Before long, the ghosts sitting nearest the field noticed me and the abuse started. Shouted hoots, whistles and catcalls rained down on me. When I gave them the finger, I was answered with intermittent showers of litter, beer bottles, batteries and generic debris that seemed to have been liberated from the stadium itself. A three-hundred- pound guy whose shaved head and naked torso were painted black-and-silver nailed me in the ear with a half-eaten hot dog.
'Real nice choice, Honey,' I said, mining mustard from my ear canal with my pinkie.
'Yeah, like I said, it's a good place to fight. Nice energy. Plus, do you see the kind of distance they're getting on those throws? They're just ghosts, but they've learned how to use their juice.'
'Well, they've had a lot of time to practice.' I picked up a rough chunk of concrete that looked like it had come from the mezzanine facade. I hurled it at the fat guy, but it didn't make the stands.
'Let's get started,' Honey said. 'Do you remember when I knocked you down yesterday?'
'Yeah, both times.'
'And the vampire basically did the same thing, only he hit you a lot harder.'
'I guess.'
'Well, I didn't really use any kung-fu magic. I just moved really fast and ran into you.'
'So…'
'So that's really all there is to combat in the Between-speed and power.'
'Isn't that all there is to kung-fu fighting in the real world?'
'Speed and power are good, sure, but the physical world is a lot more complicated.'
'How so?'
'Well, for example, there are those pesky laws of physics and biology. You have to worry about things like mass, and momentum and conservation of energy, and if you want to hurt someone, you have to worry about things like anatomy.'
'And here?'
'There aren't any such laws here. There are other laws, I guess, but they're very different. Anyway, in the Between, you don't have any mass, you don't have any anatomy, and neither does your opponent.'
'I just have juice.'
'Right. Juice and thought. Magic and mind. That's what you are.'
'Okay, I'm made of juice. What do I do now?'
'Magic and mind, Domino. You have to learn to control the magic part with the mind part.'
'So it's like a 'free your mind' thing.'
'Yes, exactly like that,' Honey said, and smiled.
'Are you saying I can dodge bullets?'
'It's just a movie, Domino.'
'Sorry. How do I do it?'
'I'll try to hit you again, and you try to dodge out of the way.'
'Don't you have any other training methods?'
'It won't hurt if you don't let me hit you.'
'That's brilliant, Honey. Why didn't I think of that?'
'Okay, on the count of three. Ready?'
I shrugged.
'One…'
'Two…'
Honey blurred, I felt the now-familiar burst of pain in my chest, and then I was hurtling backward through the air. The packed earth of the Coliseum surface was nearly as rough as the pavement I'd spent so much time on the last couple days. I couldn't be sure with no lines on the field, but I must have been good for at least fifty yards. My chest felt like I'd taken a major-league fastball in the sternum. I lay on the ground and tried to find my breath.
Honey flew up to me. 'Oh, stop that. You don't even really breathe here, remember?'
I stopped gasping for air and tried it out. Honey was right-despite what my brain was inclined to think, there didn't seem to be much point in breathing.
'You cheated,' I wheezed. I sat up and rubbed my chest.
'Your bad guys probably will, too.'
'Yeah, I guess.'
'Anyway, it shouldn't matter. You should be able to move out of the way as quickly as you can trigger one of your spell talismans.'
'Maybe I don't have enough juice for this.'
'It's not your magic that's the problem, it's your mind. You're a little slow.'
'Fuck you, Honey.'
'I don't mean you're stupid. You just have to realize you can move as fast as you can think. The juice will do the rest.'
'Okay, let's try again.' We did, and on the last take-I'm not sure how many it was, but we were well into the teens-I managed to flinch before Honey hit me. By this time, the stadium was filled with the dull roar of the ghosts' laughter. The fat guy was rolling in the aisle.
'That was better, I suppose,' said Honey when she flew over to me.
'Fuck this, Honey.' I looked down and saw I was sitting in a rough depression, like a small crater, that my body had eroded into the hard earth over the course of the training exercise. I wrapped my arms around my throbbing ribs and winced. 'I think you're using some kind of secret fairy juju on me. This is bullshit.'
'I am. I already told you, I am fairy juju.'
'Well, it's no fair. I don't have to fight you, just Fred and the spirit.'
'And what makes you think you can handle the spirit juju if you can't handle the piskie juju? It's not that different-it's all magic from the Beyond, just not from Avalon, where I come from.'
'What's Avalon?'
'Faerie, the Otherworld, Anwnn, Tir na Nog-it has a lot of names. Avalon is the place where fairies were born and where we retreated as magic faded from Arcadia.'
'And it's in the Beyond? That's why I can't see your glamour, just like I can't see the spirit's magic.'
'Right.'
'So the spirit can school me just like you can.'
'If the spirit just wants to hit you, yeah, it can do that. Probably harder than I can. The vampire, too.'
'Well, then, we have to keep trying. Let's go again.'
'I don't know, Domino. You're not really getting any better at this. I think you only flinched that time because you knew what was coming.'
'What are you saying?'
'I'm saying I don't think I can train you. I'm hurting you, even though I'm trying not to.'
'You're pulling your punches?'
'Of course. If I wasn't, I'd have killed you already.'
'Well, that sucks. What am I going to do?'
'You could get a gun.'
'What? I thought guns didn't work here. Nothing seems to work here.'
'They don't, usually. Some events, though, usually murders and suicides, create echoes in this place of the weapons that were used.'
'Okay, that works.'
'Is your gun, the one at home…?'
I shook my head. 'No, it's clean. I'll have to find one here.'
'Most of the guns that become real in the Between are controlled by a spirit called the Burning Man.'
'I thought that was some kind of party out in the desert.'
'This guy's no party. He's a spirit from the Beyond, probably a lot like the one that's possessing Adan. He's very dangerous. He's the boss of a gang in this place and he's basically cornered the local weapons market.'
'Can I deal with him?'
'I think so. He's a businessman, after all. But be very, very careful what you promise him, Domino.'
