It comes from the other side of the alley and I turn and I see, standing in the red ash, a pair of fighting sticks in her hands, Akuji.

Vidhan glimmers past her, two Reapers in pursuit—grown taller, wings spreading. Akuji launches at them. Her sticks are gleams of light. She moves beautifully, fluidly, and the fighting sticks snap through the air. The Reapers try to evade her, but it’s no use. She spins and brings one of the sticks chopping down from high over her right shoulder down to her left hip.

A clean strike.

She knocks one of them down and it wails and crawls back into the shadows. Akuji whips around and slashes the other stick from high left to low right. The second Reaper lets go a wild shriek and drops, curling and hissing. Pressing her advantage, Akuji stabs the stick right into the middle of its throat, using the heel of her palm to drive the point home. The Reaper makes a strangled, gurgling noise. It heaves backward, dragging its wings, screeching. Then it’s gone, into shadow.

Five seconds. Five jaw-dropping, mind-blowing, improbable seconds.

I stare at Akuji in wonder and awe.

And that’s when I remember: Graziani. I spin around and find him standing right in front of me—Ra in one hand, his long staff in the other—with violence-filled eyes. He raises the sword and I know things are about to go south, fast.

So I take the only course of action that makes any sense.

I attack.

I don’t know where it comes from. I can’t remember ever doing anything like this before, but my brain is unexpectedly agile—adaptive and reactive, able to process the situation lightning-fast. It tells my body to move, to be the first one to hit.

In a heartbeat, I shift my stance—right leg forward, left back—and I bend my knees. I stabilise. Then, immediately, I launch off my left leg, jump high, switch in the air and kick hard with my right.

The kick is ferocious. With the heel of my shoe, I find the dead centre of his chest with a thud. He cries out, eyes wide, and the sword is flung up out of his hand. I launch myself forward and somehow manage to catch it, midair.

A current goes through me. Pure adrenaline.

Electricity.

A gunshot booms through the air now. A flash of shrapnel. And when I turn to Graziani, I watch him hurl himself at the alley wall. Miraculously, he disappears.

It’s as if he ran right into the wall—through it.

To some other side.

I turn to find Malik, gun smoking in his fist, striding towards me. He holds up his hand, motioning for quiet, and he listens. Satisfied, and visibly relaxing his shoulders, he holsters his pistol.

Graziani is gone. And so are the Reapers.

Malik’s eyes flick over me. “Are you OK?”

“Barely.”