26

   My Stone magic roared out of my body like an invisible lightning bolt, and I focused all my power, all my energy, on that one weak spot above Maria and Porter’s doctored photo on the mantel. As soon as my magic hit all those tiny spiderweb cracks, the stones blasted out of the fireplace like missiles, all aimed directly at Bruce Porter.

   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.