Monster Republic by Ben Horton Page B

going to come from before he did.
    Cameron felt his fists clenching, all set to throw a punch of his own. But then he looked over at his enemy.
    Marie’s face stared back at him. How could he possibly hit her?
    Forcing his arms down, Cameron backed up, trying to get quicker with his parries instead, doing anything he could think of tokeep Marie at bay. She kept advancing, though, punishing him with another flurry of punches to the body, followed by a casual yet devastating spinning kick.
    Cameron sailed backwards and landed in an untidy pile. Once more he hauled himself up off the grass as Marie came after him. Suddenly Rora appeared from nowhere and leaped between them, but Marie swatted her aside with a backhand blow that sent the fox-girl sprawling again. It was no good, Cameron was going to have to start getting creative or aggressive. Or both. Keeping his distance as best he could, he beat a fighting retreat across the park.
    Scooping up a large rock from one of the flowerbeds, he hurled it in Marie’s direction. Without breaking stride, she deflected the missile with a casual flick of her wrist. An old log was dispatched the same way, exploding in a shower of rotten wood; she ducked swiftly under a swung branch. Soon Cameron was hurling park benches between them, even uprooting a lamp-post and trying to fend heroff with that. But Marie evaded or parried everything he threw her way.
    And still she kept coming.
    Cameron couldn’t believe that just a few minutes earlier he’d been comparing himself with a superhero. He wasn’t feeling much like one now. Or if he was, he had more than met his match. Marie, or Carl, or whatever the two of them had become, was a monster and a half, both quicker and stronger than him. The ease with which she evaded Cameron’s obstacles was crushing. Finally she swooped under another thrown park bench and it was back to hand-to-hand.
    That was it. Cameron realized he wasn’t getting a choice in the matter: it was hit back or be pummelled into the ground.
    Marie swept at Cameron’s legs with a kick, but he jumped just in time, and hit out with a tightly bunched fist. It smacked Marie on the chin, jerking her head backwards.
    ‘That’s more like it!’ she said with a laugh, before launching herself at Cameron to repay him in kind.
    Cameron reversed, ducking, and driving up with his fist. But she chopped the blow down. Back on her feet again, Rora suddenly came at Marie from the side, forcing her to turn and buying Cameron a window of opportunity to land some solid blows of his own.
    For a moment Cameron and Rora had Marie on the defensive. Until Marie seized one of Rora’s arms and flung her like a rag doll into one of the broken benches scattered around their battleground. Then she was back to facing Cameron solo, and dishing out bare-knuckle blows and roundhouse kicks.
    Cameron didn’t know how much more he could take, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling that Marie was just playing with him, delivering two good kicks or punches for every one of his that made it through her own defences.
    Worse, every time he did land a blow, she just cracked an evil grin, while he winced inwardly at the thought of hitting a girl. When his knuckles slammed into her nose, it should have been a small victory. Instead, all he got was a queasy feeling as he watched the bloodtrickling down over her lips. Marie just seemed to be spurred on.
    Finally she jumped high in the air while Cameron was glancing around desperately for any sort of weapon to hold her back. She came down on top of him and slammed him to the ground, a hand at his throat. Slender fingers that Cameron had only known as gentle and tender dug into his neck like steel claws. Her other hand was raised, bunched into a fist.
    Cameron threw up one arm to fend off the coming punch, while his other hand scrabbled to prise Marie’s fingers off his throat. He could feel himself beginning to black out. Sickeningly, he could also feel something