Myth-Nomers & Im-Pervections by Robert Asprin

“NOW?” the Djin shrieked. “This is hardly the time to . . . Look out!”

The leader of the pack was cocking his arms to take a double-handed swing at me with a piece of lumber he had acquired somewhere along the way. As the wood whistled toward its target, which is to say, my head, I made a circular gesture in the air between us with my hand . . . and the board rebounded as if it had struck an invisible wall!

“Magikal ward,” I informed the gape-mouthed Djin. “It’s like a force field, only different. I did mention I was a magician, didn’t I!”

The gang stopped dead in their tracks at this display; a few had even retreated a few steps.

“Oh, before I forget, thanks for the sobering-up job, Kalvin. You’re right. It does make it a lot easier to focus the mind. Anyway, as I was saying, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of wards. They can be used like I just did,- as a shield, or . . .”

I made a few quick adjustments to the spell.

“. . . You can widen them out into a wall or a bubble. Coming?”

I had expanded the ward and was now starting to push the gang back down the alley ahead of us. It was a minor variant of the trick I used to break up a fight at the Big Game a while back, so I had reason to have confidence in it. I figured we would just walk out of the alley keeping the thugs at a respectful distance, then hail a cab to get us the heck out of there.

The gang leader had turned and trotted out ahead of the others a few paces.

“Cute. Real cute,” he called, turning to face me again. “Hadn’t figured you for magik. Well, let’s see how you handle this, wise guy!”