Strange Magic: A Yancy Lazarus Novel Read Free Page A

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