Ten feet away stood a young woman with spiky blond hair and so many piercings it’d take her an hour to prepare for a metal detector.

“My competition, I presume,” I said. “Sorry about your luck.”

“Oh, my luck’s fine.”

She cast again. I dodged the spell easily. Her lips tightened and her fury washed over me in delicious waves.

“Not used to casting against someone who knows what you’re doing?” I said. “Lesson one: don’t flail your hands.”

Another cast. I feinted to the side, but from the look on her face, there’d been no need.

“Run out of juice?” I said. “Lesson two: don’t spend it all in one place.”

I reached into the side compartment of my purse, a little hobo-style handbag, designed for the young urbanite of the twenty-first century, with convenient compartments for sunglasses, cell phone, PDA and a concealed weapon.

The witch stared at the gun as if expecting me to light a cigarette with it.

“Sit down,” I said.

After some prodding, she lowered herself to the ground, muttering about fair play. Among supernaturals, using weapons is considered an act of cowardice. But when your power package doesn’t come with fireballs or superhuman strength, you need to even the playing field.

Once she was seated, I used another weapon-my penknife-to cut the bindings from a nearby stack of recyclable papers.

“It’s called using what works,” I said as I tied her. “You should try it. Starting with learning your own kind of magic. If you’d cast a witch’s binding spell, I’d be the one sitting here, and you’d be the one with the conch shell.”