stray bullets

After that, things got a little complicated.
I'd started half a dozen small fires with the blasts, and before I'd gone another half a dozen steps the fire alarms twittered shrilly. Sprinkler systems went off all around me. And at the same moment, gunfire erupted from somewhere ahead of me. None of that was good.
The alarms meant that the authorities would be on the way - and except for the smartest guys in CPD's Special Investigations, they just weren't ready to deal with a vampire. They'd be little more than victims and potential hostages to the supernatural predators.
The falling water wasn't good, either. Running water grounds magical energies, and while it wouldn't shut me down completely, it would make everything harder to do, like running through soft sand or over wet clay. And the gunshots weren't good because a pair of bullets came through the wall not six feet away, and one of them tugged hard at the hem of my jeans over my left ankle.
"Ack!" I said.
Fearless master of the witty dialogue, that's me.
I twisted my left wrist across the front of my body, brought my shield up again. A couple of bullets that probably wouldn't have hit me anyway popped off of it, concentric circles of flickering blue light spreading from the points of impact. I dashed down the hall and around the corner, the blasting rod in my right hand lifted and ready.


Changes Chapter 4, Page 31