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"Guilty as charged," I said, flashing my knife at him. "And I'm ready to play. How about you?"
Instead of racing toward me like I thought he might, the vampire actually did the smart thing. He pointed at the giants.
"Kill her!" he yelled at them. "Now!"
The two giants charged me. Behind them, Brown started digging in his pants pocket, probably searching for his cell phone. Not good. I needed to get to the bastard before he could tell anyone else what was happening here, give someone a description of me, or worse, call for backup. Which meant that I had a minute, two tops, to take out the giants and kill the vampire.
A cold blast of magic surged through the night air, and a blue-white light flashed for a second before winking out.
Vinnie Volga reared up, a jagged Ice knife glinting in his right hand. A weapon that I'd made myself many times. Crude, but effective, as Vinnie no doubt knew since he slammed the shard of Ice into the vampire's thigh, driving it in deep and twisting it as hard as he could. The vampire bellowed with rage and crumpled into the sand, all thoughts of his cell phone forgotten. Nice move. Vinnie threw himself on top of the other man, and the two of them started grappling, rolling around and around and spraying sand everywhere.
But I didn't have time to track their progress because the giants were on me. I waited until the first one was in range, then reached over and shoved one of the metal swings at him. The giant wasn't expecting the move, and the swing caught him in the chest. Not enough to hurt him, of course, but it gave me time to dart forward, hit all the chains, and make the swings start rocking back and forth, creating a moving metal maze behind me.
Instead of being smart and going around, the first giant barreled headfirst into the row of swings, long arms outstretched, trying to get to me before I slipped out the other side. But he misjudged the arcs and ended up with his arms stuck through the different swings, the metal chains crashing and clanging together like cymbals.
I grabbed onto a swinging chain and kicked up, then out, with my feet. My boots caught the giant in the shoulder, and he spun around, twisting the chains around his torso. Instead of spinning back the other way, the giant let out a loud roar and tried to do a Hulk move to break free. But the metal was stronger than it looked, and the chains held firm.
The momentum from my kick sent me back before gravity took over and I swung toward the giant again. I used the opportunity to bury my knife in his chest all the way up to the hilt. I felt the blade scuttle off of his breast-bone before sinking deeper into his hard muscle. I yanked it out. Not enough damage to kill him, but enough to make him think about how much he was hurting.
Sure enough, the giant howled with pain and rage, baying like a wolf at the moon. He brought his fist up to hit me, but the chains wrapped around his body limited his range of motion. Still, he got a blow in on my left hip. It was just a glancing hit, but given his enormous strength, it felt like someone had slapped me with a sledgehammer. Red-hot pins of pain exploded in my hip joint.
I grunted and slashed open his stomach with my knife, going first one way, then the other with the silverstone blade. X marks the spot. Blood spewed out onto my hands and arced through the cold air, painting me with its steaming, coppery warmth.
I'd hurt him badly this time, and the giant gave up all thought of trying to attack me. Instead, now wailing and blubbering, he clutched his hands to his stomach, trying to slow the bleeding and shove everything back in where it was supposed to go. But the chains thwarted him once more, and he just couldn't get his hands up in the right place to really staunch the flow. He'd bleed out soon.
In the background, Vinnie and the vampire continued their struggle in the sandbox, still rolling back and forth, each one trying to get the upper hand.
My hip now throbbing with pain, my bloody knife still in my hand, I turned to face the other giant.
He'd been more cautious than his buddy and hadn't followed me into the swings. He stared at me a second then launched himself at one of the heavy wooden support beams that held up the whole thing-trying to collapse the entire swing set on top of me, along with his friend. The wood wasn't as strong as the metal chains were, and the beam creaked, then snapped under the giant's great strength and heavy weight. The entire structure started to slide sideways.
I threw myself forward out of the way of the flying seats and clanking chains. A second later, the whole thing collapsed in a crashing cacophony of metal, dragging the trapped giant down with it. Chains and seats piled on top of his broad back. The giant groaned but didn't get up. Well, that was one way to bury someone. I'd take what I could get.
My hands and knees sank into the loose gravel that covered the ground around the swing set, and some of the stones scraped my palms. By this point, the stones had taken on low, ugly, harsh mutters, reflecting the violence that had just happened, as the giant's blood continued to seep onto them. The gravel was just as dense as the sand in the box, which made it hard for me to scramble to my feet, as did the stabbing pain in my hip.
The second giant surged forward and clamped his hand onto my shoulder, his fingers digging into the socket like drills. The bastard picked me up, hoisted me up over his shoulder, and benched-pressed me as high as he could-a good nine-feet-plus off the ground. There was nothing I could do to stop him or make him put me down. Not from this angle. Fuck. This was not going to end well for me.
"You're going to pay for killing Olson, you bitch!" the giant screamed and threw me down as hard as he could.
I closed my eyes and reached for my Stone magic, pulling the cool power up through my veins, pouring it out onto my skin, head, and hair, letting it harden my body into an impenetrable shell.
I slammed into the closest seesaw, the whole left side of my body smacking into the metal, before rolling across the top and plummeting down the far side. It didn't hurt that badly, not like it would have if I hadn't used my Stone magic to protect myself, but it still jarred me. I still felt the hard, raw, brutal force of it. Especially in my injured hip. I gritted my teeth, ignoring the pain now shooting down into my leg and on past my knee.
But I didn't get up.
Fighting hand to hand, the giant would kick my ass now, especially since I wasn't a hundred percent anymore. Which meant that the quickest way to kill the bastard would be to surprise him. Hence my header on the gravel. The force of the fall had ripped my silverstone knife away from me, and I didn't dare reach for another one. Not yet. Not until he was in range.
Ten . . . twenty . . . I hadn't even counted to thirty before I heard his shoes crunch on the gravel. I cracked my eyes open just enough to track his movements. He came at me from the opposite side of the seesaw. The rows of seats still creaked up and down from the force of my body hitting them. My eyes flicked up at one seat wobbling just above my head.
"Bitch," the giant muttered as he neared me. "That'll teach you to kill one of us-"
I surged up, grabbed the seat, and brought it down as hard as I could.
On the other side of the seesaw, the opposing, attached seat zoomed up and clipped the giant in the chin. He groaned, staggered back, and fell-right onto the merry-go-round. The giant's head slammed against one of the metal handles with a sickening crack. Dazed, he slumped to the ground, half on, half off the merry-go-round.
I got to my feet, grabbed a knife out of my boot, and hobbled over to him. The giant's oversize, buglike eyes rolled back in his head, but he still saw me coming. He reached up, trying to keep me at arm's length, but the blow to his skull had messed up his depth perception, which made it easy enough for me to kick him in the balls. The giant howled, his hands automatically going south to cover himself from further assault instead of protecting his chest and head.
I leaned over and cut his throat.
