Strange Magic: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (26 page)

We found the Mazda about ten seconds after pulling onto 3
rd
Street. The driver—wearing the flesh mask of a middle-aged man with thinning hair—must’ve taken a side street and outmaneuvered us when we got caught behind the pick-up. Son of a bitch. The hatchback clipped us hard on the right fender, causing our car to hook and weave, all amidst the shriek and crunch of metal and carbon fiber.

“Sonuva bitch,” Greg muttered, mirroring my thoughts exactly. Greg swerved left and floored it, trying desperately to put some distance between the crafty Rakshasa and us. “This car is a classic!” He bellowed out the open window. He took one hand off the wheel and flipped the Mazda driver the bird. It was a stupid thing to do and Greg should have known better. But the car was his baby, and no one puts baby in a corner.

On the plus side, at least we weren’t going to lose them anytime soon, which seemed a little
bass-akwards
considering this was a get away. Sometimes the only difference between a crazy plan and a genius plan is whether or not it works. Soon enough, we’d find out if our plan fell into the Patton or Custer category.

Greg jockeyed for position with the Mazda. The driver was riding in our blind spot, keeping in tight, scraping paint off the passenger-side fender. Problematic since we needed to take a right and soon. If we tried to take the upcoming turn without first clearing the Mazda, the guy would T-bone us slaughterhouse style.

I hastily rolled down my window, drew in Vis and lobbed a small glowing blob of blue into the roadway behind us. The construct was a hasty piece of work, composed of equal parts air and water. The blob bounced off the ground and into the Mazda’s windshield, exploding in a harmless wall of blue mist, which, hopefully, would distract the driver long enough for us to pull away.

Even though the construct was harmless, the driver didn’t know that. He threw on the brakes—a knee-jerk response when something collides with your windshield—giving us the edge we needed to break into the lead.

Greg cranked the wheel, pulling us into a hard zag onto Burbank Boulevard, which quickly dumped us onto the 5 South, a rambling mass of concrete and asphalt eight lanes wide.

We took the freeway entrance loop at a speed some might consider dangerous, but Greg handled the thing with aplomb. A moment later our pursuers burst onto the freeway, kicking into high gear with the rumble of engines working hard.

We’d be headed south on the 5 for a while, so I relaxed a little in my seat. Greg could drive the crap out of his Fairlane and out here on the open road there was little worry that the Rakshasa goons would catch us. We had to be slow enough to keep sight of them, true—or rather let them keep sight of us—but we didn’t need to let them scuff off any more paint. The real worry out here was not the Rakshasa, but the Fuzz—yeah, you heard right. The
Fuzz
.

Now, Californian’s are in the habit of driving fast—most Californian babies pop out of the womb and into the driver’s seat. I mean it isn’t uncommon to spot someone speeding happily along at eighty or ninety on the 5. High-speed car chases are another thing entirely, though. Four cars, all doing in excess of a buck ten will usually garner some serious notice, even in California.
Usually
.

If I
,
Joe Blow Vanilla Civilian, saw a crew of cars whizzing past me at ninety plus, I’d call those jokers in without a second thought. Let’s be real for a second here, cars are dangerous
business. Car accidents are the fifth leading cause of death in America, which kind of makes sense. Driving basically amounts to strapping a frail, imperfect person into the seat of a two-thousand pound rocket and then setting them loose on the world. Terrifying, and probably the most dangerous thing you’ll ever do in your life. Crazy driving kills and cops are damned quick to swoop in like an avenging angel when people go zipping around town all
Fast and Furious
style.

Greg and I knew this—we aren’t the dummies we appear to be on first glance. Greg and I had purposely rigged the game to make sure the odds would be in our favor. First, it was early in the AM, which is the best time to drive in California. There were still plenty of cars out, but not nearly the volume you might expect to see around late morning or midday.

The number of vehicles was further reduced by the glamour wards I’d hastily put in place at the major freeway entrances the night before. They were subtle things which wouldn’t last long, but for now, they gently suggested that drivers take another way or even turn around and head home for the day.

Second. It was 6:32 AM, which is, statistically speaking, the absolute best time for some brainless, high speed shenanigans. Technically, there are always cops on patrol at any given time, day or night. Shifts are designed so that there are
always
responders. In reality, however, shift changes have a significant impact on the ability of police to respond. Shift change is the single best time to commit a crime.

Off-going shifts have to finish and file any paper work before signing off for the day—and for traffic cops, accident reports can be time consuming. Usually those reports are written and filed between six and seven, meaning there are fewer cops out patrolling the streets. Likewise, the on-coming shift is usually busy doing morning roll call and daily briefs for that first hour, meaning they, too, are somewhere other than the street. So, my friends, six to seven is the golden window for all things mischievous or nefarious.

Like I said, we’re not as brainless as we might first appear … well, Greg’s not at least, he’s the one that came up with this part of the plan.

We took the 5 to the 110 S, heading toward LA proper, and got off on the Manchester Avenue exit. The drive should’ve taken twenty minutes. We did it in under ten, all the while keeping our Rakshasa tails in sight, which ought to tell you something about both how fast we were boogieing and how phenomenal Greg is behind the wheel. I drive a lot, and I’m pretty good, but Greg’s like NASCAR good.

Our careful forethought also paid off: not a single cop all the way to our exit.

Gosh, sometimes magic really does happen.

We took the ramp at an unnerving speed. When we hit Manchester, Greg brought us into a turn that left the rear end fishtailing like a drunken sailor after a long night on liberty, swaying first left and then right. I could taste the acrid scent of burnt rubber and feared—at least for a second—that our luck had run out. We were only a few blocks from where we needed to be so I figured it was only reasonable that Greg would roll the friggin’ car.

After a moment, however, the tires straightened and we were moving forward toward our destination.

The bull’s horns gored us all of five seconds later.

TWENTY-EIGHT:

Gored

Greg finally straightened us out from the fishtail and I could literally see
the warehouse where our end game ambush waited.

Then there was so much sound filling my ears: the shriek of metal, and squeal of tires, the tinkle of breaking glass. A symphony of individual noises all beautiful and terrible, crowding my ears, pushing out my thoughts, filling up the inside of my head. After a moment, the sound faded and I was in a vacuum. Things were tumbling around the inside of the car, like we’d been tossed into the dryer, but there was no sound.

I looked out the window—it hurt to turn my neck, everything felt so stiff. Things were wrong, somehow. I could see the crunched hood of Detective Al’s Charger, but the whole image was inverted. No, that’s not right.

Its tires were firmly attached to the ground. Broken car debris littered the street around it in an arch. The sky was up.

Then the picture shifted again, we were on a Tilt-a-Whirl. The sky righted itself and sound crashed back in on me—a breaking wave. The tires hit the ground, rocking the car perceptibly, but not enough to send us into another cartwheel. My seatbelt cranked tight around my chest. It was hard to breathe and I wanted—I
needed
—to have the thing off me. To be out in the air where everything wasn’t spinning. Where I’d be able to catch a breath.

There was something wet on my hand. I held up my fingers. Red. Oh shit. That was blood, a good amount too. I urgently searched my body, feeling for wounds. Nothing.

I noticed Greg for the first time. He was slumped over the wheel—there was blood all over his face.

“Sonuvabitch,” he muttered weakly. “Sonuvabitch. Someone help.” Then he was quiet.

There was glass in my lap. Smoke filled my nostrils with its acrid stink. Someone moving outside, but it wasn’t a someone, it was a something. Gray, flabby, and too large.

Shit. The Rakshasa.

I tried to draw in the Vis, but it was tough going, my head felt stuffed full of cotton. I needed to be out of here, I needed to help Greg. I wasn’t going to go out like this, punked by a bunch of flunkies. Not when I was so close to the end, to safety. I reached and strained for the source, for power and life and freedom. At last I grabbed hold, and I channeled that power, working without thought or guidance, letting the deeper part of myself reign as my mind tried to reboot.

The car frame twisted around me. Melting and molding, stretching and folding, until I stood free from the wreckage, Greg’s limp body thrown over my shoulders in a classic fireman’s carry. I didn’t have a clue in hell what I’d done. It didn’t matter. I was out and so was Greg. My feet moved, my intuition guiding each step. Adrenaline and endorphins mixed and mingled with the Vis pumping through my system, lending me strength and agility despite my pain and exhaustion.

It occurred to me that Greg had once saved me, just like this. I guess it goes to show that if you know someone long enough, everything comes round full circle.

The three Rakshasa from the Charger were pursuing me on foot … I could hear their heavy footfalls, feel the rumble of the impact through my Vis heightened senses. Two more cars emerged into Manchester Street and though I didn’t look back, I knew it was the Wrangler and the Mazda. No time to think about them, no time to think at all—I was in the zone, my body had co-opted the pilot seat and I was sprinting, dammit. Sprinting through a throbbing ass-cheek, an aching body, a nauseating headache, and with Greg sprawled supine across my shoulders.

I was racing against a bunch of gibbering, fanged, people-eating freaks. And I was winning.

I could see my goal ahead and on the right, not but fifty yards and closing, a few scant spaces down from the intersection of Manchester and Avalon. The building was nothing special. It didn’t look like much of a safehouse: a plain, squat, tired looking structure of unremarkable tan brick. One more warehouse nestled amongst a road full of other unremarkable warehouses.

A chain-link fence, wrapped about the top with barbed wire, surrounded the perimeter. The barbed wire looked like an unnecessary precaution—there were no cars out front to protect, or shipping vehicles ready to ferry their wares. The building didn’t precisely look run down or abandoned, more like currently uninhabited.

There was no reason to suspect this building was any more than it seemed.

I rounded the corner, the screech of tires followed fast on my heels—the Rakshasa were gaining ground. I didn’t spare a moment to look back—I didn’t have a moment to look back—they were so close now, I could feel them through their terrible footfalls on the pavement. Even with the boost from adrenaline and the Vis, they were gaining on me. There was no way I could beat these things in a friggin’ race, not over the long haul. Even after setting them on fire and pumping them full of holes, they
still
had the physical advantage on me, and they had the advantage in spades. I’d surprised them and gotten a good head start—I’d cheated—but I wasn’t sure it was going to be enough.

Their eyes were on my back. The heavy panting noises of a large animal in pursuit filled my ears. The
thud-thud-thud
of rapidly closing foot falls. The musky stink of them filled my nostrils.

The chain-link fence was fifteen feet away, maybe ten.

God, they were going to get me.

In my mind I could see a clawed hand reaching out for my neck, eager to sink talons deep into my flesh. I pushed the image away, focusing instead on the building ahead of me.

A chorus of yawls and yips followed me—it was a triumphant noise, the trumpet of a pack of hyenas that has finally run a weak and wounded prey to ground.

With a huff, I projected a thin beam of force, just strong enough to push the swinging chain-link gates inward. I passed the entrance and swerved right, making sure the fence was at my back. Angling for the front door. Close now. But my legs were shaking and chattering under the effort. Tires screeched somewhere behind me, followed in quick order by the clamor of car doors being slammed and the rattle of bodies scaling the surrounding fence.

I ran full blast into the front door, shouldering the thing open with ease—recently oiled.

And left intentionally open for me.

TWENTY-NINE:

Gunageddon

I ducked left, Greg still slung unmoving across my shoulders, scurrying along the inside of the wall, eager to remove myself from the veritable ocean of gun muzzles, all trained on the entryway. At some point, the front area of this building had probably housed a reception desk and shipping offices. But the interior had been gutted, so now only a single large room remained. The front door let into an empty fifty foot circle of space, encased by heavy-duty razor wire: a perfectly designed killing field.