"Well, she's an elemental to boot," Elektra muttered. "Another surprise. But it won't save you, Spider. Nothing will. Not from me. "
And then the bitch snapped up one of her hands and punched me in the face.
It was the proverbial straw. I stumbled back at the sharp blow, and one of my knives slipped from my hands. My twitching, spasming feet skidded on the gravel, just like the giant's had earlier tonight, and I went down on one knee. LaFleur came at me. One, two, three. Hard, bone-cracking blows, all with the extra oomph of her electrical magic behind them. One knocked the other knife out of my hand. The second caught me in the stomach. And the third connected with my jaw, shattering my concentration on my Stone magic.
Green sparks sputtered like fire from her clenched fists every time she hit me. And on the third, final blow, her power finally broke through my own.
For a moment, my vision went pure, hot, pulsing green as LaFleur's magic coursed through me, and I screamed again as the electricity seared every single nerve ending in my entire body. I convulsed once, twice, three times, before I fell to the ground, my limbs twitching violently from the unexpected burst of energy. If she'd been going for the kill shot then, I would have been dead.
But instead of finishing me off, LaFleur actually let go of me-and more importantly, her electrical magic. Her third mistake. When you've got someone down, don't stop until she's good and dead.
"Out of Stone magic already? Tsk, tsk, tsk. " Elektra clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and walked around me in a tight circle. "Disappointing, Spider. Very disappointing. "
I was too busy trying to get my spasming limbs under control to come up with a witty response. But I did manage to reach one of my hands around my body to the small of my back. Somehow, I made my still-twitching fingers wrap around a bit of metal there.
"I don't know how much you know about me, Spider, Gin, whatever you want to call yourself," LaFleur said, still circling around me. "But unlike you, I don't use weapons to kill. It's so . . . ordinary. So common. Don't you think? Instead, I like to use my electrical magic to finish people off. It's so much more visceral that way. Not to mention that I enjoy the light show as well. But I bet you've already guessed that little fact about me, given the way you're writhing around on the ground. "
"Yeah," I rasped. "I'd noticed that about you. "
Elektra smiled, then slid her hand inside her green jacket, which she was still wearing. I knew exactly what she was reaching for. The bitch thought that she'd already won. How wrong she was.
Sure enough, Elektra drew a single white orchid out of the depths of her coat. I don't know how she had managed to keep it from getting smushed during our struggle, because it was just as soft, white, and exquisite as the others I'd seen her with. Maybe she used her electrical magic to make the petals perk up just the way she wanted them to. Didn't much matter either way. She was going to be dead in another minute, two tops. My fingers tightened around the bit of metal in my hand behind my back, getting ready to make my move-
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
Elektra reacted immediately to the whine of bullets zipping through the air and threw herself down to the ground, rolling, rolling, rolling across the loose gravel to make herself a smaller, harder target to hit. Just the way I would have done. The white orchid that she had been holding flew out of her hand and twirled to the ground like a helicopter.
My head snapped up, and I spotted Detective Bria Coolidge standing about fifty feet away, her arms up and loose, her feet hip-width apart. A classic shooter's stance. Somewhere along the way, my baby sister had gotten a gun-one that she'd turned on LaFleur. I couldn't deny the fact that I was happy to see Bria, even if I had told her to get out of here.
Bria advanced toward us, taking aim at LaFleur, who'd used her momentum to roll back up into a low crouch. A dark stain marred the right shoulder of the other assassin's green coat, slowly spreading outward. Bria had winged LaFleur with one of her bullets.
And my sister wasn't done. Even though the assassin was still moving, she levele
d the weapon at LaFleur's chest and pulled the trigger.
Click.
Empty. The gun was empty already. Another reason I rarely used guns. They always ran out of bullets too quickly for my liking.
Bria cursed, threw the gun away, and reached around behind her back, coming up with the silverstone knife I'd given her in the railcar. She hesitated a moment, then chucked the knife at LaFleur, who had started toward her. To Bria's surprise and mine, she actually hit the assassin. LaFleur jerked to one side, but not before the blade sank into her shoulder-the same shoulder that had already been pierced by Bria's bullet.
But instead of shrieking from the pain, Elektra LaFleur let out a low laugh, the power of her electrical elemental magic still crackling in her voice. She wasn't close to being dead. Not yet. More of the damn eerie green lightning flashed to life in the assassin's hands, and she threw the ball of elemental power at Bria.
My sister's eyes widened. She hurled herself to one side out of the way of the ball of energy, but it hit the ground where she'd been standing. The lightning slammed into the rails and zipped along them, heading straight for Bria. A second later, a muffled shriek filled the air, and I saw my sister's body twitch and convulse on top of the metal. The lightning flickered around her for another two seconds, before sparking up into the night. I watched, my heart in my throat, my breath completely gone.
"Come on," I whispered. "Come on. "
Bria didn't get up, and she didn't move.
My heart felt like it was being ripped in two inside my chest, and I wanted nothing more than to scream and scream and scream. But I couldn't do that. Not until LaFleur was dead.
Once she realized that Bria was down, LaFleur walked back over to me. Then the assassin pulled the blade out of her shoulder, just the way her brother, Brutus, had done once upon a time, when I'd wounded him with one of my knives. Elektra dropped the weapon. It landed on the ground three inches away from my left hand.
Her fourth and final mistake. The one that was finally going to cost the assassin her life. Never, ever leave a weapon within arm's reach of an assassin, especially not the Spider.
"Uh-oh, Gin. Looks like Detective Coolidge didn't take your advice and was stupid enough to come back to try to rescue you. "
Elektra smiled down at me, her green eyes glowing as smugly as a cat's in her face. She was oh so pleased with herself.