Haley frowned, “I hope they’d trust you. You nearly died killing The Thing and their team didn’t get anywhere close to doing it. They were more of a problem and a distraction than they were a help.”
Amy shook her head, “I know. It’s stupid, but blood magic is different here or at least the kind that they’ve seen is. I wouldn’t trust blood magic either if only vampires used it.” Continue reading Fonts of Magic: Part 2
Amy’s mouth twisted as she eyed the glowing object. Part of me worried that she wasn’t in costume, but given that the message had found her, it was too late to worry about revealing her identity. The North American Wizard Council had probably known from the moment she appeared on our world.
In an accent that wasn’t quite Irish, Scottish, or English, but some alternate universe’s near relative, she said, “I’m Princess Amelia of the House of Sacrifice, current Bloodmaiden. You have my attention. What is your request?” Continue reading Fonts of Magic: Part 1
“Right,” Amy said, “except they’re terrified of blood magic and that means they’re terrified of me because I’m connected to the most powerful blood magic-based construct they’ve ever heard of.”
I thought about that, “I’m surprised they didn’t go after you when we were done fighting The Thing That Eats.” Continue reading Enforcers: Part 10
On the freeway, an SUV had stopped and three teenage girls stood by the concrete railing, all of them pointing their phones in our direction. I wondered how long they’d been there and my implant flipped back to when Prentkos and the Cabal soldier landed in the road. They’d seen everything they could.
I wondered how all of that looked to an observer. I hadn’t done anything I regretted, but that didn’t matter. I needed to get the footage to Kayla so she could get it to the League’s marketing and public relations team. Continue reading Enforcers: Part 9
It was one of those slow-motion moments that work better in films than in real life. When you’re watching a film, on some level you know that no matter what happens, you’ll be able to walk out of the theater with no consequences. In real life, you might know that Amy’s spear consumed souls, lifeforce, essence, or some other substance that science couldn’t detect or measure.
It had nearly consumed mine when Amy was hurt and needed healing I couldn’t give. The only thing that stopped it from killing me was that Lee had shown up, stopped it, and somehow restored enough mystery substance that I could live. Continue reading Enforcers: Part 8
Thanks to the Rocket suit’s enhanced vision, I could see South Beach Surfer’s eyes widen as I aimed myself in her direction. She’d been in too many fights not to guess what I was planning.
If only I knew. The smartest choice would be to aim the laser at her and just burn her. Her probably armored “wetsuit” might help a little, but I’d likely send her to an emergency room. If it turned out that she was mind-controlled or that her perception of the League had been subtly altered, she wouldn’t deserve it. Continue reading Enforcers: Part 7
One nice thing about allowing the Rocket suit to be controlled through my implant is that I didn’t have to move to try to contact South Beach Surfer. Before my implant, I’d have had to tap my the gauntlet’s palm with my finger or worse, use the Rocket suit’s mouthguard and tap with my tongue.
For the record, texting with your tongue is tedious beyond my ability to explain. Continue reading Enforcers: Part 6
I caught a glimpse of the Cabal soldier and Prentkos gaining altitude and then hitting the top of the arc and beginning to drop. He’d been traveling the same way the strongest of the Cabal’s soldiers always had—jumping half a mile or more at a time.
It made me regret that we couldn’t cover the entire city with spybots. I placed the ones we had near roads where you could run at hundreds of miles per hour on outskirts and located them thicker near my parents’ house—with the effect that this guy could avoid notice until he got close purely by accident.
Prentkos had probably called him in somehow. Continue reading Enforcers: Part 5
At the same time that I blasted toward him, I pulled my arm back as if I planned to punch him. Even if I couldn’t move as quickly as he could or fully take advantage of the speeds that I could now observe, I could pull the arm back as I might if I had no special tricks and then fire off killbots as I closed with him.
The speed of my punches was limited by my body, but firing off the killbots was done at the speed of thought plus electronics interfacing with alien technology in my brain.
The killbots shot down toward the ground, curving upward to aim for his leg. Continue reading Enforcers: Part 4
I didn’t know who’d figured out how to dissolve my goo, but knowing that this was connected to the Nine, my first thought was Rook. The guy seemed to have weird hero worship of my grandfather going despite being an example of everything my grandfather stood against.
I wouldn’t have put it past him to make a point of figuring out how to dissolve the glue after the last times we’d fought him. Cassie had disintegrated his leg. In the fight before that, I’d exploded his hand. He had every reason to hate both of us—except he’d been weirdly admiring both times we’d met. Continue reading Enforcers: Part 3