Strange Magic: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (5 page)

Not only was my assailant almost physically unstoppable, supernaturally resistant to the Vis, and military trained—it was an honest-to-goodness ninja. A ninja. In what world is that fair or okay? If you ever have to say that you’ve been assaulted by a supernatural, man-eating, hyena-ninja, it is a sure sign that your life has gone terribly, terribly wrong somewhere.

Most of the blades were hastily thrown and went wide, but one of the sharp matte-black razors grazed my outstretched arm, leaving a flare of bright crimson pain in its wake. The Rakshasa hurtled through the broken window like an Olympic athlete—never mind that it had most of one foot missing and several fist-sized holes in its torso—before launching itself at me.

That was exactly the kind of mistake I needed.

I couldn’t stop it outright with the Vis and its mass was far too great to halt with raw force, but I had a plan. I reached into the well of magma-hot power, drawing forth energy deep within the dusty New Mexico soil. Fine flows of fire, air, and earth sprouted to life from the ground before me.

With a great
crack-thud
, a chunk of concrete and asphalt big as a car tore itself free from the parking lot and whipped at the incoming Rakshasa. A stone hurled from some giant and magnificent sling. This was my version of David and Goliath. Now, the Rakshasa may have been big, and it may have been immune to direct
Vis constructs, but it was not a being of pure spirit—like a ghost or poltergeist. Therefore, in the real world at least, it was still constrained by the laws of physics. While suspended in the air, it was on a fixed and unalterable trajectory.

The enormous chunk of rock sideswiped the Rakshasa like a NFL linebacker and the creature was as susceptible to the impact as any other material object would have been. Even though the beast was heavy, the rock was heavier and moving at a greater rate of speed—force equals mass times acceleration. The rock won the math equation. My high school physics teacher was right, math
is
applicable to real, everyday life.

The Rakshasa crashed into a parked car about thirty feet away, sandwiched between the now twisted steel frame of the car and the enormous boulder.

The rock had smashed up a large portion of the Rakshasa’s jaw, one of its lank and disproportionate arms hung limply down the side of its body. It tried moving forward, but couldn’t. I hadn’t just
hit the beast with a big rock—I’d hit it with a big rock made of asphalt, superheated with weaves of intense thermal energy. The tar melted into hot black sludge, which clung to the Rakshasa’s form, impeding its movements, even if not stopping them completely.

That rock trick had been a spectacular construct—a real bit of metaphysical heavy lifting and I didn’t want to risk trying the same thing again. The Rakshasa’s boxy little gun was my best choice. I staggered to my feet with a grunt and a tremendous effort of will. I reached the gun well before the Rakshasa could get its shit together and get moving.

I knew what the weapon was, but I hadn’t fired anything like it before. If I had needed to reload—or even turn off the safety—I probably would have been shit outta luck. The gun was ready to go though, so I tucked the butt-stock into my shoulder and cut loose like a college kid on his first binger.

The trigger was light under my finger and the gun responded quickly and with surprisingly little recoil. Angry noise and pinprick flashes of light cut into the night as the gun spat out round after round. Though a few regular rounds probably wouldn’t have done much to the Rakshasa under normal circumstances, there were way more than a
few
rounds and these were anything but normal circumstances.

Within seconds, thirty-rounds chewed into the horror, leaving a score of gaping and bloodied wounds. Such injuries may have been small beans and bee stings to the Rakshasa, but enough bee stings can kill a man. My efforts still weren’t enough to put the Rakshasa down for good. It was enough motivation, however, to cause the thing to turn tail and hobble slowly into the night with another yowl of anger. It was moving pretty slow with all that tar stuck in its nasty-ass fur, but I couldn’t have given chase even had I wanted too.

So, I flipped it the bird—not terribly helpful, but very cathartic—and wobbled back toward my room, pulling in labored and painful gulps of air.

I needed to move quickly before the authorities got involved, so I made a sweep of the room. All I had to do was grab my bag and hit the road. My rucksack was shoved down between the bed and the wall. Close by, and slightly under the mattress, lay a cheap, black, disposable cell phone—the kind a hired assassin might use to contact an employer. I stuffed it in my jeans, slung my pack across my shoulder—sending a renewed wave of pain along my spine—and limped out to the Camino.

At least my wheels hadn’t been mistreated by the Rakshasa. Had the creature hurt my baby … well, let’s just say that would’ve made things personal. Shoot at me, okay. Throw me through a window, maybe we can work things out. But mess with the Camino? I don’t put up with that kind of shit. No one messes with the Camino.

I slid into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and puttered onto the road, driving away slowly in a deliberate effort to draw no unwanted attention my way.

After a minute or two, I dug the cell phone from my front pocket and checked the contact list. There was a single California number listed under Gavin Morse.

Progress—I had a lead.

SIX:

Stitches

“Twice, Greg,” I told the stocky man sitting next to me at the little kitchen table. “Twice, people have showed up trying to sell me the farm, and all because I agreed to do you one miserable little favor.”

“Shut up and stop fidgeting,” Greg grunted curtly as he threaded a curved needle through the gash in my arm, complements of the Rakshasa’s kunai knives. Greg was a black guy, in good shape, sporting a military grade haircut, and a close-cropped beard speckled with more gray than black. A real sparkplug.

“We’ll talk when I’m finished,” he grunted again. “Until then, hold your belly-aching.” I sat in sullen silence—this was
his fault. The least he could do was endure my good-natured, and totally reasonable, complaining. Sure, maybe complaining didn’t change anything, but it’s still the sacred right of the suffering. Sacred right, dammit.

Greg Chandler was a good and solid man, but he had never been the type to suffer complainers easily or lightly. We had both been Lance Corporals during Nam, did a rough tour together, and the rest was history. Never mind that he had been a Marine-Corp-lifer from the get go and I had been, at best, a reluctant and occasionally whiney recruit. We had parted ways years ago—he to a lifetime of military duty, and I to a life of rambling, blues, and beer—but we had stayed in touch.

Generally, a friend made in a fighting position—never a foxhole, for Marines—was a friend for life.

“Alright.” He tied off my final stitch and cut the thread. “You look like twenty pounds of shit crammed into a ten pound bag—bruises, lacerations, and I think you may have had an arm underneath this purple sausage attached to your torso.” He cast a suspicious look at my gun arm. “Better tell me everything.”

“Thank you for your overwhelming compassion, Greg. It’s moving, really.”

“Boo-hoo,” he said, “Tears later, talk now.”

With a sigh, I told him about the scuffle outside the club, the mild-mannered H & R Block lieutenant, the Rakshasa, and the name in the fumbled cell phone.

Greg may’ve moved into a quaint ranch-style home in an upscale LA suburb after retiring from the Corps, but his life wasn’t all solitude, tranquil gardening, or paint-by-number landscapes. He’d taken up with the Lucis Venántium, a secret order devoted to hunting and killing anything that dare prey on hapless mortals.

It sounds fake, I know, like some kind of cheesy TV show or something, but someone
does
need to keep a check on all the Outworld things lurking under bridges and down dark alleys. The Hunters of the Venántium are kind of like the mortal police, only for all the things—both malicious and benign—which are untouchable through regular channels.

You can’t call the cops on an angry spirit or rogue vampire.

“Hmph,” he said. Classic Greg, let me tell you.

“Hmph,” I repeated, “that’s what you got for me? Greg, I’m good but I’m not a phone-line physic. You’re going to have to give me a little more to go on, bud.”

He paused, not saying anything, a far off look in his eyes. I knew the look. He was going through the story again, adding up the pieces, trying to fit the details into a bigger picture.

“Well this whole thing stinks to dagon hell,” he finally said, “and it doesn’t cast me in a fair light—if our roles were reversed, I’d be takin’ a hard look at me right about now …” He let the sentence drag into an uncomfortable silence. He was right, of course, this whole thing did make him out to be a likely villain and my natural number one suspect.

He started this colossal shit-storm by calling me in the first place. He’d known my location in New Orleans, and he’d been the only one clued in to my location in Las Cruces. True, there were some freaky-deaky types that could’ve gotten the info through the mystic pipeline, but there weren’t a lot of them. Now, Greg didn’t have a motive for the hit, but the facts were still rather unflattering.

I didn’t suspect him though. He was Greg, and Greg wouldn’t sell me out, no matter how the stats stood at the moment.

I lit a cigarette, earning a glare of disapproval, but no comment. He was the health conscious sort.

“Greg, we go back an awfully long way.” I took a few drags, letting the smoke linger between us. “And I guess I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t wondering how all the bad guys happened to know where I was … but when it comes down to it, I trust you, brother. Something
is
going on here, but I know you wouldn’t give me up like that. I came to you wounded and damn-near defenseless.” I waved my sausage arm in his direction. “Wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t think you were on the level with me. But maybe it’s time you told me what’s going on here—I’m tired of having people take shots at me without at least knowing why.”

“Fair ‘nough.” He rubbed at his chin for a moment, lightly scratching at his beard. “Fair ‘nough.”

“This whole thing started ‘bout a month ago,” he said, “there were some gangland hits that looked like they might’ve belonged in our end of the pool. I always keep my ear out for that kind of thing, and when I saw these hits on the police blotter, I knew it was worth pursuing. Plus, the lead agent is a buddy of mine, Alan Harley, so I thought it would be safe to take a look. Al’s a detective with the Criminal Gang and Homicide Division—he’s been on the job a long time, seen some strange shit. Usually, he comes to me when he thinks it’s something the LAPD won’t be able to handle.”

“Okay, so he came to you with it?” I asked.

“No. I went to him.”

“Well, why didn’t he come to you? Are you sure you can trust the guy?”

“We’re not exactly regular drinkin’ buddies, but we’ve worked together a handful of times and he seems like an all right fella. I’ve taken a look at him, and he seems clean. Internal Affairs investigated him once upon a time—some suspicion that he might be an on-again-off-again informant for a few gangs, but IA cleared him. Hell, even if he is a little dirty, that’s none of my business anyways. Other than that—pretty vanilla. Has a wife named Judy. Lives in Burbank.”

“All right.” I tried laying it all out in my mind. “So you approach Detective Al with your hunch and you guys have been working the case, but why drag me into it—gang violence isn’t up my alley.”

“Good grief, Yancy, I’m gettin’ to it—hold your horses—you’d think you’d have learned some patience by now.”

I took my last drag and snubbed my cigarette in the ashtray—the one Greg only ever uses when I visit—and gave him my most patient and winning smile. He didn’t look all that impressed, but hey, it’s all I’ve got to work with.

“Now, like I was saying,” he continued, “I went to Al and we took a hard look together. There were a bunch of gang-related murders, mostly aimed at street level lieutenants in Gavin Morse’s organization. Morse is a relative small-timer who presides over a motor cycle club called the Saints of Chaos—runs some drugs and guns, has a hand in a few protection rackets. Still a small fry. His name is also the one in that cell phone you found.”

“What about the hits, Greg? Why’d you call me in?”

“Right, the hits. They were
bad and they were
excessive. Wives, children, family pets—scorched earth, no survivors
excessive
. Bodies ripped apart, charred, tortured. Enough blood to paint a house red.”

“These attacks were literally inhuman,” he continued. “My guess is some kinda conjured demon or greater dark spirit. I wasn’t so worried about whatever was doin’ the killin’, but I was sure as hell worried about whoever was conjuring the thing. I can handle some small time hoodoo, maybe even a lesser familiar. Whoever conjured this thing, though, has serious chops—big-timer for sure. I don’t do big-timers. That’s for you and The Guild to take care of.”

Greg was right, conjuring up a major demonic being or minor dark godling takes real power—even if you have a serious old-timey ritual construct to work with. In order to smuggle something into our reality, the mage, or practitioner, needs to create a bridge between our world and another disconnected dimension, then punch a friggin’ hole into the fabric of material existence. It’s not easy to do and if you do it wrong, there’s a good chance you’ll kill yourself in the process. Whoever was doing this had some serious chops all right.