Strange Magic: A Yancy Lazarus Novel

by James Hunter

  I flipped the safety off my M-4 and squeezed off a few shots at Arjun, walking forward in the odd, gating, heel-toe movement, which allowed me to keep the rifle barrel on target, even while moving. I dumped fifteen rounds, but they didn’t even come close to touching him. His shield was like nothing I’d ever seen before—instead of rebuffing the rounds, or disintegrating them like my shield would, Arjun created a bubble of silver-glowing magnetic force. The field snatched the rounds out of the air, sending them into a loose orbit around him. Tiny copper planets rotating around a human-shaped sun.

  Arjun smiled, his grin was a real screw you.

  The bullets spun free and fired out of circuit, hurtling at me with a velocity even the M-4 couldn’t have matched.

  Damn.

  Cool trick.

  I’d never thought about doing something like that: metal and magnetism aren’t my strongest suits, but the weave didn’t look too terribly complicated. If I lived through this, I thought I could probably duplicate the construct with only a little practice.

  I tossed my rifle aside—I could see it would hinder more than help against a talent like Arjun—and pulled up my friction shield. The shield shredded the bullets, but I didn’t pay them any mind.

  I darted left, away from the girl, and in toward Arjun. Wanted to make sure he didn’t accidentally hit her during the course of the duel. Plus, I figured getting in closer would grant me a greater advantage. I’m not much bigger than Arjun, but I’ve been in a shit-ton of fights—I could probably smack the crazy out of his smarmy-ass if I got close enough.

  The ground tore free beneath me.

  I jumped up and right, just in time to see a chunk of concrete dissolve in a pit of green-glowing sludge. I lashed out with my hand, a thigh-thick lance of flame washed over Arjun. The flame passed right through his middle and I wanted to scream in triumph. My victory celebration was premature, however—the flame didn’t engulf him as it should have with a direct hit like that, but rather disappeared into him.

  A craggily barrage of ice spikes—about a dozen in all and each the size of a chop-stick—torpedoed at me from the left. An illusion. Arjun had created an illusionary simulacrum of himself, while maneuvering to my side. It never rains, it pours—and usually, for me, it becomes a torrential downpour of shit. I brought up a blue dome of solid energy. The spikes—save one—exploded on impact into a shower of crystalline ice confetti. Hadn’t quite been quick enough, though. That first spike had punched two inches into my left calf before I’d gotten the shield in place.

  “Ass-faced-ice-porcupine!” I shouted as I went down. Don’t ask me why—sometimes the brain can come up with some wonky stuff when the pressure’s on. Let’s face it, all my smart-ass jokes can’t be comic gold. I’m only human.

  I left the ice spike in place, if I melted the thing away it could leave me bleeding out on the floor. So instead, I pumped more energy into the little construct protruding from my leg. The cold was a sharp bite in my flesh, a railroad spike of pain, but in seconds my calf went numb. Not a good long-term solution, but it would keep me in the rumble. I stumbled back to my feet—my numb leg made it tough going—and hobbled back toward Arjun.

  “I am the better mage!” he yelled as he sent another three waves of ice quills at me.

  “Maybe so.” The quills shattered on my shield. “But I’ve never been good at quitting—I’ve been smoking since sixteen.” I heated the concrete beneath his feet, fusing the soles of his shoes to the floor, while simultaneously calling up another searing wave of flame, aimed center mass. He tried to dash out of the way, but failed, frustration evident as he realized what I had done to his loafers. Tricky. A shimmering shield of artic ice formed in a half circled around him, meeting the flame with a terrible hiss and a gush of steam.

  “Gladium potestatis!” I screamed, conjuring my sword into life with a burst of azure-light, lumbering through the vapor, hacking wildly at the space I’d last seen Arjun.

  A javelin of wind hit me in the side like a hammer blow, hurling me five feet and disbanding the thick haze.

  I scrambled to regain my footing, bringing my sword up to the ready—chudan—searching for Arjun. A flurry of green whips, each the width of a finger, lashed out of empty air, another of Arjun’s illusions disappearing with the strike.

  I interposed my blade in time to deflect the whip strike, but the attack had been close and well played. Arjun was about eight feet off; in one outstretched hand he held a weapon of pale sickly green flame. The whip was inordinately long—nine sinuous cords jutted from the end, a cat o’ nine-tails. Hadn’t expected Arjun to have this kind of trick up his sleeve. I’d wrongly assumed that he wouldn’t be used to going toe-to-toe with a real live opponent like this. Sometimes it seems like I get everything wrong.

  “I admire you, Yancy,” he said, breathing hard. “So much dedication and determination of will. Truly admirable.”

  “That’s a one way street.” I circled right. Needed to be closer—as things stood, there was too much distance between us for me to make a clean strike. “I’ve got no admiration for you. A little respect maybe, but no admiration. I don’t get you, Arjun. I don’t get you. You don’t seem so bad—why do this? What’d you gain?”

  I struck low with a gust of air, not expecting or waiting for an answer. Charging in on the heels of my narrow jet stream, I dropped my sword low and swept my blade diagonally upward. Arjun struck back, his whip caught my sword-edge with one length, while another shot toward my face with a will of its own. I redirected my wind gust, narrowly avoiding the strike, lurching back a few steps and out of the reach of Arjun’s weapon.

  “You can’t win. This is end game,” he said. “I will free the Daitya, who is but the harbinger of the invasion—he will kill and slay, gathering enough Vim to open a permanent Way for his ilk. They, in turn, will spread mayhem and death across this land until they are able to free their Ancient Master, Vritra. Vritra will consume this continent, spread a pox upon your people, and, in return, Vritra will deliver me India and power over those fools in The Guild.”

  I dipped a little nearer—I needed to close the distance. His whip struck like a friggin’ cobra, a live and sentient thing, attacking the second I drew within reach. Each length moved independently, each on a slightly different trajectory, pushing my abilities to their utmost limit: an overhand block, a lunging block, a wave-counter and a dive, a furious riposte.

  I gave Arjun some distance. This fight was taking a toll on him as well, he looked relieved to have a little breathing room.

  “Okay,” I said, panting. “Let me see if I have this right. Your plan is to release the supernatural Legion of Doom, so that they can what—get their boss out of the clink? Then half the world burns, but you get India? Arjun, if you’re after Hindutva, or whatever, I’m not sure you’ve thought this thing all the way through. This seems like an awfully screwy way to bring about world peace or India’s new golden age.”

  He feinted right, dodged left, and came at me with his whip. I was outside his effective radius, but the attack had been a distraction. The real threat was the wall of cancer-green flame sprouting up from the floor to my right, a terrible inferno that would roast me like a spitted-pig if I misstepped. I forced a quick construct of air into place, smothering the flame and robbing it of the oxygen it needed to survive.

  We circled, first left then right, a slow deliberate dance, giving us both a chance to catch some air.

  “It’s hard for an unbeliever such as you to understand the complexities of the events unfolding this day,” he said. “Nearly impossible to understand why this tragedy must play out in the broken lives of men and women, children and innocents. But it must be so. Even you Westerners understand that sometimes the forest must first burn before it can regrow into something healthy and whole. All I have done here is burn down the clutter on the forest floor—I started the cleansing with riff-raff: prostitutes, drug dealers, gunrunners. They will not be missed. Did not God flood
the earth of all but a handful of righteous men and women so that humanity might start again, fresh? This is no different!”

  “You’re not God!” I shouted. “You’ve got no right to pick and choose!”

  “I have the power, thus I have the right! I will be God,” he shouted, sprinting forward to strike at my flank, all nine-tails of his whip flying at me. I couldn’t deflect so many incoming threats, not with my sword. I let the construct evaporate and called my shimmering blue dome of power into being, catching the fiery lengths along its surface—

  A crack of power, as thunderous as a gun blast, resounded through the air on impact. Instead of falling limply aside, as any normal whip would, Arjun’s weapon twisted and writhed, wriggling along the surface of my shield. Each section exploring my domed working, like some terrible multi-headed hydra.

  Damn, the guy had more tricks in his bag than a traveling sideshow magician.

  His weapon exerted a tremendous weight on my barrier, a hairsbreath more and I wouldn’t be able to hold the defense. My shield flickered and faded in places, losing the energy it needed to resist the attacks.

  Arjun’s wall of jade-fire sprung up once more, encircling me, pushing against my domed defense on every side, sending a terrible wave of heat coursing through the thin protective barrier. Son of a bitch. There was no way I could hold out for long under that kind of stress. The combined pressure of the probing whip and the firewall was too great a strain on my fragile and overworked shield—it wasn’t meant to withstand this kind of assault and I didn’t have the reserve of will for it.

  Time to roll the dice and play a little fast and loose.

  I gathered air around me, compressing more and more oxygen molecules within the confines of my faintly glowing dome. The stress mounted and mounted, I could feel the weight of the air strain against my eardrums—I’d manufactured my own hyperbaric chamber. At last, when I knew the chamber must either burst or crush me, I collapsed the defense outright, propelling the air outward in all directions. The explosion created a vacuum that momentarily stole my breath, but which also robbed the life from the surrounding wall of flame and Arjun’s whip. Both promptly sputtered and died.

  The subsequent sonic boom knocked Arjun back a step and hurled me in his direction. Fine by me. I hit him around the center like ‘Mean Joe’ Greene—four-time Super Bowl champion, defensive lineman for the Steelers—and we both collapsed to the floor in a heap. I reached into my pocket and fumbled out my last surprise, courtesy of Morse: a can of military-grade OC spray, the shit could put down a charging bear. I sprayed a full pump right into Arjun’s eyes, nose and mouth. Of course, being in such close proximity meant I dosed myself too, but that was okay.

  OC spray kind of feels like having your face and lungs scraped away by an industrial-grade sander. You can’t breathe or see, any exposed flesh swells and distorts, and it feels like drowning and burning all at once. The natural response to getting doused by OC is to curl up into the fetal position and cry for a couple of days. Except you try not to cry because crying makes the OC spray burn worse—it’s oil based and any water serves to reactivate the chemical agent. Imagine having your face covered in honey and then dipped in a fire-ant hill. Now you’re there.

  Still, I was okay with being sprayed. Not because it didn’t hurt—it hurt worse than a Muay-Thai kick to the groin—but because it’s a pain I’m familiar with. I’ve been blasted in the face with OC plenty of times, so I knew what to expect, I knew how my body would respond, which meant I could be relatively calm even in the midst of the terrible, sand-paper, fire-ant, groin-kicking pain.

  I could work through that shit. Not so for poor Arjun.

  He wailed and screeched, flailing about wildly, catching my face and chest with a few wild, but ineffective, swings. I squinted my eyes and beat him, landing carefully placed blows to his ribs, neck, and face.

  Dammit! I wanted to scratch my skin off, but I wanted to put this mess to rest even more.

  Arjun’s writhing arms deflected many of the blows, but I still landed some solid hits, which had him pleading for me to stop. I didn’t.

  Machine gun fire erupted from back in the warehouse, sharp and echoing in the cavernous room.

  “In the rafters,” Morse yelled from a distance, followed by the bark of gunfire.

  “I got eyes on!” McGoon hollered from somewhere else. “It’s on the move, heading straight for you.”

  I didn’t have a clue what was happening—it was hard to think through the pain and swelling which had invaded my face and throat. Couldn’t worry about Morse and McGoon. Even if Arjun did have reinforcements on the way, they weren’t my immediate concern: obliterating Arjun was. If he did have goons incoming, they’d probably kill me dead, but not before I beat him into a lumpy pile of meat. Hopefully.

  Body, thwack, body, thwack, face, thump.

  Repeat.

  Body, thwack—for all the broken bodies of women and kids.

  Body, thwack—for all the ruined lives.

  Face, thump—for the hell and agony he’d put me through, put my friends through.

  Blood covered his face, my knuckles. He was still moaning, but his fitful struggling had slowed significantly.

  The knife sank into my lower back, right beneath the edge of my bunched up jacket. I howled like a banshee with a loudspeaker and pitched over to the side, clawing for the handle, frantic to have the excruciating sting gone. A gray, clawed hand wrapped around my throat and pitched me some five feet to the side. I landed with a dull thud, my hands still scrambling at my back.

  It was a single Rakshasa, wearing black fatigue pants, with a sheath full of ninja kunai-knives strapped to its belt. The same no-good, ass-clown from the motel—the one who’d gotten the jump on me that first time and had thrown me through a window. Damn, I was really hoping this one had been sliced up by one of those fifty-cal gunners. Life’s not fair though, not by half, so it made sense that this jerk would be the only Rakshasa of the bunch to survive and that he’d be the one to punch my ticket. Asstastic.

  He scooped Arjun up in protective arms and rushed him to the bed, laying him down gently, reverently even.

  “Okay, Boss?” it asked with a voice ill-adept for human speech.

  “The basin of water, at the foot of the bed. Get it.” Arjun said, swinging his legs over the edge of the thin mattress and tentatively sitting up. The Rakshasa hurried to comply. Arjun splashed a little water on his face, trying to clear the blood and OC from his eyes. He doubled back over with a shriek, hands rubbing at his face in near panic.

  I chuckled, even half-dead with a knife sticking out of my back. Small victories.

  “Enough!” He yelled. “We end this here. Have you secured the intruders?”

  “Yeah, Boss,” the Rakshasa said, “Both of ‘em are unconscious. Alive. Figured you might want to feed ‘em to the Daitya.”

  “Good. Get the ritual instruments ready—and if the mage moves a muscle,” he hissed the word, “I want him dead—you hear that Lazarus!? Dead!” Apparently, someone was a little grumpy-pants about the whole OC spray thing.

  I grunted my acknowledgment, but it wasn’t like I was going anywhere. I was done. Arjun moved over near the girl and into a large and elaborate summing circle, painted on the ground and surrounded with unlit candles.

  “I’m going to kill her now, Lazarus. I’m going to sacrifice her, open the portal, and let the Daitya consume you and your accomplices. With your life force in him, he will surely have enough power to maintain his form on our plane indefinitely.”

  “Must have suffered some brain trauma in our scuffle,” I said through clenched teeth, “it’s only Monday, jackass. You’ve got a week before you can invite Big and Ugly over for your next shindig.” I laid my head down. It hurt to talk. To breathe. To live.

  “You are an ignorant child.” He took a ceremonial knife—an old wood-handled thing with a stone blade—from the returning Rakshasa. “I can summon the Daitya whenever I choose, assuming I am wi
lling to pay the price.”

  News to me.

  “Granting the Daitya access to our world is not easy, Lazarus. The portal requires sacrifice: either seven unblemished, one-year-old, male lambs—one each day at sun’s set—or a single, unblemished child.”

  “So you could’ve been sending this thing out daily?” I asked. “The hell, man? Why didn’t you?”

  “I’m not a monster—I don’t like to kill,” he said, exasperated and tired.

  “You’re kidding right? You’re going to help a friggin’ plague-god break free—he’ll murder millions.”

  “Yes, but I don’t like to do the killing myself.”

  “Not man enough to pull the trigger?” I asked, equal parts scorn and exhaustion in my voice.

  “No,” he said without hesitation. “Not if I don’t have to. Most civilians are fine with soldiers killing the enemies of their nation, yet most would not like to pull the trigger themselves. Many people aren’t even comfortable killing animals, but have no qualms about eating steak or poultry. I am no different—save that I will do what I must. I will burn down the world in order to start again, in order to save it.”

  He took off his blood-drenched shirt and stepped into the circle. With a small effort of will, he set the myriad of candles around him ablaze and then drew the stone knife along the inside of his left arm. The cut was not long or deep, but blood welled under the pressure of the old, pitted blade. He shook the crimson from the tip of the knife into an ancient bronze cup, no larger than a coffee mug, sitting on the concrete floor. I could feel the thrum of energy and tension filling the air. He was using himself, his blood, as the anchor and control for the gateway.

  The girl’s blood would serve as the key to open the lock.

  The Rakshasa moved into position next to Arjun, it had my M-16 pointed right at me.

  “It’s over,” Arjun said. “Now lie still and make peace with your gods. Take some solace, though, I will make the end quick for you. You fought well despite the fact that you are terribly misguided.” He turned and looked at the Rakshasa, “If any of them move—Lazarus or the others—kill them without prejudice.” He turned back to face the girl. “I’m sorry,” he said to her and then began to chant, a slow, slightly off-key mantra in some long-forgotten tongue.