The Sword of Michael - eARC by Marcus Wynne Page A

do, I’m glad to hand the client onto those better able to further facilitate their recovery.
    Right now I was working for myself, which meant I was working pro bono.
    For the public good.
    Lovely.
    I checked my bank balances, which were bottomed out. I had to make a withdrawal from my back up stash in a lockbox I kept in the closet of my bedroom. There were a few hundreds in there which left me good for right now. I took a handful of twenties and tucked them into my empty wallet, then set off for a longish walk down to Lake Harriet and then back over to Gigi’s for some coffee and head-clearing. It’s a nice long walk, though circuitous: from my place off Nicollet down the greenway along Minnehaha Creek, around Harriet, then over to Bryant.
    And I like to walk.
    I was only just down the greenway when I heard my guides whisper Good time to be aware, Marius and then I saw First In Front just off to my right and felt a nudge against my lower leg. My White Tiger was with me.
    I touched my elbow to my side and hissed when it pressed against meat instead of the comforting plastic of my Glock 19. I’d left it at home, under the bed, an oversight I was guilty of more than once when preoccupied with Other Realm work, and an oversight Dillon had chastised me about more than once.
    I took a quick look around.
    Nothing.…
    Maybe.
    One of the things a hunter knows is how to think like the hunted. When your practice involves the hunting of dark things, you learn that sometimes, maybe all the time, you get looked at. The more you see, the more you are seen. The Dark Forces work through humans as well as directly. I bore scars from some of the encounters with them I’d had. Protection and caution is all part of my game.
    I pay attention to “maybe.”
    Like the man slouched down in an idling car studiously not looking at me. Waiting for somebody?
    Maybe.
    Maybe for me.
    I don’t like giving the initiative away, though sometimes the counterpunch is best. I crossed the street and headed straight for the car. The driver pulled away, not meeting my eyes. Newish Ford sedan, dealer’s temporary plates.
    Hmmm.
    I felt the gentle nudge of my invisible—to anyone else’s eyes—White Tiger.
    …Yes…
    First In Front appeared in full war-fighter regalia: leather overshirt and breeches, a simple headband with coup feathers, a tomahawk and long knife in his hands.
    “It’s like that, huh?” I said.
    He nodded, a sharp bob of the head.
    Lovely.
    I kept walking and cut across the parking lot behind the Soi Capitale Bank. A Jeep Cherokee slammed to a stop and the doors opened. The driver was familiar—square head, pale skin, close cropped black hair, deep sunk dark eyes that darted away when I looked at him. Three others got out. Big old farm boys by the look of them, moving with the jerky lock step of the possessed or influenced, in battered Carhart jackets with feed caps pulled low over their eyes.
    My cell phone rang.
    No time for that. I hurried across the parking lot. The three meat-puppets turned to follow me. Dillon taught me the first rule of street fighting a long time ago: You won’t be in one if you’re not there. But if you have to be there, make them come to you on ground you choose, not them.
    In laymen’s terms, run like hell. Or in this instance, like Hell was after you.
    Running and looking back is never a good idea; either run, or look back. If you do both, then you’re likely to run full tilt into a parked Ford F-150 and knock yourself on your ass—like I did. That gave the shambling meat-puppets a chance to gain on me.
    It also gave me a moment to gather my energy, shift my consciousness and call my spirit allies. In my mind’s eye, I saw a whirling shape, like a conch shell in motion, twisting and then opening like a tunnel and through it came some help…
    The first meat puppet flailed his arms and clawed at his eyes as a Crow that only he (and I) could see flew into his face, turning him; a White Tiger bounded