Cold Hearted: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode Two) Read Free Page A

an effort of will, I made the simulacrum twitch, just a slight shift in posture—stretching out, cracking his neck, before settling back into place. The fire continued to dance, kicking up shadows along the walls, and at last the evil little bastards padded forward.
    Not even a whisper of sound as their feet shuffled across the narrow strip of ice bordering the indoor pool. Close now, maybe only twenty feet. The stocky gnome in the lead raised a jagged club of ice nearly as long as its body. Little bastard was going to club me in the head. Sneaky, tricksy sons of guns, these gnomes. No honor in pushing someone off a cliff or clubbing them in the back of the head, which I’m totally cool with—fair fights are for suckers. Basically, I was about to pull the same trick on them. I almost wanted to chuckle in evil joy. Mwaahaha .
    I shaped the energy raging through my body into something useful, intertwining thin strains of radiant heat and water, all wrapped about in flows of compressed air. A small smile split my face. These pointy-hat-wearing chumps were about to get some serious comeuppance. About ten feet out—close enough that I could see the firelight glint off frosted skin—I let loose a barrage of sharpened ice-quills, hurled with the force of a tornado. The foot-long spikes of frozen doom ate up the distance in a heartbeat, ripping into rigid flesh like a barrage of frozen bullets.
    The one with the club issued a yelp before tumbling over into the artic pool, thrashing and flailing, trying to swim free. Though the gnomes looked a little like ice cubes, they didn’t float. Sons of bitches weigh as much as a boulder, and swimming isn’t exactly their strong suit. After a few seconds his desperate splashes grew faint and his head dipped below the surface with a final bubble.
    Several of my missiles protruded from the torso and arms of the second gnome, though they didn’t seem to bother the little fella too terribly. He rushed forward, thick legs swishing back and forth, a slick dagger of glacier-blue raised above his head for a killing blow. He brought the blade down on the head of my illusion, which guttered and disappeared, leaving behind a very bewildered-looking gnome.
    Like I said, not too bright—the guy would never win the Nobel Prize in physics. Shit, he’d be lucky to tie his shoes in the morning on his own.
    I bolted from my hidey-hole. Drawing on air and fae power, I created my own club of ice, which I promptly smashed into the confused gnome’s head. Lots of better ways to take this guy down, but I couldn’t risk killing him outright or losing him to the water—I needed a guide to make it out of this maze, so better to just beat the little shit into submission. My crude weapon knocked the gnome back a few steps, but otherwise seemed to have little effect. In fact, the blow seemed to jar him back into action.
    The creature shuffled forward a step and lashed out with his dagger. My club, too heavy and ungainly to maneuver with anything resembling grace or skill, was practically worthless against the quick blade. I lifted my arm just in time to intercept the slash; white stuffing bled out in tufts from my winter jacket.
    Normally it’s not a terribly bright idea to stick your arm in front of a blade’s edge—unless, of course, you’re wearing ring mail or something else you might find at a Ren Fest. But beneath my bulky winter coat, I was sporting my leather jacket, a custom piece that handled the job, no problem. Imbued with Vis and lined with ultralight Kevlar and slash-resistant fabric, it’s quite a bit more resilient than it looks, though damn if the blunt force trauma from the blow didn’t smart.
    With an awkward twirl, I smashed the club into the gnome’s outstretched wrist—there was a crack, like a tree exploding in winter’s cold, and his knife clattered to the ice. The creature’s arm hung at a strange angle. The energy of the impact reverberated through my arm; my fingers