vs mercenaries

Tania was staring at me as though she couldn’t quite grasp what was happening. But her voice was harder when she said, “Gentlemen? The wizard doesn’t like the carrots. It’s time for the stick.”
To my right, from behind the bar, another four men rose. They were holding short-barreled shotguns. To my left, from the bathrooms, another four thugs appeared, clutching various long guns.
“I’ll count to three,” Tania said. “Boys, when I get to three, kill him.”
Crap. They were flanking me. My shield was excellent, but it was not omnidirectional. No matter which way I turned it, one or more groups of thugs would have a shot at my unprotected back.
“One,” Tania said, smiling. “Two.”
“Comic book, huh?” I said. “Have it your way.”
“Three,” she chirped.
Guns swiveled to me. A dozen men took aim.
“Hexus!” I snarled, unleashing a wave of disruptive energy.
And every light in the place blew out in a shower of sparks, plunging the club into darkness.
Guns started going off, but only from the most confident or stupid gunmen, so I wasn’t cut to ribbons. I was already moving. Hitting a moving target isn’t easy, not even when it’s fairly close. Hitting one in the dark is even harder. Hitting one moving in sporadic flashes of light is harder yet.
I got lucky, or none of them did—however you want to think of it—and I got to the thugs beside Tania in one piece.
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!”
Raw telekinetic force hit three of them—one was the guy from the street, who again impressed me with his smarts by diving to one side, out of the wave of energy. As shotguns pounded my shield, he slid to a stop with an automatic braced in both hands, took a breath, and aimed carefully, only moving his finger to the trigger after he had his sights lined up on me.
Crap. To steal from Brust, no matter how turbo-charged the wizard, someone with brains, guts, and a .45 can seriously cramp his style.
Fortunately, I wasn’t in this fight alone.
I’d been counting on Will to join in at the right moment, and he didn’t let me down. Two hundred pounds of grey-brown timber wolf (wearing a service dog cape) hit the Smart Gunman at a full sprint, bowling him over. A flash of white fangs sent the gun flying.
Total elapsed time since I’d killed the lights? Maybe three and a half seconds.
Will threw himself into the guys I’d knocked around by the bathrooms, and I turned to discover that I’d been right about Tania. She was new to this kind of game. She’d been sitting there with a stunned look on her face at the abruptness of the violence.


Brief Cases, Jury Duty, Page 346-348