Hammered

length of the bar. I empathized. I’d seen what those beard tentacles could do; they were much stronger than they looked, besides being viscerally dry, itchy, and raspy. Rabbi Yosef had killed an accomplished witch with his beard three weeks ago by strangling her. It had snaked its way past her wards, and now it occurred to me that it might snake past the protection of my amulet as well. Sure, the beard was being controlled magically, but that magic was targeting the hair, not me, and apart from being completely gross, such hair could constrict my windpipe every bit as effectively as a length of rope—and there were twelve such lengths reaching for me now. If even one of them got wrapped around my neck and the iron of my aura didn’t counter the magic controlling it, I could be in trouble.
    My options were limited. There wasn’t much room to swing a sword in the bar, and I wasn’t anxious for bloodshed anyway. Besides, after a shot of whiskey and an Irish Car Bomb on top of my Smithwick’s, I wasn’t exactly sober enough to muster the balance required for sword fighting. Trying to lay a binding on any of the Kabbalists was impossible now that they had warded themselves from the earth; running away would make me seem like the mass of cowardly lunchtime patrons fleeing out the back, and I wanted my buddy Jesus to think I was cool too; that left nothing but hand-to-hand combat, and people did that all the time while drunk.
    I’ve trained in many martial arts to defend myself against myriad weapons but never against beards. There’s not a whole lot of precedent. I decided to treat them like whips. Stepping forward to meet the first tentacle on my right, I grabbed it out of the air and yanked hard and down, expecting to pull the Kabbalist’s face to the left and perhaps break up their formation.
    It didn’t go the way I pictured it in my mind.

Chapter 11
    There was no tension at all, no sense that the beard was solidly attached to someone’s jaw. It felt like I had yanked on a piece of fishing line when the reel button was depressed, allowing yards of ten-pound filament to whiz free every second. It threw me off balance, and the other eleven tentacles abruptly reared back like cobras and struck, punching me eleven times with surprising force. Getting hit with something akin to a giant knotted sailor’s rope isn’t as bad as getting hit by a bus, but it isn’t like getting tickled with butterfly wings either. One of them caught me on the cheek and spun me around to face an amused Christian deity.
    » I don’t suppose there’s any hope of a deus ex machina right about now? « I said.
    » Nope, « he said cheerfully.
    I batted away a couple of hairy ropes that were trying to insinuate themselves around my neck and kicked at a few others that were trying to trip me up. » Well, how about some advice, then? «
    » Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. «
    » You’re pulling out the King James? « I cried, incredulous. » I don’t think that’s the verse you ought to be quoting right now. How about › I come not to bring peace but to bring a sword’? Remember that one? I liked that one. I have a sword here if you’d like to borrow it. «
    » Nay, that is not my will. «
    Uh-oh. Code word. What was his will? He’d just told me he didn’t want me messing with Thor because it would upset all the pantheons, and I’d responded by saying I was going to do it anyway. That made me a problem. Maybe he could take care of said problem by letting the Hammers of God have their way with me.
    » Think I’ll turn the other cheek after all, « I said, and I bolted to my right and headed for the back patio, where all the other patrons had escaped. As one exits out the back of Rúla Búla, there’s a patio bar to the right, an extensive network of misters overhanging the tables, and a large wrought-iron gate to the left, which leads to the parking lot of the Tempe Mission Palms Hotel. Said hotel is situated directly behind a concrete block wall on the east side of the patio, separated only by a wide walkway paved in red cobblestones. The gated exit wasn’t much of an exit at the moment; another ten Kabbalists were blocking it, letting patrons past but only at a trickle. If I tried to get through there, they’d have me.
    The block wall was looking good. It wasn’t terribly high, only four feet or so, and I felt sure I could vault it even in my slightly sauced state. My hopes of