The Hangman who had caught Marcus swung the rope end of the noose toward Water. He froze as it touched his neck, the rope tying itself into a second noose. However quickly he thought he could change, Water ended up in human form.
They’d taken us all out.
Well, all of us except me, and I’d decided to pretend otherwise. With any luck I’d get some useful information and maybe get the chance to surprise them.
Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 55
According to “Double V,” the Hangmen were dead people given the chance to live a second time. I didn’t remember the article being clear on why.
I understood how the writer might have missed that detail. The Hangmen didn’t seem particularly talkative. In fact, they didn’t say anything at all as they got off the remains of the table and onto the (now heavily scratched) wooden floor.
Vengeance stood in front of them, knife hanging from his belt, rifle on his back.
Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 54
This looks interesting, Daniel thought, but we don’t have time to follow it all the way through. I’m going to have him free associate.
Scattered memories of passing years — Martin Magnus conducting a ceremony in a dark room, and handing Bouman a cup. Letters and couriers appearing in the dead of night carrying secret messages… Using an expanding telepathic awareness to enter the mind of one official after another… The mayor’s inspection of a gun wielding assassin’s now irreparably damaged mind…
A recent memory — A red-haired man in a black suit and sunglasses sat in the mayor’s study upstairs. I could feel a mixture of anticipation and fear as the mayor looked across the desk.
Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 53
The beam struck the floor in front of us and the carpet caught fire. Water slid forward and became a puddle, smothering it. Then he reverted into human-shaped water.
“Come any closer to me or my family and I’ll blast you,” Bouman said.
“Oh come on,” Daniel said. “This has nothing to do with your family. That has got to be one of the stupidest rationalizations I have ever heard. You’ve been manipulating people for ages and now you’re afraid to face the music. That’s the only reason you’re holding the gun.”
Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 52
Walking through the house seemed to take forever. We had to go down three stories before we reached the first floor.
We couldn’t see out of the windows because the smoke reached higher than our heads. Wisps of it came through the edges of the windowsill and the bottom of the front door.
Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 51
Sitting on my bed later, I tried to think through my next move.
I didn’t for a minute intend to seriously consider anything Magnus thought he had to offer. It sounded like he wasn’t going to be any help in a fight and I couldn’t see how cutting off access to the mayor’s money would do any good. I would have blown him off immediately except that I had been freaked out by the fact that he’d called me on my cell phone.
Not that I still wasn’t a little freaked out by that.
Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 37
I decided to take the day off from costumes, but the day didn’t cooperate with me.
School went okay that way. I saw Vaughn and Cassie in the halls and said, “hi,” but that was about it. The day didn’t fall apart till I got home. I arrived before my parents, pulling the mail out of the mail box and grabbing the paper off the front porch. I unrolled it to find myself on the front page under the headline, “ROCKET AND TOMAHAWK BRAWL DOWNTOWN.” A smaller headline below it said, “Mayor Calls for More Assistance.”
Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 34
I’ve been hinting at the contents of this post for a while, but now I finally get to hint a little more clearly.
Continue reading In the Public Eye: Part 27
Well, here’s an update…
On other matters, I’m thinking I might need to lighten up the background of the comment area and depending on how easy it turns out to be, I may make a couple other small changes to the theme. Let me know if you find anything hard to read.
Oh look… It’s a post that’s on time (more or less). With any luck, I’ll be able to do the same on Friday. Not being in training for a race means that I’ve probably got an extra 5-10 hours a week. I plan on enjoying that for a while.