by H. T. Night
I glanced at my cell phone and realized that I had 45 minutes until the fight. It was time to go. I transformed into the eagle and flew to Taco Bell to grab my truck. I circled the parking lot, waiting for the night manager to get into his car and leave. When the coast was clear, I decided to try something different. I tried transitioning back to Mani simultaneously as I landed. It kind of worked. I didn’t land perfectly on my feet, but at least I didn’t fall down. I stumbled a little, but caught my balance.
I opened my truck and was pleased that no one had stolen my radio since I had left it unlocked. I reached down and grabbed my keys from under the seat. I started my truck and took off out of the parking lot.
I drove up Imperial Street toward the mountains. Sure enough, there was a giant ranch right before the mountain trail started. I guess that was Barner’s Ranch. I parked my truck at the bottom, and walked up the side of the road by myself. I looked up into the dark sky. “Well, Triat,” I called out. “If I’m the guy you want for all of this, then please keep me safe.” I continued to walk and I figured I should cover all my bases. I looked up to the sky one more time. “Whoever is in charge of all this? Keep me safe.”
I began my trek up a dirt path that led to a large ranch. I could hear Carni shouting and laughing like a lynch mob ready to jump me from all sides. Instead, they kept their distance while taunting me from dark places along the road. That’s all they did—taunt.
I was wearing the same blue jeans and black T-shirt that I had on earlier in the evening.
I had to admit I had never felt this way before an altercation. I almost felt like nothing could hurt me, as if I was protected by some supernatural force.
I approached a grassy field at the north end of the ranch. I stood there alone. On the other side of the field appeared to be at least 30 to 40 Carni. The area had about half a dozen giant rocks scattered throughout. They almost appeared to be boulders. Not sure what kind of landscaping design this was, but it was definitely different. The noise and laughter soon stopped as I approached. It was obvious these ignoramuses had no idea who I was. They all looked at me, amused, as if I had walked up to my own execution. I liked to be underestimated, I liked that a lot.
In the middle of this hairy, dirty mob stood my opponent, the bartender. I don’t think he was thirty yet. But hell, he was a Carni; he could have been this age for 300 years. He made his way to the front. I was less impressed with the bartender’s stature and more impressed with the seven-foot-plus wild beast in the back. It appeared that Goliath had made his way to the show. Something told me he was not here as a spectator.
“You alone?” the bartender asked with a nervous crackle in his voice.
“Yes,” I said, staring directly at him. I was amused that he appeared anxious.
“You really are new at this,” he laughed. All his Carni cohorts laughed like a grisly choir of deadheads. “You are either a bad ass or just stupid.”
“I would go with the first,” I said plainly. I walked a little closer to him. About seventy-five feet separated us. “So how do we do this?”
“You’re asking me how to fight?” He turned to the others and laughed.
“No, I definitely don’t need any advice on how to fight. I’m going to kick your ass, and I’m going to do it rather quickly. What I do want to know is this: once I’m done with you, is that going to be it?”
“You sound pretty confident, bloodsucker.”
“It’s not confidence, hairball. It’s what I know. What I know is someone like you can’t last two minutes with someone like me.”
“I could kick this pretty boy’s ass,” a woman yelled out from the crowd. “Are we sure that this is even a man?”
I looked at the woman. She was at least fifty and about 50 pounds overweight. I smiled bemusedly at her. “Listen, ma’am. Do yourself a favor and don’t come anywhere near me.”
“Ma’am?” the woman said. “This little twig just called me ma’am.”
Little twig? I decided to take off my shirt so everyone could see I was definitely not a twig.
“What?” the bartender said. “You think because you spent some time in the gym that it matters out here on the ranch. You’re going to need to do more than just flex, pretty boy.”
I stared at the grisly mob. They looked like something out of a bad seventies’ movie starring Billy Jack.
“Kick his disgusting Mani ass!” the fifty-year-old woman yelled out.
“Let’s get this going,” a man from the mob yelled out.
“Kick his ass, Brian!” another echoed in.
“Brian?” I yelled out. “Your name is Brian?”
“Why the hell do you care?”
“When I write my memoirs, I want to be able to call you by name.” I turned to the mob and said, “So, if one of you can grab a piece of paper and pass it around, would everyone sign it with your first and last names? I promise, you will all become infamous after tonight.”
“Kill him,” a man from the back yelled out. I looked over. It was Goliath.
Kill him? Damn, this was real. This wasn’t a stupid college fight. This was as real as the night I became a Mani. At least then, I had Yari on my side. Tonight, by choice, I was alone.
I slapped my body all over to get my blood flowing, doing it the same way I would before a mixed martial arts fight. I didn’t know if I had blood anymore, but slapping myself was doing the trick. I was ready to go.
Here we go! I circled Brian. I had him come out to me by nodding my head and motioning to come and get me. This was a safety measure. It is common to circle each other in a fight. So, being that I was outnumbered 30 to 1, it was in my best interest to move the fight away from his friends. You never want to turn your back on a group that wants to rip off your head. These guys not only wanted to rip it off, they wanted to display it at their bar.
“It’s showtime, you Mani piece of shit.” Brian charged at me. I focused my eyes on my opponent, and this is the part where everything goes in slow motion. All my life—whenever I fight—it would seem as if time would almost stand still. My brain goes into what I call GoodWill-Hunting mode. I am able to dissect and break down my opponents’ weaknesses in milliseconds. This would allow me to do the most damage by delivering the least amount of energy.
Brian, my werewolf friend, charged me like a bull. So, I knew that it wouldn’t take much force to knock him down. As he came up on me, I bent down and swept my left leg, and tripped him. I hit his leg with an extreme amount of force. He did a face plant into the grassy dirt field.
Brian pushed himself out of the mud and rose to his knees. He hollered out, “You better not use any of your Mani wizardry. The second you do, all bets are off.”
I didn’t know how to do anything other than transition to an eagle. Even that was a challenge for me. “You’re lucky, bar-back-boy,” I said as I circled around him on the ground. “I don’t know any magic tricks; I’m just one tough motherfucker.”
“We’ll see about that.” He climbed to his feet and came at me again. This time instead of charging me like a bull, he ran up to me and held firm like a horse being pulled in by a lasso. I just stayed there and did not waste a drop of energy. He was bobbing and weaving like Cassius Clay on speed. He was showboating for his Carni audience. He began peek-a-booing with me. That’s when a fighter puts his hands to his face and then drops them, so he is vulnerable like you would simulate a game of peek-a-boo with a child.
All I was doing was timing each peek-a-boo. Each one was two seconds faster. The last one he did was ten seconds, so this one should be eight seconds. I counted to seven in my head and I knew it would take only a second to high kick him like Tommy had told me to do. I raised my leg and high-kicked him right in his smug face and just laid him out. I had completely knocked him out.
The Carni ran over to their fallen friend and surrounded him like they were protecting a piece of meat from an opposing animal.
“Get him,” one guy yelled out. “He used Mani magic.”<
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“No, I didn’t! I did a standard high kick made famous by the Nintendo video game, Shaq Fu.”
“Someone take him to the hospital,” a large, toothless man yelled out.
“Wait a second. Your boy is done. I used no magic. As a matter of fact, I barely used human fighting. Isn’t this the part where you kick his ass some more and leave him for dead like you did to Tommy?”
“He knows Kyro!” the same toothless man yelled out.
“Nobody touches Brian,” Goliath yelled out from the back. “I’ll take care of him after I kick this pipsqueak’s ass.” Goliath stretched his arms and walked toward me.
“Goliath, is it?” I asked in a cocky, but polite tone.
“You heard of me,” Goliath smiled from the corner of his mouth.
“Not until tonight. You’re kind of hard to miss.”
This guy was over seven feet tall and over 450 pounds. He was the largest man or thing I had ever seen. He was wearing cut-off jeans with a Harley Davidson T-shirt that was two sizes too small. I looked at his feet. Of course, he had 2-inch-thick Doc Martens, so he could pound a guy even harder. Unfortunately, I was going to be that guy. I wasn’t looking forward to feeling his size 18 shoe crushed against my skull. His face was scarred in the way only a street fighter would appreciate.
“I guarantee one of your Bruce Lee kicks won’t even faze me, little man.” He then pulled out a chain that was apparently in his back pocket.
I looked up at the moon to make sure it was still a half moon. I couldn’t be too cautious.
I would hate to fight this guy when he was a werewolf. “That’s okay,” I said. “I didn’t even break a sweat.” My adrenaline was amped. I had just floored a guy with two kicks. I didn’t care that this guy was twice my size.
“All right,” I said. “Round two.”
Goliath stood there like a rhinoceros. His hands were up and his feet were shoulder-width apart.
It was obvious that he wanted me to strike first. A guy like this would wait for his prey to make a mistake and then pretty much sit on him and beat the crap out of him. He had one giant problem. I wasn’t going to make any mistakes. I knew if I made just one, it would be the end of me.
“Come and get me!” he shouted.
“Nah, big boy. If you want a piece of this, you’re going to have to come and get it.” I mirrored his fighting stance and stood like a statue.
“Let’s go, Josiah Reign, Mr. MMA fighter. You had a 4-1 record and got your ass beat by Kyro himself.”
This overgrown gorilla did know me. “Oh,” I said. “You know me. I feel honored.”
“Oh, I know you all right. I know that Tommy kicked your ass.”
“That he did, Sasquatch. But, I’ve ironed out a couple of flaws in my technique since then.”
“The lying flat on your ass technique wasn’t working for you?” All of Goliath’s Carni folk burst out laughing.
“Just to let you know, I was the one who beat Tommy to death. And if a bitch-ass like Tommy could handle a fluff like you, then this should make for a short fight.”
“I guess that doesn’t say much for your bartender friend, does it?”
Goliath didn’t like that comment. He broke his stance and came at me. I leaped forward with a roundhouse kick. I missed because Goliath moved out of the way. Goliath was agile. I was shocked. When my kick missed, I fell to the ground.
Goliath jumped on top of me. This guy was the strongest opponent I had ever felt. He picked me up right up off the ground by my neck. He held me up in the air with my legs dangling. I gasped for air; he walked me by my neck to an old eucalyptus tree that was near the flower bed. With one slick motion, he threw me like a Frisbee against the tree. I hit the tree head first about six feet up, and then dropped to the ground.
I heard screams of excitement from the crowd. They were laughing at my expense. Damn, I hated to hear laughing and cheering at my expense. I was filled with anger, I turned around and opened my mouth, and I felt my incisors protrude out to razor sharp blades. I had never felt that sensation before. It felt like I was flexing my teeth.
“He’s vamping up!” a man yelled from the crowd.
“Let’ him!” Goliath bellowed. “That will give us reason to rip him to shreds.”
I lunged at Goliath. I grabbed both of his ears with my hands and head-butted him right in his nose. Blood sprayed everywhere. Some splashed on my tongue. Wow, it tasted delicious and I felt an erection in my pants. Just the smell seemed to quench my every desire. Werewolves bled?
Goliath rolled backward and landed on his feet. “You taste good,” I said, then grabbed my groin. “Now I’m ready to play.”
Goliath dove at me. I jumped ten feet in the air and hit the peak of my height. It felt as if I floated in midair for a second. I came down hard and fell to my feet.
“What the hell was that?” someone yelled.
“He just flew. That motherfucker just flew,” another hollered out.
When I landed, I collapsed on the ground. I had no idea what had just happened. My body just defied gravity. I almost couldn’t tell because I had been flying all night as an eagle, but I had most definitely floated. No one told me that could happen in human form. I didn’t have the time to analyze what had happened. There was a 450-pound man ready to take my head off. Goliath jumped on top of me. It felt like I was on the bottom of a ten-person dog pile. He was hitting the back of my head with elbows, mixed martial arts style. I felt a sea of elbows hitting my neck, head, and shoulder blades.
I heard the strangest crushing and tearing sound come from the back of my head—he had cracked the back of my head open. I was disoriented. There was a large boulder to the left of me. As I continued to get the crap beat out of me, I stared at the large boulder. I felt helpless. Goliath was heavy and strong. I wished that boulder would just fly up and knock the fat motherfucker off me. I stared at the boulder as if I felt my will breaking. I continued to stare at that rock. In my mind, I was pleading for help. I zeroed in on the boulder. I then zeroed in on the crowd that was cheering for my demise. Suddenly, I felt something miraculous was about to happen. The boulder lifted off the ground and into the air, and then it shot 40 feet through the air and crashed into the crowd, knocking Carni over like bowling pins. I don’t know how I did it.
“He’s using magic,” a bearded man yelled.
Goliath grabbed me by both arms and stood me straight up. My head was killing me.
“Why the hell would you do that?” he yelled at me.
“Do what?” I yelled back at him.
“Use your bullshit Mani magic. Now we have every right to kill you.” Goliath held me tight in his grasp. I struggled, but it was no use. He had me in the worst bear hug known to man. I looked over his shoulder and tried to resist his squeeze. I could see the chain that he originally had at the beginning of the fight about fifteen feet behind him; he must have dropped it.
As he held me, I focused my attention on the chain. I imagined the chain flying in the air. I strained my eyes. Nothing happened. How did I make the boulder move? I looked at the chain, and then quickly looked at Goliath. The chain whipped off the dirt, flew up in a whipping motion, and wrapped around Goliath’s neck. It wrapped tight. Real fucking tight.
A woman yelled. “Get him! He keeps using magic.”
Goliath ripped the chain off his neck.
“No one fucking touches him. He’s mine,” Goliath gasped. Goliath threw the chain fifty feet in the air like a boomerang.
“So, it’s going to be like that, you bloodsucking turd.”
I had no idea how I was making things move with my mind or how I floated in midair. This was definitely not in the vampire handbook that Lena had explained to me.
“Look,” I called out, “I’m not trying to use magic. I have no idea how I’m doing what I’m doing.”
“Shut up, you pale Mani,” Goliath screamed. “You’re finished.”
Goliath charged me. I jumped up and again, I floated up 10
feet in the air. But, this time, I went faster and my body was jerkier. I landed 20 feet away from him.
“What the hell are you?” Goliath seemed angry and confused. “You’re only supposed to fly when you transition. What kind of bullshit is this?”
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on.”
“You have broken every rule in the book. I don’t care if you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. You’re going to die tonight.” Goliath rushed me again. This time I stood my ground. I high-kicked him the same way I had Brian, but with a much different result. Goliath caught my foot. I fell backward, but did not hit the ground; instead, I spun around in the air. Goliath had my foot and he was strong enough to hold me in midair by my freaking foot. He spun me around like a lasso. I whizzed through the air and had the sensation of flying as an eagle. Without warning, that is exactly what happened. I transitioned into the eagle. Goliath let go of me in shock.
“What the fuck is that thing?” he called out.
At first, I hadn’t realized I had transitioned, but as I flapped my arms, I was aware that they were my long wings. I was about two hundred feet in the air. I circled the werewolf party and squawked as loud as I could. I had broken every rule tonight, but had no idea how I was doing it. I couldn’t be criticized or judged for that. The Triat had to know I didn’t do any of that on purpose.
I needed to get out of there and that I did. I flew away from of the ranch. I went straight into the sky as high as I could like a rocket. The wind became colder and colder the higher I went. The air felt incredible; I felt incredible. I had never felt so alive. I had never felt so much excitement. The euphoria was exhilarating—too exhilarating.
I stopped thinking about Josiah the eagle and I began reflecting on Josiah the man. That was another huge mistake. Somehow, I had transitioned back into my Mani form. How did I know this? I looked down and saw my human legs. I was a mile high without wings. I was a mile high and had no idea how to fly in my Mani form. I soon hit the apex of my ascendance and stood still in midair. For that brief moment, as I switched from ascending to the certain fall that awaited me, I had an amazing moment of clarity. I felt as if everything in the world made sense. That must be the feeling one gets right before he dies. It didn’t last long because I fell. And fall, I did.