She ended up knee-deep in slick rotting garbage with one hell of a shiner and a stitch gripping her side, holding a glowing-blue knife while something with tentacles thrashed toward her in the foul stinking water.

How the bloody blue hell do I get into these situations? Oh, yeah. Bond issues and politics. Sure.

While the good citizens of Jericho City would pay thousands yearly for plastic surgery and to pad the pockets of the mayor's friends, they simply would not vote a couple of measly bucks onto their property taxes to take care of her library. Lovely. Remind me to spit in a city councilman's coffee cup the first chance I get.

The thing scrabbled for her, throwing up great gouts of stinking water to splash the brick insides of the tunnel, and Chess hoped her college Latin was up to snuff. Let's hope the gingko's working for my memory too, shall we? She drew a deep breath, gagged, and choked out, "Fiat lux aeternis, in nominae Enomae!" in a voice that had more Minnie-Mouse squeak than kickass confidence to it. Her hand stabbed forward, full of the knife, force bleeding out through the blade in a hot wire of strength that seemed to come from her solar plexus. It was getting easier each time she practiced, but the draining sensation was also getting scarier. Much scarier, and much stronger.

Gunpowder flash-blast of blue light, deathlike scream, and she ended up on her back in two feet of stinking water and filth while the thing rained gobbets of already-decaying flesh into the water. The little plips and plops of reeking meat slapping the greasy water made her retch again, her stomach doing its best to engineer a mutiny. I don't blame it one bit. Stomachs weren't meant for this kind of abuse.