Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Panthers. He dared.
The beginning of a growl rumbled in her throat, and she hid it. Some people might have found the metal cats beautiful. But she saw them for what they were—tortured imitations of the original, striving to capture the grace and lethal force of the true creature and hopelessly failing.
A dark-haired man stepped through the doorway. He was of average height, with an unremarkable build and a forgettable face, just another man in his early fifties. He had a narrow face, a prominent nose, and dark eyes under low, thick eyebrows. He smelled odd, like a tree scorched by lightning, the hints of familiar human sweat and skin oils mixing with the sharp tinge of ozone.
She had met him only twice, but his face and his scent were branded into her memory, because she had realized that he was a threat the moment he tried to buy Zeus.
“Trespassing. Vandalism.”
His voice had an odd echo as if he were speaking into a hidden microphone. It filled the space around them, and the hairs on the back of her arms rose in response.
“Destruction of property. Breaking and entering, or is it burglary?”
Woodward’s tone sounded calm and methodical, devoid of emotion, but the echoes of his words bounced around her like rocks tossed onto hard concrete. That eerie sound combined with his scent tripped some sort of alarm deep within her. She knew with complete certainty that Death was here and he was staring into her eyes.
“I had expected such foolishness from Prime Harrison. Her magic clouds her judgement, and her thought patterns are primitive and short-sighted. Much like the other creatures here, she doesn’t understand consequences. But you, Prime Montgomery, are a man of logic and reason. You should have realized how futile this venture would be. It couldn’t have been money. Was it hubris? Or was it the promise of sex? I really must know.”
The metal panther had finished reassembling itself. Talons the size of steak knives, razor-sharp metal teeth, and advanced response protocols. Augustine lowered his gun. He had been aiming at Woodward. The construct had thrust itself into the path of the bullets, but not before the first few had hit Woodward.
The man had blocked them with his arm.
There was no blood. No obvious shield. No telltale thickening of magic signifying the presence of an aegis, a shielder mage.
How? He had shot enough bullets to amputate his arm at the elbow. A shiver of worry squirmed through Augustine. This was outside the expected parameters of Woodward’s power.
He forced himself to concentrate on the immediate. The known. Two constructs, clearly slaughter class, designed to rapidly murder anything in their way. One animator. Augustine scrutinized the doorway, but nothing else came through.
Woodward himself appeared less of a threat at first glance—lean, wearing black trousers and a thick black turtleneck that had become the uniform for aging tech entrepreneurs. But there was something odd in the way he moved. A heaviness to his steps… He was standing still now, and still, he held himself in an unnatural way. It wasn’t readily apparent. Augustine had to focus, and even then, it kept eluding him.
Time was short. He had seconds to figure this out.
Looking for the source of the wrongness, Augustine replayed Woodward’s entrance in his head, the way he emerged step by step through the doorway.
There.
A human body was a collection of unified parts, bone connected by cartilage and powered by muscle. He’d spent a lot of time studying human bodies. He knew how they moved, how they were put together, and how to break and tear them apart. There were several muscles that connected the legs to the rest of the body and enabled bipedal motion. When humans walked, these muscles tugged on the torso, causing a slight turn. If you attached a light to a person’s breastbone, the light would shift side to side with each step. It was a minute movement, but crucial to evaluating one’s gait.
Woodward’s torso didn’t shift. It remained perfectly straight, as if set atop his legs yet still separate from them. And now he stood with unnatural stillness. Even disciplined, focused soldiers locked into the position of attention couldn’t stay perfectly still. The human body constantly made minor adjustments to balance. Human chests rose and fell. Blood pulsed through veins, and muscles contracted and twitched.
The implications sank in. Alarm struck him in a flash, as if someone injected ice straight into his bones, and then he was calm. Fear, anger, and doubt vanished. He dropped into a familiar empty space, where only he and the target existed.
In a prolonged fight, Woodward would have the advantage. He wouldn’t get tired. This would have to be done fast. And it would take everything he had. There would be no do-overs.
Every mage saw their magic differently. For Augustine, it was a translucent flame. A nearly invisible fire that coated his form, constrained by his will into a uniform sheath and constantly fueled by his body. If he didn’t bleed some of it off by maintaining a constant illusion, it would grow too dense and break its cage. When he activated his field, that phantom fire swelled, and he punched the ground with it, detonating his power like a grenade, with illusions sprouting in the wake of the blast.