I didn’t feel quite right about it the next morning.
Parts of the news report stuck in my head — the accidental activation of the weapons, for example. If someone had gotten hurt, it would have been our fault too.
Also, we hadn’t started the fire in the warehouse. Syndicate L must have done that themselves. They’d had something to hide there.
I wondered if we shouldn’t have just given the warehouse’s address to the police.
Continue reading Three: Part 6
Brooke opened another portal.
Through it I could see a warehouse filled with vehicles — delivery trucks, police cars, armored trucks, hummers, and a semi. It wasn’t full either. The information we’d gotten from Carlos showed that half the vehicles were out this time of day.
Brooke changed the scene to the inside of a delivery vehicle and Jenny climbed through. She did the same thing until Jenny sat in each vehicle.
Continue reading Three: Part 5
“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
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
Russ brought his hands up to his eyes while Cassie dropped the cleaning liquid and mop, grabbing the sword’s hilt with both her hands and yanking it away.
Russ made grab for it as she stepped back, but stopped when she pointed the blade at him.
Eyes watering, he jumped sideways out of the building and into the parking lot, colliding with an old Chrysler Caravan that had been parked in a handicapped spot. He left a human sized dent behind and a shattered passenger side window.
Continue reading King of Storms: Part 5