The Last American Wizard Read Online Free Page B

Steve could make out the curl in the broad horns above what looked like a bull’s snout.
    Ace snapped her fingers in front of his face, drawing his eyes back to the long drop. “OK, it wasn’t in the original tactical plan, but you’re going to have to get us out of here.”
    “Exactly how do you suggest I do that?”
    She had switched her pistol to her left hand and was using the right to dig for something in a cargo pocket low on her thigh. Steve had the odd thought that there seemed to be far more in her pants than he’d ever guessed from her silhouette. She pulled out a silver- colored metal case and hinged it open carefully, revealing a pack of cards.
    “We going to draw for who gets to jump first?” Steve asked. “I’ll take low card. Maybe I’ll land on you.”
    She shot him a scornful look and then fired another five shots at the door. Steve cringed from the noise next to his head and half turned. He could see that she placed her shots so that they didn’t hit the door itself but zipped through the open spaces where the door had been wrenched out of its frame.
    There was a tremendous bellow from the hall.
    Flicking through the deck with one hand, Ace pushed out a card with her thumb and held it out to Steve. He took the card and then cringed again as she rested her hand on his shoulder and fired again. There was another, higher shrieking roar from the hall.
    “The second half of the clip is always loaded with OTN-4 rounds.” Ace said. “That should slow him down for a minute.”
    “You mean, in a minute, Bullwinkle the Hammer is going to get in?” Steve shouted over the ringing in his ears. “We’re going to die!”
    She nodded her head at the card in Steve’s hand. “Not if you can fly using that card the way you’re supposed to.” While she spoke, she dropped out the empty clip and rammed in a fresh one from yet another pants pocket.
    For the first time in his long career, Steve was too stunned to ask a question. He turned over the card and recognized it as one of those tarot cards that fortunetellers used. The picture was of a somewhat gay-looking teenager with a flower and an old-fashioned bindle on a stick over his shoulder. He was looking up–at an empty sky, apparently–and his next step was going to take him right off a cliff. There were no secret flying instructions that he could see.
    Steve looked at the back. Nope, no “Guide to Flight” there, either.
    He shook the card at Ace. “What the hell is this?”
    “That’s the Fool.”
    “Really?” Steve pointed at the bottom. “Probably why it has ‘The Fool’ written on the bottom. Let me be clearer. What good is this dumbass tarot card?”
    She looked at him sharply. “So you know the tarot?”
    “Old ladies on the boardwalk peddle this–it’s a crock.”
    She shook her head, fired a couple of quick shots at the door, and then said, “You really have to stop dismissing things you don’t understand. The Fool is one of the most powerful characters in the Major Arcana and–among many other things–controls the power of flight.”
    “You are shitting me.”
    “No sir. I do not shit you.” She fired at the door again. “It’s in Manual S-O slash O-T-N, Section one five three dash zero, and if it’s in the Manual, it must be true.” She said this as though it proved her point beyond any shadow of a doubt.
    Steve could only stare at her. She was beautiful–it was a pity that she was dangerously insane.
    She shot him another look–blue eyes as direct and grave as his third-grade teacher. “Here’s what’s going to happen, sir. You’re going to stare really hard at that card and figure out how to use it.”
    “What?”
    There was another tremendous bang on the door. This time, it was followed by a grating crash that Steve assumed was his front door ripping out of the frame and spinning across the room to smash into the opposite wall. He automatically began to turn his head to look, but Ace gripped his ear and