A few of the folks crept toward the giants, as if they couldn't believe their own guards would turn on them, but the glares and guns pointed in their direction sent them scurrying back. Salina stood next to the mermaid fountain, beaming at everyone, as if she wasn't planning on murdering them in another minute, two tops.
I pulled my walkie-talkie out of one of the pockets on my vest. "Finn? Finn? Are you seeing this on your laptop?"
He got back to me a second later. "You mean the giants with the guns making sure everyone stays in Salina's little water trap? Yeah, I see it."
"Then get ready to move," I whispered back. "I'm going to take out some of the giants and create a way for folks to get away from the fountains and the water."
"I'll do my part," Finn said. "Bria and Xavier just pulled onto the street, along with another cop car. I'll tell them what's going on, and we'll be ready to go when it's time."
"Good," I said. "And tell them to be careful. Salina's too far gone now. She's not going to stop for anyone."
Owen stiffened beside me, but he didn't say anything. I put the walkie-talkie back in a pocket on my vest and looked at him.
"Do you think you can distract her long enough for me to deal with one of the giants?" I asked in a soft voice. "You're the only person she might listen to, even if it's only for a few seconds. But once she realizes what you've done, how we've tricked her, she won't be happy, especially not with you. She could attack you again."
He nodded. "I know. I can handle Salina."
"Okay. Then follow my lead."
I slipped out of the mansion and crept over to one of the Ice bars that had been planted on the lawn. The bartenders who'd been stationed there had been pushed inside the ring of fountains along with the others, giving me plenty of room to maneuver. Owen slid in beside me underneath the bar, his breath tickling the back of my neck.
"I'm going for the giant right there," I said, indicating the man closest to me. "You distract Salina. Wait for my signal, then move."
I crept over to the edge of the bar and peered around it, scanning the crowd for Kincaid. The casino boss stood on the far side of the giant I was targeting. Like everyone else, he was focused on Salina, but maybe I could change that. I palmed one of my knives and angled it into a patch of fading sunlight. Tilting the blade back and forth, I created a small sunspot flashing in Kincaid's eyes.
He grimaced, blinked, and turned in my direction, just as I'd hoped he would. Kincaid's eyes widened when he spotted me. I slid my knife back up my sleeve and held my finger up to my lips. Then I pointed at the giant and made a slashing motion across my throat with my finger, trying to let him know what my plan was. My crude signals must have worked because Kincaid nodded back and started sidling in the giant's direction, careful not to draw attention to himself. Kincaid wasn't my friend - not exactly - but I wasn't leaving him to Salina's wrath. If nothing else, I could at least get him away from the fountains as quickly as possible.
"I'm sure you're all wondering why I've asked you here tonight," Salina's voice floated over to me. "You've probably guessed by now that dinner will not be served."
She laughed at her bad joke, but no one else joined in. I peered around the side of the Ice bar. Salina still stood by the mermaid fountain, addressing the crowd of angry, frightened people in front of her.
"Many of you here tonight may remember my father, Benedict. Many of you probably remember the last dinner party he gave."
Salina's eyes went from face to face, daring people to meet her cold gaze. Most of the guests stared back at her with blank expressions, not understanding what she was getting at, but a few shifted on their feet and dropped their eyes from hers.
"Of course, the real reason you probably remember that dinner is because that's the night my father died - the night he was murdered by Mab Monroe right on the very ground you stand on now. Many of you were here then. You saw exactly what Mab did to my father - and not one of you lifted a finger to help him or to try and stop her. Not a single one of you."
Murmurs of unease rippled through the crowd. I wasn't the only one who could hear the crazy loud and clear in Salina's voice now.
"Of course, Mab is dead," she continued. "But the rest of you aren't."
More than a few folks sucked in breaths at the threat in her words.
Jonah McAllister pushed through the crowd until he was standing in front of Salina. The lawyer gave her an icy glare. "This is madness. Let us go, Salina. You can't possibly hope to get away with whatever it is you have planned. You don't know who you are dealing with."
"No, Jonah," she said. "You don't know who you are dealing with. But believe me when I tell you that you are about to find out."
She stared at the lawyer. McAllister opened his mouth to argue with her but then thought better of it and clamped his lips shut. Whatever he saw in Salina's face made him he realize that she was too committed to her plan to abandon it now - just like her father had been all those years ago.
"My father was known for his Ice magic," Salina said. "But I have a slightly different power - water."
Hoarse gasps of unease rippled through the crowd. People stared at the pretty fountains they'd been admiring earlier, awareness, horror, and fear filling their faces. They'd walked right into Salina's trap without even realizing it, and now there was no way out.
Again I hesitated. It would be easy - so damn easy - to let Salina kill the lot of them. It would solve so many of my problems, not to mention make Ashland a little safer for everyone. But, once again, I couldn't condone mass murder, especially when some of the people here tonight were innocents, just regular men and women waiting and bartending and trying to make a few bucks to support their families. I couldn't leave them to Salina's mercy - or lack of it. It would go against everything Fletcher had ever taught me about being an assassin - and a halfway decent person too.
"The reason I invited you here tonight was to remember my father." Salina's voice was as calm as ever, which made her words that much more chilling. "To honor him - and to watch you all die screaming, just like he did."
That was my cue if ever there was one. Still holding my silverstone staff, I surged to my feet and sprinted to the giant closest to me. He saw me out of the corner of his eye and frowned, as if he couldn't believe I would actually run toward him while he was holding a gun on the crowd. He swung his weapon around to me, and I reached for my Stone magic, using it to harden my skin.
Crack! Crack!
The crowd screamed at the gunshots, and many folks ducked down and started shoving each other, scrambling to put their neighbors between themselves and this new danger.
The giant got off two shots at me. One was off the mark and plowed into the bar, shattering part of the elemental Ice, while the other hit my shoulder and bounced off my hardened skin. Cursing, the giant started to pull the trigger a third time, but Kincaid snuck up behind him and chopped the gun out of his hand.
My turn. I brought the staff up and around, slamming it into the side of the giant's head. He staggered back. I palmed a knife, followed him, and shoved the blade deep into his chest, sliding it in between his ribs and slicing it into his heart. The giant screamed, but I was already pushing him out of the way and stepping over to Kincaid.
"Fancy meeting you here," Kincaid said, grinning.
"Uh-huh. Now shut your mouth and start running."
I tucked the bloody knife back up my sleeve, grabbed the woman closest to me, and shoved her toward Kincaid and the opening I'd just created in Salina's trap.
"Move! Move! Move!" I screamed at the people in front of me. "Run! Now, while you still can!"
For a moment, there was shocked silence; then folks began to stampede in my direction. I leapt up onto the rim of the closest fountain so I wouldn't get dragged down to the ground and trampled. Looking over the crowd to where Salina was standing in front of the mermaid fountain, I could only hope I'd bought everyone enough time to get out of her watery web of death.
But it was already too late - Salina's eyes began to glow, and I knew she was reaching for her magic.
Normally, I would have enjoyed being so close to such beautiful fountains. I would have been happy to relax, sit on one of the rims, and listen to the water merrily gurgle away while a bit of cool, refreshing spray wafted over me.
Not tonight.
The water that had been bubbling so peacefully in the fountains took on a harsher, more ominous sound. It surged out of the metal sculptures with all the force of a fire hose pointed at the crowd - seven of them, one from each fountain.
People screamed as the water slammed into them, and the jets of it were so powerful they knocked over tables, chairs, and everything else in their paths. In a second, everyone was soaked to the skin, which was just what Salina wanted. People fell to the ground, which had already turned to mud, and they wrestled with each other, trying to get on their feet or crawl over the tops of their enemies to safety. Others weren't so lucky. They were picked up by waves of water, dumped into the bottoms of the fountains, and held there, only to surface when they were good and dead. Salina wasn't using her magic to dehydrate anyone. No, tonight, she was intent on drowning everyone she saw.
"Salina! No! Stop!" I heard Owen yell. "Don't do this!"
Owen pushed his way through the crowd until he was standing before the elemental. He held out a hand, pleading with her. She looked at him. Her face softened, and I could see all the love she had for him, all the love she'd always had for him, crazy and twisted as it was. For a moment, I thought she might actually reconsider, that she might actually stand down and give up her deadly plan. But then her eyes found mine, and her face hardened once more.
"You made your choice, Owen," Salina snarled. "And this is mine!"
She waved her hand and a jet of water roared out of the fountain behind her, slamming into Owen, knocking him back thirty feet into the Ice bar we'd been hiding behind.
"Owen!" I screamed.
But my lover didn't respond, and his body slumped to the ground at an awkward angle. At the very least, he was unconscious. I didn't want to think about the very worst.
"Owen!" Kincaid yelled the same thing I had and started shoving his way over to the bar. I leaped off the fountain rim and took a step toward Owen, too -
And that was when Finn finally crashed the party.
His Escalade rammed through the front gate, followed by Bria's sedan and another cop car with flashing blue and white lights. Finn forgot about following the driveway. Instead, he turned the wheel hard, accelerated onto the lawn, and slammed the vehicle into the koi fountain. He knocked the metal off its foundation, busting the pipes hidden beneath it and causing even more water to shoot up into the air. Finn had also clipped the giant who'd been guarding that spot, creating another opening in the ring of death, which was quickly filled with more fleeing people. They stumbled away from the pulsing jets of water, out onto the lawn, and then picked up their sodden dresses and pant legs and ran for all they were worth.
I noticed Jonah McAllister was leading the pack of escapees. A pity the lawyer had gotten away, but my eyes snapped back to Salina. Even though I desperately wanted to check on Owen, first I needed to make sure she didn't hurt anyone else.
I pushed my way through the screaming crowd, heading toward her and avoiding as many of the sprays of water as I could. They blasted out of the fountains like geysers, and Salina laughed with delight as she used the water to push one man over the rim and into the bottom of the mermaid fountain. He didn't surface after that.
Salina was having so much fun murdering that poor soul that she didn't notice me sprinting at her. I managed to get within arm's reach of her. I raised my staff, intent on bashing her head in and putting her down before she could kill anyone else -
My foot slipped in the mud.
Instead of killing Salina, I merely slammed into her, and we both went down in a heap in the mud. The staff fell from my fingers and flew out of reach, so I palmed one of my knives, got up, and turned to face her. She was already back up on her feet.
"You bitch!" she screamed. "You've ruined everything!"
I didn't respond - I was too busy throwing myself forward and trying to end her existence.
Salina might have presented herself as a sweet Southern belle, but she clearly knew how to fight. She punched me in the face, knocking me back, then lashed out with her hand and slapped my knife out of my fingers. I palmed another blade and threw myself at her again, but once again she was ready for the move and landed another punch, this time to my stomach, knocking my second knife away as well. But still I managed to latch onto her, and we fell to the ground. We rolled around and around in the mud for several seconds before getting up on our feet and turning toward each other again.
All around us, water continued to spray, but the panicked screams had faded as most of the guests had managed to get away from the fountains and onto the relative safety of the lawn. Even the giants who'd been standing guard had turned tail and run.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Gunshots sounded behind me, probably Finn, Bria, and Xavier dealing with the rest of Salina's men, but I didn't dare turn around to look. No, this moment was about me and her - nothing else.
We circled each other, going around and around in a silent dance, our feet sending up sprays of mud. The water continued to rain down around us. Salina's aquamarine dress was plastered to her skin, the crystals tinkling together like wind chimes, and even more water dripped out of the ends of her blond hair, making her look like an evil twin to the crazy grinning mermaid of the fountain beside us.
