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Of course it isn’t—he can move so fast he becomes a blur. Sometimes it looks like a magic trick: he went in that door, now he emerges impossibly from the other. Yet still, somehow, I scream in shock when he gets me. “No, no, no,” I yell frantically, and kick out at the hand that has my ankle, like some silly little kid.

But can you blame me?

It’s like being hauled down into the mouth of a shark.

I think of the movie Jaws before I’ve even looked back at him, of that old grizzled guy sliding toward that gaping, chomping maw. I imagine myself being swallowed whole, and can’t help panicking.

And of course he’s a fucking ass about it.

“Come on, Marley, you can do better than this. Where are the fireballs, the sudden holes in the floor, the attempts at turning me to stone. Hit me hard, you can do it,” he’s saying as he drags me inexorably toward him. Fangs bared in what is almost a smile, those eyes like holes in the middle of the ocean, hands almost like a caress now, almost like a plea, almost like something that could seduce me in and never let me go. For a second I get the strangest doubling sensation, and it doesn’t just feel impossible to escape him.

It feels impossible that I might want to. And then those teeth get close enough to kiss my skin, and I shake it off. I see the real horror. I feel it, right down to my bones.

He’s going to bite me.

For the first time, I’m going to feel those teeth sink into my tender flesh.

Though of course I always think he must have once before. I just don’t remember it, I don’t recall; my mind has blacked out this harrowing memory. Surely, I always think, surely he did, even as the brand-new horror of this grips me. I come close to begging him. To saying his name—Halsten, please, please.

Then even stranger, I hear it in a different language in my head.

Snälla gör mig inte illa, I think.

Maybe I even say it, I can’t tell.

I only know that he lets go, abruptly. And when he does, every bit of sense in my head comes flooding back. The panic ebbs, and is replaced by the intense understanding of what I am. A fucking witch, I think, as fierce as the sun, and then I bring my hands together. I do it hard, so hard it sounds like a gunshot when they connect. My palms sting; it feels as if dust billows out from that point of contact.

But it isn’t just dust that results.

It’s thunder. Hands together is thunder.

And the sound of it alone, in this small space, booms him backward. He goes ass over tit down the stairs and back out into the office, papers and pencils and the bunting from the Halloween fair billowing with him. It’s like seeing a strong and sudden gust of wind—and one he does not appreciate.

He stops the roll he’s in with one hand out, those sudden iron claws digging furrows into my fucking floor. Then he gives me an even more horrendous snarl than I got at the door, thick with what seems like frustration. This time he gets the vampiric eyes, and yeah, they’re as bad as I remember. Like his soul has been stripped away.

But it’s okay.

Something else usually comes with thunder, after all.

Something that makes the lightbulbs in all the lamps blow as one. They snap, crackle, and pop like Rice Krispies, and with that comes the stench of ozone. The heat of electricity, caught in a too-small place. Threads of it ripple over the walls, the ceiling, my desk. Something catches fire, but I don’t care.

He’s just lost that furious, teeth-bared expression.

He sees that electricity and it folds like a bad poker hand. His eyes go wide; he jerks back. He even lifts his hands, palms out, in the universally accepted gesture for have mercy. “Wait, wait, wait,” he says, but oh, too late, motherfucker.

My feet are already lifting off the ground. My hair is standing straight up off my head. I can feel my eyes in their sockets, no longer a soft and ordinary hazel, but swirling like whirlpools made of lightning. “But darling, I thought you wanted the witch?” I say, in the exact same tone he used to taunt me over the cake.

Then I simply let loose.

Like pitching a ball, only the ball is lightning. It blazes, blowing a hole in his shoulder. He actually makes a noise that almost sounds like agony the moment it passes through. And once he’s on his back, faintly steaming, he can’t at first get it together. He touches the bloody, ragged wound with an almost offended look on his face. Then turns to me, near pouting about it.

But to be fair to him, it is enormous.

I can see most of my noticeboard through it. He could probably fit his hand right in there and wave at me from the back. If he didn’t happen to be a fucking psychopath, and he wasn’t already healing, I’d be sorry. Instead of what I actually am: ready to seize this opportunity to get the fuck out of here.

I’ve got about five seconds, I reckon, so I don’t bother with the stairs, searching for my keys, the door. I simply aim for the ceiling, and blast a hole right through to my apartment. Then just as he realizes what I’m doing and scrambles to get at me, I aim lightning at the floor.

Sloppily, I have to say.