“He didn’t know what was coming for him. You do.”
“I do?”
“A wolf. A man. You can beat him.”
I might have been slow to start sometimes, but I’d never been a quitter. I didn’t intend to change my ways this late in life. I pushed myself off the floor and dusted the dirt from my borrowed sweats. “Okay, thanks for the pep talk.”
“Are you ready to try again?”
“For what it’s worth, yes, I am.”
“Good.” Tori stood beside me. “We’ll try something different tonight. Close your eyes.” I did as she said. Her footsteps shuffled around and then came to a stop in front of me. “In your mind, visualize an image of Hati as wolf and hold him there.”
I reviewed my dream and paused on a frame of Hati ripping into Mani and focused on his sharp teeth and bloody jaws. We’d tried this exercise before, but nothing came of our attempts. Why did Tori expect this time would be different?
“Picture your brother fighting him,” Tori said. “Feel his pain and fear. Don’t be sympathetic. Be empathetic, put yourself in his place.”
I went further into the memory, but my mind protested. My chest cramped. A sob escaped my throat.
“Don’t resist. If it hurts, then it means you’re doing it right. Take it in you, and let it rip you up. Let the anger, fear, and grief stab you and cut you.”
“You’re crazy,” I said, opening my eyes.
“Close your eyes!” she ordered.
I snapped them shut; her voice held that much command.
A set of hands emerged from the dark and clamped around me, pinning my arms to my sides. I opened my eyes again in time to see Tori rearing back. She let loose and sank her fist into my gut. My knees went out, and I would have fallen if not for whoever held me. I struggled for breath, and stars danced around my vision. My lungs came back on line and heaved in the breath driven out by Tori’s strike.
“What the hell—” I began but didn’t get to finish before Tori’s fist rammed into my jaw, popping my head back with an audible crack. I struggled against whoever held me, screaming and whipping wildly. I panicked for a second, but then my training clicked in. I switched into action and jammed my heel into the instep of the Valkyrie holding me in place. Her grip relaxed, and I shoved my elbow into her solar plexus. She grunted and bowed over. “Good job, princess,” Inyoni said, panting. She looked up at me and smiled. “I see your training is starting to sink in.”
“What are you doing?” I wheezed.
“Helping you find your fire,” Tori said as she struck a kick toward my ribs. I turned and her foot ricocheted off my hip, but the pain of her hit went all the way to the pit of my stomach.
“You going to stand there and take it?” she asked. “Or are you going to fight back?”
I growled and aimed a punch for Tori’s face. She blocked and jabbed her other fist. Her strike landed, a perfect black-eye blow, and my left lid immediately began to swell. “I can’t fight you,” I said. “You’re too good.”
“Am I?” Tori bounced on her feet. Inyoni waited from a safe distance, watching for Tori’s directions should she call her to the fight again.
“Yes. You’re fast and strong.”
“Those are my weapons. You have weapons of your own. Use them.”
“I don’t know how,” I shrieked.
“I am the wolf, Solina. Do you think I will give you mercy? Fight me like you would fight the wolf.” Tori spun in a blur of movement and kicked my legs out from under me. I hit the concrete, and stars sparkled before my eyes again.
“Uh-uh-uhhh,” Inyoni said, sing-song. She waggled her finger at me like a condescending grandmother. “You know how to take a fall better than that. Guess what we’ll be working on again tomorrow.”
As I lay there, waiting for the daze to clear, Tori launched herself on me and bit me.
“Ow, you bitch!” I clawed for her eyes and managed to smack her away. Tori laughed and gnashed her teeth at me. I might have laughed, too, if her bite had not drawn blood. She crouched low to the floor and growled. Tori had her wolf impression down pat. The hairs rose on the back of my neck in anticipation of her next move.
Tori licked her lips. “I’m going to eat you, little piggy. Just like I ate your brother.”
The decision to leap flashed in Tori’s eyes. I threw up a hand and caught her jaw in my grasp. She shrieked and pulled back, revealing an angry red mark on her face shaped like a hand. We both stared in awe as my fingers glowed, red-white like charcoal in a grill. Flames crawled from my palm and up the length of my arm, turning whiter and brighter as they moved.
“Catch it,” Tori said. “Don’t let it burn you out. Take control.”
Now that the fire had come, I sensed the origins inside myself, same as I had in Helen’s hotel room in Juneau. I focused on turning the flames into something useable, rather than something all consuming. Still, the use of my abilities sucked away my strength, and even at this reduced rate, I wouldn’t hold out long. “It’s taking all my energy,” I said. “It always does this. It burns until I black out.”
“You don’t always have to be a flamethrower,” Tori said. “Sometimes one hot coal is enough. See if you can turn it down a notch.”
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and pictured a temperature knob on an old oven. I imagined turning it to a low broil.
“That’s it,” Inyoni said, her voice full of excitement. “You’re doing it.” She smiled at me, her enthusiasm genuine.
I grinned, and the fire diminished even more. “Don’t distract me, or I’ll lose it.”
“It’s okay,” Tori said. “Now let’s take it back up. Try bringing it out on both hands, but just your hands and not your whole body.”
We worked like that for a while, but as exhaustion took over, my control diminished. We ended the night with me going up in a blaze of glory and the sprinklers dousing everything until an inch of water filled the basement. My black eye was gone, thanks to the self-healing aspect of my powers, but I would seriously have to invest in a flame-retardant wardrobe if I kept this up.
Tori sent Inyoni running for a T-shirt and another pair of sweats and a towel. When she returned, I dried off, tugged on the clothes, and sloshed my way over to the basement stairway. As I chugged up the steps, an immense sense of accomplishment swelled through me. No wedding cake or muffin basket had given me that feeling, and they never would.
The main-level workout room was full of women. They took in our sodden figures, and the whole room burst in a chorus of raucous cheers and whistles.
