Free Tricked by Kevin Hearne Page A

dove down and to my right, wincing as the rock tore at my skin. My dive put me next to the draugr ’s legs and, bracing myself with my hands and forearms, I spun around to kick the back of its knees; it crashed down heavily onto its back, right next to me. Its left elbow rammed into my back ribs and drove all the breath out of my lungs, but I was thrilled to see the hilt of Moralltach hit the ground first on its other side: That impact forced the sword to pop out of the thing’s arm and fall backward. Before the creature could decide to turn into mist, I snaked my left arm across its throat and then pulled with all of my might as I tried to fill my lungs again. It flailed at me, putting that left elbow to good use, but I wasn’t letting go. A couple of cracking vertebrae, a sudden lack of tension, and I had torn its head from the body. I rose with it, gasping, and located the blue draugr not five yards away, newly re-formed out of mist after Oberon had knocked him down. I threw the head of his buddy at him and it caught him in the face; he staggered backward a couple of paces. That allowed me time to locate Moralltach and retrieve it. As I set myself to meet the draugr , I heard a massive bellow to my right. I risked a quick glance toward the sound and saw the most incredible possession I’ve ever seen.
    Frank Chischilly was suddenly unbelievably strong, because he held what must have been a two-ton boulder above his head with one hand. As I watched, he jumped high into the air with it, one of those super anime leaps that are wholly unnecessary but completely awesome, and then came down with that boulder in his hand like he was dunking a basketball—a two-ton sandstone basketball that he slammed onto the head of the third draugr . The creature just disappeared under that rock, and Frank crouched down to land on top. If he’d been in the movies, he would have stayed there and risen slowly, heroically, as the dust cleared, but he leapt right down off that boulder and charged the last draugr , who was coming for me. Frank’s shirt strained at the buttons as muscles he didn’t have before threatened to burst out. His eyes were completely white and glowed a bit. I switched my vision to the magical spectrum, and Frank didn’t have that cute little white line in his aura anymore; he was almost entirely made of white magic now, at godlike levels. He whipped around his right arm in a backhand swing at the draugr ’s head, and when his fist connected, it was like he had teed off on the fourth hole. The head sailed away into the north sky, in the direction that Hel had run, and the dead blue corpse sank to the ground. Frank roared at it, and the veins on his trunk-size neck stood out; the turquoise stone of his bolo tie snapped off the cord and went zinging away, and his massive quivering pecs reminded me of Lou Ferrigno’s. His opinion of the draugr established, he turned in a circle, searching for more foes. He looked faintly disappointed not to find any more—Hel was gone—and those glowing eyes examined us again for an uncomfortable few seconds, to make sure we weren’t legal targets. And then he began to deflate, the light winked out of his eyes, and he coughed once, violently, before slumping into a faint. Coyote darted in quickly to catch him; he was a frail old man again.

Chapter 6
    » Okay, Coy—Mr. Benally, I mean—what the fuck just happened? «
    » I should ask you the same thing, Mr. Collins! « Coyote snarled. » Who was that lady and what were those things? «
    » Tell me about Frank first. Is he going to be okay? «
    » Yeah, he’ll be all right, « Coyote said, the anger in his voice modulating to regret. Frank’s chest was still moving up and down. » Wished he hadn’t of done that, though. He ain’t gonna get another shot, and I was kinda countin’ on him to use it on somethin’ else. «
    » What’d he do? «
    » He called Changing Woman and told her we had monsters here. Let himself be a