Strange Magic: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (17 page)

Firpronil is some foul stuff and is poisonous to just about everything under the sun, including people and, more importantly, Rakshasa. It disrupts their central nervous system, but it doesn’t work instantaneously. It has a delayed toxicity which—in the amounts we’d used—would kick in after a few minutes. These poor sons a bitches probably didn’t even realize anything was wrong yet. Maybe they were feeling an incy wincy bit slower than usual, but not anything to write home about. That would change in a hurry.

I brought up my revolver and lined up my shot on the baddy closest to Greg’s car. Just an average looking guy—maybe 5’10” with a slight paunch and wearing a pair of glasses, khaki pants, and a neat button up which had been scattered with bullet holes. He looked like your typical dad, maybe a sales manager or a high school English teacher,
sans
the bullet holes. I remembered seeing his bloated face in the stack of bodies in Detective Al’s garage.

The flesh-mask wearing Rakshasa was gaining ground on Greg’s position, but the poison was obviously taking hold in a big way. The creature’s steps were the disjointed, lurching movements of a boxer too long in the ring.

I squeezed off two rounds, letting the gun settle back into place for a second after each pull, making sure the shots fired true. The gun’s report was so subtle it was nearly nonexistent—especially with the angry buzz from Greg’s semi-automatic firing in the background. The effects, however, where immediate, devastating, and anything but subtle. Both of the creature’s legs flew apart at the knees: great bloodied chunks of gray flesh somersaulted through the air with a lazy grace, as its calves flopped to the pavement. So much dead meat.

Mr. High School Teacher tumbled to the ground with a gasp and a wail, its human flesh-mask melting away, replaced by the flabby, gray-skinned thing beneath. Its head rolled about, its eyes reeled frantically, trying to make sense of this new world of hurt, trying to understand how such a thing could have happened. It lay on the pavement mewling—the feline sound of a dying lion—and for a split moment I felt kinda bad. I
almost
wanted to waste a perfectly good round and put the damn thing out of its misery, even though it was no longer a threat and each bullet was precious.

Nobody ever said I was smart.

I steeled myself, envisioning those bodies stacked up high in the garage. Human beings murdered mercilessly and nibbled at like finger food by this monster and its ilk. I could see the face of the man this creature had hid behind: eyes glazed over in death, body rigid and black with rigor. He probably had a family—a wife and kids, parents and in-laws, siblings, coworkers, friends—they would all miss him. His corpse would never be found, the Rakshasa would ensure that much, and those people would mourn him and remember him. But they would also wonder about him. There would always be those lingering questions.

There would be no closure.

Had he run off to escape bad credit? Maybe he’d taken on a mistress, abandoning his wife and kids … no, not a good, upstanding guy like Mr. High School Teacher. But then who could really
say, he had disappeared hadn’t he? Maybe he’d driven off to the woods and offed himself—a little Saturday night special to the temple because he couldn’t take it. Maybe he’d gotten sick. No one would ever know.

Death is a terrible thing. Not knowing is worse, in its way. My ex-wife and kids got asked those questions a lot after I fell off the face of the map.

Now, the family of the poor schlub in the garage—who’d done nothing except be in the wrong damn place—would have to undergo that same trauma. Would have to grapple with the uncertainty and all those uncomfortable questions. I let those thoughts feed me and sustain me whenever the cry of my bleeding heart bubbled to the surface. Screw this legless shithead. Let it suffer.

I shifted my stance and took aim at the second beast—disguised as a petite, mid-thirties, brunette in a black pencil skirt. It too was stumbling toward Greg and hadn’t noticed its buddy had dropped out of the game. Clearly, its reaction speed was declining. She looked like a drunk sorority girl after a wicked bar crawl, which was all to the good for me. When I pulled the trigger a bright spray of black and gray filled the air—half of her midsection just disappeared. Incredulous eyes turned on me, but I didn’t have time to gloat in my victory.

The last Rakshasa—disguised as Al himself—knew something was off and darted behind a tree on the adjacent lawn, no longer in my line of sight. Well, the element of surprise could only reasonably take me so far. And hey, two for three isn’t
too
bad. I moved left, leaving behind the safety of my firing position, advancing on the California ash the Rakshasa had disappeared behind on the connecting lawn. Rakshasa are not small creatures and though the tree was good sized, it seemed unlikely that the creature could have disappeared so thoroughly, even in its human flesh-mask.

I crept forward, gaining ground. The hell? Something was wrong here … I felt the slight tingle of a Vis construct. My stomach sank, the Titanic had hit the iceberg and things were about to get messy. The construct was a rough thing—lacking the refined quality of a genuine mage’s working—but it was a bon-e-fide construct nonetheless. An
illusion
. I’d missed it because I hadn’t even thought for a second to look for something like this. Rakshasa don’t use the Vis—not to say it’s impossible, mind you, but rather to say I’ve never heard of such a thing. Shit, it was even possible that the thing was some sort of charm, made up by Arjun and handed down to his flunkies. Yeah, that kind of fit.

Really though, the how didn’t matter a whole helluva a lot. What did matter was this: the Rakshasa who’d thrown the illusion up was now somewhere else.

Probably behind me.

I felt something—the equivalent of a living monster truck—collide into my lower back, sending a thunder-crack of sensation along my spine and into my neck.

Yep, behind me.

Excellent, the crap-alanche had officially commenced. Wouldn’t want things to get too easy—I like to stay sharp. I went down in a heap, tucking my head beneath my jacket while simultaneously drawing my arms and legs in toward my stomach. While the fetal position may not be the most heroic of fighting postures, it is an absolute lifesaver if you’re about to be on the end of a serious pummeling.

Generally, the backside of the body is tough; it can take a substantial amount of punishment without suffering serious long-term effects. Ask the hedgehog or porcupine. But the same cannot be said for the soft underbelly, which houses all of your fragile, gooey, and highly critical organs, like your heart, spleen, liver, or kidneys. These things are essential for living—and also drinking (thank you, liver), which makes them even more crucial—and thus they should be protected at all costs.

And let’s not forget that I’m not a hero, just a pragmatist. The fetal position is highly pragmatic.

The first series of blows landed in the vicinity of my shoulders—felt like a couple of enthusiastic construction workers were giving me the business with a pair of sledge hammers. It was actually an okay thing. Sure my shoulders felt like over tenderized beef-slabs, but at least the Rakshasa had missed my head. Small victories, right … the next few blows impacted across my ribs, while a wild kick crashed into my belly and lifted me momentarily off the ground. I tried to stay curled up tight, but it was an arduous chore. The world blurred, and all of the oxygen I’d been enjoying suddenly left me without so much as a Dear John letter.

Noise filled my ears. Screaming maybe, but not mine since I had lost that ability, along with the air in my lungs.

More hammer falls crashed into my body. My jacket absorbed a portion of the tremendous violence, enough to keep my bones from exploding from the strikes. This thing was going ape-shit on me—it was going to beat me to death. There was no doubt in my mind. And I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. I’d been too careless, too overconfident, and now I was out of options and paying the price. I couldn’t think, couldn’t focus, couldn’t muster the necessary concentration to pull out a working.

That sound again. Not screaming, something else, and getting closer. Gunfire and … sirens. Yeah, that was the sound. Honest to goodness police sirens.

The Rakshasa yowled—a hateful trumpet blast of sound—and then the heavy fist falls ceased. The sudden absence was startling, even overwhelming. I was going to survive? Bullshit. The idea was absurd. The sirens were so close now. A set of hands pried themselves into the space beneath my armpits. I fought this new invader, clenching my biceps ever tighter into my sides, wanting to survive.

“Yancy!” It was Greg. “Loosen up your damn arms son, we got to get to the car, the cops are gonna roll up here in about thirty seconds.”

I let him help me to my feet. My body didn’t want to function properly and my limbs seemed to be wrapped in wet blankets, but somehow I got my legs moving, though Greg was obviously carrying the majority of my bulk. My weight returned to me for a moment as Greg pulled open the passenger-side door and unceremoniously shoved me in like an oversized bag of dog food, which was exactly how I felt: pulverized and processed meat in a bag.

The sirens were too close—no friggin’ way we’d get out of the neighborhood unhindered. We’d be stopped, questioned, and searched. Then? Then we’d be arrested. Greg and I were both packing some serious heat and there were bullet casings and a variety of fluids littering the street, not to mention a garage full of dead bodies.

I’d been saved from the Rakshasa, but the cops would cause a metric shit-ton of trouble all their own. I am a wanted man, after all.

“We need something here, Yancy,” Greg hollered, trying to get his words to penetrate my addled brain. He was right, we couldn’t get caught here like this, it would be far too difficult to sort out and we didn’t have time for that shit. I could barely think, but I didn’t need to think, because I could feel the Vis waiting for me just out of reach. I let go of my pain, drawing in sweet life, pushing the agony away, insulating my body so I could work, so I could pull our collective asses out of this sling.

On a better day, I would have tried to throw up an illusion to cover the scene. Today was not a good day. It was a terrible day. So instead, I went with a quick and dirty glamour. Now, in some circles the term glamour and illusion are used interchangeably, and understandably so because they achieve nearly the same effect: they deceive.

They are not, however, the same thing even if they bring about similar results. Illusions, or veils, fool people by actually creating a different image, which is projected over a person, object, or scene. Illusions exist, in a manner of speaking, in real time and space; they work by tricking the optical nerves in the eye.

Glamours, on the other hand, deceive not by tricking the eye, but by tricking the mind. A glamour doesn’t create an image that the eye sees and sends back to the brain. Instead, a glamour suggests directly to the brain that something appears to be different than it is in actuality. Most low-level glamours—like my jacket, say—are basically amped up suggestions planted in the brain,
these are not the bots you’re looking for
. You get the idea. But heavy duty glamours are not so much suggestions as they are commands.

Most magi avoid doing stuff like that. It’s not exactly illegal, but compelling the freewill of thinking beings is taboo and there are lots of folks who don’t look kindly on that sort of thing. If a glamour is too heavy duty, it can actually enthrall people—enslave them to your will—which is a serious no-no. Go around enthralling people and you’re guar-an-teed to get your mug plastered on The Guild’s most wanted list.

Like I said, today wasn’t a good day, I wasn’t in a good way, and I didn’t have the time or energy to whip up a fancy illusion. So instead I pushed out a glamour with the force of a bomb blast:

EVERYTHING IS NORMAL HERE, MOVE ALONG
. My command must have encompassed two or three blocks, though I formed a small bubble around Greg to prevent him from being unduly affected. It was a powerful working—maybe even powerful enough to enthrall—but spread over such a broad area, no one person would be harmed. Still, tiptoeing along the edge of some serious gray area shit …

I opened my eyes in time to see a pair of black and whites pull by, theirs flashers winking off. Greg pulled the car out behind them.

“You survived,” he said, cruising along without looking at me.

“
Humph
,” I grunted—sure didn’t
feel
like I’d survived.

“Congratulations. You should’ve waited out the fifteen minutes like I said. Pays to listen to your gut.”

“Duly noted,” I replied, as I closed my eyes and drifted off to a sleepy playland, devoid of pain, cockroaches, heart-eating monsters, or stupid know-it-all friends.

NINETEEN:

Brainstorm

“Arjun,” Greg said.

“Yep,” I confirmed from my place within the bathtub full of ice. My torso looked like something Van Gogh might’ve painted on a dark day: black and blues swirled and intermingled across my ribs, chest, and shoulders, blending with the faded yellowing bruises from my encounter with the Rakshasa in Las Cruces. Looked a little like Starry Night, which was both cool and esthetically pleasing. Also asstastic, did I mention that?