Strange Magic: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (2 page)

Well, there went the small margin of hope that things would turn out okay tonight. Not a terribly shocking fact, as things go.

A black Benz with heavy tints loitered at the end of the alley, its engine purring softly as the car idled. I was sure the car was waiting for me. That meant I had at least a few moments to think before the shooting began. Another piece of advice, compliments of your friendly, though slightly shady, rambler: do not get into mysterious cars parked suspiciously at the end of dark alleys. This is especially true if there is a man pointing a gun at you. Once you get into a car, you are more or less at the mercy of your assailant. Cars are private places where bad things can happen unobserved, and it is extraordinarily hard to dodge a bullet at pointblank range in a small, confined space.

It’s always better to duke it out in the open—even if your odds aren’t great—than to throw yourself on the mercy of a bad villain in a pimped out Benz. You
might
die in a firefight in the open, but hey, you might also come out on top. If, however, you get into a car with some smug, gun-toting, behemoth and he decides your time is up … well, your effective survivability rate drops to a big fat
zero
. This goes double for us mage types.

I tend to rely heavily on a hard-hitting offense and in the constricted space of a car interior I can’t throw around much power without the risk of blowing myself up too. Once the Vis is conjured into the physical realm of existence, the laws of physics begin to apply. A fire construct, summoned from the Vis, will act like regular fire. Namely, it will burn the cow-farting-crap out of me just as well as the bad guys.

The car door opened ominously. Yes
ominously
—if there are dark alleys
and
guns involved, then things become ominous—and the big man behind me prodded me onward with his gun.

“Let’s go for a ride,” he grunted with the linguistic grace of a large boulder.

“Not gonna happen,” I protested loudly enough for whoever was in the car to hear. “This is the way a lot of bad movies start—if you guys want to talk, we’re gonna do it out here in the open. Or even better yet, we could go back into the bar and have a conversation over a pitcher of beer like normal people. No guns or threats.” A soft chuckle drifted from the car, followed by a dumpy, thin, balding man from the backseat.

The guy reminded me more of an overworked accountant at H & R Block than some sort of Mafioso-type lieutenant. Wispy hair jutted up from the sides of his pate, a slight double chin rested against his throat, circular wire-rimmed glasses adorned his otherwise unremarkable face. If I were judging on appearances alone, I would surmise that his college counselor may have steered him into a very poorly matched career field.

But hey, who am I to judge? I look about forty—even though I’m actually in my mid-sixties—keep my hair short, and stand at 5’ 10”. Slightly built and in good shape, but not impressively so. I usually sport a pair of blue jeans, a T-shirt, some old boots, and my black leather coat. Pretty, unremarkable. You definitely wouldn’t think scary mage or fix-it man by the looks of me.

“I’ve heard you have quite the sense of humor, Mr. Lazarus,” the man said. “Sadly, my employer does not—its company policy that none of us underlings engage in witty or humorous banter.” Hilarious, except that his perfectly deadpan delivery made me think he might not be kidding.

“This needn’t take long,” he said. “I suspect you already know why my associate and I are here.”

“Enlighten me,” I replied. As a rule of thumb, it’s always good to pump enemies for info; assumptions can lead to all kinds of silly mistakes, particularly if thugs and automatic weapons are involved. That old adage, ‘shoot first and ask questions later’ can get real messy, real fast. A little patience, by contrast, sure goes a long way and can save a whole lot of pain—for example, the pain of getting shot in the face.

“We know you received a call earlier today, Mr. Lazarus. My associate and I are here to persuade you to stay out of that bit of business—to turn down the contract, and walk away. My employer has even authorized me to compensate you handsomely for your compliance. The price of your contract plus ten-thousand, no other strings attached.”

“Gosh, that’s a sweet offer.” I rubbed my chin thoughtfully, even though I had no clue what in the hell he was talking about. I
had
received a call from an old friend out in California, but I hadn’t taken on any kind of contract. My buddy told me there was some bad shit coming down the pipe—I had reluctantly agreed to go out and take a looksee. That was it. “Do you guys validate parking too? ‘Cause that might be a deal breaker.”

Silence filled the air, uncomfortable and telling.

“And if I say no?” I asked

“My associate,” Mr. H & R said, nodding toward Thugzilla behind me, “will shoot you in the head and dump your body in the swamp where you will be eaten by alligators. It is highly unlikely you will ever be found given both the high rate of disappearances here in New Orleans and the transient nature of your lifestyle.”

Huh. Damn good plan as such things go. Quick, efficient, brutal, and highly practical. Apparently, Mr. H & R
was the Sith Lord of Mafioso bureaucrats. Lots of people
do
go missing down in the Big Easy. New Orleans is a huge city with the problems that go along with any big city, only worse. Take the problems of most major-metropolitan centers and then introduce those problems to crack, and you have New Orleans. The violent crime rate here is twice the national average and the murder rate is nearly ten times higher. Absolutely no better place in America to make a man go missing.

“You’re a man of considerable talents,” H & R continued, “with many connected friends. We would much rather prefer you take us up on our offer, but if your convictions compel you to say no … business is business.” He shrugged.

“Thanks, but no than—” The world exploded with sound as the Colt aimed at my head belched an unbelievable roar.

TWO:

Gun Fight

Gunshots are really, really
loud, even if you are well acquainted with firearms. There are, of course, a few
exceptions—little .22 caliber handguns for instance—but the Colt 1911 is
not
one of them. The abrupt and startling crash of noise was more painful than the shot. I’d prepared for the ambush shooting, of course, but I had failed miserably to account for the damn gun going off half-a-foot from my ear. At least I wasn’t dead. Like I said, I have the Vis, and that gives me a tremendous hand up over most folks, even professional thugs who are clued into the supernatural side of things.

Also, this is not the first time someone has tried to shoot me in the head. Surprising, I know, considering my overwhelming tack and agreeable personality.

I’d been preparing my minor deflection construct from the moment we stepped out into the alley. Though it’s not terribly difficult to stop incoming bullets outright, it is difficult to do from such close range. So instead of conjuring up some gaudy and overt construct, I created a thin invisible barrier between Rent-a-Thug and myself; a barrier which absorbed the kinetic energy from the bullet and redirected it, causing the round to careen past my face and into the wall on my right.

Thankfully, the walls of the bar were thick slabs of concrete and brick, which stopped the round cold without any further ricochets.

Man, I wish I had a Polaroid of the shooter’s face. It’s not every day that a pro thug misses a shot from so close. I bet he looked like a bully who had some bigger bully steal his lunch money. Classic.

I turned and rolled out left, not expecting the shock of missing to last long. In short order, the Colt would fire again and I wanted to make my move before the shooter got his bearing or his chance. I came up in a crouch and took a slow, measured breath, drawing deeply from the Vis. I could feel energy course into me, thrumming and pulsing in time to the beat of my heart. I was afraid, but that was no good right now. I needed stillness and focus to work. So I breathed
out
, expelling my fear, anxiety, and anger in that short pause—those were things for later, acquaintances I couldn’t afford right now. I inhaled power, force, raw life. Time slowed, taking a deep breath all its own, as my body tightened like coiled steel.

I lashed out, left hand forward, palm open, a snarl curling the edges of my lips.

Air and spirit, intertwined into a complex weave of force, filled the space around me like a tightly compressed pocket of fluid. In one instant, I could feel the weight of all that accumulated air and in the next instant it rolled out like a crushing tsunami of force, spirit, and wind.

A javelin thrust of power picked up the thug in the nice suit and sent him sprawling high into the air. The thug flipped head over heels, cartwheeling through the evening sky, a string of shocked and panicked curses filling the night. He sailed over the nearest dumpster—a well-aimed golf-ball headed for the green—before colliding with a sickening crack against the building wall.

Simultaneously, a serpentine wave of hurricane wind surged out from me, eating up ground as it hurtled toward the Benz—an ethereal onslaught of silvered force rolling and bubbling like a fast moving mist. In seconds the mist enveloped the tricked out ride, obscuring the vehicle and bleeding over onto the street beyond. There was a swirling rush of movement within the opaque haze as the Benz jolted violently into the air, casually flipping onto its roof as though swatted by some enormous, unseen hand.

The car landed with a crash of shrieking metal and crunching glass, a mammoth clamor, though softly muted by the constructed force fog, which easily concealed the sharp report of my behemoth pistol firing into the night.

Now, I can sling some energy with the best of ‘em, but I also carry a single, heavy-duty pistol as backup. My gun is a specialty item, hand crafted by the
Dökkálfar
, and acid etched with runes of power—think the ill-behaved-Frankenstein-spawn of Dirty Harry’s .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson. Most handguns don’t do diddly against preternatural players, besides annoy the crap out of them, but my piece inflicts lots and lots of damage on
anything
unfortunate enough to be in my way. I’m talking colossal, scorched earth, damage. Also, it’s quiet, supernaturally tempered to be so—the Vis equivalent of a silencer.

But wait, there’s more … the damn thing also weighs about a million friggin’ pounds and makes a great paperweight. Doesn’t get any better than that.

I spun, pistol drawn and level, ready to fill the thug from the bar with about a pound of lead, but he was already sprawled up against the wall in a heap, blood oozing from his scalp and face. I should have killed him, if I left him alive and at my back, he could wake up and finish me. My finger was on the trigger, squeezing ever so slightly.

Shit. I couldn’t kill him lying there as defenseless as some ugly, genetically altered gorilla. Killing him was the smart choice, but I’ve never been terribly bright. Killing a man in self-defense is one thing, but that guy was out like a busted light bulb and I couldn’t off him.

I swiveled back to the front, scanning the upended Benz for any potential threat.

The
rapt-tat-tat
, of semi-automatic assault rifle fire filled my ears. It took me only a moment to locate the source of the heavy weapon blast. The driver of the Benz had crawled loose of the twisted wreckage and was placing precise and even bursts of fire at me. This was not pray and spray shooting either, this was the measured fire separation of someone with tactical training—either former military or police. The alley left me little room to maneuver and few obstacles to seek cover behind.

I gathered my will once more, drawing in compressed air and thin strains of radiant heat, intertwining them with spirit and will into a vaguely shimmering mist of reddish-light. The shield wasn’t intended to stop the bullets outright—physics are an issue even when using the Vis, and stopping something so small, moving with such tremendous force takes a proportionally greater degree of energy. Instead, I created a superheated friction barrier which dissolved the incoming rounds into a fine spray of slow moving and harmless powder.

The shooter’s bullets continued to plow uselessly into my friction shield, while I lined up my shot. He was in the prone, forty-yards out, and partially concealed by the hulking wreckage of the toppled Benz, not an easy shot. It’s the kind of shot people don’t make in real life, not with a handgun and definitely not in a combat situation.

I’m a good shot. My pistol’s imbued by the Vis and responds, at least in part, to my will, which grants me a far greater degree of accuracy than most other shooters. I fired two shots in rapid succession on the exhale, surrounding my rounds in a small pocket of air, allowing them to pass unmolested through my glowing shield. The first shot crunched into metal frame some three inches or so from the shooter’s head. Here I am talking about what an exceptional marksman I am.
Jeez.

The second shot punched a gaping hole in his head, above his left eyebrow.

The resultant mess was not pretty. I know, such senseless violence doesn’t befit a hero. I’m not a hero. A hero might fire to disable, a hero might try to save the hapless goon, a hero might do any number of improbable and idiotic things. I’m not that guy.