But I wasn't going to run. I might have given Sophia and the others a good head start, but her injuries, combined with Warren's, would make their escape a slow one.
I still needed to give Grimes, Hazel, and their men something else to focus on for at least a little while longer: me.
I slid my knife up my sleeve, grabbed the guns from where I'd placed them on the rocks, and waited for
Grimes's men to come.
After seeing what had happened to their buddy with the broken neck, Grimes's men quit trying to climb up the frozen rocks to get to me. But they had just as hard a time getting back down again, and several slipped off the ridge and fell to the ground below. Moans, groans, and high pitched whimpers drifted up to me, along with the sharp, satisfying snap-snap-snap of bones breaking. My elemental Ice hadn't killed any more of the men, but I'd put at least a few of them out of commission. Hard to think about chasing after someone when your own femur was sticking up out of your skin like a lollipop gushing blood.
I looked down dispassionately at one man, who was crying, rocking back and forth, and clutching his leg. I could see the white of his bone from where I was. He wouldn't be getting up without an Air elemental to heal him. Even then, the process of being healed would be as excruciating as the broken leg itself. They should just shoot him. It would be kinder -
Crack!
A bullet zinged off the rocks to my right, and I realized that one man had already made the trek through the woods and up the side of the ridge.
Crack! Crack!
Too bad he had lousy aim. The bullets pinged off the rocks around me, but none of them actually came close to hitting me.
I ducked down behind a boulder, then scrambled on top of it and launched myself through the air. The man raised his gun, but I hit his body before he could pull the trigger, and we both went down on the ground. I was the only one who got back up.
Footsteps crunched through the leaves on the trail to my right, and shouts rose from that direction, like a pack of hounds baying out their location.
"Up here!"
"There she is!"
"Get that bitch!"
Men darted out of the woods and headed toward me.
I raised the guns in my hands and took aim.
Sophia. Jo-Jo. Fletcher.
That was the mantra I chanted in my head as I fired off shot after shot, carefully aiming at every person who came within range of my weapons and trying to make every single bullet count. Man after man went down, tumbling to a stop at my feet with holes in their heads, necks, and chests, but all too soon, my guns click-click-clicked empty.
I threw them away, palmed the knife that I'd tucked up my sleeve, and grabbed another one out of a pocket on my vest. More properly attired, I twirled the weapons in my hands and stepped forward.
Sophia. Jo-Jo. Fletcher.
I whirled first one way, then the other, cutting into every man who got within arm's and knife's reach of me, trying to make every single slice and stab as devastating as possible. Blood spattered everywhere, on me and especially on the rocks. Below my feet, the stone began sing - ing a dark, rousing tune about all the death that I was dealing out, and I found myself merrily, loudly humming along in time to it, even though I was the only one who could hear the vicious chorus.
I sang, but the men screamed, the sounds rending the air like my knives did their flesh, the high, sharp echoes reverberating around the ridge and then rattling off into the trees and forest beyond. I hoped Sophia could hear these bastards' terror. I hoped it put the same hard, merci - less smile on her face that it did on mine.
Sophia. Jo-Jo. Fletcher.
Time ceased to have any meaning. There were just enemies to cut down, one after another, as quickly, brutally, and efficiently as I could, before moving on to the next
man standing. I stabbed arms and legs and chests. Drove
my blades into throats and ripped them out again. Even punched my knife through one man's eye. His screams were among the loudest and most satisfying.
That man fell, and I whirled around to face my next foe - and realized that Grimes and Hazel stood behind me, flanked by several more of their gang.
Grimes's gaze scanned over his dead men at my feet, then flicked up to me. His expression was unreadable, but I knew exactly what I looked like. Strands of dark brown hair falling out of my ponytail and sticking to my sweaty, blood covered face and neck. Even more blood spattered across my hands and arms, with still more soaked into my vest and the rest of my clothes. Even my socks squished with blood, and my boots had left behind an intricate pattern of dull brown stains on the gray rocks, as though I'd been tracing a complicated dance routine over and over again.
"Who the hell are you?" Hazel asked.
I grinned. "Your worst fucking nightmare."
The men standing behind Grimes and Hazel shifted uneasily on their feet. Their leaders might not be afraid of me, but they were - and with good reason.
I gestured at the dead men all around me. "You know, you really should get yourself some better help. All your boys are good for is target practice."
"Take her," Grimes ordered in a cold voice. "Alive."
I grinned even wider and twirled my knives, flinging fat drops of blood off the ends of the blades. "Please," I snarled, staring at the men behind him. "Step right up and die."
Nobody made a move toward me. I let out a dark, happy chuckle, then clucked my tongue. "So hard to find good help these days."
"Now!" Grimes screamed, his calm façade finally cracking.
Apparently, Grimes's men were more afraid of him than they were of me, because they rushed forward.
Fools. I raised my knives again and stepped up to meet them. First, I'd take care of Grimes's men, then Hazel and the big man himself -
"Now, Hazel," I heard Grimes say.
A second later, thousands of hot, invisible bubbles brushed against my skin. I had just enough time to grab the man in front of me, turn him around, and use him as a shield before a ball of elemental Fire blasted into us.
The flames exploded on the man's chest, burning away his clothes and immediately turning the upper half of his body into a charred, blistered mess. He started screaming and didn't stop, so I shoved him out of the way and took a step toward Grimes and Hazel, who were holding hands, as if they were combining their magic.
That was all I saw before another blast of elemental Fire came my way. Then another one, then another one.
I managed to duck the first two balls but not the third one, which hit my shoulder like a red-hot sledgehammer and spun me around. Before I could move, before I could react, a fourth blast of Fire hit me square in the back.
This time, I screamed.
Because I was almost out of magic, and I didn't have any way to stop the elemental Fire washing over me. The silverstone in my vest heated up as it soaked up the worst of the flames, but it didn't absorb enough of the magic, not nearly enough.
The men attacking me fell back, as they started yelling and trying to get away from the flames before they leaped from my body and onto theirs. The stench and sizzle of my own charred flesh filled my nose, and smoke boiled up from my clothes, mixing with the lingering fog from my elemental Ice. The heat and pain were so intense that
I couldn't tell which way was which, and before I could figure out where and whom to attack, a fist shot through the flames, slamming into my skull.
Mercifully, the world went black after that.
Chapter Twenty
The sun woke me.
It streamed in through the open window, as sweet and innocent as could be, warming everything that it touched with its soft golden rays. Outside, birds trilled out high, happy notes, accompanied by the low, steady bass beat of bumblebees and other bugs.
I cracked my eyes open. A painting of puffy clouds drifting across a summer sky covered the ceiling above my head, like they always did whenever I woke up at Jo-Jo's house after a fight to the death. For a moment, I relaxed, even though part of me wondered why I was lying on the hard wooden floor instead of in the bed beside me. But the more I stared at the ceiling, the more it seemed like there was something slightly . . . off about it. Like the painting wasn't the same one that I'd seen so many times before.
A soft summer breeze fluttered in through the window, ruffling the pretty, delicate lace curtains - and bringing the stench of death along with it. And I finally realized that I wasn't in Jo-Jo's house after all; I was in Harley
Grimes's piss-poor substitute.
But instead of springing to my feet, I lay there on the floor and took stock of the situation, trying to force the rest of the fuzziness to fade from my mind. I still had on the same bloody clothes as before, although I could feel the breeze dancing over bare patches on my arms and legs from where Grimes's and Hazel's elemental Fire had seared through the fabric. The soft kiss of the wind made the burns and blisters that marred my skin start pulsing with pain, and I had to grit my teeth against the sensation. More cuts and bruises dotted my body, adding to my aching exhaustion. I'd put up a good fight, but it had left its mark on me.
Once I realized that I was more or less in one piece, I focused on my magic. My spider-rune ring was still empty and would be until I filled it up again, but being knocked unconscious had given my body a chance to regenerate some of my power, although it was still little more than scraps inside me, not nearly enough to let me go toe-to-toe with Grimes and Hazel with any hope of success - or survival.
I shifted on the floor and put a hand on my chest, patting myself down. I was still wearing my silverstone vest, and the front was largely intact. Then again, Grimes and Hazel had put most of their Fire power into my back. But all of my supplies had been fished out of the vest pockets, including my extra knives. Not surprising. I supposed I should be grateful they'd left my clothes on, burned and bloody as they were, instead of stripping me naked and shoving me into some sort of sundress and heels like they had done with Sophia. Actually, I wondered why they'd let me live in the first place. They should have grabbed one of my knives and cut my throat with it while I was still unconscious -
"Oh, good," a voice purred. "You're finally awake."
I raised my head to see Hazel standing in the doorway, along with three men, all with guns pointed at me.
Hazel gave me an evil smile, then held out her hand.
Elemental Fire sparked to life on her fingertips, swaying back and forth like lanterns dancing in the wind. Even though she wasn't actively roasting me with the flames,
I could still feel the intense heat blasting off them and brushing against my already burned skin, adding to my misery. The sensation made a snarl rise in the back of my throat, but I swallowed it down.
"Harley wants to see you," she purred again. "Now, are you going to come along quietly, or do I have to . . . encourage you?"
The flames on her fingers burned a little brighter and hotter in anticipation. They matched the cruelty flickering in her dark eyes.
I sat up and immediately had to put a hand down on the floor to keep myself from toppling right back over.
After a moment, my head quit spinning, if not aching.
Whoever had punched me had done an excellent job of it, judging from the pain that radiated out from my jaw and throbbed up into my right temple. Slowly, very, very slowly, I got up onto my knees and then onto my feet.
The change in elevation made my head spin that much more, and I swayed from side to side until the white spots cleared from my vision and I found my balance. This was all not to mention how every single movement made my burned skin ache and how every shift of my singed clothes threatened to pop the blisters covering my arms, legs, and back.
So as much as I would have liked to have tackled Hazel, driven her to the floor, and strangled her to death with my bare hands, I didn't have the energy for it right then. Besides, she and Grimes had kept me alive for a reason, and I wanted to know what it was.
"I think I'll go with the first option," I finally said when I could open my mouth without hissing with pain.
Hazel pouted, obviously disappointed by my cooperation, but she curled her hand into a tight fist, snuffing out the flames and causing the resulting bit of smoke to drift toward the ceiling.
"come on, then," she snapped. "Nobody keeps Harley waiting - or me either."
Again, I wondered why they'd bothered to let me live, but I supposed that I'd find out soon enough.
Hazel pivoted on her high heels and stormed out of sight of the doorway. The three guys with guns stepped down the hallway far enough for me to leave the bedroom and fall into step behind her, then followed us with their weapons pointed at my back. I thought about whirling around and going for one of their guns, but in the end, I decided against it. I might have been able to kill the three men, but they'd probably have managed to put a couple of bullets into me for my troubles. Not to mention the fact that Hazel would be quite delighted to roast me with her Fire magic, which I had little to defend against while my own power was still so low. So I decided to go along with them - for now.
We walked downstairs, and I was once again struck by an eerie sense of deja vu. Grimes's house was almost an exact replica of Jo-Jo's, inside and outside. The floor plan, build, and construction were identical, right down to the dark cherry wood that had been used for the stairs and the curlicues carved into the railing that ran alongside them. Even the walls were painted the same soft blues, pinks, and whites as in Jo-Jo's house.
I wondered how Grimes had been able to match everything so exactly. He must have been inside Jo-Jo's house at some point. But when? I thought back. The only time the sisters had been away recently was when they'd come down to Blue Marsh to help me out with a particularly nasty vampire a few months ago. Perhaps Grimes had been in the sisters' house then without them realizing it; that was the only explanation that I could think of.
