Lorelei was on her knees near the pagoda, her hands raised and her eyes glowing a pale blue as she tried to fight off her brother. But she was losing badly, her face and hands already crisscrossed with deep, bloody scratches. Pike drew a handful of nails out of his bag and sent them slicing through the air toward her. Lorelei screamed as they stuck into her shoulder, like pins in a cushion.
I raced toward them. The second I was in range, I shot a spray of Ice daggers out of my left hand.
Pike’s head snapped up at the sudden surge of magic, and he tossed a handful of nails at me, driving them into my Ice daggers and shattering my cold weapons. Bits of Ice and metal tink-tink-tinked to the ground between us.
While Pike was distracted, Lorelei reached for one of the Ice guns holstered to her thighs, but he kicked her in the ribs. The blow threw her back, and her head clipped the side of an iron bench close to the pagoda. Lorelei dropped to the ground and didn’t move.
Pike stepped over her still form, stopping in front of me. He shook his head. “You must have a serious death wish.”
“I am rather fatalistic that way,” I admitted. “Mostly, though, I just don’t like bullies. People like you who think that their magic makes them better than everyone else. Folks who enjoy hurting other people with their power.”
“A bully? I’m so much more than that.” He laughed, the sound chilling me far more than the night air did. “Although I’ve been extremely disappointed in you so far. I thought that the mighty Gin Blanco would be tougher. Stronger. Smarter. From what I’ve been told, you were supposed to be quite the powerhouse. But I haven’t seen any evidence of that at all.”
“And who’s been spreading tales about me all the way up in West Virginia?” I asked. “Is it the same person who told you about Lorelei’s new last name and location?”
He grinned. “My new friend? Let’s just say that . . . she’s as coldhearted as they come.”
Well, that told me absolutely nothing. I thought about pressing him for more information, but he wouldn’t tell me. In fact, he would delight in not telling me, and I didn’t want to give him any more of a thrill than what he’d already gotten from torturing Lorelei, who was still out cold.
I bared my teeth at him. “Funny, but I would say the same thing about me. It’s too bad your friend’s not here, though. She could die right alongside you tonight.”
Pike regarded me with an amused look. “You really believe that, don’t you? That you can kill me, despite all the times I’ve bested you over the past few days.”
“Why shouldn’t I? Everyone’s luck runs out sooner or later, and I’d be happy to help you extinguish what little is left of yours. Besides, you won’t be the first Pike I’ve killed.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you figured it out yet?” I shook my head and clucked my tongue, mocking him. “Little slow on the uptake, aren’t you, Ray? I already told you once, but let me say it again: I killed your father. Not Lorelei. Dear Daddy Renaldo was about to beat her to death. He almost got me too, before I shoved him down on top of that mace he was so fond of carrying around. He didn’t much like all those spikes digging into him for a change, instead of Lily Rose and Lorelei.”
It was a calculated jab to try to enrage him enough to rush blindly at me, but he didn’t fall for it. Pike stared at me, memories darkening his eyes and the wheels of his mind churning as he thought back to that day.
“And you think that I’m not smart?” I let out a light, pealing laugh. “Look at you. You’re the one who’s been trying to get your revenge on the wrong woman. For years. Not the sharpest nail in the shed, are you, Ray?”
Pike kept staring at me, but the certainty in my voice and the cold, cruel curve of my lips finally convinced him.
“You bitch!” His voice teetered on a scream. “You killed my father!”
“Damn right I did,” I snarled back. “Just like I’m going to kill you.”
Pike took a step forward, as though he were finally going to charge me. But he must have thought better of it, because he stopped, threw back his head, and laughed instead.
“Oh, give it up.” He sneered. “Because you’re still trying to kill me with a knife—and I have more than enough magic to rip that pretty metal away and drive it right through your heart.”
Pike waved his hand, expecting the force of his magic to pop the knife out of my hand just as it had done before during the garden party.
Nothing happened.
Pike frowned and waved his hand again.
And still, nothing happened.
His eyes narrowed. “You switched knives. That one you’re holding, it’s not metal. I should have realized that something was wrong with it the second I saw it.”
“This old thing?” I held up the weapon. “You’re right. It’s not my usual silverstone knife.”
I tapped my nail against the blade. Instead of the usual tink-tink-tink, the sound was flat and hollow, as though the knife weren’t solid at all.
“It’s ceramic,” I said, tilting the weapon back and forth, letting the moonlight bounce off the metallic-looking paint I’d sprayed all over the surface. “Your sister gave it to me, along with a couple of others. She thought they might come in handy when we suckered you out here tonight.”
“Still thinking you’ve won just because we’re in a garden.” Pike gave me an evil grin. “Don’t you know that metal is in practically everything? You might have switched to ceramic knives, but there’s still metal on your clothes, in your shoes, and wrapped around your throat, given that pretty rune necklace you’re wearing.”
Pike raised his hand again, and a blast of power rolled off him, streaked through the air, and surrounded me like a force field. The invisible fingers of his metal magic rifled through my clothes, snaked through my hair, and even tugged on the laces of my black boots.
But once again, they came up empty.
Confusion flickered in Pike’s eyes.
“You know what? It’s difficult, but it’s not impossible to find clothes that don’t have any metal in them.”
“But your ring, your necklace!” he sputtered.
“Plastic,” I said, tapping the tip of my ceramic knife against my spider rune pendant. “But you’re right. They are pretty, nonetheless, don’t you think?”
He growled, grabbed a handful of nails out of his satchel, and sent them shooting straight at my face.
30
Pike wanted to take me by surprise, but I had been waiting for the move. After all, sneak attacks were what he did best. Me too.
The nails bounced off my body, thanks to my Stone-hardened skin, and I whipped my knife out in a quick counterstrike.
Pike lunged back, so that my knife only sliced through the strap of his satchel instead of him. The bag of nails dropped to the ground, and I kicked it off into the bushes. Pike lashed out with his own kick, which would have blown out my knee if it had connected. While I was recovering my balance, he reached around to the small of his back and came out with his own knife—silverstone, judging by the way it glinted in the moonlight.
He grinned. “I was going to use this to cut Lorelei’s throat when I finally decided to finish her off. But I guess I’ll just have to practice on you first.”
“Bring it on, you sick son of a bitch,” I hissed.
Pike and I circled each other again, our booted feet scraping through all the dried leaves. I might have largely neutralized his metal magic, but he was still a dangerous enemy, and the way he held that knife told me that he knew how to use it. Even with my Stone magic protecting me, one mistake, one second of hesitation, one lapse in concentration, and I’d be on the ground and bleeding out from the vicious wounds he would inflict on me.
Pike lunged in, but I recognized it as an opening feint, meant to test my resolve and skill, and I held my ground, easily slapping the
blade of his knife away with mine.
He flashed me a cool look. “Well, at least my source got one thing right. You actually seem to know what you’re doing with that knife.”
There he went again, talking as if he actually knew me. I wondered who his chatty source was and where she had gotten so much information about me. Maybe I could carve the answer out of him before I put him down for good.
He lunged in with his knife again. I ducked, but I wasn’t quick enough to avoid the blow. The tip of his knife dragged along my forearm, the silverstone soaking up just enough of my Stone magic to let the blade break through the surface of my skin.
I yelped and staggered back. Pike swung his knife in a powerful arc, trying to lay my guts open with one long, smooth slice, but I twisted my body to the side, avoiding the blow. He leaned in too far, and I jabbed the hilt of my knife into his left temple.
This time, Pike staggered back, and I pressed my advantage, swinging, swinging, swinging my knife in an elaborate pattern, all three strikes meant to kill, kill, kill. But he was just as good with a knife as I was, and he sidestepped my blows the same way I had eluded his.
I risked a glance at Lorelei, but she was still slumped unconscious on the ground.
Pike darted forward, and I stepped up to meet him. Our blades flashed in the air, his bright and pure, mine dull and fake. He nicked my shoulder, and I got in a long slice in his forearm. He twisted his knife into my thigh, while I rammed mine deep into his shoulder. He slapped me across the face, and I punched him in the kidneys. And so the fight went on and on, and neither one of us could get enough of an advantage to end the other.
Until my knife broke.
Pike and I were locked together, trying to overpower each other. Cold, hard, invisible waves of our magic pulsed through the air, even as our knives slid back and forth, the blades screeching together. But my ceramic wasn’t as strong as his silverstone, and the metal finally sawed through my weapon, leaving nothing behind but a jagged, useless hilt.
The snap of the knife threw me off balance. I grunted and tried to spin away, but Pike grabbed my hair and yanked me back toward him.
Then the bastard punched his blade into my side.
I screamed and flung my hand back, trying to shoot Ice daggers into his face to blind him. I missed the mark, but I blasted him with enough magic to make him growl and let go of me.
The knife tore free, hurting just as much coming out as it had going in. I fell to the ground, clutching my side and trying to ignore the pain flooding my body from the brutal wound. Pike hadn’t hit anything terribly vital, but he’d come far too close for my liking. I needed to end the fight—and him—now.
Pike loomed over me, my blood dripping off the end of his knife. “Now what are you going to do, bitch?”
“This.”
I put my hands on the ground and lashed out with my foot, driving my boot into his ankle. The blow wasn’t all that hard, but Pike yelped in surprise, his feet skidded through a patch of dead leaves, and he landed hard on his hands and knees.
I lurched back up onto my feet. A troubling amount of blood had already soaked into my blue T-shirt, with even more oozing out of the wound.
Pike scrambled upright, flipped his knife over, grabbed it by the blade, and hurled it at me. I snapped up my hands, reached for my magic, and sent out dozens of Ice daggers. My Ice knocked the knife off course, and it clattered harmlessly to the ground.
Too late, I realized the attack had just been a distraction so that Pike could get to what he really wanted: the iron bench near the pagoda.
I didn’t think he had the strength, but Pike wrenched the bench free of its foundation and lifted the whole thing off the ground. Then he ripped the metal apart with his bare hands and put it back together.
All over himself.
The wrought-iron bands uncurled from their original shapes, crawling up Pike’s arms like snakes. And that was only the beginning. His blue eyes glowed, and his magic blasted off him in cold, hard waves. The iron bands began to move, writhing faster than any snake ever could and taking shape over his body.
And I finally realized what he was doing: creating a suit of armor for himself.
In seconds, Pike was encased in metal from head to toe, the pieces of the bench covering most of his body as though he had rolled himself up in the slats.
But he wasn’t content with just his new metal shell.
Two snakes of iron curled across his knuckles, forming two solid bands there before sprouting spikes—the same sort of spikes that had been on his mace before he’d blown it to bits. Spikes also appeared along his arms, legs, and chest, but the ones on his hands were the most worrisome. They swayed like two undulating cobras, as though they were waiting for me to get within striking distance.
I grabbed a ceramic knife from against the small of my back, even though I couldn’t get close enough to Pike to stab him now. Not without getting a spike through some part of me in return.
Pike laughed at my obvious frustration. “Not exactly what you were expecting, huh, Gin? My source told me that you were clever. Well, thanks to my father, so am I. And now it’s time for me to finally avenge him.”
He threw his hands forward. A blast of magic rolled off him, and the metal spikes hissed out from his body, straight at my heart.
* * *
I did what anyone would do in this situation.
I hit the ground.
The deadly spikes shot out over my head, but I still landed hard on my injured side. I groaned but forced the throbbing, aching sting of the wound away and got back up onto my hands and knees. Since I was already on the ground, the best thing to do would be to drag Pike down to my level. Driving my knife through his heart, his throat, his eye would do the trick. I wasn’t picky. All I had to do was get close enough to hit one of those sweet spots, and he’d be as dead as his father was.
So I drew back my foot, determined to ram it into Pike’s knee. But the spikes on his legs zipped out, and I had to roll out of the way to keep from impaling my foot on the moving pieces of metal.
Pike stepped up and slammed his foot into my ribs. More pain erupted from my wound, along with an agonizing spurt of blood. I groaned again but forced myself to keep moving, to keep fighting. I hadn’t given up that day in the woods, and I wasn’t going to give up now.
Raymond Pike was not going to be the death of me.
Since I couldn’t kick his legs out from under him, I staggered back up onto my own feet. I tightened my grip on my ceramic knife and darted forward, but once again, his lashing metal spikes drove me back.
And again, and again.
Every time I found a vulnerable spot, an opening, Pike used his magic—and his snakelike spikes—to take away my advantage. The bastard also plunged the sharp tips into my skin, cutting me again and again and bleeding me dry one small slice at a time.
He knocked my knife out of my hand, and I screamed, frustration mixing in with the increasing pain. Pike laughed the whole time—just laughed and laughed. The mocking sound only added to my anger, but there was nothing I could do to shut him up.
Finally, Pike grew tired of letting me try to kill him, and he went on the offensive. He flexed his hands, then curled them into tight fists. The metal ringing his knuckles shifted into two long blades, more like swords than knives.
He shoved his arms forward, trying to skewer me. If he stabbed me with those blades, I was dead.
Desperate, I flung a ball of Ice magic at him, but he just stood there and took it, letting the Ice hit and then crack off his makeshift metal armor. The iron bands were hard and thick enough to render my Ice power useless. I couldn’t even get close enough to freeze him to death with my power, since I’d have to actually touch him to do that, something I couldn’t do with all those damn spikes sticking out everywhere.
Pike kept laughing. In that moment, he
looked and sounded exactly like his father, eerily so. I would have a whole set of fresh nightmares from this fight.
If I lived through it.
But I kept flinging my Ice magic at Pike, stalling for time to figure out how I could end him. Despite the fact that we were in a garden, Pike was completely wrapped up in his element. So how could I counter that?
I glanced at Lorelei, who was sprawled in the same position as before. No help there.
In between flinging balls of Ice at Pike, I scanned the rest of the garden, searching for some sort of inspiration in the pagoda and trees and flowers and rocks—
And I finally found it, glimmering oh-so-innocently in the moonlight.
Now I just had to set one final spider’s trap for Pike.
I raised both hands, sending out another, stronger blast of magic. But instead of directing it at Pike, I aimed low this time. In an instant, three inches of elemental Ice anchored his boots to the ground.
He laughed again, leaned down, and started stabbing through the Ice with the two metal swords sticking out of his fists. “You think that’s going to save you? Pathetic.”
It didn’t have to save me. It just had to buy me some time. Instead of answering, I turned and hobbled deeper into the garden, thumping up into the pagoda and then down the other side and out into one of the themed areas.
A loud crack! tore through the air as Pike blasted his way through the Ice around his feet.
Then his singsong voice echoed through the garden. “Oh, Gin . . .” he crooned. “Come out, come out, wherever you are . . .”
I rolled my eyes. He really needed to figure out a new game to play. The creepy psycho stalker act had gotten old a long time ago. I ducked around a patch of bonsai trees and hobbled forward. Besides, Pike shouldn’t have been worried about losing track of me.
My blood trail was easy enough to follow in the moonlight.
Behind me, I heard the steady scuff-scuff-scuff of Pike’s boots through the leaves, along with his crazy laughter. All the while, the metal encasing his body creaked, the iron bands protesting their grotesque shapes. I didn’t look back. Instead, I focused all my energy on getting to the exact spot I wanted. I rounded another row of bonsai trees, looked over this part of the garden, and grinned.