“I’m gonna fucking kill you,” the kid screams and, instead of letting loose a spell, he does what every angry young man does. He rushes me. I put up my shield. The kid smashes into it, bouncing to the ground, slamming his head on the blacktop hard enough I don’t think he’s getting up any time soon. His spell, a fireball by the looks of it, goes off.

I twist the shield around fast to keep the kid from char-broiling himself and push the fireball up until it explodes above us.

My moment of magnanimity is rewarded by the other two letting loose their own spells, and since I’ve got my shield angled to protect the kid, it isn’t protecting me.

I get a double whammy of a freezing spell and a simple invisible hammer. Ice forms on my chest, my clothes going brittle. The pain is intense. But it’s not as bad as the hammer that follows.

I fly back a good five feet before skidding and rolling on the blacktop. My tattoos take the brunt of it, and they’re already thawing me out, but it still hurts like a motherfucker.

I get up. They’re both so stunned they just stare at me. They must have figured they could show up with a big gun and take me down with one shot. Probably didn’t expect things to get this far. If I hadn’t gunned the Cadillac when I felt the magic they might have gotten me.

But they didn’t. And now it’s my turn.

Did you know everybody is covered in a cloud of their own bacteria? It’s pretty gross when you think about it. Every time you breathe, every time you fart, burp, talk, move, take a shit, you’re putting out gut bacteria. Settles on your skin, your hair, your clothes, other people, the ground.

A lot of that bacteria doesn’t last very long. It dies fast. We’re all surrounded by a constantly dying cloud of shit germs. And if it’s dead . . .

I animate every dead thing surrounding them. Bacteria are small enough that it doesn’t take much to do. I add a little color to the mix. I want them to see what’s happening to them.

A dark wall of dead germs solidifies around them, covers their skin like ants. They both scream, clawing at their faces, their hands. I make the swarm crawl up into their nostrils and mouths. Their screams choke off as the solid mass of germs fills their throats. I constrict the ones around their necks.

Their eyes roll into the back of their heads and they fall to the ground, unconscious. I pull the swarm of reanimated germs back. It flows out of them, a disgusting black river of muck. I only have about ten seconds before they come to, and I don’t need them causing more trouble.