When a guy is on Death’s personal staff you don’t want to go around offending him. I find it difficult to think of anything more dangerous… well, I can, but I’ve yet to meet a fire breathing dragon with a fetish for red-headed secret agents so I don’t know if that particular situation counts.

My nameless friend didn’t much scare me. Give him a stapler and I might feel seriously threatened but otherwise he just induced a ravenous curiosity. Stoic men generally did that to me. Then again, stoic men had a habit of breaking my heart into little pieces and stomping indifferently on the remains. This did nothing to squelch my desire for them, but it installed a cautiousness I might not otherwise have had. That being the case, I didn’t feel the need to alert him to the alarming number of drunk guys who had decided it would be fun to pick on me.

This particular brand of drunk guy was very curious. They usually hang out in groups of no more than four or five. The group that happened upon us had close to twenty. Perhaps they weren’t so much a Miscellaneous Group of Random Drunk Guys but a Miscellaneous Gang of Random Drunk Guys Filled With Rage at the Hierarchy of America. It made sense. It also made my night a bit harder as they have a tendency to crush innocent opponents into kitty litter.

Now, there’s no question that I possess mad skillz. No one has ever challenged me on this point. I cherish my mad skillz. They have been kind to me. They allow me to take on four challengers single handedly and come out with little injury save perhaps the occasional broken nail. Taking on six might be pushing it. Taking on eight was a bit more than I could handle. It’s always good to know your limits.

My survival instincts told me to turn tail and run.

My pride told me to stand my ground.

My tummy growled menacingly. Nice touch.

I compromised. I started to cry.

It’s a well-known fact that men the worlds over are reluctant to hit an emotional female. Especially an attractive emotional female. They usually shuffle their feet a bit, scratch their noses or become intensely interested in something over there, way over there, very far away.

This fact has worked to my advantage many times. So many, in fact, that I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. I doubled over right there in the middle of the garbage-strewn street clutching my stomach and giggled maniacally.

Men aren’t so reluctant to hit laughing girls, especially when they feel they may have been the butt of the joke. They advanced on me once more, knives glinting in the streetlights. One, with a particularly constipated look on his face, waved a bat threateningly. There was no doubt in my mind that he knew how to use it. This suspicion was confirmed when he lunged.

I ducked over to the left, banged my head on a dumpster, and swayed momentarily with a dazed look on my face. Well now, that didn’t go well at all.

Bat boy started to laugh. Schmuck.

It took some effort to recollect myself. Something just wasn’t right. I refuse to even consider the notion that perhaps my mad skillz have run out. That’s not possible. But perhaps they were taking a short vacation. I ran through a mental calendar. Drat. Thursday. Again. Of all the…

Bat boy and his comrades began advancing once more. I took a few steps back. They followed. Sometimes I really, really hate cause and effect.

The only way out of all this was going to be up. There was no way I’d reach the fire escape from here as it was a good six feet over my head. Instead, I quickly calculated the distance and somersaulted on to the lip of the dumpster. Ah ha! No problems here! I was going to have to keep moving though. I stepped to the right and was suddenly hit with a blast of the most rancid odor I’ve ever smelled. Its putrescent nature completely threw me off. I windmilled frantically…

… and was engulfed in a swirl of black.