Magic Rises

happen,” Darren looked at Tremblay.
    “Shut the hell up!” Tremblay was actually shaking. There was no way he could salvage this.
    “Losing your job is hard,” I said. “But you guys need to find a different line of work, because holding people for ransom isn’t your forte. You’re not very good at it. Why don’t you take off before your fearless leader gives himself a coronary?”
    The dark-haired man was thinking about it; I saw it in his eyes. Darren looked confused.
    I pushed a little more. “Cut your losses. It’s time to go.”
    “Fuck it, fire the flare!” Tremblay snarled.
    The stocky woman looked at him.
    “Fire the fucking flare!”
    She clapped her hands. Magic pulsed and a bright yellow spark shot from between her clasped fingers into the sky, blossoming into a fiery dandelion. The four ex-Guardsmen tensed, anticipating a shot.
    Nothing happened.
    “Go home,” I repeated.
    Tremblay snarled. “Kill the stupid bitch!”
    I backed away, giving myself room to work.
    Darren turned light, electric purple. His skin sprouted hard bony bumps. He stumbled back, clutching at his head. Tremblay and the mage backed away.
    The dark-haired man marched at me, drawing the katana as he struck. Good fast draw. I parried, letting the flat of his blade slide off Slayer, and punched him in the jaw with my left hand. He staggered back. Blood swelled along my forearm. He’d nicked me. I’d surprised him and he still nicked me. Fast bastard.
    Derek dropped out of darkness into the Mole Hole, raised the crossbow, and fired. An arrow whistled past me, missing the thing that used to be Darren by an inch. Derek looked at the crossbow in disgust, raised it . . .
    He wouldn’t throw away a perfectly good crossbow . . .
    Derek hurled the crossbow at Darren. It broke over the man’s armored head.
    Derek’s clothes exploded, and a monster spilled forth. His limbs grew, bones thrusting out, forming new long legs and powerful arms. Muscle coated the new skeleton, clinging to bones. Skin sheathed it, dark fur grew, claws cut through the flesh, and a new creature landed on the glass. Neither man nor wolf, but a lethal hybrid of both, a human predatory intellect locked in a savage body. Derek grinned, displaying a mouth of nightmarish teeth, and crashed into the purple armored creature that used to be Darren.
    The dark-haired man recovered, approaching. The right stance, responsive but firm, good balance, katana pointing at my eyes. Step, another step, smooth, sliding his foot along the ground so every move ended in a proper stance. He would lunge, and when he did it, he would commit completely. He was classically trained, and it would be all or nothing.
    The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question was, would I be fast enough to parry it?
    Another step.
    Our stares crossed. It would be over for one of us in a second.
    Time stretched into infinity.
    I focused on him, absorbing every single detail: the angle of his leading foot, the dark eyes fixed on me, the minute tensing of muscles in his right arm, the rise of his chest . . .
    He lunged, striking at my midsection in a horizontal stab, driving the blade with both hands.
    I saw it a fraction of a second before it began and stepped back with my right foot, dodging, turning. Even as the blade came toward me, I knew I wasn’t fast enough. He saw it too and twisted the blade, the edge sideways toward me.
    The katana’s edge grazed my ribs, slicing skin along my side.
    For a fraction of a second, his arms stretched rigid, parallel to the ground, as he drove the blade forward. I cut across his wrists, carving flesh and tendon with my saber. Blood swelled on his skin. His fingers opened as the severed flexor tendons refused to obey. The sword fell. He caught the katana with his left hand and backed away, hot scarlet dripping on the ground.
    The swordsman looked at me, a question in his eyes. He was done. We both knew it. I could cut him down right there and he wouldn’t be able to do much about it.
    I nodded and took a step back.
    He straightened, turned, and walked away.
    “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Tremblay yelled. “Get back here! You fight for half a second and you’re done?”
    “He can’t hold his sword,” I told him. “Saving his sword hand is more important to him than you are.”
    Tremblay swore. The woman behind him was chanting, eyes closed. Magic moved toward her in a slow flood. I didn’t want to taste what she was cooking.
    I