Out of ammo, I kip-upped and unsheathed my swords, Jade and Fragarach. The blades sang, glinting in the moonlight streaming in from the shattered windows. I backpedaled amidst the support pillars of the large room I found myself in, trying to keep obstacles between me and Diarmuid.

He pursued me with slow, determined footsteps.

“Why do you wish to shoot me? I’ve done you no wrong,” said the undead pretty boy.

I spat blood and splinters from my mouth. “You’re dad’s a psycho Celtic god. You used to be friends with Aengus Og, who’s a vain megalomaniac, and now you’re in cahoots with a vampire queen responsible for ruining hundreds, if not thousands of lives. What reasons do I not have?”

Diarmuid sneered. “You’re that boy who gave father so much trouble.”

I took a moment to bow, holding my blades out to my sides. “One in the same.”

“I recognize that sword,” said Diarmuid motioning to Fragarach. “That’s one of Manann Mac Lir’s blades isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Yep. Stole it from him. Right out from under his nose.”

Diarmuid remained ever stoic. I wanted to see him scowl or grin, or anything, but that stupid teenage brooding boy face just stared back at me and made me want to smash it.

“Wow, I’m impressed.” He drew two blades of his own and they looked strikingly familiar.

“You recognize the style and craftsmanship of these blades don’t you? That’s because they were both made by Manann mac Lir as well. Nóralltach and Beagalltach—Great Fury and Little Fury—are sister swords to your own. But you see, I have two of them, where you have just one. So I guess we’ll see which ones Manann mac Lir devoted more craft to.”

“I doubt that matters,” I grunted. “It’s how the swordsman wields his blade that makes a difference.”

I’d done Kenjutsu for years so I was confident in my abilities. Plus I put my abilities to the test over and over fighting Banshees, countless Sluagh, the Kelpie, half of Raza del Norte, the Dullahan, and perverted versions of myself, not to mention Diarmuid’s own father. But I was only twenty years old. And Diarmuid had recently risen from the dead. I had no idea how long he’d been alive before his death and resurrection, or if he retained any of his residual sword skills. There was only one way to find out.

I decided not to waste any time and began channeling water through Fragarach. Because we were so close to the port, the South side of the building was only a few hundred feet away from the Bay water itself. I began moving Fragarach in small circles beckoning the waters from outside to answer my call. Extra weight rested on my arm as the water outside began to resist my tugging, but Fragarach called it nonetheless.

One of the window frames shattered as a pillar of water snaked in. With the tip of Fragarach I pointed the snaking mass of bay water at Diarmuid.

Diarmuid did his little teleporting trick over and over. But I kept up with him, twisting the pillar of water in and out of windows, up and around to keep him on his toes. I noticed he kept teleporting to the left in a circle around me so I anticipated his next appearance, bringing the water across the floor and up to where he would materialize.

When he reappeared his eyes went wide with shock as the pillar of water smashed into him with a truckload of force. The torrent lifted him into the air, crushing him into the ceiling. He fell back to the cement floor, but just before hitting it spread his arms and legs out and levitated just above the surface, breaking his fall. I had since released my hold on the water and it amassed into a puddle on the ground, leaving us in the center of a large indoor pond of a puddle.

“I can see why father had a hard time putting up with you. You’re clever. Now it’s my turn.”

He produced the shorter sword, the one called Beagalltach, and circled his arms like I had. As I was beginning to wonder what sort of power the short sword wielded, an icy gale rushed into the building from all sides as if it was being drawn from the four corners of the Earth into this one room. I shielded my eyes against the onslaught of frigid wind. An instant later my teeth chattered and my breath rose up in wisps out of my mouth and nostrils. My foot slipped and I almost lost my balance. “Whoa.”

He froze all the water, turning the entire floor into an ice skating rink.

He dashed at me through the air. He had a great advantage. He could hover while I was stuck trying to move the best I could on a frozen floor. I summoned my Good Luck and managed to get my shield up in time to block his swords. They slammed into my shield and severed some of the knotted ribbons on the first try, cracking my defense. I was knocked back, sliding fast. I kept my balance and grinned.

The cement wall I crashed into knocked all of the wind out of me. He gave me no time to recover and mocked me with his levitating powers, standing sideways on the wall swinging at me with sword attack after sword attack, throwing in jabs and faints and stabs.

But with my Good Luck I was no punk. My Kenjutsu melded with my magic, putting my defense on autopilot. My swords danced in front of me, glowing like emerald rave batons as I flicked them hand over hand deflecting each and every below.

“Such skills for a mortal, and one so young too,” he said with a wicked smirk.

He wasn’t even going hard. Diarmuid was teasing me. He had not even used Nóralltach’s magic yet.

Time to switch to offense and show Donn Jr. I was made of tougher stuff. He came in for a stab, Beagalltach leading and Nóralltach behind him for a follow-up strike.

I crossed my own blades, caught his short sword in the cross, and then forced his blade arm down. I followed up with a kick to his face before he could strike me with Nóralltach. His neck snapped back. He grunted involuntarily. I chuckled to myself. I learned that from reading Drizzt. Thanks, Wizards of the Coast.

Diarmuid’s stoic look was gone, replaced by a murderous wrath.

But since I had the upper hand, or foot really, I kept my attacks coming, unrelenting. I chained one kata into another kata, even into a third. I could tell it was getting to him because he started to rely heavily on his teleportation trick to dodge my moves, instead of deflecting them with the blades.

“I know why your father sent you here,” I said, switching up the fight from a purely physical to a mental game. I let my Good Luck course through me guiding me to where he would be so that every time he appeared I was there with Jade and the Answerer.

“Daddy can’t trust Diarmuid to not muck up his plans. So he sent his little boy away to stay out of trouble.”

“You know nothing of me or my father. My father trusts me.”

“That’s not what your old man told me when I fought him and beat him with his own bird army. Your dad tried to offend me by saying I was worse than you, more pathetic than his own annoying son. That’s all you are to him, an annoyance, like me.”

Gritting his teeth, his eyes cold and glaring, he levitated high in the air out of the reach of my swords so I was left to swing dumbly at him like a dog trying to catch a cat in a tree. He thought I was out of tricks so I showed him the one I had learned. I spun to create momentum and then hurled Fragarach at him. He deflected it easily, but I spun and hurled Jade, at the same time reaching out to Fragarach with my Good Luck. Emerald ribbons lashed out of my arms intertwining and interweaving as they raced towards Fragarach wrapping around the sword. I yanked my arm back and the sword came back to me like a yo-yo. He deflected Jade as well, but Fragarach whipped back at him. I juggled my swords one at a time, keeping D-boy at bay. I had to stay stationary though because of the ice.

“If I’m a mere nuisance to my father, why would he raise me from the dead?”

It was a good question.

I thought of the first snide remark that came to mind. “Easy. You shamed him by dying like a punk. It was worth it to bring you back from the dead, even if only to fix his own reputation as lord of the dead.”

As he deflected my swords with Beagalltach, he swung the larger of the two swords, Nóralltach, bringing it in an arc towards me. Though the sword itself was out of reach the magic pulsing from it was all-encompassing. I heard a gush of wind and a heat wave rushed over me. Not a moment later and I was sweating, finding it hard to move and up to my ankles in hot water that had previously been ice. Where the ice made it hard to balance, the water I had brought in made it hard to move. Humidity drenched my skin in slick sweat.

Worry crept over me. This fight was taking a lot longer than I hoped. I needed to get back to my friends ASAP. But if I turned my back on this guy, he’s slaughter me. He’d made sure to put just enough distance between my friends and me that I had no idea what was happening to them. So I called Fragarach and Jade back to me and began drawing water to my stolen sword.

I sent wave after wave of razor thin sheets of water skyward towards Diarmuid. He swung the short sword, turning my water blasts back to ice. Then with his longsword he hacked at the flying ice artillery and shattered them into millions of tiny pieces.

Neither of us were getting anywhere so we just went harder.

A torrent of elements of wind and water crashed head on. All of the heat and ice mixed with water formed a mini cyclone in the center of the room threatening to draw me in and spit me out with a g-force greater than a roller coaster. Taking a cue from my clever attacks, Diarmuid decided to throw his own short sword. I dashed out of the way as it spun in a circle past me.

“How’d you miss me,” I said to thin air, realizing he had teleported.

I spun on my heels and came face-to-face with the edge of Nóralltach inches away from my neck.