I was still a bit mopey the next morning when one of my news alerts popped up with video of Daniel Carter, the Bluestar 7 cop who had talked to me and Judy at the museum. This was video from one of his fights, recently released by VBC.

I played the video and immediately converted it to a full hologram, so the two figures were standing in my living room. One little guy, five foot eight, versus six hundred pounds of charging werewolf. The full-scale figure of the monster was so tall, its head poked out the top of my ceiling, leaving only its furry chest and legs visible as I isolated one move from the fight.

The creature had caught Daniel by surprise, roaring out of this abandoned house, forcing him to dodge out of the way - and that dodge was one of the most impressive things I had ever seen.

Carter had pivoted, thrown his arms up, sidestepped the werewolf, and tripped it somehow, guiding it down and away from him like he was using its own mass to push off. It looked so gentle, but the human was unharmed, and the beast went down, allowing Daniel to pounce and throw some silver handcuffs on it while it was trying to stand.

I played the scene over and over, frame by frame, until I finally told Jeeves to bring it into my training environment and adjust Daniel’s figure to match my height and weight. I was taller than him, and a lot wider, but the program created a red wireframe matching my body that turned green as I got myself in position and matched its posture.

I went through it frame by frame again, adjusting my body until the figure turned green before advancing to the next one. It took me a good hour to run the whole sequence and copy his movements, forcing my body to bend and stretch in ways that it never had before.

I ran through it frame by frame a dozen times before finally playing it at twenty percent speed. It was so hard to keep my body in position I had to reduce to five percent before I finally got it close enough.

Then I grabbed a bottle of water and sat down to drink it, amused by the quizzical, slightly alarmed look Lydia was giving me.

“I can’t believe that’s just judo,” I said. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

“This is angel training,” Lydia said. “One of the first routines they taught warriors at Monte Cassino. It’s a good first lesson, teaching students to control their fear of larger creatures. Instead of panicking and freezing up, they’re taught to relax and move. Your friend is wearing a cross in a world where that makes him a target, so he probably trained with some holy order. These techniques originated with an angel, maybe even Gabriel himself.”

“Wait, you’re telling me Daniel Carter studied at a monastery and learned martial arts from angels? That is the most badass thing I ever heard.”

Lydia managed to roll her eyes without doing it.

I repeated the move until I wore myself out, straining my body in reckless, irresponsible ways, so I was in quite a bit of pain by the time we went to bed. But by the time I stopped, I was running the replay at forty percent.

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* * *

I hit it again the next morning and made it to fifty percent. Then I considered Lydia for a bit too long and said, “How strong are you?”

Lydia said, “No. Timothy, no.”

“No, seriously. How strong are you? Stronger than human, right?”

“Most of them.”

I turned off the hologram and moved furniture out of the way, creating a bigger open space in my living room. “Come down here for a minute.”

“Timothy, this is foolish, and it will not go the way you expect. Please don’t ask me to do this. I’m here to build your confidence, not tear it down.”

“Hey! I might surprise you! And I’m not going to get my ego hurt over a little training exercise. Come on.”

Lydia flashed into her natural form and reluctantly took a position on the opposite side of the room.

“Okay,” I said. “Come at me.” But she hesitated. “Come on! You want to touch me so bad, touch me right here,” I pointed to the center of my chest. “Hit me here. Not hard, just enough to knock me down. Show me how fast you can move.”

That turned out to be pretty fucking fast. A blur of black silk and I sailed across the room, landing hard against the wall behind me. I slowly hauled myself up and said, “Okay. Point made. I’ll be right back.”

I came back with a load of blankets and pillows, building a little nest on the far wall so I could have a soft place to land.

“Okay, hit me again.”

“Timothy, please stop this. You were in pain when you came to bed last night. Now you’re asking me to inflict pain on you, and you know how I feel about that.”

“You’re not hurting me or abusing me. You’re training me. Directly. Personally. Just like you say you want. Come on.”

She sighed and launched me across the room again. She was only using one finger, creating a tiny sore spot in the center of my chest. I still couldn’t follow her movements. “You’re not teleporting, are you? Shortcutting through astral space?”

“I am not. Timothy, please, you are not going to learn anything this way. This is not a matter of skill or training or repetition. You are up against the hard limits of human reflexes. My form was made to do this in ways yours was not.”

“Actually, I think I am learning something. Hit me again.”

This time I watched her very carefully before my trip across the room. She wasn’t slipping out of real space, but there was no way she was using her full weight. She probably had eighty percent of her mass phased out to move that fast.

I made her do it over and over until she refused again. “Timothy, I’m hurting you. Please stop.”

“I can’t stop!” I shouted, suddenly angry. “Of course, if I go hand to hand with a demon I’m going to lose! But I need to see exactly how and why I lose. I have to feel it, to understand what I’m up against. Lydia, my powers are based on confidence, but I’m not a fighter. I have to be able to take a hit and keep a spell going, no matter how hard I fall. Please hit me again.”

Lydia started to charge me again, but this time I started casting before she moved. I had finally figured out her tell. She was attacking me in her natural form, and she dropped her tail for counterbalance right before she moved. This time, I cast levitation as soon as I saw it. Not on me, but on her. She was already at a fraction of her weight, so the spell was effortless. I lifted her feet off the floor, grabbed her arm and threw her onto the pillows, pivoting just like Daniel did.

“See, that’s what I was doing wrong,” I said. “I was trying to fight fair.”

Lydia seemed shocked, then genuinely angry. “You stood there and let me knock you down for two hours, just so I wouldn’t see that coming.”

“Nah,” I grinned, “that was just a bonus. Lydia, I’m doing Judo 101 over here. I’m learning how to fall. I’d have to check my cameras to be sure, but I think those last three were perfect rolls back to standing.” I made my way past her, rubbing my chest. “You telegraph the shit out of those lunges, by the way. You should probably work on that, in case you ever square off with anybody who actually knows how to fight.”