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My spider-rune ring was completely empty of magic. I had a bit of Stone power left, but it wouldn't do me much good now, unless I wanted to use it to harden my skin, protect myself from the bullets that were still coming my way, and dash off into the woods.
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.
