Tomlin caught Dmitri’s low swing with the edge of her naginata and flicked it back with a quick upward movement. Dmitri took a step back to get out of the longer range of the naginata. He kept the tip of his blade low, protecting his legs from the longer reach of the naginata. James knew the easiest target for Tomlin to hit was the legs. The naginata had much better reach than the sword, and she could cut at the legs and still be ready to block Dmitri’s sword with the butt end of the naginata.

Dmitri began circling around Tomlin. James noticed that Tomlin matched his movements to keep herself between Dmitri and James. James wondered why Tomlin brought him. He appeared a liability in this fight. He looked down in the opened naginata case. It was difficult to see the contents in the darkness, but after a moment he could see that besides the sheath for her blade, there were only the four practice blades she brings to class. Against a real sword, the bamboo tips of the practice blades would not last very long. Even so, he pulled out a practice naginata. He hoped if the worst happened, he could use the pole part to fend off some of Dmitri’s attacks.

James blinked and in that moment it was over. Dmitri was on the ground with a large gash on his thigh. He had dropped his sword and Tomlin stood over him, holding the point of the naginata at his throat. She pulled it back in a maneuver he had never seen in class, and she stabbed the naginata in his throat. Dark blood spurted out from the cut, and Tomlin pulled out the naginata and jumped back, the point still held high in the air toward where Dmitri’s chest would have been had he still be standing, prepared for an attack that would never come from him. It was as she had taught them in class: you should always look and be ready for anything, even after you score a point or win a match, or, in this case, after you kill a man.

James could not believe that he was thinking about match points while watching Tomlin kill a man with her naginata. She walked back calmly to the case, and sheathed the naginata. She did not look up at him as she placed the naginata carefully in the case, attaching and tightening the straps that held the blade against the case.

James felt he should have said something, stopped the fighting. Or now that Dmitri was bleeding out, gone over and helped him, called for an ambulance, did something. But he stood there beyond the darkness of the circle, leaning on the wooden naginata blade and stared at the scene. His throat was dry and he found he couldn’t swallow. He knew he had not blinked since the moment of her strike, but he could still not force his eyelids closed. Reality disappeared and he did not know how he could get it back.

He tried to stop looking at the scene but he couldn’t take his eyes off of the dying man. He watched as Tomlin approached the Dmitri’s body. She walked around him until she was over where his head had fallen. She kneeled so her knees were a foot away from his head and pulled out a small glass vial. She closed her eyes and held the vial in both hands in front of her.

He heard humming. At first James thought his mind was playing tricks on him. That the music was coming from his own head. The wind was still blowing at the music cut in and out, and it took him awhile to realize it was coming from Tomlin. She was kneeling over Dmitri’s body and humming a discordant tune.

James studied Dmitri’s body. He was wearing a white button-down shirt, the collar of which was now stained with his dark blood. His collar was open and a white undershirt could be seen underneath. Over the shirt he wore a buttoned-up suit vest. Like his pants, it was blue with wide pin stripes. He wore wing-tipped black shoes and black socks, which were rolled down so his white ankles could be seen poking out from his pants leg.

James stared at the body as Tomlin continued her humming, her eyes closed and the small vial held in an outstretched fist over Dmitri’s body. He had never seen such a ritual, and it looked almost like she was mourning his loss. James began to back away from the scene. He felt a strong need to get away from Tomlin and the body, to escape from the parking lot. He did not understand what he had seen, and he was not sure what he should do. He had a desire to call for help and reached for his cell phone. He stared at it but he could not remember what he was supposed to dial.

“James,” he heard Tomlin’s voice in the distance. “James, come over here.” She spoke very slowly and loudly in his direction.

Through the fog that filled his mind, James listened and followed her directions. He was so used to doing as she said in class, that he unconsciously said “Hai,” as he did in class when she provided a pointer. He took a fumbling step toward her and the body. He leaned heavily on the naginata in his right hand as he felt no strength his legs. He felt as if he would fall over if his weight wasn’t resting on something. In his left hand he grasped and squeezed the cellphone. He still could not think of who to call to report this or to get help.

“Come closer,” Tomlin said. She was still kneeling over the body, but now she was looking directly at James. “You did well by not interfering. Now you have to see this. I brought you here to see this. I couldn’t save you from watching the fight. You wouldn’t understand this part without the duel. Sit down and watch.”

James felt himself sitting on the cold concrete. He placed the naginata to his side and still grasped his cellphone. He leaned forward and watched as Tomlin resumed her humming. She again lifted the vial above Dmitri’s body. Her humming grew louder and she began to chant. The tune was the same discordant music as she had been humming, but now she added guttural words to the music. James tried to concentrate on the words, but although he could identify them as individual sounds, he could not make out the words or even what language she was speaking. He tried to listen but the words slipped through his mind like a wet eel through his hands. It was almost as if the words demanded that he did not remember them.

Tomlin continued the chanting and the words began to come faster. A light appeared in the hand Tomlin held the vial. At first it looked like a reflection of the distant parking lot lights. It grew brighter quickly and soon became apparent that it was not a reflection. The empty glass vial was glowing a bright white color, expanding until the brightness appeared to stream between Tomlin’s fingers, like the sunrays through an opening in the clouds.

Tomlin’s voice continued to grow louder as the light grew almost too brilliant to look at. The light washed over Dmitri’s body but did not illuminate the ground or Tomlin herself. The light looked directed as if it was a flashlight running over the body. James realized that the light on Dmitri’s body was not coming from the vial but from his skin itself. His skin was glowing. His clothing quieted some of the light, but his face and hands, and even his bare ankle gave up a soft glow.

The light continued to grow brighter until the glow coming from the vial and body outshone the lights in the parking lot. As quickly as the light had appeared, it vanished. Tomlin was suddenly silent and everything went dark.

“Are you still there?” James asked quietly. He could still see the distant lights from the parking lot, but he could not make anything out in the circle they sat in.

“Let your eyes adjust a moment, James.”

James blinked a few times, and slowly the gray outline of James’s hand appeared in front of him. He looked beyond his hand and saw Tomlin’s shape. She was still kneeling in the same place she was moments before.

James’s eyes continued to readjust to the darkness and he looked at where Dmitri’s body had been moments before. Dmitri’s clothing was still there, but his body had vanished. The clothing was on the ground, wrinkled in the same position Dmitri’s body had been. The blood that had been on the white collar was gone. James looked over and saw that his sword was still a few feet away from where the arm of the shirt was.

“I don’t understand,” James stammered.

“I show all of my students this,” Tomlin said as she stood up. She still held the vial in her hand. She held out her arm with her palm facing upward. James looked down and saw that the vial now contained a yellowish liquid. As the liquid swooshed within the vial, the movement looked strange. It looked heavier than a liquid, almost like Drano, and moved slowly across the vial to equalize itself to the empty spaces within the vial. It moved as James imagined plasma would move.

“What is it?” James asked.

“This is Dmitri’s essence.” Tomlin grasped her fist closed and placed the vial into an inner pocket in her jacket. She leaned down and began to carefully fold Dmitri’s clothing up into a neat pile.

“That’s Dmitri?” James asked, still not understanding what was going on.

“Only the essence of his body,” Tomlin said. “The real Dmitri died some time ago. We couldn’t allow what was left to continue to exist. He knew it, which is why he came here to face me. There are the hunted and the hunters; the righteous and those looking to bring chaos down upon the world. I know this sounds strange, but there is much you must learn, and regrettably little time left to learn it.”

“You brought everyone from class to something like this? They saw you kill someone?”

“As I said, it’s more complicated than that.” Tomlin sounded angry. “Dmitri was no longer a someone. He made a choice—a wrong choice—and when he made that choice he stopped being a person and became something . . . something else. He gave up his soul, James. He was just an ego, a body running around without any conscience. Given a few more years he would barely have been recognizable as human. What I did, and what you will learn to do, is to stop these monsters before they prey upon the world.”

James did not understand anything Tomlin was saying. He wanted to go home. He wanted to get away from whatever craziness he had seen. It was like a bad science fiction movie. He wanted no part of it. James turned away from Tomlin and began stumbling toward his car.

“You forgot to take the case,” Tomlin called after him.

James did not stop walking away. His steps grew further apart until he was running toward the car. He was not sure what he would do when he arrived at the car. He saw Tomlin’s car in the distance. The car was parked close the entrance of the parking lot. It sat alone under the single working light in the area. A purple pay box was a few feet away from the car. Its door had been forced open at some point, and the metal money slots reflected the light. One of the hinges of the front had weakened, and the front of the pay box was at a strange angle. It swayed back and forth in the strong wind, making a creaking sound with each slight movement.

Frankie Names appeared on the couch next to the hosts of Good Morning America. He was elegant looking in a Victorian three-piece suit. The tie was broad and pinned in the middle by a large diamond. His face was tanned and he had perfectly white teeth. He was smiling as he waited for the segment to start.

The studio was smaller than it looked on the television.

Word count: 2,094.

Words remaining: 40,475 (9,525).

Forgot to post this last night. More hopefully coming today.