Slice-slice.
Whiff-whiff.
A cut on her left arm this time, followed by a gash to her stomach. Hazel lurched forward, still swinging at me, but I easily sidestepped her blows.
Slice.
Whiff.
A deeper, more brutal strike went in and skittered off her collarbone before my knife slid free of her body. Hazel screamed and lurched forward again, but I ducked her awkward blows.
She shook off the rest of her daze and moved to block my next attack. I'd raised my knives as though I was going to try to stab her again, but it was a feint to disguise my real intention. Hazel stepped up to grab my arms once more, but I ducked down and lashed out with my foot, sweeping her legs out from under her. She let out a scream of surprise as she fell, and her head cracked against the ground.
Before she could recover, I threw myself on top of her.
I raised my knife, ready to plunge it into Hazel's black, venomous heart - A blast of Fire knocked me off her.
I'd been so focused on Hazel that I'd lost track of Grimes during the fight. He might have liked to watch two chicks rough each other up, but apparently, he drew the line at me actually killing his sister. I tried to get up, but another wave of Fire washed over me, even hotter and more brutal than before. I sucked down a breath in surprise, and I could feel the flames trying to force their way down my throat, but I managed to use my own Stone magic to block the attack.
This time, I was the one who was dazed, but I staggered to my feet anyway and turned to face my enemies.
Crack!
Crack! Crack!
In the distance, Finn, Phillip, and Owen were still firing at what remained of Grimes's men, while Bria worked to contain the bursts of Fire that Grimes had sent hurtling their way. But I pushed away all thoughts of my friends and the flames still licking at the edge of the woods. I couldn't afford to be distracted by anything right now, or I was dead.
Which was still a distinct possibility.
It was a risk, taking on two elementals at once, but it was a chance that I had to take. I hadn't wanted Sophia and Jo-Jo involved in this fight, but the truth was that I hadn't wanted Finn, Bria, Owen, or Phillip in it either.
That's why I had insisted that they stay in the woods, instead of Bria and Owen standing with me and using their magic like they'd wanted to. I'd felt how strong Grimes and Hazel were in their magic on the ridge, and I hadn't wanted the others to be tortured with it if things went bad. This way, even if they used their combined power to kill me, my friends would still have a chance to snipe at them from the woods. I'd told Finn, especially, to kill Grimes - even if he had to sacrifice me to do it.
And it looked like that was what it had finally come down to.
"It doesn't have to be like this," Grimes said. "Tell me where Sophia is, and I'll let you live, Gin. You and Sophia.
You can both come with me, stay with me. You're both strong. You both belong with someone who can handle that strength, tame it, shape it - someone like me."
He was so focused on me that he didn't see the evil glare that Hazel shot him. She'd make sure that I wouldn't live a week if I was stupid enough to take Grimes's up on his offer.
"You'd better kill me now," I rasped, my voice rough and raw from the elemental Fire that I'd inhaled. "Because you will never break me, and I will never, ever stop thinking of ways to kill you. And sooner or later, I'll succeed."
Grimes shook his head, as though my threats of death deeply saddened him. "As you wish, then."
He held his hand out to the side. At first, I wondered why, but then Hazel stepped up and twined his fingers with hers. She gave me another evil grin, happy that her brother had reached for her. Elemental Fire hissed, sparked, and crackled where their hands met, and the flames there grew and grew. Grimes and Hazel lifted their free hands. Flames exploded there as well, burning as big and bright as twin bonfires. Once again, their magic was perfectly in sync, ebbing and flowing in time, yin and yang reunited. Or evil and more evil, in this case.
Separately, each of them was a strong elemental. But together, their combined magic rivaled Mab's. Hell, they might have even surpassed her. I'd gotten stronger myself since I'd fought Mab, but the intensity of their magic made me snarl and grit my teeth like a rabid dog.
I reached for my Stone magic and used it to harden my skin once again.
Grimes and Hazel stretched their arms out in front of them. They let their Fire build and build.
Then they threw it at me - all their strength, all their power, all their hate.
Wave after wave of searing, smoking, unbelievable heat slammed into my body. I gritted my teeth much tighter to keep from screaming. It was all that I could do to use my power to block the combined strength of theirs.
I tried to get to them, tried to get close enough to cut just one of them with my knives, but every time I managed to stagger forward a few feet, another wave of Fire magic would send me sliding back. But I kept struggling, kept fighting, kept churning forward, even though all I was really doing was digging my heels into the burning grass underfoot. All I needed was to separate them, to stop them from sharing their magic and throwing the combined force of it at me, and then I could kill them.
At least, that's what I told myself, even if I knew that it wasn't true.
Because I'd already used up a fair amount of my magic fighting Hazel, and I didn't have enough left in the tank to stop them both. Even with the power I'd put back into my spider-rune ring over the past two days and what was in the knives in my hands, I was still going to run out of magic before they did. Then their elemental Fire would wash over me and reduce me to soot and smoldering ashes on the spot.
And there wasn't a damn thing that I could do about it.
"Gin!" I thought I heard Owen yell. "Hang on! I'm coming!"
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
My friends fired still more shots, but what was left of Grimes's men returned their fire, holding them at bay.
They wouldn't reach me in time, and we all knew it. Still, I was going to hold on for as long as I could. Because if I couldn't kill Grimes and Hazel, then maybe they could.
Because, magic or not, if Finn and the others pumped them full of enough bullets, then their magic would wane, and Finn could step up and finish the job - Through the smoke and flames, I saw a figure slam
into Grimes and Hazel, and I realized that it was Owen.
He threw himself at the brother and sister, and all three of them went down like pins knocked over by a bowling ball. Even though he had shattered their concentration, Grimes and Hazel were still holding on to their magic, and the flames washed over Owen, as though he were the wick in the center of a burning candle. His hoarse screams echoed all the way around the ridge.
"Owen!" I screamed, staggering toward him. "Owen!"
The three of them were still rolling around on the grass, but they finally came to a stop. Grimes's head snapped against the ground, stunning him, but Hazel positioned herself on top of Owen. She snapped her hand back and reached for her Fire magic once again.
I reached through the flames, dug my fingers into her hair, and yanked her off him. I tossed her aside as hard as I could, tearing clumps of black hair out by the roots.
Hazel shrieked with pain, but I didn't give her time to recover. She hit the ground, and a second later, I was on top of her. Hazel reached for her Fire, throwing it into my face.
I ignored the flames searing my skin, raised my knife high, and buried it to the hilt in the bitch's black, burning heart.
Hazel arched her back and let out a bloodcurdling scream. I ripped the knife out and drove it right back into her chest, twisting and twisting and twisting it in. Muscles ripped, tendons snapped, and one of her ribs cracked under my brutal assault. Hazel slapped at me, her blows getting weaker and weaker with every passing moment, the Fire on her fingers giving way to smoking red and orange sparks. I tore the knife out of her chest once again.
And this time, I slit her throat with the blade.
Blood gushed out of the wound, spattering onto me, as hot as the flames still licking at my skin. Hazel's screams died down to gurgling wails, then were choked off altogether. She stared at me, the bright, shimmering Fire in her eyes slowly, stubbornly dimming and dulling as death crept up on her. Her head lolled to the side, and the last of the flames dancing on her fingertips vanished into smoke. After a moment, even that drifted up into the evening sky and dissipated.
When I was sure that she was dead, I crawled over to where Owen lay on his back on the grass. Deep, dark, ugly red burns and blisters covered every part of him that I could see - his chest, hands, arms, and face. His eyebrows had been singed off, and his scalp gleamed a baby pink in places where his black hair had been burned way.
Bile rose in my throat at his devastating injuries.
"Gin . . ." he rasped.
"It's okay," I whispered, trying not to let him see how worried I was. "You're going to be okay - "
A shadow fell over me, blotting out the evening sun.
I looked up. Harley Grimes had shaken off his daze and now stood over me, more Fire pooling in the palm of his hand. He reared back his arm, ready to throw it at me, ready to end me. I reached for what little magic I had and hovered over Owen, determined to protect him as much as I could - A dark figure dressed all in black slammed into Grimes from behind. Sophia.
Sophia? What the hell was she doing there?
I blinked and blinked, wondering if my eyes and the clouds of smoke that filled the yard were playing tricks on me, but it was her. Sophia was there, and she was fighting Grimes.
With one hand, Sophia ground Grimes's face into the dirt. With the other, she unleashed a series of sharp, brutal blows to his kidneys.
Grimes managed to raise his head and let out a delighted laugh. "Oh, Sophia," he purred. "Still trying to kill me after all these years. When will you ever learn?"
Grimes reached around with one hand and blasted
Sophia with his Fire magic. She grunted with pain and rolled away from him, smothering the flames scorching her clothes and skin. A moment later, they were both back on their feet, fists clenched, staring each other down.
My gaze flicked past them. Sophia's classic convertible sat in the driveway behind the vehicles that Grimes's men had driven up here. I hadn't heard the car pull up in all the commotion. But she wasn't the only one who'd come.
Jo-Jo was leaning against the side of the car, holding on to cooper's arm to steady herself. I hadn't told them what was going down tonight, but they must have figured it out for themselves. That, or Finn had told them.
Finn, Bria, and Phillip came running up, having finally dispatched the last of Grimes's men. Finn took aim at Grimes. He looked at me, but I shook my head. Finn nodded and lowered his gun.
Grimes stared at Finn, Bria, and Phillip, then at Owen and me, and finally, at cooper, Jo-Jo, and Sophia. For the first time, he seemed to realize that he was all alone and that Hazel and the rest of his men were dead.
But it didn't faze or worry him in the slightest. Instead, he reached for his Fire magic once again, more of it than ever before, until his eyes burned like dark liquid gold with his own power, and flames sparked and crackled like fireworks exploding on his fingers.
"Come with me now, Sophia," he ordered. "And I won't kill your friends."
Another damn lie, and we all knew it.
Sophia shook her head. "No. You're not killing anyone."
Grimes threw back his head and laughed - a wild, loud, crazy laugh that told us all just how far off his rocker he was. His plan to hunt me down, find Sophia, and drag us both back to his mountain had completely unraveled, and Grimes was coming undone at the seams right along with it.
"Really? And who's going to stop me, you?" He sneered. "Please. You're not strong enough to stop me.
You never were. That's why you had to get that assassin to protect you all these years. Because you weren't strong enough to kill me yourself."
Sophia shrugged. "Maybe not then. But strong enough now."
Jo-Jo hobbled forward, helped along by cooper, and went to stand beside her sister.
"We both are," Jo-Jo said in a clear, sharp voice. "My only regret is that we didn't do this years ago."
Grimes threw back his head and laughed again. Finally, when he realized that he was the only one who found it funny, he glared at Jo-Jo with pure hate in his eyes. "You won't kill me. You don't have enough magic to kill me.
None of you does. None of you is strong enough."
Jo-Jo gave him a sweet smile. "That's the funny thing about Fire," she said. "No matter how strong it is, it simply can't survive without Air - and neither can you."
She reached for her Air magic, her eyes glowing a milky white. But instead of blasting Grimes with it, Jo-Jo did something even more clever and devious. She sucked all of the oxygen away from him.
The flames burning on his hand were immediately snuffed out. Grimes stared down at his hand in disbelief, then started snapping his fingers together, as though they were a cigarette lighter that he was trying to coax to life.
He reached and reached for his magic, but without all that precious oxygen, he couldn't get so much as a single spark to flare to life.
Jo-Jo looked at Sophia, and the sisters nodded to each other. Sophia slowly approached him.
"Fine," Grimes muttered, finally giving up on his power. "I don't need magic to put you in your place, Sophia. I never did."
He let out a loud roar and charged at her.
And then they danced.
Despite all the years that I'd known her, I hadn't seen Sophia fight all that often. But she was as efficient and brutal with her blows as I was. More than that, she was motivated by all of the things that she'd suffered at Grimes's hands.