My body hit a large container and toppled it over. I rolled from the force and slammed into the cinderblock wall. I moaned and chanted the F-word like it possessed the power to make me rise. It didn’t work. I slumped onto my side. Everything hurt down to my toenails.
The expanse of the dingy white room took up an entire hospital wing. I gasped, pushing myself up on all fours in time to hear a wet hiss.
So much for thinking the hospital was neutral territory.
I turned my head, scanning the area. Four bins at each corner, including the one I knocked down. A double door to the far left. A floor buffer. A few broken office chairs. And a newt the size of our sedan hanging upside down from the ceiling. He blinked his tire-sized brown eyes at me, and angled his head. He seemed deep in thought while slurping on the blood pooling in his mouth. Witches, it seemed, didn’t mind falling under the “eye of newt” stereotype.
My mind searched for what I knew of California newts. Brown, smooth skins. Check. Orange bellies. Check. Long tongue. Not sure, but I gave that one a check. Hundreds of times more poisonous than cyanide if ingested? Oh, yeah.
Witches. Didn’t. Play. Fair.
Beast against beast, but at a cost. If I bit into him with my fangs I’d die within minutes. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t claw, couldn’t strike, couldn’t kick. I slowly rose to my feet. The muscles and girth of my golden tigress stretched the thin cotton fabric of my scrubs until blue shredded scraps plopped against my fuzzy paws. It was a show of intimidation and to catch my breath. Take that, Geico reject.
The newt angled his head from side to side, curious yet not afraid. Oh, so not afraid. His limbs extended outward, his eyes depressed, and his tail whipped eagerly. He wanted to brawl. But so did my beast.
He leapt from the ceiling, slamming his head through the concrete wall when I jumped. But either he had eyes in the back of his head or Larissa saw all. His tail whipped me across the face. Warm fluid drenched my eye and sudden pain stung beneath my fur like fire. My head flew back. I slammed into the group of broken office chairs, cracking them with the weight of my form. I scrambled to my feet and charged. He jerked free and rammed me into one of the bins. I shifted, came up behind him as human and kicked him in the jaw when he spun to face me.
His skull snapped back, but the bones of his neck didn’t break. I straddled his head and used my weight and muscle to flip him onto his side, ramming my clawed hands into his brown eyes. The mutilated tongue rushed out and nailed me in the face like a fist. I fell back and shifted, sparing my body from the brunt of the fall.
My molecules traveled beneath the foundation and reformed as I surfaced behind him. He must have sensed my presence. His tail whipped across my shins before I could strike. I collided face first into the concrete. The impact robbed my lungs of much needed air. The newt leapt on me, slapping at me with his leathery hands and ramming me in the back of the head with his bloody tongue.
I saw stars. And planets. And rockets. And possibly Superman. But he wasn’t there to save me, and I’d be damned if I’d let Larissa win.
Without enough breath, I couldn’t shift. But I could change. My tigress form returned. I rolled, clawing and cleaving into the soft underbelly of the newt. His skin parted like wet cardboard. I wrenched my head to the side, trying to avoid the likely poisonous blood and entrails drenching my fur. He screeched, ruptured eyes oozing fluid as he whipped the remains of his tongue to encircle my throat.
I raked his tongue with my free paw before he could squeeze. A section of it fell with a splat beside me as I dug my front and back legs into the large holes of his underside. Adrenaline fueled my strength, numbing me to sweltering pain. I launched him into the corner garbage bin. He landed hard enough to pop the overstuffed bags, spilling dirty cups and pizza boxes onto the linoleum.
I whirled onto my belly and roared. Get up! Get up! Dammit, I was pissed.
My tigress didn’t like getting thrown around. And my human side didn’t care for it, either. For a long time, the newt didn’t move. But the moment his dark brown tail lifted, I bolted and hurdled myself on top of him. My claws hacked into his reptilian side like nails through plastic—hard at first, until I completely broke through the tough outer flesh. His skin and innards sprayed my face in chunks, his squeals barely audible over my thunderous roars.
I continued to slash until I felt the pull of muscle and ligaments from long thin bones. That’s when I stopped. Viciousness had its limits, and I’d far surpassed them. I leapt from the bin with grace, the soaked pads of my paws leaving prints on the grimy floor with each step.
I’d won the first challenge. No one appeared with a medal to place around my fuzzy neck, no balloons dropped down from the ceiling, no one patted my back to say “Well done!” And while I didn’t exactly expect a supernatural parade complete with black cats on unicycles, I had expected something more . . . mystical. I changed, returning to my human side and adding bloody human footprints to the tiger ones. Now what? I stood na**d again, with no bouncer in a tacky T-shirt in sight. I reached the floor polisher and sighed, exhausted and still freaked out.
If it wasn’t for the sudden change in the air, I wouldn’t have sensed the giant newt springing at me. With more reflex than strategy, I gripped the handlebars of the floor polisher and swung. The newt bounced off the wall and slumped in front of me, nothing more but ground, battered meat and bone piercing through rubberlike skin.
This time, I needed to make sure he was dead. I bashed in his skull until my face dripped with red death and I couldn’t see, only feel. Feel the bones crunch like wet marbles, feel the warm blood turn cold against my heated flesh, feel my muscles scream with stress and tension.
“Miss Celia, what are you do-eeng?”
I jumped and dropped the handlebars. My hands slapped at my saturated face, trying to see through the glop. Eduardo, one of the day-shift custodians, stood by the double doors with a mini version of the trash bins on wheels. I gaped at my bloody hands, then at the blood pooling from my chin onto the floor. My eyes searched the confines of the room. No other blood but mine in sight. The cracked cinderblock had repaired itself, the pizza boxes, cups, and other garbage had returned to the heap. And the broken chairs lay piled neatly in the corner. Absolutely no other evidence of a high-noon magical showdown . . . with the exception of a very small, very dead, very mutilated newt the size of my palm near my feet. This was more of the ending to round one I’d expected, minus Eduardo.
“Um. Hi, Eduardo.” I pointed to the newt. “I was killing that lizard thingy,” I responded with total sincerity.
Eduardo didn’t bother to take in the newt. Just me. Go figure. “But why are you bleed-eeng . . . and nay-ked?”
My hands gripped my girl parts. Oh, God.