I am standing in a forest clearing; this is where the duel is to take place. It’s 19:00, not dark yet; the sky is a deep violet. A circle of rocks has been arranged – this is to be our arena.

Those not in the duel, that is to say, Tam and Chuma, may not enter the circle. The rules of a duel in magic are very specific. Only those fighting may enter.

The Lightworkers are not here either. They are forbidden to watch a duel between one Darkworker and another. I think this is a good thing – they are too faint-hearted, with their unicorns, flowers and ‘peace’ spells. They can’t handle dark magic. Real magic.

The trees rustle in the cool breeze. “Show yourself,” I say.

From behind three tree-trunks, the three witches step into view: feisty Saskia, silent Tam, moody Chuma.

“Well met by moonlight,” I say.

Saskia regards me slyly.

“Have you come to tell me that you surrender? Do you come to break the seal of the duel, witch?” I say.

“Oh, no,” she answers, looking directly at me. Her eyes are like two daggers of pure, sparkling ice. “I mean very much to duel you. And be victorious.”

She makes a little jump into the circle, raises hands in readiness, is poised and waiting.

I step in too.

“When the owl cries again the duel will start. Wait for its call,” says Tam, reading from a piece of paper. Typical. These girls are such amateurs.

We wait. A leaf flutters. A cloud shudders across the moon.

Hoot!

We leap at each other, like animals about to fight.

My hand transforms into a 10-centimetre, silver blade. I swipe at her stomach.

She is athletic, I discover. She nimbly twists her body so that the blade whooshes just shy of her torso. She lands like a ninja.

“Too slow,” she says smugly.

I link my fingers in a net, flick my hands upwards, and Saskia is hurled into the air above me, a web of barbed wire wrapped tight around her.

“Do you yield?”

“No,” she says through gritted teeth.

I tighten the barbed wire, lacing my fingers, squeezing.

A drop of blood appears on her bare shoulder.

She grunts, and with a scream I am knocked back. She lands, the wire falling off her in flakes.

“Burn,” she says in a dry, satisfied voice. Small flames dance in her eyes.

The smell of singed cloth wafts into my nose. My arm is on fire! I panic. I flap and flap at it, but all the time the fire is growing.

“You bitch,” I say under my breath, watching my Armani jacket smouldering.

“But wait,” she cackles. “There’s more.”

With a terrific whoosh my body bursts into flame, as if doused with petrol. The pain is unlike anything I can describe. I look at my arms – they look like meat cooking on a fire. I smell my own seared flesh, and decide I want to kill her.

I leap five metres into the air, and land with a thunderous thump that shakes the ground.

Saskia is caught off guard, her eyes flicking to and fro, trying to assess what the spell will do.

The flames have gone out – I doused them pretty easily, with a salve generated by my sweat-glands.

Boulders the size of cars fall from the sky in a thunderous tumble. Saskia is crushed under the landslide, boulder after boulder smashing her into the ground, in a terrific rumble that shakes the earth.

Tam screams.

I walk up to the pile of rubble curiously. If she’s survived that earthquake she at least deserves a medal. At best she’ll be dead. At worst she’ll have a number of broken bones. I kick a rock away from the rubble.

“Show yourself, witch,” I say, annoyed. She’s so slow, and I want to finish the fight. I have a short attention span.

With a sound like a crack, the pile of rubble explodes. I am knocked backward by the blast, which is like dynamite. A rock hits me right in the mouth. I touch my lips, recover a tooth.

Saskia is standing, bruised, her one arm turned the wrong way, but alive.

Her eyes are pure murder.

“You broke my arm,” she says ruefully. “Want to know what it feels like?”

At this she contorts her body, which starts to stretch like rubber. Her arm reaches behind her back and through her legs. Her neck bends at ninety degrees. She leaps into the air and pulls all her limbs apart, and my body responds.

I am in a knot on the floor, but a knot like you’ve never seen before. My arms are backward, clutching my own face, pulling it open in a scream. My legs are corkscrewed.

I hear a snap, snap, snap, and I realise it is my ribs, breaking one by one as Saskia taps, taps, taps her finger against a palm.

The pain is excruciating.

I scream, but not just any scream. The scream is that of a million eagles, a sonic scream, a scream that makes water ripple, mountains melt, glass break.

Saskia’s hands fly to her ears. I increase the volume. Her body starts to fold. The air pressure in my scream is enough to fold a tank in half. Did I not tell you I am supremely powerful?

Her face starts to crumple inward, like that of a doll that a child has pressed too often.

Then, she vanishes. There is a brief silence. Where is she?

Something lands on my shoulders. I don’t know what, but it has teeth. Clawed, hideous hands clamp my shoulders as something bites, bites, bites into my neck. I see jets of crimson blood spurt out on either side.

I grab whatever is on my back, and my hands touch fur, which disgusts me momentarily, but there is no time.

With sudden super strength, I flip whatever demon was on my back over, like in karate. A dark, hairy figure scampers a little distance from me in panic.

Suddenly it turns to me, and it is Saskia’s face, but squashed and dreadful, blood dripping off her baboon fangs.

Her eyes turn red, and a sickening jabber comes out of her mouth, a kind of laughter. Even though she has the mouth of an animal, I detect a smile.

With a feral scream and an enormous leap, she is on me, I am knocked over onto my back, and her face leers into mine. The monkey features smooth over into hers. The wild-eyed look stays

“Who’s powerful now? Looks to me like you’re not quite as powerful as you think!” She now crouches so that her lips are level with my ears.

“You messed with the wrong witch.”

She reaches up in the air as if expecting to catch something. Out of nowhere, a long dagger flies into her waiting fist.

“And now,” she says, a cat-like smile slowly emerging on her lips, “you will die.”

Time seems to slow as she lifts the dagger into the air.

Tam screams. Chuma’s mouth is open in a shout.

Saskia, now kneeling over me, with a leg on each side of my chest, looks triumphant, wild, crazed. Her eyes spiral, her hair is moving with invisible winds.

Now, dear reader, here’s where I do something very cunning that I’ve been dying to tell you about. I didn’t reveal it earlier cos I wanted to keep it for dramatic effect.

So, last night? I was making that spell? I was magicking something. And that something is what us magicians call a ‘poppet’.

What’s a poppet? You ever seen pins being stuck into a doll? That doll is a poppet. Heck, even mannequins in shop windows are poppets.

Anything that resembles a human body, but isn’t a real human, is a poppet, and is perfectly suited for working magic, particularly dark magic.

My poppet looks like me, sounds like me, bleeds. It’s as good as real: except it isn’t.

I’m particularly proud of how life-like mine is, and I activate it right now. Just as Saskia is about to bring that dagger down, I cast the spell ‘transfer and replace’.

In 1/1000^th of a second, faster than light itself, the body underneath Saskia’s weight is replaced with my poppet, while I, the masterful Felix, am transferred to a safe place of my choosing.

It works very smoothly.

The knife is poised in the air, ready. How lifelike my poppet must look! If I were closer, I might even snap a pic, so proud I am of my creation.

I peek out from behind my hiding place to see my mastery at work. Saskia is none the wiser, which makes me want to punch the air in triumph, though I must take care to keep hidden.

“I’ve wanted to do this since the moment I met you,” she says, almost casually, before bringing the dagger down with force.

My ‘body’ judders, pulses, exhales, before coming to stillness. The night is silent.

‘Saskia has killed Felix’, an innocent bystander might say. But they’d be mistaken.

***

Tell us: Who did you expect to win the duel? And was your prediction correct?