But she quickly realized that something was wrong, since I wasn’t screaming with pain and gushing blood from every available surface. She snarled with disgust when she realized that her blows weren’t having the desired effect, and she finally noticed the magic glinting in my gray gaze.

“Stone magic,” she muttered. “I should have remembered that you have that. I fucking hate Stone magic. But don’t you worry. You’ll run out of that long before I get tired of hitting you.”

She stopped her assault and pulled back just long enough for me to throw my hand to the side, reach for my Ice magic, and use it to form a sharp, cold knife. I raised the weapon and drove it into her chest, but since I was flat on my back, I couldn’t put enough muscle behind the thrust to make it do any real damage.

Clementine stared down at the Ice knife sticking out of her chest a couple of inches above her heart. “Really? That old tired trick? Does that ever actually work for you?”

Her distraction let me reach down and fumble for the other weapons on my utility belt. I didn’t have much to work with. I’d emptied my gun during the firefight with the giants earlier in the museum hallway, and the metal baton was too long for me to slide it out of its loop. So was the flashlight that was tucked through another loop. But there was one other small tube hooked onto the belt: the pepper spray I’d taken off the first giant I’d killed.

Clementine pulled the knife out of her chest and crushed the Ice with one hand before flinging the melting bits off her fingers. “Is that the best you can do?” she mocked. “Why, that didn’t hurt any more than a little ole bee sting—”

I pulled out the tube, flipped the nozzle, and gave her a face full of pepper spray, even though the close proximity made my own eyes water and nose burn. Clementine cursed and slapped the spray out of my hand. It too disappeared into one of the pools of water. The giant looked at me, her whole face red, puffy, and soaked with tears.

She drew in a breath, and I thought she might start screaming with pain.

Instead, she laughed, leaned forward, and started hitting me again.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

I was flat on my back on the stone walkway, with Clementine on top of me, her knees squeezing in on my ribs. The irony was that I’d done this same thing more than once, used the weight of my body to slowly drive the air out of someone’s lungs. I usually ended things rather quickly with a knife to the heart, but Clementine seemed content to keep beating me until her fists punched all the way through my body and out the other side.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.