The Magpye: Circus Read Online Free PDF

he
tripped over the front runner, his own legs snarled up as the first
guard howled and clasped his lower leg. His head snapped back as
Magpye put a bullet through his throat.
    Spinning around, Magpye raised
his left hand and shot the first guard coming up behind him. The
bullet smashed into the guard's eye, blowing out the back of his
skull. Behind him, the second guard stopped to wipe blood and brain
out of his eyes. Unbidden, Magpye swung the second pistol around
and took another shot. The bullet hit the same spot on the first
guard, travelling cleanly through the vacant and ruined eye socket
and struck the guard behind in the forehead.
    Turning again, Magpye saw the
fifth guard drawing a bead on him.
    "Take your shot," said Malcolm,
moving the Magpye's lips underneath the mask.
    The guard shot and, impossibly
quickly, the Magpye moved. The bullet raced past and winged off the
railing behind him.
    "Shit..." whispered the guard,
pulling the trigger again. Another shot, another miss, the Magpye's
body twisting itself around the bullet.
    "The thing with shooting
somebody is," said Magpye, "You can't let them know where you're
gonna put the bullet. And you're telegraphing, son. I know where
you're shooting before you do."
    "Fuck you, telegraph this!"
shouted the guard, flicking the machine gun to full auto and
pulling hard on the trigger. Shots rang out, one after another, a
staccato rhythm of guttural grunts. Magpye twisted, ducked, spun,
and twisted some more, dancing around the bullets as if they were
paper aeroplanes. His hands slid back into his coat as he moved,
smoothly holstering the pistols and pulling out a small blade in
their place.
    The final flourish of movement
brought Magpye in close to the guard, just as his clip proclaimed
itself empty with a sharp click.
    "All yours, Able," whispered
Malcolm, descending once more into the Magpye's mind.
    Able Quirk shoved the blade
into the guard's throat. It wasn't clean, or skilful, Able had
never been a fighter, but it did the job. Sometimes the job was the
reward too.
    From somewhere downstairs
Magpye heard splashing, and caught the tell-tale smell of gasoline.
Fire. It was always fire. It always had to be fire. Fire was how
the Magpye had been born, and it had followed him ever since.
Leaping down the stairs, Magpye headed for the warehouse
floor...
SPECIAL DELIVERY
    Garrity slammed the van down a
gear and ran the red light. On the passenger seat next to him, the
bag shifted and festered and oozed. "Fucking King, fucking Taylor,"
he muttered, cutting through the traffic. "Fucking Jack, fucking
psycho Taylor."
    Garrity was dirty, he didn't
deny it, but it wasn't how he saw himself. In this city, there was
nothing more pedestrian than a dirty cop. Corruption was the norm,
the standard. Garrity was far more than that. He was a survivalist,
an animal adapted perfectly to this fetid city. He thrived here,
while so many others failed. Even psychos like Taylor, Garrity had
seen them come and go too. Most of the time, Garrity was the guy
with the sack and shovel that got rid of the body. This city, this
damned place, it attracted guys like Jack Taylor. Diseased moths
drawn to crematorium flames.
    And now Garrity had more dirty
work to do. He had to deliver a message, a bag full of pieces of
what had used to be a person, used to be a cop. Some message. It
didn't sit right with Garrity, as dirty as he was. It wasn't the
way things were done. People got hurt, sure, if they didn't follow
the line, didn't do what was expected of them. People got killed
too. But what was in that bag? That was new territory. That was a
city opening up its rotten womb and spewing another Jack Taylor
into the world. Garrity had put his share of killers away, Cane
King's protection only extended to people who were killing on his
orders, but he'd never seen anything like this. What was in that
bag... that was what Jack Taylor did for fun.
    A bus pulled out in front of
Garrity, forcing him to stab the