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watch the rotating, blinking blade. They follow its slow, languorous arc over the river then back toward them.
    And in the last moment, as it curls around at them, they leap over the flying dagger.
    They turn back to face us again, a victorious yowl screeching out of them. They know. They’ve been told about Sissy’s daggers.
    But there’s something they don’t know.
    That’s not the only dagger in the air.
    While their eyes had followed the first dagger’s trajectory, she’d flung out the second.
    One of the hunters is viciously flung to the side, as by an invisible leash quickly pulled taut. The second dagger has impaled its neck: the hunter’s melted, cheesy skin offers little resistance, and the blade penetrates until almost the whole hilt is embedded. The hunter lies on its back, legs and arms scrabbling the air like an upside-down turtle. It struggles to get up, can’t. The blade has punctured its windpipe.
    The other hunter screams into the air. Not with fear. Not with sorrow over its downed compatriot. But with glee. It will now have a larger share of the hepers. It comes at Sissy with a manic salivary giddiness.
    Sissy reaches down to her belt. Only three daggers left. She flings the first to her right. All eyes—including the hunter’s—swivel to follow it. But she’s faked us out. The blade is still in her hand. And then it is not. She’s flung it in a boomerang arc, in the other direction of her fake throw.
    But she’s not pausing to watch her handiwork. She’s flinging the other dagger straight ahead right between the eyes of the hunter. Two daggers now, both slashing through the night air toward the hunter whose head is turned away, still trying to locate the arc of the dagger never thrown. It doesn’t have a clue. It’s going to be a double direct hit.
    But this time, there’s something we don’t know.
    The hunter knows. It’s always known the first throw was feigned.
    In the last second, it drops its body to the ground, skidding on its side. The two blades clash together, right above its head. There’s an explosion of sparks. The hunter squeals from the flash of light. But that’s the only pain it feels. And even now it is standing up, eyes fixing on us. It brings up its wrist, rakes it with long, deep gashes. Its eyes dance with mirth and glee.
    There’s only one dagger left.
    The hunter charges at us. It is only seconds away.
    Sissy thrusts her arm back, readying to throw the last dagger in hand. But she makes a rare mistake. A fatal mistake. As she pulls her arm back, the dagger slips out of her grasp. It flies behind us, soaring up into the sky.
    The hunter screams with delight. It is the closest sound to laughter I’ve ever heard one of them make. It is an obscene, perverse sound.
    Sissy turns around as the dagger sails into the sky. Her movement is deliberate, purposeful, as if every microsecond that has passed and that is about to pass is part of a coordinated plan. The dagger is easy to spot. It’s perfectly silhouetted within the circumference of the bright full moon.
    I’m not the only one watching the dagger. The hunter is keenly tracking the dagger’s upward path, its head rising. The full glare of moonlight catches the hunter by surprise, hitting it flush in the face. The hunter squints, then clenches its eyes with a yelp. It’s momentarily blinded.
    And now I understand.
    The dagger reaches its apex then suddenly boomerangs diagonally back down toward us. Right at my face.
    Sissy leaps in the air, snatches the blade out of the air. In the same movement, while still airborne, she flings the dagger at the hunter. The blade flashes past me, an inch from my head. The hunter’s eyes are still rammed shut; it never sees it coming.
    The dagger bludgeons into the side of its head, right through the soft depression of the temple. The blade pierces true and deep, inflicting unseen but necessary damage within the skull and eye sockets. Eyeball juice squirts out from between the