamy clouds comforted me, and I let out a quiet sigh. Safe. I was safe now. Because only one person I knew had her ceilings painted like that-Jo-Jo Deveraux.
Somehow I'd gotten from the muddy bank of the Aneirin River all the way across town to the dwarf's house. I wasn't too concerned right now with exactly how that had happened, just the fact that I was safe and warm and could actually feel my arms and legs again. I wiggled my fingers and toes and was pleased when they all responded to my internal command. Looked like I hadn't lost any digits to frostbite or hypothermia, no doubt thanks to Jo-Jo's healing Air elemental magic. Good. It would be hard to hold on to my silverstone knives with no thumbs.
A faint scuffle sounded, and I lifted up my head.
Over the mound of blankets that covered me, I spotted Natasha standing at the foot of the bed. The little girl had been cleaned up since the last time I'd seen her in the train yard. Her dark brown hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, and her face was free of the grime and tears that had covered it. The puffy bruise was gone from her cheek, and I didn't see any other injuries on her. Jo-Jo had probably used her Air magic to get rid of those, as well as heal me.
Now the girl was dressed in what looked like one of Sophia Deveraux's black Goth sweatshirts, given the fact that it was covered with bloody broken hearts. Matching sweatpants and socks completed the ensemble. Sophia might be a dwarf, but the sweatshirt still reached down to the girl's knees, looking like a dress on her thin frame. The legs on the sweatpants had been rolled up several times too.
"Hi," I croaked.
Instead of answering me, Natasha stared at me a second longer, then turned and ran out of the bedroom.
I put my head back down on the pillow and lay there in bed for a few minutes, just letting myself adjust to being alive, awake, and in one piece again. Slowly moving my body, flexing my fingers and toes and making sure that everything was in more or less working order. Jo-Jo had outdone herself again, because I felt almost as good as new, except for the bone-deep weariness that made me want to curl up and sleep for eight more hours. But that was just an aftereffect of being magically healed by the Air elemental, nothing more. Especially since I was pretty sure I'd resembled an ice cube by the time the dwarf had gotten her hands on me last night.
The most important thing was that Elektra LaFleur hadn't killed me yet. And now that I knew that my baby sister, Bria, was on her hit list, I was even more determined to end the other assassin's existence.
Which I wouldn't accomplish by staying in bed all day. So I sat up and threw off the blankets. I really must have been frozen when I'd gotten here because I had on not one, not two, but three sets of flannel pajamas-along with five pairs of wool socks. I looked like a marshmallow with so many heavy, dense layers covering my body. I shook my head and got to my feet.
I took a step, stumbled, and almost did a header into the cherry dresser next to the bed. My feet might still be attached to the rest of me, but apparently they weren't accepting orders just yet because more needles of pain flared to life deep in my muscles. I gritted my teeth and planted my hands on the wooden dresser, waiting for the sensation to pass. I was damned if I'd collapse back onto the bed. Not while LaFleur was still breathing. Not while the assassin had her sights set on killing Bria.
"You shouldn't be up yet," a low voice drawled.
I looked up to find Owen Grayson standing in the doorway, a steaming mug of something clutched in his hand.
Owen looked just as tired as I felt. His blue-black hair was rumpled, stubble covered his face, and shadows darkened his violet eyes, as though he hadn't gotten much sleep last night. He was dressed casually in a thick, black turtleneck sweater that highlighted his broad shoulders, but mud covered his boots and stained the knees of his jeans.
I frowned. "Why is there mud all over your clothes?"
"Because I'm the one who found you last night," Owen said. "You called me. Don't you remember?"
I had a vague recollection of hitting Owen's number on my speed dial instead of Finn's but that was all. I concentrated, and more flashes of light and sound swam up in my mind, filling in some of the blanks from last night.
"I called you, and you came looking for me," I said. "But how did you find me? I didn't exactly give you directions."
