I stuffed my hands in my pockets, looking around furtively, parking myself on a street corner. Any minute now. I was just hoping that we’d lure out potential actual murderers, and not some common thief. I wasn’t in the mood for small-time vigilantism and teaching someone a cute little lesson. I wanted to be minutes away from being killed. Then I wanted to bring someone within minutes of their own death in return.
Light pulsed from my chest, the anger burbling inside me causing my glyphs to shimmer. I didn’t fight my temper. We wanted someone to spot me. I turned away from the corner, finding a convenient darkened alley to duck into, incidentally, one near where my friends were waiting. Florian and Samyaza had come along, one to help restrain our captives with sentient plant life, the other to possibly hold me back from killing whoever we found.
I lingered at the mouth of the alley, my glyphs glowing more than ever as I stewed over the idea of vengeance. And there – there it was. The stupid fucks. Right down the end of the street, two men in hooded jackets, gesturing at me, like I didn’t know they were looking. Don’t let them be muggers, I said in a silent chant in my head, like a mantra. Let them be killers. Let them be killers.
I ducked into the alley, which led out into a street parallel to the other one. I walked slowly, head low, hands in pockets. I scuffed my shoes against the pavement with every step to make as much noise as possible, in case the idiots behind me somehow missed me in the dark. I kept walking, and walking, only to bump into two more men in hooded jackets, right in front of me.
Oh. Well, this was unexpected. And more exciting.
I turned on my heel to check. Yep, there were four in total, two on either side of me, cutting off my escape. I heard the flick of pocket knives, almost laughing. Were they going to cut my spleen out with those tiny things? I focused on the original pair, the two men that had first followed me. One held a knife in a faintly shaking hand. The other held a bat.
“You come with us,” said one. It didn’t matter which one spoke. They were vermin, in my mind. “You come with us, and we won’t hurt you.”
I scoffed. “Then what’s with the knife? What’s with the bat?” I glanced over my shoulder. “They’ve got knives, too. You gonna hack me open with those box cutters once you take me away?”
“He’s one of them,” muttered one of the thugs. “That thing on his head, it’s a halo. Look at his tats. They’re glowing.”
They were glowing, all right. The cold of night didn’t matter anymore, now that the heat of my anger was blistering across my skin.
I gestured at all four of them. “Come and take me, if you can.”
The hesitation hung so thickly in the air I could taste it. I could smell the fear, the desperation.
“The site says they got powers. Like in comic books and shit. Like superheroes.”
The site? What fucking site was he talking about?
“Look at this fucking kid,” said the one with the bat. “He look like a superhero to you? There’s four of us and one of him. Fucking get him.”
Oh, and they tried. The leader with the bat waited while the other three closed in on me. I extended my arm, catching the blunt weapon I’d conjured out of thin air. No more Vestments, no more debt. I was going to make my own instruments of destruction from now on.
“What the fuck?” said the closest man.
It was the last thing he said that night. I swung my mace, relishing in the whistling it made through the air, right before it connected with the side of the man’s head. The crunch of his bones and his breaking teeth was music to my ears. He sputtered as he crumpled to the ground, spitting out dark blood and white fragments of teeth.
“Fuck,” said someone behind me, in the voice of a man who was going to run. I brought the mace about in a whirlwind, smashing it against his face as he tried to break away.
Something broke away, all right.
Two men writhed and twitched on the ground, clutching their shattered mouths, collecting their broken teeth. That left two more standing. The one with the bat was frozen in place, not such a big man now. The other one was skittering off down the alley, muttering in fright. I wouldn’t reach him in time, but I wouldn’t have to.
A blur of blue light shot out of the darkness, throwing the man on his back. He fell with a heavy thud, pinned to the ground by an angry fallen angel. Samyaza held him there, one hand on his collar, the other ready to punch his face into ground beef if he moved. The man held his hands up to cover his head, whimpering.
“And that leaves you,” I said, brandishing my mace at the man with the bat. “Did you say you wanted me to come with you? Were you going to take me somewhere, strap me to a table, cut out my insides to sell to the highest bidder?”
His bat fell to the ground with a clatter as he held his hands up, pleading. “Please, man. We won’t fuck with you anymore. Just let me go. Please.”
“No. No, I don’t think so.” I dismissed my mace, clenching my fist as it vanished into a cloud of shimmering dust. “You and I are going to have a little talk.”
The man looked down at my hand, confused. I loved the idea that he thought he had a chance of getting away now that I’d disarmed myself. Without saying another word, he turned around, meaning to sprint away, from me, from a shattered mouth.
He didn’t
