Sorcerybound (World's First Wizard Book 2) by Aaron Schneider (best color ereader .TXT) 📗

“Let’s try and ease out of here,” Ambrose said as they both skidded to a stop and began to clamber up the sides of the vehicle.

A ragged figure rose from where it had been lying in the cab, a rust-flecked revolver in each hand, leveled at Milo and Ambrose’s temples.

“Now, now, boys,” Ezekiel Boucher said with a slow, chiding cluck of his tongue. “You ought to know by now, ain’t nothing easy in this line o’ work.”

13

The Harriers

Milo and Ambrose froze, transfixed by the black basilisk stares of the pistols’ barrels as they hung onto the sides of the Rollsy’s cab.

“Didn’t figure you’d be seein’ ol’ Zeke this side o’ Hell, now did you?”

Milo glimpsed the base pleasure shining in the scalp hunter’s eyes and felt a welcome and defiant anger blooming in his chest. He forced a fierce smile onto his face and tore his eyes away from the pistols’ menacing gravity to meet the cowboy’s gaze. The same wild stare waited there, more jaundiced and bloodshot than before.

“Am I supposed to be impressed?” he snarled at the man through bared teeth as his will sent out a rallying cry. Now he needed to stay alive until they arrived.

“You think you cornered the market on death, cowboy?”

As the jeer slid from his tongue, a voice in the back of his mind screamed that he’d gone too far and the end was nigh. To Milo’s utter shock, something that might have been fearful confusion crept into Ezekiel’s eyes before he threw back his head and gave that mad cackle that never quite touched his bloodshot eyes.

“You’ve got gumption, I’ll give you that, partner.” Ezekiel giggled and gave Milo a wink as he pressed the revolver against the magus’ forehead. “It’s been a while since I scalped one of my own kind, but you two make the cut. How does that sound?”

A growl that must have been felt in the tectonic plates rumbled in Ambrose’s chest.

“Sounds like you already forgot what happened last time,” the big man said in a tone so cold Milo felt a chill shimmy up and down his spine. “Take what’s coming like a man, and I might leave pieces big enough to find.”

The scalp hunter’s smile widened until Milo was certain the man’s face had stretched like taffy to accommodate the expression.

“W-eh-eh-ell, listen to the pair o’ you!” He chortled, leaning against the seat, both pistols’ aim remaining true. “Regular pair o’ comedians! You keep this up much longer, and I’m goin’ to be laughin’ too hard to put you down clean! Ha-ha, might end up taking me hours, I’ll be laughin’ so hard.”

In Milo’s peripheral vision, he caught the sable glint, and his smile in the face of Ezekiel’s threats was suddenly less forced.

“Not so sure about that, partner,” Milo said with mock solemnity. “I’ve got a feeling you're going to get bored with our act real soon.”

“Hehehe…why…hehe…why’s that?”

Milo threw Ambrose a wink before meeting Ezekiel’s eyes with a grave expression.

“Our acts always have the same punchline.”

Three ribbons of shimmering black sand lashed out from the back of the Rollsy, twisting mid-flight into a shadowy semblance of thorny vines. Two of the tendrils went for the cowboy’s hands, ripping the guns into the air in a spray of lacerating particles. The third tendril coiled around Ezekiel’s neck and yanked violently backward, man and si’lat tumbling into the empty gun nest.

Milo and Ambrose leaped into the cab, Ambrose rushing to get the vehicle started while Milo scrambled to follow the gurgling cowboy. His will called the two si'lat from battering the two revolvers across the courtyard to attend him as he surveyed Ezekiel Boucher’s struggle.

Still managing to force a choked, viscous laugh as the jagged black vine twisted and ripped at his throat, the cowboy never stopped thrashing and kicking. The heels of his peeling split-sided boots rang off the sides of the gunner’s station, a violent staccato beat. Bright arterial blood sprayed across the metal deck and was promptly smeared this way and that as Ezekiel continued to twist and squirm.

His thorn-ravaged fingers raked through the si'lat ineffectually, then somehow, he wrenched his chin low enough to bite down on a mouthful of black sand with stained teeth.

Milo reeled as he felt his connection with the shade-animated construct snap like a taut wire.

Swearing and batting ineffectually at the spots flickering across his vision, Milo’s mind loosed the two other si'lat. Cutting the air with a serpentine hiss, the vicious constructs flew down on the cowboy in a whirling, scouring cloud of black razors.

The Rollsy’s engine roared, and Milo felt the vehicle lurch underneath him with a snarl of gears engaging. His hands shot out to brace himself on the lip of the nest, and he was thrown halfway into the nest. One knee of his trousers soaking in Ezekiel’s blood on the metal-plated deck, Milo found himself within arm’s reach of the bloodied man, who tore at the black grit slashing back and forth across his body. As Milo struggled to stand, he felt a tremble in his magical awareness.

As impossible as it seemed, the cowboy’s raking fingers and snapping teeth were in fact draining and wounding the si'lat.

Milo had once emptied a pistol into a si'lat, and it had no effect on the creature. It had required magical fire to destroy it. It made no sense that the scalp hunter’s bare teeth could inflict such damage, but then Milo remembered the curse. Some aspect of it must have made anything he used to inflict violence exceptionally potent, even in the realm of the metaphysical.

The Rollsy swung into reverse, and Milo was thrown to one side as he watched Ezekiel struggle with the weakening si'lat. The cowboy, despite his wounds, showed no signs of faltering, and Milo realized he had seconds before his constructs came apart like the last one.

Still gripping the lip of the gun nest, Milo recalled the si'lat, then threw his body into a thrusting