“You’re kidding, right? No spandex. No tiaras. And certainly no princesses.” I tried to grab her notebook to see what the heck she’d been up to while I wasn’t paying attention.

She hugged the notebook to her chest to keep it away from me. “How about the B-I-T-C-H Queen?”

“April!” My jaw dropped. She’d never been one for swearing—even the spelling variety.

“Well, you have been really on edge lately,” she said.

“I’m not on edge. I’m just, you know, nervous.”

I really didn’t know what to expect for basic training, since Talbot’s idea of testing my skills had been a little more than intense, but I was surprised when he drove us to a run-down Apple Valley strip mall after I met him outside the bus.

“If you think I need to sharpen my shopping skills, I’ve already got April for that,” I joked as I followed Talbot into one of the shops.

“This ain’t a pleasure trip,” he said, and pointed up to the sign above the shop door. Half the letters were missing, but I could tell it was a kids’ karate studio. A dojo—or at least that was what I thought it was called.

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “If you’re thinking of enrolling me in class with a bunch of kindergartners, I can tell you right now that isn’t going to happen.”

Talbot rolled his eyes. “This place has been closed for the last year. The Rock Canyon Foundation just leased the property. They’re planning on fixing it up for one of their youth programs, but I figure we’ve got the studio to ourselves for a week or so. Perfect place to hone your skills in a controlled environment.” He pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the front door. He held it open for me.

“Controlled environment?” There was a small waiting room in the front of the shop with dusty metal chairs, and then a long dark hallway that supposedly led to the actual studio. “You swear there are no demons waiting inside to jump me?” I could just picture a room full of Gelals with their claws out, ready to pounce on me the second I entered.

Talbot smirked. “Well, I might jump you—but only if you ask for it.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

Talbot gave his head a small shake. He looked at me with a slightly hopeful glance.

“Bad joke for both of us,” I said, feeling embarrassed and guilty at the same time for even responding to his flirting. Daniel and I might not be on the most solid ground at the moment, but that was no excuse. “Sorry.” If Talbot was going to be my mentor, then I needed to draw the line between us way before flirtation.

Talbot’s cheeks looked a bit pink. “Anyway, I’m just teaching you some new moves today, I promise.”

Talbot and I walked down the long hallway and then entered the dojo. It was filled with dusty mats and had a long wall of broken mirrors. Talbot opened his backpack. He pulled out one of those white karate outfits and handed it to me. “There’s a bathroom over there. You should change into this gi so you don’t mess up your school clothes.”

I fingered the fabric as I walked into the bathroom. I shut the door tight and pulled off my shirt and pants. I dressed quickly in the gi because it felt weird to stand there in just a camisole and underwear when only a thin wall separated Talbot and me. What if he suddenly showed up in the doorway again?

When I padded out of the bathroom, I found Talbot waiting for me, dressed in his own white gi tied with a black belt. The white tunic top crossed in front of his otherwise bare chest. He had pecs just as ripped as his forearms. I looked down at his bare feet poking out from the bottom of his lightweight white pants. Why did this whole situation feel more surreal than anything else we’d done so far?

“So you’re Mr. Miyagi and I’m the Karate Kid,” I said.

“I’m Mr. Who?” Talbot asked.

“You know, Mr. Miyagi. From the movie? Tries to catch flies with chopsticks?”

Talbot gave me a blank stare.

“You know, you have to be all, ‘Wax on, wax off!’” I made the hand gestures that went along with the chant.

Talbot’s eyes went wide. He obviously didn’t get it.

I made an overly dramatic sigh. I guess kids who grow up on farms with retired demon hunters don’t exactly watch a lot of eighties movies. “You’re the great karate master, and I’m your student.”

“Um, okay.” He still looked at me funny. “But I’m not going to teach you karate. I’m actually debating between aikido and wing chun. Both are good for a small-sized fighter. Plus, you need sword training. And then we’ll move to crossbows, advanced staking, and maybe even some work with the bow staff.”

This time I was the one who made the surprised expression, but not because he was joking. He was dead serious.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON, FOUR DAYS LATER

Training with Talbot was intense, to say the least. He didn’t pull punches, never had to take a breather or nurse a tender knee. Which meant I had to work like hell to keep up with him. And I don’t know what it was that made it possible, but I gained more skills in less than a week while working with Talbot than I had in the months of training with Daniel.

Maybe it was the fact that Talbot didn’t demand that I hold back at the same time he encouraged me to push forward. He wanted me to grab on to my raw emotions, use them to make me stronger. And I couldn’t believe how quickly it worked—how much more powerful I’d become.

Our training sessions were like a drug—fully tapping into my abilities was overwhelming, engulfing, leaving me buzzed with power and wanting more. April always gave me funny looks when I got back to the bus, and she’d ask questions about what Talbot and I did for training, but she never quite understood why I was so excited about sparring.

I’d even contemplated getting together with Talbot on Saturday for an extra training session. But Mom had been in manic overdrive ever since Gabriel had come to dinner and she’d learned about the Halloween fund-raising festival—the same fund-raising festival for which she’d commandeered control of the concessions booths and poured every waking moment into preparing for. And there was no escaping her desire to bake and freeze a zillion pecan tarts all Saturday long for refreshments. We were T-minus six days until Halloween, and I knew that if it weren’t for my mandatory service project each afternoon in the coming week, I’d probably never get out of the house to train with Talbot again.