Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

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    ling through the salon like static electricity, just itching long ago grown over the metal that had been melted into to zap me. I scooted my stool back another foot from the my hands. I curled my fingers around Violet’s purse, hopdwarf. ing the imitation leather would shield my hands enough of the four elements, two were opposites, and two to block the burning sensations in my palms. Didn’t were complementary. Fire and Ice didn’t go together, but work. Never did. So I sat there and watched Jo-Jo. Fire and Air did, just like Stone was the natural comThe dwarf slowly passed her palm over Violet Fox’s panion to Ice. Each element also had various offshoots, face. Air elementals made great healers because of their like metal for Stone, water for Ice, and electricity for Air, ability to tap into and use all the natural gases in the air—that some folks could tap into. Jo-Jo Deveraux was an Air including oxygen. Right now, Jo-Jo was using her magic elemental, which meant her magic was the exact opposite to force oxygen into Violet’s body, making it circulate of my cool Stone and Ice power. Being in the presence of under the skin of her face, using the air molecules to heal someone using so much of an opposing element always what had been so viciously broken.
    made me twitchy and unsettled. Jo-Jo’s power just felt Again and again, Jo-Jo moved her hand over Viowrong to me, as would any Air or Fire elemental’s magic. let’s face. Every time she did, the girl’s nose got a little Just like my Stone and Ice power would seem foreign to straighter, her jaw a little squarer. The swelling eased, them.
    and the nasty streaks of color faded from Violet’s cheeks. But the worst part was the spider rune scars on my Watching Jo-Jo work always reminded me of a book I’d palms. As Jo-Jo brought even more of her power to bear, had as a child. one that featured a cartoon character. If the silverstone metal embedded in my skin began to itch you looked at the pages one at a time, the character didn’t and burn. Silverstone was a very rare metal, with the unmove. But if you flipped through the sheets fast enough, usual property of being able to absorb and store all kinds he’d walk from one side of the paper to the other. of magic. Many elementals wore runes made out of silTen minutes later, Jo-Jo dropped her hand. Her eyes verstone and used them to contain bits and pieces of their dimmed and lost their milky, magical glow. So did her power that they could use when needed. Sort of like magpalm. “There,” the dwarf said in a low voice. “It’s done.”
    ical batteries. My mother, Eira, had used her snowflake
    “He also kicked her once,” I said. “In the stomach.”
    rune that way, although it hadn’t saved her in the end. Jo-Jo nodded. “He bruised her kidneys bad, but I fixed But silverstone not only absorbed the magic—it hunthat too.”
    gered for it, as though the metal was hollow and eager, The dwarf got to her feet, wet a washcloth in the sink, aching even, for elemental power to fill it up and make it and used it to wipe the blood off Violet’s face. The girl whole. I could feel the silverstone’s desire for more magic, didn’t stir. She hadn’t made a sound the whole time Jo-Jo for more power, even though the skin on my palms had was working on her. Not surprising. Her body had gone Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 106-107
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    through a serious trauma. She’d probably sleep for at least murmured. “I thought it was strange she wanted to leave an hour, maybe longer. Being healed by magic always before the end.”
    took a lot out of a person, as the body tried to adjust from I raised an eyebrow.
    being injured to suddenly being well again. And using as

“We were watching a western. The Good, the Bad, and much magic as Jo-Jo just had would wipe out all but the the Ugly with Clint Eastwood. Sophia hardly ever leaves strongest elementals.
    before the big showdown at the end,” Jo-Jo explained. That was one reason I tried not to rely on my magic
    “Her favorite part is when Lee Van Cleef dies.”
    too much, tried not to use it for big things. I didn’t like Sophia Deveraux, the Goth girl dwarf, was also quite being left weak and helpless afterward, even if I had rethe movie buff. Westerns, action flicks, mob movies. She tired