Imagine if you will a heavyweight boxer; six and a half feet tall, 230 pounds of “don’t fuck with this” muscle. Got that? Now, imagine his canned-ham sized fist slamming full force into your gut. Not my idea of fun.
Most nights, I would be able to take this kind of punishment. Most nights he wouldn’t have been able to touch me. In fact, nine times out of ten he wouldn’t have even known I was there until my spell began burning him alive. Unfortunately for me, he’d seen me first.
Casting at this point was near impossible. I didn’t have the magical prowess to cast without a cantrip and with my lungs busily shaking hands with my stomach, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. When I hit the ground, so did the contents of my stomach. I managed to stand a few moments later, barely avoiding a very large boot to my head. I gathered my will and my breath as I stood, preparing a spell that would light him up like a set of Christmas lights.
I really wasn’t expecting that uppercut.
As I lay on my back, the construction worker’s floodlights damn near blinded me, and a foot planted itself on my neck. When I looked up, I found myself looking at the ugliest human I’ve ever had the displeasure of laying my eyes on. His eyes appeared to be resting on the bridge of his nose which by the look of things had been broken at least 6 times. He had no front teeth; instead they had been replaced by a gold plate with the name TONE engraved in gothic lettering.
“I expected a bit more from you Jimmy,” he said with a sneer. “They said you’d put up more of a fight.”
I flicked my eyes over to the setting sun, my strength growing as it sunk slowly beyond the horizon. “Give me a minute,” I wheezed, wrapping my hands around the ridiculously large boot, twisting violently to push the man off.
As the two of us stood, I gathered my will, drawing upon my anger and the power granted to me by the oncoming night. A grin made its way across my face as I uttered the spell I’d been unable to earlier.
“Ignis Fuguralis!” I screamed out, electricity leaping to life and coalescing around my hands. Tone stared at me wide-eyed, attempting to run away. He was pretty quick too, but I’m afraid that magical lightning moves just a little bit faster than a human, fae-enhanced or no.
“Ferio!” I screamed, pointing my hands at him. The lightning struck him in the back and sent him sprawling into a stack of lumber. The sun had set, and I had put a little more energy into the spell than I’d intended…
Oops.
As he rolled over, I hauled him to his feet and bared my now-visible fangs. The glorious look of terror began to seep through his hardened exterior, bringing out my inner clichéd bad-guy. “As future reference for whatever afterlife God has set for you,” I said, whispering into his ear. “Don’t ever call me Jimmy.”
Then I fed, taking his blood and using it to quicken the healing process after the beating he’d put me through. The taste he left on my tongue was something along the lines of burnt rubber mixed with day old milk. It was truly a gut-wrenching taste but it did the job, as apparent by the slight crunch of my facial features realigning themselves.
I let Tone slump to the ground and headed to where I’d dropped my sword when he’d jumped me. I found it a few moments later underneath the pile of cinderblocks one of his goons had thrown me into. I made a big show of dusting it off before I walked back to him, even going as far as picking a bit of debris out of the hilt.
“Please,” he moaned, staring up at me, eyes wide and locked on the blade. “I was j-j-just doing a job.” It was single handedly the most pitiful thing I’d ever seen a man that big do.
“That’s all I’m doing Tone.” I replied, grabbing his neck and putting him in a more easily behead-able position. ”Nothing against you. You might even be a really cool guy, but this is my job.”
A few moments later, when I had finally finished cleaning all of the blood and rubble off of my sword, my phone began to buzz away in my pocket. It took a second or two before I realized what it was, I had assumed that it had broken when I’d been sent flying through a pile of cinderblocks.
“Nick!” I exclaimed. “Just the girl I wanted to talk to.”
A chuckle issued forth from the other line. “What can I do for you James?”
Several thoughts that would’ve made Pam Anderson blush flashed through my mind before I started speaking. “Do you by any chance know how candidate 3 managed to know that I was coming for him in time to set up an ambush?”
“No clue,” she said without a moment of hesitation. “But I’ve got a friend here who may be willing to give us some insight on that.” She hadn’t even finished her sentence before I caught the sound of sizzling flesh in the background. “But I trust you managed to finish the job?”
I looked at Tone’s body. The blood that had spilled from his neck had begun to pool and soak through his shirt. It took a moment or two but I finally managed to locate his head which had found its final resting place next to a toolbox that had been abandoned for the night.
“Was there ever any doubt?” I said with a grin.
“Excellent,” she said, her voice dripping with excitement. “Your next candidate is a VIP at a club called the Rage. He’ll be there tonight. His name is Franklin Rose. Do yourself a favor and make sure that you kill him someplace out of sight. Last thing we need is for some human to give the police a description of you.”
“Right,” I said. “Franklin Rose, Rage, discreet… I think I can manage that”
“Good for you. Any questions?”
“What are you wearing?”
I smiled as she hung up on me, placing the phone in my pocket and my sword in the sheath strapped to my back, heading back to my car. I found it where I’d parked about two blocks down the road. At the time, I’d been hoping to sneak up on him. Yay for spoiled plans.
I got in and started the engine. The Jag roared to life, purring contently after a moment. I threw it into gear and gunned the engine, heading towards my destination with a sense of purpose. I wasn’t on the road for five minutes when blue and red lights began flickering noisily in my rearview.
I’d already had a rough start to my night and frankly, I didn’t feel like dealing with any form of law enforcement that may happen to notice a car speeding away from a fresh murder scene. So, being the resourceful sorcerer that I am, I focused my will, uttering “Aethra Maceria.”
As the last words left my mouth, I heard a loud crashing sound issue from behind me. The lights in my rearview went out as the pursuing car slammed violently into the wall of air that I’d left behind.