In my twenty-six years, I’ve held many jobs. Teaching wasn’t one of them. Mostly I killed people in bloody and creative ways. But Julie was my ward and my responsibility, and practicing with a spear was good for her. It built muscle, reflexes, and balance, and she would need all three when we moved on to the sword.

Several decades ago magic returned to our world, crushing our technological civilization and whatever illusion of safety we had with it. Magic and technology still fought over us, playing with the planet like two kids tossing a ball to each other. When one functioned, the other didn’t.

The cops did the best they could, but half of the time the phones didn’t work and all available officers responded to important emergencies, like saving schoolchildren from a flock of ravenous harpies. Meanwhile, with resources scarce and life cheap, people did a fine job preying on each other. Smart citizens didn’t go out at night. If the lowlifes didn’t get you, the magic aberrations with giant teeth would.

Every person was responsible for his or her own safety, and we relied on magic, guns, and blades. Julie’s magic was rare, and highly prized, but useless in combat. Seeing the colors of magic wouldn’t help her to kill a vampire. My best friend, Andrea, was teaching her to handle guns. I couldn’t hit an elephant with a gun at ten feet, although I could probably bludgeon it to death. Melee weapons, those I could teach.

I struck at Julie’s midsection, moving slow like molasses. She rotated her spear like an oar and slapped mine, knocking it down.

“And?”

She gave me a completely blank look. Most of the time Julie took practice seriously, but on days like this some switch malfunctioned in her head, disconnecting her brain from her body. There was probably some way to snap her out of it, some right “mom” words I could say, but I had found Julie about a year ago on the street and the whole parent thing was still new to me. My mother died before I could form any memories of her, so I didn’t have any experience to fall back on.

To make things worse, I’d used magic to save Julie’s life. She couldn’t refuse a direct order from me, although she didn’t know it and I was determined to keep it that way. I’d slipped up a few times and learned that intonation had a lot to do with it. As long as I gave her instructions instead of barking commands at her, she had no problem ignoring me.