blocking white court goons

One of them got off a shot at the sound, but I caught the round on my shield, and the resulting shower of sparks showed the men on my flanks that I was among their compatriots, and no one shot at my back. I knew Lara hired almost exclusively from former military, mostly Marines. Men like that don’t shoot their buddies.
I dropped the shield and threw a punch at the guy in front of me. Ever since I’d started working for the Queen of Air and Darkness, I’d been stronger than the average wizard. Or the average champion weight lifter, for that matter, and I knew how to throw a punch. I connected with the man’s jaw, hard, and shouted, “BAM!” as I did.
The thug reeled back, his legs going wobbly and useless as he ragdolled to the floor. I threw a stomping kick toward the belly of the guy next to him, shouting, “POW!” I hit him in the dark, somewhere more or less near his belly. His gun went off randomly as he was lifted off the floor and thrown ten feet back into a wall. He was trying to scream, breathlessly. I winced. I hadn’t meant to hit him there, but those are the breaks.
I raised my shield again and dropped, just as the bad guys with shotguns realized that I didn’t have any of their buddies standing near me. I trusted the shield and turned my face away from the blinding shower of green-gold sparks it sent flying up as buckshot hammered into it. The copper band got hot on my wrist, even as I flung my right hand out toward the group of goons by the bathroom and shouted, “Forzare!”


Brief Cases, Jury Duty, Page 347-348