The stones slammed into the dwarf, knocking him away from me and down onto the floor. Porter yelped in surprise and tried to get up, and I used my magic to blast another wave of stones out of the fireplace and straight into him, knocking him back down to the ground. He yelped again, but instead of trying to get up, he curled into a ball to protect himself from the heavy chunks of rocks and sharp, flying shrapnel.
I’d managed to take down Porter, at least for a few minutes, so I looked over at the fireplace again, this time focusing on a much lower stone in the wall.
“Come on, baby,” I muttered. “Come to Gin.”
My heart pounded, sweat streamed down my face, and tremors shook my body from head to toe from concentrating so hard and long on that one spot. Even though I’d been practicing using my Stone magic in just this sort of pinpoint-precision way, getting one single stone to shoot out of an entire wall of them and go exactly where I wanted it to taxed even my great elemental power. But this was my best—and only—chance of escaping, so I cleared my mind, concentrated even more intently on that spot on the wall, and let loose with another hard, forceful wave of magic.
CRACK!
That single stone shot out from the wall, zoomed across the room, and slammed straight into the side of my chair. The heavy rock punched right through the wood, shattering the entire left side of the chair. The brutal blow knocked me over onto the ground, and my head smacked against the floor, making me see white stars. But my left hand was free now, so I pushed the pain away, grabbed a long, jagged piece of stone from the floor, and used it to saw through the ropes on my right wrist and my ankles.
And not a moment too soon.
Porter finally realized that I wasn’t targeting him anymore, and he got up onto his hands and knees and shook off the stones that had landed on top of him, like a dog flinging water out of its fur. He had a large purple knot on his forehead, and several bloody gashes streaked down the side of his face, but he was by no means out of the fight and not even close to being dead.
I staggered to my feet, and Porter did the same. His head whipped left and right, taking in my destruction of his precious cottage. By this point, the fireplace was little more than a crumbled heap of stones, and deep, ugly cracks zigzagged through the entire ceiling and down into the walls. Gray dust covered everything, including that photo of him and Maria. It lay in the rubble in front of the fireplace, the silver frame busted to pieces, the glass shattered, and the actual picture inside reduced to tatters.
“You bitch!” he screamed. “You’ve ruined it! You’ve ruined everything!”
“You’re damn right I did,” I snarled.
Porter charged at me again, but I whipped up my hand and sent a spray of Ice daggers shooting out at him. He lurched out of the way but tripped over the rocky rubble and fell back onto the floor. But even that had little impact, given his thick, strong dwarven musculature, and he let out a loud growl and started to get right back up again.
I couldn’t let him get his hands on me, so I darted past him, threw open the cottage door, and sprinted outside. A wooden porch was attached to the front of the house, just like I thought, and I ran across it, pounded down the steps, and raced out into the darkness beyond. But I didn’t go far.
“Come back here!” Porter yelled.
Instead of responding, I whipped back around so that I was facing the cottage again, snapped up my hands, and let loose another wave of my Stone magic.
And this time, I collapsed the entire fucking house right on top of him.
The cottage might have been perfectly pristine and preserved on the inside, but the outside was old, weathered, crumbling, and covered with dead kudzu vines. I hammered at the structure again and again, cracking the walls and roof with my Stone magic and forcing my Ice power into all those open spaces. Then I used both my Stone and my Ice magic to widen those cracks and break away even larger chunks of rocks. Forget finesse. I battered the structure as hard and fast as I could with my power, and thirty seconds later, I was finally rewarded.
Crack!
Crack! Crack!
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The front wall exploded, as though blown apart by a series of bombs. Without that support, the roof caved in, and the other walls crumbled under the suddenly unbalanced weight. Less than ten seconds later, the entire cottage folded in like a house of cards right on top of Bruce Porter. But I kept right on unleashing wave after wave of magic, crushing every single stone that I could and burying the dwarf in this horrible place where he had killed so many innocent women.
Finally, when the house was just a pile of dusty, rocky rubble, I let go of my magic and lowered my hands. I wiped the sweat off my face and drew in long, deep breaths, trying to calm my pounding heart. All the while, I stared at the cottage, looking and listening for any signs of life. But the only sounds were the continued crack-crack-crack and scrape-scrape-scrape of the rocks breaking and sliding together, as what was left of the house slowly settled. I reached out with my magic again, this time listening to the stones themselves, but their mutterings were more relieved than agonized now, as if they were glad that no one else would have to suffer within their shattered walls. The sounds comforted me.
Now that I’d buried Porter, it was time to figure out exactly where I was, so I peered into the darkness. I had no idea what time it was, and there was no moon or starlight to help me. Thick, heavy clouds cloaked the night sky, and it had snowed sometime while I’d been unconscious. A dusting of flakes coated the ground, brightening the landscape just a bit. While I stood there, more and more flakes started falling, and I even thought that I heard a faint rumble of thunder in the distance, like thundersnow. I remembered what Jo-Jo had said about storm clouds being in my future. I shivered—and not entirely from the cold.
Rivera had said that we were still on his estate, and I thought back to the property maps that I’d analyzed when I was scouting out his mansion. Some noise sounded in the distance, and I tilted my head to the side, trying to figure out what it was. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was the Aneirin River. Suddenly, I knew exactly where I was. When Finn and I had been here, I’d noticed an old, crumbling cottage off in the woods in the distance—the cottage that I had just reduced to rubble.
I thought about what I knew of the rest of the area. If I headed toward the sound of the rushing water, I would eventually reach the cliffs that overlooked the river. From there, I could better orient myself and hike out of the surrounding woods. After that, all I had to do was get to a road or a phone, and I could let the others know where I was—
A body slammed into me from behind, knocking me down to the ground. Rough hands flipped me over onto my back, and Bruce Porter locked his hands around my throat.
The dwarf looked like, well, like a house had fallen on top of him. Gray dust and dirt covered him from head to toe, his suit hung in shredded tatters from his body, and the cuts on his face, hands, and arms all dripped blood. He seemed like an angry ghost come back to get his revenge on me.
His hands tightened around my neck, and I quickly grabbed hold of my Stone magic again, hardening my skin so that he couldn’t cut off my air any more than he already was.
“You bitch!” Porter growled. “You think you can run away from me? You think you can reject me? I love you! I’ve always loved you! Why can’t you love me back? Why?”
He wasn’t even talking to me anymore. He wasn’t even trying to kill me anymore. Not really. For Porter, this was still all about Maria, and I was just unfortunate enough to be her latest substitute.
Since I didn’t have my knives, I reached for my Ice magic, created a sharp dagger, and stabbed him in the bicep with it, just trying to get him to loosen his grip on my throat. He grunted with pain, but he didn’t let go, so I blasted the wound with my power, driving hundreds of tiny Ice needles deep down into his muscles.
That was finally enough t
o get him to lose his grip, at least with that one hand. I rammed my elbow up into his face, breaking his nose. He grunted again and rolled off me. I scrambled away from him and got back up onto my own feet.
And so did Porter.
Despite the bloody cuts on his face, the bruises covering his body, and the needles of Ice sticking up out of his arm like he was part porcupine, the dwarf got right back up. Even worse, he seemed just as strong as ever before. He didn’t teeter, didn’t stagger, didn’t even wobble, not the slightest, tiniest bit. It was like he didn’t even feel any of his injuries. Maybe he didn’t, given the snarling curses spewing past his lips and the determined rage glinting in his eyes. Or maybe he just didn’t care about anything other than killing me right now.
I’d never much cared for zombie movies, but I was starting to feel like I was trapped in one, because Porter just wouldn’t die. I’d collapsed an entire house on top of him, and he looked like it had just been a warm-up bout for the main event. If I’d had my knives, I could have eventually inflicted so many wounds on him that he would collapse and die from the blood loss alone. But I didn’t have my knives, and I didn’t have an easy way of killing him without getting dead myself, especially given how much damage he could inflict on me with his bare hands, something that he seemed very eager to do.
Porter growled and charged at me again, determined not to let me—or the ghost of Maria that I represented—get away.
So I did the only thing I could.
I sidestepped him, whirled around, and ran away.
• • •
I left the clearing in front of the cottage behind and darted into the woods like a deer being chased by a hunter. That’s exactly what I was at this moment.
“Come back here, you bitch!” he roared, charging through the trees behind me.
I forced myself to run faster, my boots kicking up sprays of snow and slipping on the slick, frozen leaves underneath. And of course, I hooked my foot on a gnarled root and stumbled right into a tree. I managed to turn my body so that only my left shoulder hit the thick, solid trunk, instead of my face, but the hard blow still sent a wave of pain shooting through that entire side of my body. I ignored the pain, yanked my foot free, and kept going.
The whole time that I ran, slipping and sliding through the patches of snow, I tried to think of some way that I could kill Porter before he killed me. But without my knives, my options were severely limited. I’d exhausted my Ice magic with that last blast of needles in his arm. Even the cold reserves stored in my spider rune pendant and ring were gone. All I had left now was my Stone power, and precious little of it, but that magic wouldn’t actually let me cut Porter down.
Another tree root clutched at my boot, tripping me again, and I forced myself to slow down before I fell and broke my ankle. If that happened, I was truly done for.
A stitch throbbed in my left side, and I stopped and ducked behind a tree. I wiped the cold sweat off my forehead and sucked down breath after breath, trying to slow my racing heart. After a minute of that, I made myself breathe in and out through my nose, so that I could listen and try to figure out where Porter was. But I didn’t hear him crashing through the trees after me, and only the steady rush of the river broke the snowy quiet.
I focused on the sound of the rushing water. It was much louder here than it had been outside the cottage, and I pushed away from the tree, trying to figure out how close I might be to the Aneirin River. A minute later, I stepped out of the woods. About fifty feet ahead of me, the ground dropped away completely, and I realized that I was looking at the cliffs that lined the river, the same ones that Finn and I had come across two nights ago.
And I suddenly realized how I could kill Porter once and for all—or at least take him down with me.
Instead of heading back into the woods, I left the trees behind and walked forward until I was standing by the edge of the cliffs. I peered down, but it looked the same as before. A hundred-foot drop, with a rocky shore below and the black ribbon of the river running alongside it.
More snow started to fall, turning into a steady shower. I stepped away from the edge, looking right and left through the thick, swirling flakes, but this spot was as good as any to make my last stand, so I turned around and faced the woods again. And then I stood there and waited, just waited for Porter to find me.
It didn’t take him long, since he knew the area a lot better than I did. Three minutes later, he ran out of the woods into the snow-dusted clearing in front of me.
“Maria, there you are,” he called out. “I knew that you couldn’t get away from me.”
Instead of offering up some fresh, cruel taunt, I shook my head, so that my dyed blond hair fell forward, covering most of my face, including my smeared, runny makeup. I also reached up and started curling a strand of it around my finger over and over again, playing along with Porter’s fantasy and giving him something to fixate on.
“Why would I run away from you, Bruce?” I crooned. “I was waiting here for you. It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen you.”
I had no idea what Maria Rivera’s voice had sounded like, so I made my tone low and breathy, without a trace of malice or sarcasm. It was the same tone that I’d heard Finn use when he was wooing a new client. And it actually seemed to work, because Porter nodded his head, agreeing with me.
“I know now that we belong together,” I said in that same breathy voice. “I’m sorry that it took me so long to realize it. I’ve been such a fool.”
For a moment, confusion filled Porter’s face, and I wondered if I’d gone too far, if I’d deviated too much from his memories of Maria and how she’d rejected him. But then his bloody, dusty face split into a wide smile, and he walked forward.
“You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear you say that,” he said, his voice taking on the same high, giddy note that he’d had in the cottage earlier.
I smiled back at him and slowly raised my arms out to my sides, as if I was inviting him to come over and give me a hug. That was exactly what I wanted him to do.
“I know, baby,” I crooned again. “And I’m so sorry. I’ve been wrong about so many things, including you. Especially you.”
Porter nodded. “That you have, Maria. That you have.”
“Well, why don’t you come over here and let me make it up to you? I promise that I’ll make it worth your while.” I let out a soft giggle and batted my gunky eyelashes at him, as though I really were trying to seduce him. The thought made me sick, and I had to grind my teeth to hold a fake smile on my face.
He walked a little closer to me and then a little closer still, his shoes crunching through the snow. The sounds reminded me of bones breaking, but I forced myself to keep smiling and keep my arms raised, even though I was leaving myself totally open and exposed to him.
Porter stopped right in front of me, and I peered at him through the screen of blond hair that still hid most of my face. He smiled at me for a second longer, then lunged forward and locked his hands around my throat.
“Did you really think that I would ever mistake you for her?” he snarled, tightening his grip. “She was the love of my life. You? You’re nothing but a damn nuisance.”
I laughed in his face, although it came out as more of a choking, wheezing sound.
“What’s so funny?” he growled. “Why are you laughing at me again? Why?”
Instead of trying to pry his fingers off my neck, I reached down and pulled him even closer. “I might be a nuisance, but I’m the nuisance who’s just killed you, you sick son of a bitch.”
He frowned, wondering what I was getting at, but I threw my head back and screamed as loudly as I could. The sharp, sudden sound made him flinch, and he shifted on his feet, just the slightest bit. I slammed my boot into his ankle, pulling him off balance. Porter staggered forward, and I used his own momentum to help me backpedal, dragging him along wi
th me. He cursed, realizing what I was up to, but it was already too late.
Gravity is a bitch, and so am I.
With one final burst of strength, I kicked us both over the edge of the cliffs.
27
As we fell, I grabbed hold of every single scrap of Stone magic that I had left, every ounce of power that was still inside my body, plus what was stored in my spider rune pendant and ring. In an instant, I sent that magic surging out through my entire body, using it to harden every single part of me, from my dyed blond hair to my head to my arms, chest, legs, and feet. I also flipped us over in midair, so that Porter was on the bottom of our free fall.
“Wha—wha—aaah!” The dwarf’s words dissolved into one solid, unending scream.
I grinned and held on to him even tighter.
We seemed to fall forever, but less than five seconds later, we hit bottom.
Crunch-crunch.
Porter hit the ground first. An instant later, I slammed into him. The weight of my body, made much heavier by my Stone magic, drove his that much deeper into the ground—right on top of all those sharp, jagged rocks that lined the riverbank.
Porter punched into the rocks like a water balloon. Splat. I heard the crunch-crunch-crunch of his bones breaking, along with a loud series of snap-snap-snaps, as though all the vertebrae in his spine were exploding one after another.
I also felt every bit of the brutal impact, and the sudden sharp ache in my chest told me that I probably had a couple of cracked ribs. My brain rattled around inside my skull, meaning that I probably also had a serious concussion. But still, I’d take that over trading places with Porter any day.
I might not have had my knives, but I’d made my own body into a weapon, and Porter was dying as a result.
For a minute, maybe two, both of us were too stunned to move, so we lay where we had landed, him on the rocks and me on top of him, my fingers still fisted in his tattered suit jacket. Finally, Porter coughed, spraying blood everywhere. The drops stung my face with their wet, shocking warmth, and still more of them soaked into my fake blond hair. The sharp, coppery stench drowned out the chemical odor of the hair dye.