The ninjas advanced again, spreading out as they entered the room. I released three more shots into their ranks, but the bullets bounced harmlessly to the ground.
“Holy shit,” I muttered as I tried not to lose my cool. “They’re fucking bulletproof.”
“Grab the artifact!” Chugayev’s voice reached a fever pitch. “The Overseer will want it at any cost!”
I grabbed the orb off the pedestal. It felt warm in my hand, as if it were a living thing. My admiration for the object was cut short when soldiers burst through the doorway and attacked the ninjas. Their efforts with their rifles were more successful than mine and Chugayev’s, but it still took dozens of rounds to take down a single enemy. When they moved close enough, the soldiers used their rifles like clubs, swinging at the black-clad attackers and using their guns to parry swords. Others lost their weapons and were forced to grapple hand-to-hand against the deadly invaders. One Russian fell, his guts tumbling onto the floor from a sword stroke across the belly. Another slumped against the wall, his face pale as he stared at where his right arm lay on the floor.
“Take the sword.” Nydarth’s voice seemed to come straight into my mind. “Your other weapon will do no good.”
“No, thanks,” I replied, imagining the words rather than speaking them out loud. “I’d rather have a sidearm than a sword.”
I pointed my pistol at the nearest ninja and pulled the trigger.
There was no bang of a bullet firing. Instead, my whole weapon turned a dark, mottled gray without the glint of gunmetal, then crumbled like ash and fell through my fingers.
“What the fuck?” I murmured as I stared at the gray dust that lingered on my skin.
The ninja that had apparently just performed the gun-melting trick came running for me, and I backed off, only to find myself pressed against the pedestal in the middle of the room. Still holding the orb in one hand, I placed the other on the top of the pedestal and jumped, vaulting back over it. The ninja’s sword hit stone and raised a shower of sparks just as I landed on the far side.
The recess holding the sword was beside me. I could hear Nydarth’s voice, still urging me to pick it up.
The ninja stepped around the pedestal, blades glinting. He twirled his single-edged sword in dizzying circles, taunting me. I grabbed the sword, and the grip felt eerily familiar in my hand, even though I’d only touched it once before. As I brought it around to face my enemy, a wave of power rushed through me. The dust and stains of centuries fell away from the sword and revealed a pristine blade of gleaming steel.
Growing up in a rough East End neighborhood, I had learned how to fight from an early age. In high school, I’d taken martial arts, determined never to let bullies get the better of me. I’d never in my whole life learned how to fight with a sword, but I figured that the principles seemed pretty simple. Slice with the edge, stab with the tip, and hope like hell that these ninjas weren’t as deadly as they looked. Judging by the state of the Russian soldiers, I figured they were pretty damn deadly.
I held the blade out and pointed it straight at the ninja.
“That’s right,” Nydarth whispered in my mind. “Just like that.”
“You have never lifted a sword before,” the ninja said. “You know nothing of its power.”
“It’s pretty simple, isn’t it? You stab, cut, or slice.”
The ninja made an impossibly high leap into the air, almost 15 feet, and I lifted my sword in a feeble attempt to skewer him on the way down. As if from nowhere, a spray of flames burst from the tip of the sword while the weapon recoiled like a fired rifle. Still, I managed to keep hold of it as the flames engulfed the ninja, and he dropped from the air like a dead fly before his body crashed to the ground. He rolled on the tiles, screaming, his black clothes bright with fire. In moments, he was nothing more than a charred skeleton.
“Gives a whole new meaning to spray and pray,” I said as flames bathed the sword. I’d already experienced multiple inexplicable events today, so a flame-spouting sword that could also talk wasn’t all that surprising.
But I had no time to really consider the sheer ridiculousness of the situation because more ninjas suddenly advanced on me. They’d obviously seen my super-powered lightsaber, and it seemed I was now their number one target.
I swept the blade around, and more flames flew, the recoil forcing me to grip the weapon with two hands. One of the ninjas leapt back, but the others were caught by the fire, their clothes igniting. As they beat at the flames with their hands, I lunged past them, across the chamber, and toward the temple door.
Gunshots from elsewhere in the temple echoed through the corridors as someone shouted orders in Russian and other men screamed in pain.
I had to get out of here. Despite my serious attachment to my own life, I couldn’t just toss aside the orb and hope the ninjas would be more interested in it than me. The risks were too great. I wasn’t exactly a hero, so it might have been the incredulity of the day’s events that turned me into one.
“Your Vigor is still low, my bold boy,” Nydarth said as I fled through the corridor.
“I’m not your boy,” I said as I delivered
