John Levitt - Unleashed

He was obviously setting up a confrontation. And he had chosen the time and the place, giving him an immense advantage. You never want to fight someone on their own terms or on their own turf, unless you have no choice.

A couple of years ago I would have let it go. But lately I’d developed a macho streak, a reluctance to avoid a challenge, along with the feeling I could take care of myself under any circumstances. Looking back over the last couple of years, a case could be made for that being untrue-most of the things I’d handled had been as much about luck as skill. But sometimes, confidence is as important as ability. Unless you let it overwhelm your judgment, at which point you’re sure to crash and burn.

So I wasn’t about to blunder ahead totally unprepared. Being able to improvise has its advantages-there is an infinitude of situations and threats, many of which you cannot possibly foresee. A well-crafted spell is useless if it doesn’t address the problem at hand. Sometimes I have to scramble, but in the end I usually come up with something that works.

But I had learned to prepare when it was appropriate. I had only enough energy to set up one prepared spell, though. Any more than that, and I wouldn’t have enough power left to deal with the unexpected. And there were two things to worry about. One was a magical attack, but since I wasn’t going to be caught off guard, I figured I could handle that. But those poor victims had been torn apart in a purely physical manner. When you deal with magic every day, you sometimes forget how deadly a mundane attack can be.

What I really needed was my shotgun, but it was resting uselessly at home. So, a magical equivalent might be in order. I looked around for a branch or other straight section of wood, and found just what I needed a few feet off the trail, a six-foot branch with the leaves stripped off long ago. I broke off the little side branches until I had a relatively smooth staff. I worked some dirt into one end, letting some energy flow out into it, forming a magical barrier. Then I squatted down by the small creek that ran through the park and dipped the other end into the water. Again, I let energy flow, but this time I kept it up. The water flowed into the staff, filling it up as it backed up against the dirt barrier. I held it there until the pressure built up to the breaking point before pulling it out. I capped the other end with a binding energy woven into more dirt. Now if I needed it, I could quickly rub that dirt off, release the energy, and the pressurized water would spurt out like a fire hose.

That may not seem impressive, but fire hoses and water cannons are what get used for crowd control. A stream from a two-and-a-half-inch hose will knock you off your feet and send you tumbling along the ground. With enough pressure, the stream can even break through a weak brick wall. And my enhancing would provide at least twice the pressure of an ordinary hose.

At that pressure, an ordinary hose would pick me up clear off the ground. It would be like trying to hold an angry anaconda. But magic does have its advantages-I’d be able to direct the flow as easily as I would a simple stick. Now I was set-a wizard with a staff, at long last.

Lou was shifting back and forth on one paw and then the other, not exactly nervous, but keyed up like a boxer before an important bout. I motioned him over toward where the path exited after looping around.

“Stand guard,” I told him. “Bark if he comes out this way.” He looked at me and moved closer to the entrance. “Other side,” I said. He ignored me.

That made me think again. Lou knows a lot more about tracking than I do, and he wouldn’t ignore me for no reason. Maybe he felt is was too dangerous to separate. He did have a point; it was a lot like those slasher films where the idiot teen says, “Let’s split up. You check out the attic. I’ll head down to the basement.”

Then I realized there was no point in leaving him to guard the exit anyway. This charade had been designed to set up a confrontation. Whoever this was, he wanted to engage me. He wasn’t going to slip out the back the minute I got close. That would have made the entire charade pointless. I nodded to Lou and we started along the path together.

It was narrow and closed in. After a short quarter mile, the path started to curve around and head back. Lou was walking a few paces ahead of me, nose twitching, acting more like an actual dog than a magical companion, seeking out danger on a practical level. When he stopped, one paw raised halfway up, I knew we’d reached the crucial place, and I gripped the homemade staff tightly, one hand on the dirt cap.

Even so, it almost got me. It burst out of the bushes and launched itself toward me with a noise like an explosion of frightened quail. Time shifted down into slow motion-not the magical kind, but the type that happens in a car crash. It stood upright on two legs, and was huge, at least six feet four. I saw dark fur and long arms with claws the size of a grizzly bear’s. I saw teeth, gleaming white. They were almost the last thing I ever saw.

I tore the dirt off the end of the staff and simultaneously pointed it in one motion. A stream of water gushed out and struck the creature full in the chest, sending it flying. My idea had been to knock down whatever attacked me, then use talent to bind and neutralize it if I could. But the water hose worked too well. It went head over heels back into the bushes, and it must have hurt it and scared it as well, because instead of attacking again it took off. I heard the sounds of crashing branches as it bolted through the tangled undergrowth. Round one to me.

Lou took a couple of steps forward and looked back at me to see if I wanted him to follow. He didn’t seem that eager. From the glimpse I’d got of the creature, I wasn’t, either. I shook my head.

“Not this time,” I said. “Let’s not push our luck.”

We made it back out of the park without any trouble. There was no sign of our red-haired practitioner. Glen Park is close enough to my flat so that I could walk home, though it took about forty minutes. On the way, my mind churned. Too many questions, which was rapidly becoming my default state of mind every time things got weird.

But I had learned something, and it was important. The question of whether these murders had been done by a creature out of the energy pool or by a mad practitioner was no longer one of either/or. It was both. But was it a creature like the fake Ifrit, but under magical control? Or was it a sentient being, like the Wendigo, working in partnership with a practitioner? And if so, why? One thing was clear-unless and until I figured it out, more people were bound to die.

“I CAN’T SHAKE THE FEELING THAT EVERYTHING is slightly off, slightly askew,” Sherwood said.

We were having a celebration dinner at Angkor Borei, a neighborhood Cambodian restaurant on upper Mission Street, in honor of Sherwood’s return. All of us-Sherwood, Eli, Victor, myself, and even Timothy-were gathered around a small table. Timothy had begged off, since he hadn’t even met Sherwood before her return and so felt he’d be an intrusion. But Eli was having none of it.

“You’re family now, boy,” he said. “Like it or not. Your presence is required at all such events.”

There was hardly room on the table for the various dishes and the steaming mounds of sticky rice. Cambodian food is just like Thai food, only different. Not much of a description, I know. Lou was wandering around somewhere outside, being unwelcome as usual in restaurants. There was going to be plenty left over for a doggie bag, though. It would probably end up making him sick.

“Feeling that things are askew is to be expected,” Eli said. “Considering.”