Free Strange Magic: A Yancy Lazarus Novel by James Hunter

legs and arms weighed about a thousand pounds each. Surely someone must have dropped a pickup truck onto my chest—no matter how hard my lungs labored, there wasn’t enough air. I ducked down behind a metal dumpster, drawing my gun as I waited for my pursuers to close the distance. The alley was as good a defensive position as any. Decent concealment and a narrow opening, coupled with the trash bin, meant I’d have a nice shot at any approaching targets, while they’d have a terrible shot at me.
    Can’t ask for more than that.
    Men hollering: someone—probably Morse—bellowing out orders. The orders were a bunch of incoherent jumbled gibberish to my drug rattled brain, but the general gist of the language was clear: get him without prejudice. Several bikers approached the alley mouth, mere silhouettes backed by the rough lighting of the parking lot. They had guns drawn and would start firing as soon as they got a bead on me.
    I lifted my revolver with herculean effort and popped off a few rounds toward my assailants. Sometimes the best defense is a good offense—that’s especially true if you’ve been shot with tranquilizers and only have about four minutes of consciousness remaining to your name. Defense is for people with time and I didn’t have any. My first shot went wildly high—my colossal gun raising of its own accord—while the second careened into the building, sending a sizable shower of brick chips at the gunmen.
    Damn, I couldn’t even hit three goons, from thirty feet, in a narrow alleyway. They must have dosed me with a friggin’ dump-truck load of tranqs—way more than I’d originally thought. It hadn’t been more than three minutes and already I was losing significant motor dexterity; my hands felt like I had on a pair of oversized, stuffed mittens.
    Running probably hadn’t helped either. All that physical effort only served to move the toxin throughout my body more quickly. Nothing I could do about that. What would be, would be, I reminded myself. My shooting may have been terrible and far from lethal, but apparently it was enough to cause my burly, leather-clad pursuers to halt and seek shelter. I was up and moving again, even if more slowly and with a greater degree of instability—a drunk after far too many drinks. Several times I found myself supported only by the alley walls.
    I soldiered on and eventually cleared the alley, lumbering down the sidewalk for all of five feet before a hammer blow of searing force ripped into my left cheek—and I’m not talking about my smiling face. Someone had shot me right in the ass.
    Out maneuvered, flanked by another group of bikers. The attack hadn’t come from behind me, but from the sidewalk running perpendicular to the alley, in front of the office buildings.
    I fell. Hard. The rough concrete of the sidewalk rushed up to greet me like an old acquaintance who’d been long out of touch. When that sidewalk and I embraced, it felt like I’d been sucker-punched by every woman I’ve ever done wrong. Another flash of angry pain seared across my chin as it bit into the pavement below, though that pain paled significantly in comparison to the bullet wound in my posterior. The wind rushed out of me, which might have been a result of either the fall or the gunshot. I couldn’t tell since everything hurt so damn much.
    I was bleeding, face down on the sidewalk, and about to pass out from tranquilizers, yet still I pointed my gun in the general direction of my assailants. I pulled the trigger twice, blasting a few more rounds, which brought about a satisfying cry of pain and an enthusiastic chorus of swearing. Sounded like I might’ve gotten a lucky shot in, which didn’t mean much since I didn’t have the energy to get up or pull the trigger again. My gun clattered to the sidewalk beside me.
    I lay there for what felt like a long and painful ice age, horrible tension building as I waited for Morse’s boys to finish the job. What a crap way to go