I just stood there, feeling the tip of the barrel against my head. I knew I should be running, should be pushing Marisol down, trying to get away, to at least survive the next few seconds, but what was I going to do, really? I couldn’t believe this woman was actually going to kill [...]
Ep 09 : Ultimatum
Even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good, I instinctively lifted my arm up in front of my face to ward off my zombie brother’s energy blast. Instead of feeling my skin crisped off and peeled away as my clothes were turned to ash, I actually saw the crimson-yellow blast split around me [...]
Ep 08: Burning Dark
I followed Derek into the elevator. He seemed grim now, ignoring the rest of the people who’d accompanied him into the well as more of his men arrive to man the station and turn it into a de facto XDF base. Alice, still silent, was with us as, and as the elevator doors were beginning [...]
Ep 07 – Messenger
A pool of slick, purple-black blood formed around Alice’s feet, and I couldn’t stop looking at it, watching how the color was leeching into the bottoms of Alice’s shoes, which had at one point in the distant past been white. I guess it was better than looking at the source of the blood, that [...]
Interlude 1 – Sunset
8 hours ago Natalie Jensen stood in Aaron Trent’s office, right in front of the windows that overlooked downtown Nova City. The sun, dropping into the ocean on the other side of the city, splashed purple-amber light on her face. It felt good, to be here at Sunset, no one else had a [...]
Ep 06 – Threshhold
Alice’s face was calm, though still infused with violet light. I couldn’t believe the serenity there, if she really meant what she’d just said. “You know where they are?” I asked her. “I think,” she said. “My tracking spell returned, and it brought back a result. “And …” Derek prodded her. [...]
Ep 05 : A Wound in the World
My hand throbbed. The stupid horse’s teeth had broken the skin. This wasn’t just some nibble, wasn’t some “hey-watch it!” little snap to let me know he was annoyed. No, this was a full-on bite from a seriously pissed-off legendary winged battle-horse who probably could have taken off my fingers if she’d really wanted [...]
Ep 04: Hope of the Doomed
Derek’s bullets exploded the bone-white heads of the little demonlings that were hopping up and down on my chest. This type of thing was happening a lot tonight, I realized with not a little chagrin. Limp bodies fell off of me, scattering to both sides. I backed away, on heels and palms and elbows, [...]
Ep 03 : Hell’s Waiting Room
Gail Dorian grew up a military brat. Her father was an air force captain. She followed him into service before leaving the military to become a civil rights attorney. I know, strange transition. She dedicated herself to serving first her country, then her fellow man, and finally, the world itself. And she did all of [...]
Ep 02 : Look to the Sky
I decided that no matter what happened, I wasn’t going to close my eyes. There was a theory that at the moment of death, the retinas recorded the last image that slammed against the back of the eyeballs, and I wasn’t going to have that image be the dark insides of my eyelids. I [...]
