By a Thread

24

I immediately reached for my Stone magic, trying to use it to make my skin as hard as marble, trying to protect myself from, well, myself.

But there wasn’t any more Stone power in my body right now than there had been Ice magic before when I’d been trying to make the lockpicks. The ball of silvery magic slammed into my chest, right in the same spot where the giant had hit me earlier. I managed to summon up enough magic to blunt the full strength of the vampire’s attack, but the force of it threw me back against the table, and I fell to the floor again. It felt like a concrete fist had hit me, and once again, I gasped for air.

“I’m not sure if you’ve figured it out yet, but I’m not going to kill you,” Dekes murmured, stepping forward and leaning down, his shoes a foot away from my face. “That would be far too wasteful. Oh, no, Gin. I’m going to keep you alive for as long as I can. So I can dine on your delicious, magical blood for as long as I can. With your blood, with your Ice and Stone magic, I can become twice as powerful as I already am. I know about the void Mab Monroe’s death has left in the underworld in Ashland. Perhaps I’ll move up there and take over her operations. Wouldn’t that be ironic? You killing Mab, and then me using you to pick up the pieces of her organization. It’s quite poetic if you think about it.”

It was one thing to want to kill me outright, to want to carve me up into bloody bits the way I’d done to so many other people. I could understand that. Hell, I could even respect it. But Dekes was suggesting keeping me around as his fucking pet, the way he had Vanessa, Victoria, and who knew how many other women. I’d already suffered once at his hands, and I had no desire to repeat the experience.

The vampire biting me over and over again, driving his teeth into my neck and wrists, and sucking the magic, power, and life out of me for years, maybe decades, on end. Just thinking about it made me want to vomit. To say that it would be my own personal hell was an understatement. It would be a waking nightmare—one that even I might not be able to endure or escape from.

Once again, I felt cold, cold fear pressing down on me, smothering me, paralyzing me, but I ruthlessly pushed the feeling aside, squashing it under my own rage. Fear was a useless emotion. Fletcher had taught me that with our trip to Bone Mountain so long ago. He’d left me there in the woods and forced me to rely on myself that day so I’d be prepared for moments like this. So that I’d have the strength and the will to overcome my fear and take down anyone who was stupid enough to mess with me.

I drew in a breath and surged up, trying to drive my knife into Dekes’s black heart the same way that I had the giant moments before. Trying to end this—now.

But the vampire was expecting the move. He held out his hand and blasted me back down to the floor with the Air magic he’d stolen from Victoria when he’d taken her blood. I tried to get up, but Dekes held out his hand, keeping the force of the Air magic steady across my chest and arms like an invisible lead weight pinning me down. No matter how I strained, cursed, and struggled, I just didn’t have enough magic to push back his Air power and free myself.

“And now I’m going to suffocate you,” Dekes murmured in a silky voice. “But only until you lose consciousness. After that, I’ll have my giants make the necessary arrangements to keep you safe and secure. Oh, Gin. We’re going to have so much fun together.”

Once again, I reached for my Ice and Stone magic, trying to bring enough of it to bear to block his attack, but my reserves were even more depleted than before. I managed to hold him off for maybe five seconds before I felt the air being sucked out of my lungs. Struggling would only use up my oxygen that much faster, so I forced myself to lie still and try and think of some way to fight back or at least get the vampire to release his hold on his stolen Air magic. Because if I blacked out, this fight was over, and I knew that I wouldn’t want to wake up to whatever accommodations Dekes had in mind for me.

But there was nothing I could do. My own magic was too weak to counter Dekes’s power, and now I didn’t even have the energy or freedom to try to raise the knife in my hand and drive it into the vampire’s foot. White, then gray, then black spots began to flash before my eyes, warning of danger, doom, and death. If I could have, I would have howled with rage at Randall Dekes getting the better of me not once but twice now—

A ball of Fire streaked through the air and slammed into the vampire’s chest.

Since Dekes had been holding on to his stolen Air magic, the Fire didn’t immediately erupt and engulf him the way it would have if he hadn’t had any elemental power at his disposal. But the shock of the unexpected flames shattered his concentration, making the invisible, airless bubble around me pop open. I rasped in a gasp of air, and cold tears streamed out of the corners of my eyes at how good it felt to be able to simply breathe again.

But Dekes quickly regained his composure. He curled his hand into a fist, and I felt the invisible power stream out of his clenched fingers. Now, instead of using his Air magic to smother me, the vamp was using it to douse the sparks that had singed his perfect gray shirt.

“Leave her alone,” a voice called out.

A second later, Vanessa stepped into view. She stood there facing Dekes, another ball of elemental Fire in her hand. The flares and flickers perfectly matched the hate burning in her black eyes.

Dekes brushed the last of the red-hot sparks off his shirt and gave her the same mocking look that he had given me just moments ago. “What do you think you’re doing, Vanessa?”

“Killing you,” she snarled. “Finally, finally killing you for everything you’ve done to me and my sister.”

On the floor between them, I sucked down breath after breath, trying to get enough oxygen into my lungs to get back into the fight. My fingers trembled, twitched, and then finally tightened around the hilt of my silverstone knife.

Dekes let out another light, mocking laugh. “Please. As if your puny Fire magic could compare with the Ice and Stone power that I’ve taken from Gin. You should have gotten out of the mansion while you could have, Vanessa. I admit I would have had fun tracking down you and dear Victoria, but now you’re not even going to get the chance to run. I’m going to kill you where you stand and find a stronger Fire elemental to take your place. You know that I don’t tolerate insolence.”

The elemental Fire flashing in the other woman’s hand burned a little brighter and a little hotter at his smug tone. Doubt and fear flickered in Vanessa’s eyes, right along with the rage, but she’d gone too far to back down now. This was her moment to finally stand up to Dekes, to finally get payback for the horrible, horrible way that he’d used her, her sister, and their magic. Her spine stiffened, and the flames in her hands intensified.

Dekes responded to her silent challenge by holding out his palm. Once again, a ball of silvery magic glowed in his hand—pure Ice power this time. Vanessa’s face tightened, and she couldn’t stop the tremor that shook her body. She could feel the power Dekes was wielding just like I could, and she finally realized exactly how strong my blood had made him.

Dekes smiled at her, relishing her shock and increasing fear. “Good-bye, Vanessa.”

He drew back his hand to hurl the ball of Ice at her—and that’s when I drove my knife through his right foot.

Since I was still lying on the floor, I didn’t have the best angle in the world, and I was still too weak and light-headed to put as much force behind the blow as I would have liked, much less reach up and sever his femoral artery as I really wanted to do. But the vampire’s howl of pain and surprise still made me smile.

I ripped the knife out of his foot and drove it into the side of his calf, twisting it in as hard and deep as I could.

“How do you like that, you sick son of a bitch?” I snarled.

Dekes staggered away from me, my knife still stuck in his leg, and the ball of Ice magic in his hand flew over his head and back into the fireplace. The magic—my magic—slammed into the stone there, freezing it in places, shattering it in others, and causing jagged cracks to zip out from the center of the blast. The force of the blow also rattled the mantel above the fireplace and the five items that had been arranged there in a perfect row—my knives. The ones that Dekes had made me put down before he’d savaged my neck last night. The ones I’d vowed not to leave the mansion without.

But instead of freezing or shattering like the stone around them, the knives lit up with the silvery glow of my Ice magic, burning so cold and bright that I could see the spider runes stamped into every one of the hilts. The symbols glowed like tiny stars for a second. Then, just as quickly, the magic winked out, and the runes and the knives were a dull silver once more.

My eyes narrowed, and a knowing smile curved across my face. I couldn’t beat Dekes, not when he was using my own magic against me, and I was still so weak from the loss of it in the first place. But I didn’t need magic to kill the vampire. He bled, just like the rest of us did. I just needed something to keep his power from immobilizing me while I went in for the kill shot.

I got to my feet, blinking away the last of the spots and sucking down another deep breath for good measure. But instead of palming another knife and charging after Dekes, I picked up the staff that had fallen to the floor and slowly started twirling it around and around. Vanessa started to step in front of me and hurl her ball of Fire at Dekes, but I held out one hand, stopping her.

“Save your magic,” I muttered out of the side of my mouth. “He has all three of our powers, plus your sister’s Air magic, which makes him stronger than us right now. We’ve got to get him to drain off some of that excess magic first before you throw another ball of elemental Fire at him. Wait for my signal and stay out of the way. Because if this doesn’t work, or if he manages to take me down, then you are going to want to run, and run fast.”

Maybe it was all that stolen elemental magic pumping through his veins, but Dekes recovered quickly. He tugged the knife out of his leg and held it up, studying the crimson drops sliding off the end. I wondered how long it had been since he’d seen his own blood and not what he’d taken from his victims. My hands tightened around the staff. I hope he enjoyed the sight, because the bastard was about to see a whole lot more of it.

Dekes’s upper lip curled with disgust underneath his mustache, and he threw away the knife and glared at me. “That’s going to cost you, Gin. Severely.”

“Bring it on, you psycho,” I snarled, still twirling the staff.

Surprise flashed in his eyes. Apparently, he’d been so used to being obeyed for so long that it never crossed his mind that someone would stand up to him—that I would stand up to him, especially after the way he’d mauled me almost to death.

“Surrender to me now, and your punishment won’t be quite as severe. Keep fighting, and I will make you wish that you had never been born,” Dekes warned.

“Ah, if only you’d known how many people have said something like that to me over the years,” I said, mocking him with his own words, then let him see just how cold, hard, and unyielding my eyes really were. “Like I told you the other night, I don’t just lie down and die, and I always come back to finish what I started.”

“Suit yourself, then,” Dekes said, shrugging. “After all, I don’t really need that pretty face of yours intact. Just your heart pumping out all that delicious blood.”

The vampire smiled and reached for his magic—my magic—again. Once more, a ball of Ice power filled the palm of his hand before he threw it at us. Behind me, Vanessa gasped in surprise, but I was already shoving us both out of the way. We slammed into one of the bookcases against the wall, knocking several of Dekes’s precious first editions off the shelves. Vanessa started to scramble up, but I put my hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down.

“Stay down,” I whispered to her. “This is my fight now. You’ve done your part.”

She bit her lip and nodded, her black eyes full of fear.

Still holding the staff, I got back up on my feet and turned to face the vampire again. “Is that all you’ve got, Randy? How disappointing. And look at that, you’ve ruined some of your most prized books.”

I pointed to the front wall of the library. Instead of skewering me, the elemental Ice had punched into the case, the shards turning all the books on five shelves into very expensive pincushions. Dekes’s eyes followed my finger, and his mouth fell open a little when he realized what he’d done.

“All those books in your collection—ruined. What a pity. I know how much you valued them.”

I cluck-cluck-clucked my tongue, and the vampire’s face contorted with rage. He reared back and threw another blast of Ice magic at me, but once again I ducked out of the way at the last minute.

“Is that all you’ve got?” I asked.

Another ball of elemental Ice came my way in reply.

Again and again I taunted Dekes, and again and again he threw his magic—my magic—at me. I retaliated by tossing a few of my knives at him, along with all the books I could pull off the shelves. Of course, Dekes used his stolen Air magic to fling my makeshift weapons away before they so much as ruffled his hair, or incinerated them outright with his Fire power, but that was just fine with me. I didn’t really expect to hit him, and I didn’t really need to anyway.

From her spot on the floor, Vanessa looked at me like I was crazy, antagonizing the vampire so. She didn’t realize that Dekes was doing exactly what I wanted him to, exactly what I needed him to do.

Finally, though, I ended up back in front of Vanessa. This time, I couldn’t stop her from getting to her feet and standing behind me as I turned to face Dekes for the last time.

By this point, the library looked like an Ice bomb had gone off inside. Long, jagged icicles stuck out of the walls, the books, and even the green leather couch in front of the fireplace. The temperature had dropped ten degrees, and just about every surface had an inch of elemental Ice on it now. I’d give Dekes credit. He could fling my magic around just as well as I could.

“What’s wrong, Gin?” the vampire snarled, spittle flying out of his lips. “Did you finally run out of room? No matter, I’m tired of playing this game with you. This ends right now.”

“You’re damn right it does,” I muttered.

Dekes reared back a final time, and once more, a ball of elemental Ice formed in between his hands. The vamp studied the silvery magic shimmering between his fingers, looking at it with undisguised glee and hunger, before raising his eyes and giving me a sneering smile. Then he threw both hands forward and shoved the raw, pulsing ball of power at us.

Vanessa gasped again. Behind me, I felt her take a step back, even though it was already too late for either of us to get out of the path of the magic roaring toward us. We wouldn’t escape it—not this time. Dekes had meant it when he’d said that he didn’t care what kind of shape I was in as long as I was still alive, because he’d put every last bit of power he had into this final blast. It wasn’t a kill shot, but it was meant to cripple in the most brutal, painful way possible.

The magic streaked through the library, seeming to gain more force and more power with every molecule of space it gobbled up between us, just like Vanessa’s elemental Fire had earlier in the hallway. At the very last second, I stopped twirling the silverstone staff that I’d been holding on to this whole time and held it out in front of me like a spear.

A moment later, the Ice magic hit the end of the staff—and stopped cold.

No, stopped wasn’t the right word. The staff didn’t really stop the Ice magic from hitting me and Vanessa—the silverstone that it was made out of did.

Elementals had rings, necklaces, watches, and more made out of the magical metal to hold bits and pieces of their power, but the shapes didn’t matter at all—it was the metal itself that made the difference. That’s what I’d realized when I saw my silverstone knives on the fireplace mantel soaking up Dekes’s earlier ball of Ice magic—that the staff in my hands could do the exact same thing, only on a bigger scale.

All I had to do in the meantime was level the playing field between me and the vampire by getting him to waste as much of his magic—my magic—as possible. That’s why I’d been flinging myself across the library and ducking Ice blasts for the better part of three minutes now. I’d had to get Dekes to fritter away most of his stolen magic so that the staff could soak up the rest.

Randall Dekes had spent three hundred and some years stealing blood and magic from elementals. To him, there was an endless supply of both, and when he used up one elemental, he simply tossed her aside like trash and found another to take her place. But even the strongest elementals could completely exhaust their magic in a fight, something that I’d learned when I’d killed Mab, something I’d realized again tonight when I had to struggle to make two simple Ice picks.

Something I’d just made Dekes do without even realizing it.

In a second, it was over. Instead of skewering me and Vanessa with icicles, the silverstone staff soaked up every bit of the Ice magic that Dekes had thrown our way. Now the long metal rod hummed with cold power. My power, my magic, back in my hands, right where it belonged.

Surprise and confusion filled Dekes’s face before melting into anger once more. He reared back his hand again, but this time, only a few silver sparks filled his palm, instead of the pulsing orb of power he expected. The vamp stared down at his hand like he couldn’t believe he didn’t have any more magic left. Arrogance will get you, every single time.

“But how—and why—”

I cut off his sputtering. “Didn’t I tell you? This staff is made out of pure silverstone. You know about silverstone, don’t you, Dekes? How it stores and absorbs magic? All forms of elemental magic? I’m sure you have a piece or two of it in your collections somewhere. Now this staff is full of all that lovely Ice magic that you just threw at us. My Ice magic. And unless I’m mistaken, you’re all out of juice, Randy. And out of time too.”

The vampire’s eyes widened with understanding, but I didn’t give him a chance to do anything but die.

“Now, Vanessa!” I screamed.

She didn’t hesitate. Vanessa stepped out from behind me and threw every scrap of Fire magic that she had left at Dekes. The vamp wasn’t expecting such a quick counterattack, and there was nothing he could have done to stop it anyway. Not now, with all his stolen magic gone. He raised his hands, but it was already too late. Vanessa’s flames slammed into his chest, and this time, Dekes was the one who flew back against the fireplace and thumped to the floor, flames licking at his clothes and skin.

I didn’t give him a chance to get back up.

I raced over to the vampire and cracked him across the skull with the silverstone staff, forcing him to roll over onto his back. The movement smothered most of the flames sizzling on his body, but I didn’t care. I was more than happy to finish the job they’d started myself. I raised up my boot and stomped down on his chest, feeling his ribs crack under the sharp, heavy blow. Dekes groaned, but I didn’t stop. I slammed my foot into the stab wound on his calf, then put my boot over his face and crunched down as hard as I could, like he was a bloodsucking tick that I was squishing into the ground. In a way, I supposed he was.

In another second, I was in as much of a frenzy as Dekes had been last night, when he’d gone crazy at the amount of raw elemental power in my blood. I could have stood there and kicked and punched and beaten the vamp all night long, letting out all of my rage, frustration, and fear, but I forced myself to come back from the edge and finish the job.

Breathing hard, I dropped to one knee beside him, grabbed another one of my silverstone knives from a pocket on my vest, and shoved it into his heart as hard as I could.

Randall Dekes threw back his head and screamed—and he didn’t stop. He drew in a breath, and I clamped my hand down over his mouth. As much as I enjoyed the sound of his pain-filled cries, I wanted him to hear my last words to him—the last words he would ever hear. The vampire looked at me with wide, panicked eyes. I just tightened my grip.

“You know what, Randy? You forgot one thing. No matter how much stolen blood you have running through your veins, no matter how many elementals you drink from, no matter how powerful you think you are, there’s not a fucking thing you can do about a knife in your heart,” I said. “Especially when the Spider is the one who put it there.”

I used my free hand to twist the blade in deeper.

Dekes arched his back, trying to get away from the knife, trying to get away from the pain, trying to get away from me.

I didn’t let him.

Blood covered both of us by that point, pumping out of his heart with every slow twist of my knife. Finally, when I’d pushed the blade all the way down to the hilt in his chest, I ripped it out just as brutally as I’d stabbed it in. I drew my hand away from Dekes’s mouth, letting the vampire scream as much as he wanted to now, even though his voice was already dying down to a raspy whimper and his green eyes were glazing over.

Then I leaned down and cut the bastard’s throat, just to be sure.