In the middle of a marked padded space, Chloe and two men Tanya did not recognize, ridiculed as they attacked each other in a flurry of strikes with five-foot-tall staffs. They jumped and snaked around each other, the staff's, almost invisible blurs, as they twirled and struck with hard cracks.
Tanya stared, her mouth open. She had known Chloe was a vampire, but Tanya was not prepared to see her sophisticated, gallery owning friend jumping six feet in the air to aim a kick at a guy's head like an animation heroine.
Chloe blocked a particularly vicious head strike and Tanya squeaked in alarm. One of the men, a wiry Asian man in tight leather pants turned to look in the direction of the noise. It was all the distraction the other two needed to hit him simultaneously on the back and under h
