“Let’s do it this afternoon,” Alex said.
“Seriously?” I said. “We’re not prepared. I’m not, that’s for sure. Also, I mean, we don’t even have any sense of when the best time would be.”
“Nah. We got all that stuff from Carlos, you know, Technomage’s kid. Brooke, show him.”
Brooke reached across the table and touched my hand, putting us into mental contact.
Continue reading Three: Part 4
“I’m not supposed to.”
We stood outside another massive house in the same subdivision. This one had probably won some kind of architectural award. I say that because it looked strange. All white walls with huge glass windows that stretched from the first floor to the top of the house, the house curved and bulged all over, reminding me of a collection of toadstools.
A little boy sat on his bike in the driveway. He couldn’t have been more than ten.
“My dad said I have to ask him first.”
Continue reading Three: Part 3
Even from the sky, it looked like a huge house. Shaped roughly like an “L,” it had space for an outside pool and a tennis court, and rose three stories at the point where the two wings met. The short side faced the Pacific ocean.
In Michigan something similar could fetch a million dollars. In California, I didn’t dare speculate. The crazy thing was that in Michigan there would be space around it and probably some forest. Here, it crowded the edge of the lot and ten other houses of the same size stood right next to it.
I landed on the deck.
Continue reading Three: Part 2
If you happen to know the right person in the FBI, it’s not that hard to get the stealth suit plus a highly modified guitar controller through airport security.
The Department of Homeland Security guys at Grand Lake’s airport had looked at each other and then at me as the guitar controller (in its lead lined cloth case) rolled through the X-ray machine. The metal detector’s alarm went off as I stepped through too.
I blamed the sonic systems, but the utility belt hidden under my jacket didn’t help.
They waved me on anyway.
Continue reading Three: Part 1
Vaughn never got hit by the lightning.
When the strikes stopped, he stood there unharmed, smiling nervously, glass shards and glass craters surrounding him.
“He’s cheating! You can’t do that.” The King of Storms shouted at Lee.
“He’s controlling weather.” Lee said. “Get on with it or yield.”
Continue reading King of Storms: Part 12
“Let’s get on with it then,” Lee said.
Both Vaughn and the King of Storms turned to look at him.
“Neither of you is going to change their name so now it’s time to come up with another way to handle it. You’ll want to choose seconds and Vaughn, you get to choose the weapon if it’s a duel.”
“Duel?” Vaughn sounded incredulous.
Continue reading King of Storms: Part 11
Above us, the cloud became darker, extending across the dune toward Grand Lake.
“Relax,” Lee said. “We both know that if I were coming to kill you, I’d have already tried by now.”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m training them.” He waved vaguely in our direction.
Continue reading King of Storms: Part 10
The thing faded into the storm and disappeared. Between the darkness and the possibility that its body might have been nothing more than falling rain, I didn’t know whether it had teleported away or simply ceased to be.
Either way, the rain changed from a downpour to nothing in the space of ten seconds.
As the rain ended, the clouds thinned, letting the sun illuminate the puddles in the road and the mud across the street in the parking lot.
Continue reading King of Storms: Part 9
The noise didn’t let up for the entire period.
Whether it hailed, thundered, or rained, it never became anything that could exist comfortably in the background.
Meanwhile, I attempted to explain the situation between Lee and Isaac while simultaneously not explaining things. I couldn’t exactly tell her that the friend saying nasty things another friend was an FBI agent who acted as a handler for heroes in this region. I also couldn’t tell her that what bothered Isaac about Lee wasn’t interpersonal stuff as much as that Lee might be capable of plunging the world into an unholy reign of darkness and terror.
Continue reading King of Storms: Part 8