shield vs sniper

There were two more photos.
The first was of Michael, in the uniform shirt he wore when he coached his daughter’s softball team. He was leaning back on the bleachers, as he had been when I’d first walked up to speak to him.
The second picture was of a weapon—a long-barreled rifle with a massive steel snout on the end of it, and what looked like a telescope for a sight. It lay on what looked like a bed with cheap motel sheets.
“Hell’s bells,” I muttered. “What is that?”
Michael glanced at the picture. “It’s a Barrett,” he said quietly. “Fifty-caliber semiautomatic rifle. Snipers in the Middle East who use them are claiming kills at two kilometers, sometimes more. It’s one of the deadliest long-range weapons in the world.” He looked up and around him at all the buildings. “Overkill for Chicago, really,” he said with mild disapproval.
“You know what I’m thinking?” I said. “I’m thinking we shouldn’t be sitting here in your truck right next to a spot Buzz expected us to go while he and his super-rifle are out there somewhere.”

Side Jobs, The Warrior, Page 225


I BEGAN POURING my will into my shield bracelet about half a mile from home. That kind of active magic wasn’t good for the Beetle, but having a headless driver smash it into a building would be even worse. I fastened the buttons on my leather duster, too. The spells that reinforced the coat were fresh, and they’d once stood up to the power of a Kalashnikov assault rifle—but that was a world of difference from the power of a .50-caliber sniper round.
Buzz had missed his shot at the sword at Michael’s house. It’s really hard to tail someone without being noticed, unless you’ve got a team of several cars working together—and this had all the earmarks of a lone-gunman operation. Buzz hadn’t been tailing me today, and unless he’d given up entirely—sure, right—that could only mean he was waiting for me somewhere. He’d had plenty of time to set up an ambush somewhere he knew I’d go.
Home.
The sword was my priority. I wasn’t planning on suicide or anything, but at the end of the day, I was just one guy. The swords had been a thorn in the side of evildoers for two thousand years. In the long term, the world needed them a lot more than it needed one battered and somewhat shabby professional wizard.
As I came down the street toward my apartment, I stomped on the gas. Granted, in an old VW Beetle, that isn’t nearly as dramatic as it sounds. My car didn’t roar as much as it coughed more loudly, but I picked up speed and hit my driveway as hard as I could while keeping all the wheels on the ground. I skidded to a stop outside my front door as the engine rattled, pinged, and began pouring out black smoke, which would have been totally cool if I’d actually made it happen on purpose.
I flung myself out of the car, the sword in hand, and into the haze of smoke, my shield bracelet running at maximum power in a dome that covered me on all sides. I rushed toward the steps leading down to the front door of my basement apartment.
As my foot was heading down toward the first step, there was a flash of light and a sledgehammer hit me in the back. It spun me counterclockwise as it flung me down, and I went into a bad tumble down the seven steps to my front door. I hit my head, my shoulder screamed, and the taste of blood filled my mouth. My shield bracelet seared my wrist. Gravity stopped working, and I wasn’t sure which way I was supposed to be falling.
“Get up, Harry,” I told myself. “He’s coming. He’s coming for the sword. Get up.”
I’d dropped my keys in the fall. I looked for them.
I saw blood all over the front of my shirt.

Side Jobs, The Warrior, Page 234-235


I blinked blearily at him as he held up my coat. He turned it around to show me the back.
There was a hole in the leather mantle. I flipped it up. Beneath the hole, several ounces of metal were flattened against the second layer of spell-toughened leather, about three inches below the collar and a hair to the right of my spine.
That was chilling. Even through my best defenses, that was how close I’d come to death.
If Buzz had shot me six inches lower, only a single layer of leather would have been between the round and my hide. A few inches higher, and it would have taken me in the neck, with absolutely no protection. And if he’d waited a quarter of a second longer, until my foot had descended to the first step leading down to my door, he would have sprayed my brains all over the siding of the boardinghouse.

Side Jobs, The Warrior, Page 238-239