Elemental Assassin 01 - Spider's Bite

own.
    Kick. Slap. Punch. Punch.
    We rolled round and round exchanging blows, when we weren’t throwing our magic at each other. Alex pummeled me with the wind. I shoved back with my Stone magic, blocking her vicious attacks.
    After ten seconds, I was starting to get tired. Thirty seconds in, I was sucking wind. By the minute mark, it was all I could do to keep going. Using so much of my magic was quickly draining me. The bullet and the fire it caused in my shoulder weren’t helping matters.
    Then Alexis got in a lucky, unexpected punch, and my head slammed back against the rock. For a second, the world went black. My Stone magic flickered and started to slip away, like water being swallowed up by arid sand. I struggled to hold onto my magic, my power, to focus on it and nothing else. If I let go of my magic, I’d get dead. Her Air power would wash over me and flay me alive, forcibly rip and tear the skin and muscle and bone from my body until I was nothing but a pile of ruined flesh.
    Alexis saw me weakening. She positioned herself on top of me and hit me in the face again and again. The blows further dazed me, and my Stone magic weakened that much more. I could feel the Air magic now, lashing against my skin like a whip. Blisters started to form on my face, neck, and hands as the magic and the oxygen it contained forced its way underneath my flesh.
    Alexis raised her hand, and her fingers flashed to life. Once again, her Air magic made them burn like a welder’s torch. She brought her hand up, positioning her fingers above my eyes. She was going to use her magic to put them out and tear the skin off my face.
    Just like she’d done to Fletcher.
    Her hand dipped downward, but I caught it with my own and shoved it back. I’d held onto enough of my magic so that her Air magic didn’t immediately rend my skin, but it was just a matter of time. A minute. Two, tops.
    Back and forth, our hands seesawed, her burning fingers coming closer and closer to my face every single time until all I could see was their milky white glow. More blisters swelled up on my skin, threatening to burst. That was agony enough. I couldn’t imagine what the pain would be like when they ruptured. I wasn’t going to last much longer. Not like this.
    Fletcher, I thought desperately. What would Fletcher do? Kill the bitch any way you can . I could almost hear his gruff voice murmuring in my ear.
    “Give it up, assassin,” Alexis crowed. “My magic is stronger than yours. You can’t win. Air trumps Stone, in this case.”
    And that’s when it hit me. That’s when I finally realized I’d been going about this the wrong way. I never would have done a hit by confronting someone head-on. Frontal assaults rarely worked in my line of business. Fletcher had taught me that. I was the Spider. The woman who hid in the shadows. Sneak attacks were what I did best. Outthinking people, outmaneuvering them, that’s what I excelled at. That was my real strength.
    Time to go back to it.
    I had enough juice left in me for one final burst of magic. Maybe two. So far, I’d been on the defensive, trying to block Alexis’s magic. I’d never liked being on the defensive. I needed to end this. Now.
    So I threw my right hand out to the side, as far away as I could from her body and the Air magic howling around her like an invisible wolf. Alexis thought I was weakening that much more. She paused a moment to allow herself a triumphant chuckle.
    That luxury cost the bitch her life.
    With my outstretched hand, I reached for my other magic—my Ice magic. That element had always been far weaker than my Stone magic. All I could really do with it was make Ice crystals and cubes and other small shapes.
    But it was enough.
    The spider rune scar on my hand iced over. My fingers closed around the edge of the jagged icicle I’d created in my palm. Cold comfort. I snapped up my wrist and slammed the crude weapon into Alexis James’s heart.
    The milky white flames on her fingertips snuffed out, like a candle doused by a stiff wind. The icicle broke off in her chest, so I threw my hand out to the side and made another one. This time, the cold weapon went into her neck. I turned my head to the side. Her blood spattered onto my left cheek, stinging it like hot wax. The pressure made some of the blisters on my face burst. I gritted my teeth against the searing pain.
    Alexis James’s eyes widened, and she clawed at the cold cylinder in her neck. But I didn’t wait for her