by Lowry, Chris
8
I didn’t pass out. I’m lucky remember. Small rocks bounced off my head, my ankle smashed between two small boulders and something snapped.
But I didn’t pass out.
I landed at the bottom of the ridge with my head facing the villagers, my feet pointed toward the sky where I had just been.
It took five seconds for the villagers to start shooting again.
I willed my shield in place in four.
It wasn’t easy. The fall hurt. My ankle hurt. It was tough to concentrate.
I rolled over and tried to focus on the witch. She was on her hands and knees, stone knife carving at the rock glyph, creating a shallow channel in the rune so blood could still flow through.
I hadn’t stopped the spell, just delayed it.
I pushed up on my knees, and wiggled the fingers on one hand toward the villagers. A couple of the guns stopped firing, the pins jammed, but there were still two dozen more.
I tried to concentrate on reaching them, but when I let my mind move off the shield, it slipped. I could hear the bee like buzz of bullets slipping by.
Seriously, when this wall all over, I was going to have a long talk with the Judge about his idea of assignment.
I practiced two deep breaths to see if that helped. It pushed back the dizziness a little, but the throb of pain from my ankle was making it hard to think of the next spell.
The witch jumped up and crowed in triumph. She dropped the knife and called for the sacrifice.
Several villagers broke off from the shooting at me, picked up the struggling little girl and carried her back to the witch as she cast around for the knife she had just discarded.
Guess I wasn’t the only one distracted.
“Hey! Witch!” I shouted.
She ignored me.
I hated being ignored.
I shot a spell at the rocky glyph, but the angle was wrong. A bullet zipped through and smacked me in the right butt cheek. I reeled and fell behind the tiniest little shield I could manage.
The villagers who weren’t carrying the little girl to her death redoubled their efforts to shoot me in the head.
The witch shouted out something in her language. Probably “Suck on that sucker!” or “Eat lead, sucker!”
That’s what it sounded like.
Then she found the knife, lifted it over her head and started chanting the incantation in a sing song voice. I could hear the little girl crying underneath it.
I dug down deep then.
Magic is willpower, and its belief. If you think you can do magic, you can, and once you learn how to do magic, you know you can, so it makes you stronger.
The stronger your willpower, the stronger your magic.
It comes in a lot of shapes, flavors, sizes and manifestations, but it’s all tied to will.
The Judge was the strongest magic user on the planet because he had the strongest will.
The twelve Marshals were a close second.
Or close number two through thirteen.
I thought about the little girl. The two dead magic users. The villager slaves. The dead SEAL teams. There were countless others, I was sure.
I thought about the trapped ghosts and the black magic circles that kept them chained, the destruction the demon would wreak.
I tapped into it all, let it bubble as rage, ignored the aching burn in my ass and stood up, mostly on one leg and aimed my hand at the crone.
“You’re going to pay for that,” I muttered.
The villagers who weren’t holding the sacrifice concentrated their bullets on me and their aim was getting better.
The witch smiled.
The Jinn roared.
An A-10 Warthog blasted through the swirling clouds and burped a line of gunfire across the villagers.
The pilot waggled his wings and skedaddled away from the hurricane.
But it bought me a distraction.
And no one was shooting at me anymore.
I sent a spell into the witch, lifted her up and pinned her against the rock with two sharp shards of willpower that lanced through her wrists like nails.
She howled in agony and lost her control of the Jinn.
It swooped down toward the bloody remnants of the villagers.
I popped it with a spell, wrapped it in a tight ball and held it grasped in my hand, a spinning buzz of electric energy that sent a tingle up my arm.
The Jinn screamed almost as loud as the witch.
The villagers dropped the girl and stared at each other in horror.
They ran away as I limped up the hillside and kneeled next to the girl.
“Are you okay?” I smiled.
She sobbed and cried and ran away after the people who had just tried to sacrifice her.
Guess she was ensorcelled too.
The witch writhed and snarled, hurling curses in my direction, but they were worthless while she was pinned.
I shifted the will anyway, just to keep her concentrated on the pain.
There was a wineskin on pile of supplies, made from goat. I slipped the top and used the wine to erase the circles trapping the ghosts and heard the spirits moan as they returned to haunt the canyons where they died.
I wished I could have done more, but magic is only so strong. I tapped that anger for a moment and shoved the Jinn into the wineskin. Genie in a bottle? I’d save this one for some other purpose. Or hide him somewhere for the next thousand years.
All that was left then was to memorize the glyph so I could give it to the Judge, erase it with a spell, which I did, and then utter the words that would take me home.
“I’m not in Kansas anymore.”
Poof.
9
The Judge always seemed to know, always seemed to be watching. I truthfully didn’t have to say anything.
Or I could have said anything. My wife said that was my nervous habit, to quote movies or songs when I was trying to make magic.
She did not appreciate me adding “in bed” to her observations.
I popped up in chambers, the witch on the floor beside me, her wrists leaking blood on the stone floor.
The Judge took one look at her, and confetti. Guess she couldn’t be rehabilitated.
I described the summoning sigil.
“Did you find a book?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“I didn’t check her packs.”
“It would have been out,” he scowled. “Damn. That’s bad business son. That’s going to cause a heap of trouble for you.”
“You mean us.”
“Right. I mean us.”
He snapped his fingers and I popped over to Memphis.
It wasn’t quite home, but I had a place here. And I knew a good bar that served craft beer two blocks off Beale Street and just a short walk from where he had sent me on the banks of the Mississippi River.
“Thanks Judge,” I said to the air.
He had healed my ankle, and butt too. Judge. Boo Coup power. Way Boo Coup.
I made my way to the bar with a plan to call Elvis and have him join me. Maybe let him set me up on a blind date he was always talking about. My wife had been missing for almost a decade. Maybe it was time to get back on that horse.
THE END
Thank you for reading WIZARD AT WAR, the prequel to the Marshal of Magic series. If you liked it, would you consider leaving a review on Amazon? Authors love word of mouth and a few short sentences helps. Thank you.
If you enjoyed WIZARD AT WAR, check out
WITCHMAS the first novel in the series.
I’ve got two series on Amazon and a couple of standalone books, but I’ve always been a fan of Urban Fantasy. I loved Harry Dresden and the Dresden Files, plus Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Series, and Alex Varga, and a dozen others. I most recently picked up the TS Paul FEDERAL WITCH series on Kindle Unlimited and am enjoying it immensely.
Just over a year ago, I had an idea for this story and I wrote it down. The Marshal of Magic a cowboy
type character is sitting in a bar in Memphis waiting on a blind date when three witches walk in to ruin his night.
I started working on it, got halfway done, then went to work on other projects. It kept getting put on the back burner to finish it, even though I had the first three books outlined, the first one was halfway done, and I had ideas for up to thirteen in the series (for reasons you’ll find outlined in book one).
In September of 2016, the company I worked for went bankrupt and fired everyone.
I decided to get serious about writing and finishing these books.
I grabbed my post-apocalyptic Battlefield Z series first and did books 1-6 from October through February.
In January, I got inspired and wrote a book called Fort Smith that I haven’t published yet, and planned out 4 more books in the BZ series.
But I wanted to make some magic happen.
I started reading Federal Witch, and got inspired to dust off this story and finish it up.
But first, I wanted to give some background about the Marshal and write this prequel.
I’ll finish up the first three books in the series and see if people like it.
I hope you do.
I’m trying to make a living out of this, so if you have any suggestions, you can always reach me at [email protected] and let me know what you think.
About the Author:
Chris Lowry is an avid adventurer and ultrarunning author. He divides his time between Florida, Arkansas and California where he trains for 100 mile Ultramarathons. He has completed over 68 races, including 18 marathons and 12 Ultramarathons and is planning a Transcontinental Run across the United States from Los Angeles to New York City in 2017. He has kayaked the Mississippi River solo, and biked across the state of Florida. When not outdoors, he is producing and directing a documentary film about adventure and writing. His novels include Sci-Fi thrillers, Spy thriller's and mainstream fiction. He loves good craft beer and meeting with reading clubs and running clubs, especially if the aforementioned beer is offered.
More Books by the Author
Urban Fantasy
WITCHMAS
WITCHMAS EVE
WITCHMAS DAY
Do you like smart ass heroes who get in over their head? Need a little more magic in your life? Check out the Marshal of Magic up to his neck in wicked witch troubles.
THRILLERS
CONSCRIPTED
MISSION ONE
FLASH BANG
SHADOWBOXER
DECREED
CREDIBLE THREAT
NAZI NUKES
Are you a fan of post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi?
A father hunts for his children after the zombie apocalypse. Sci-Fi comedy in 6 book series.
BATTLEFIELD Z
BATTLEFIELD Z-CHILDREN’S BRIGADE
BATTLEFIELD Z-SWEET HOME ZOMBIE
BATTLEFIELD Z-ZOMBIE BLUES HIGHWAY
BATTLEFIELD Z-MARDI GRAS ZOMBIE
More Sci-Fi
EPOCH
HOLY WAR
MOON MEN
SUPER SECRET SPACE MISSION
Westerns
FORT SMITH
