Now the first one lunges for her, grabs her shoulders, drives her back against the wall.
The violence shocks her—nobody manhandles her.
So strong, so fast.
I’m really in trouble.
No.
I AM trouble.
The first rule of magical combat is Be the most dangerous thing in the fight.
Believe it and it’s true.
She relaxes as best she can, feels the tingle of magic waking up in her, but before she can pronounce a spell, the horse-man’s hand is in and on her mouth. She bites, but it doesn’t seem to care. It begins to choke her. The second one ducks under its fellow’s arm and bites her.
Bit my fucking nipple off!!!
She can’t even scream.
Tears of pain well in her eyes, blurring the image of the thing killing her, the third one behind it picking up the baseball bat she keeps by her bed.
They have bones
Mistake not to use the spell
Dying
She remembers another spell.
Imagines her left footie ripping, and it rips, exposing her bare foot. She probes for the outlet, but it’s too far.
So she stretches her leg out magically, the length of two legs, finds the outlet, lays the sole of her foot against it.
Imagines herself made of copper.
Becomes a conduit.
The second one has started biting her ear off.
Bad timing.
To touch her just then.
She dumps so much electricity into the horse-men that they scream horse-screams, hop on their flexed man-feet, convulsing.
She smells equine hair burning.
They drop.
Her windpipe is damaged, but not crushed.
She sucks air.
Coughs.
The third one is almost on her now, bat upraised, a second and a half away from staving in her skull.
It doesn’t get that long.
She cables out her forearm, slamming her palm into its muzzle, grabbing.
She hears a pop! And watches an almost comical plume of smoke ascend from its head as it, too, jerks stiff, then drops and twitches.
Now she’s angry.
She looks at the computer, sees an eye in the corner of the screen.
It blinks twice and vanishes, but too late.
Radha runs at the computer.
Sees her reflection in the black screen, dim, getting larger, blood from her insulted breast blotching the onesie.
She leaps.
Yuri has prepared this spell for a week.
He made the horse-head men in 3-D using the woman’s art as a model. He taught them to kill, taught them not to let her speak.
Now it is time.
He must succeed.
His veiling spell can’t hold much longer, burns too much fuel, and if she finds him, she will destroy him. He knows he’s not as strong as she is. Knows he’s only strong because Baba made him strong, dumped magic into him that she stole from others.
One chance only.
He watches the monsters come to life, sends them through the screen, thinks he has Chicagohoney85. Thinks she needs her computer, like him, that she will be weak without it, like him. Such creatures would have torn him apart with little difficulty.
But she is not weak.
The spell with the outlet is superlative.
Genius!
“Xhm,” he says, watching it all like a video game that has taken an unfortunate turn. He realizes, intellectually, that he will be in danger now, but he doesn’t feel it in his gut until he sees her notice him, see the eye, feels her lock on to him.
He clicks the camera off, but it is too late.
She pushes a hand through the screen.
He clicks the camera back on, leans away from the grasping hand.
He senses the electricity stored in her, knows she’ll fry him like a herring if she touches him.
He squeals, rolls his chair away.
Now her head is pushing through.
Slowly, as if through clear taffy.
She sees him!
Behind her, one of the horse-men, the one that bit her, is on its knees, puking, barely alive.
But alive enough.
“Plug!” Yuri says in Russian.
It shambles that way.
Radha’s head is halfway through.
He senses powerful magic, knows he’ll die if she speaks.
Now her mouth is through.
Behind her, the monster in her room disappears as it crawls under her computer desk, whinnying in pain.
She hears the whinny.
Hears it crawling, hitting its head on the desk.
Knows what’s about to happen.
No time to reverse direction.
She fucked up.
Instead of saying the Brazilian word that would have made the small man die horribly, she says “No.”
Just says it.
Like a disappointed child.
The monster pulls the plug.
Most of her head and one hand, neatly shorn, fall onto Yuri’s keyboard, the head continuing on to the floor.
Yuri watches the head empty itself on his linoleum, a pool spreading, the girl’s pretty, terrified eyes looking up at the ceiling, seeing it, then not seeing it.
The cat comes to investigate, then skitters away, its one wet paw leaving prints on the floor.
Yuri passes out.
Back in her room, the body, missing one hand, cropped above a severe diagonal line starting at her chin and continuing up through her ears, falls onto the horse-headed man, releasing its stored charge. Both bodies burst into flames. The one that shouldn’t have existed disappears, as do the other two like it.
The police will say Radha Rostami died in a freak power surge.
Her roommate will tell his boyfriend it was spontaneous human combustion.
He will never sleep in that apartment again.
77
Andrew finds this on his Facebook events page.
Soon! 
until ???
online
Things look not so good for American who has tried too much too big for his breeches. This dying will be even more fun than CHICAGOHONEY85’s BAD HAIR-CUT!!!! (YOU should check event invites, is not polite to not respond) (BUT me and three friends were there, said hellos for U)
Result: No more help hiding money$$$ for taxes, no more histories from long ago, but, Hey! Still pornography is available! Until ????
This will also be for killing of good man, Mikhail Yevgenievitch D.
And killing of old babushka in Ukraine.
(You’ve been a busy boy!!!!)
To Bring: Just yourself! Books and relics stolen long ago will go back to there true home and if any are missing or destroyed—more people on friends list have similar event planning as yours! (I hope it is so)
Going: Andrew Blankenship
Maybe: Everybody on Andrew’s friends list.
Declined: Radha Rostami
Andrew can’t raise Radha by computer or by telephone.
He doesn’t know if this was a lie, meant to off-balance him, but he suspects it’s not.
This makes him blearily angry where he should be sad.
It puts him in a very bad mood.
He calls Chancho.
Chancho drills him hard, makes him knee the kicking pad in his yard until he feels like he can’t lift his leg again.