Tag Archives: Action

Black Magic Bullets: Chapter 16

Moving right along… Here’s the first draft of Chapter 16. NaNoWriMo might be over, but the show (novel) must go on.

BLACK MAGIC BULLETS

An Urban Fantasy

David North-Martino

Working as an Inhuman Resources Recruiter is no walk through the cemetery, especially when you’ve been cursed and your head is filled with stollen secrets from one of the most powerful occult groups in Boston. To survive, you might just need a few…

BLACK MAGIC BULLETS

Chapter Sixteen

I bent my knees. Absorbed the impact, and still felt electric pain in my soles as I landed.

An intense light blinded me. Defensively, my hands rose to my face. Kenzi turned, pointing the flashlight away from my direction.

I blinked away orange stars, yellow moons, and green clovers. My retinas were none too happy with being attacked by a flashlight as bright as the sun.

“Let’s move,” Kenzi said not waiting for me to recover. The thin beam led the way, parting the darkness in front of us, dust particles creating the appearance of walking through a snowstorm.

From what I could see, and I couldn’t see much, the area looked like a concrete storage room that had long ago fallen into disuse.

“I smell something,” I said quietly. That was an understatement. Somewhere in the blackness, just out of view, a putrid pile of refuse, or perhaps a dead body, (I didn’t know what a carcass smelled like at the time) had been left to ripen.

Had we found Dedra’s body? Dread overcame me and I hoped it was just a pile of trash.

Kenzi hushed me. She already had her weapon drawn and was scanning the shadows with lumens to the power of 1,000.

Then the shadows moved toward us—surrounding us—closing in.

“What the hell?” I asked. My brain couldn’t make sense of what my eyes were seeing.

“Ogres!” was all Kenzi said before pandemonium broke out.

Here’s the problem with non-human anthropomorphic races: most are not magical in origin and as such, are not as easily manipulated or inured through the Collective. Not at least immediately. More on this later.

Ogres stand just about as tall as humans, are ugly as sin, and sport a musculature that would make Arnold Schwarzenegger jealous. As aforementioned, they also stink. Masters of stealth, sometimes their tell-tale odor is the only sign that you have come across an ogre raiding party.

Kenzi didn’t tell me to cover my ears before she squeezed the trigger in rapid succession. The report of the firearm deafening as decibels echoed off concrete. The muzzle flash all but blinded me and created a strobing effect strong enough to give all but the strongest a seizure.

Jaring impact and my head snapped back. I stubbled in the same direction. Yet, I regained my footing. Tunnel vision made me lose sight of Kenzi. My lips swelled and my jaw ached. Luckily my head and body hadn’t betrayed me. Moving with the blow had allowed me to keep my teeth.

Momentum facilitated an ill attempt at retaliation. Letting my body turn, I sprung into the air and completed a jumping turning sidekick. Contact made, I pushed the ogre back but a kick that would have broken an ordinary mortal’s ribs didn’t even faze this overgrown oaf.

Meaty hands grabbed me as he reached forward, and then I was sailing through the air wishing I had learned better how to receive the ground in my training.

Landing on my back, I sucked wind. Pain arrived along with the feeling of suffocation. Panic followed. I had to get up. At least I got a reprieve from smelling the walking trash canister.

My eyes continued to function even though my lungs had fled the scene. I watched as Kenzi fired two blasts and then turned and moved, effectively throwing an ogre who had penetrated her defenses. I envied the smoothness of her movements.

The ogre who had come for me wasn’t done yet.

I still couldn’t breathe and could do nothing but writhe in agony.

Bending over me, the Ogre reached out one final time. This was it. My time had come. I resigned myself to peering deep into the darkness of whatever abyss awaited.

Another report and the ogre hit the deck, mortally wounded, just as I took my first greedy breath.

I coughed and then breathed again which brought on more coughing. Once started, I couldn’t stop and it took Kenzi dragging my ass off the floor to get moving again.

I can’t express to you how much this changed my training. Failure will do that to you. Unfortunately, I went about everything the wrong way and in the end, my training would make me weaker, not stronger. You’ll see how that happened soon enough.

“Let’s get a move on,” Kenzi said. “There will be more coming.”

Finally, the bronchial spasms subsided and normal respiration returned.

“I need to know where the body is,” Kenzi said and then for emphasis and to get my ass in gear screamed: “Now!

A staircase led upstairs and I found myself scrambling up it, using my connection to the Collective to lead the way to the deceased.

In a closet on the 2^nd floor, we found the body.

Kenzi examined it while I looked away, pretending to be guarding our six. I hoped I developed the stomach for this type of work. But then again… Maybe I didn’t hope for any such thing.

“The body is male,” Kenzi said.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

”Do you want to see for yourself?” Kenzi asked. I didn’t.

“No, I believe you,” I said. Forcing myself to give a cursory look, I recognized the remnants of the psychic cord that had given me a false positive and told her as much. “What do we do with the body?”

“We don’t do anything,” Kenzi said. Dreadstone doesn’t have the facilities to store the body and we certainly don’t want his DNA on us. You want to have an overzealous DA charge you with murder? I didn’t think so.

“And we can’t give the information to the police. They wouldn’t last long if they came into contact with the ogres. I can assure you, they’ll run into them if we send for them to search the premises.

“What do we do then?”

“Get in the car and check the next location. Hopefully, find something before we run out of time.

To be continued…

NaNoWriMo – Chapter 12 – Black Magic Bullets

Leave a reply

Between family obligations and the slower nature of this next chapter, It’s been a couple days since I’ve checked in. Glacial is probably a good word for how the writing has been proceeding. Most of this is because world-building and crafting a mystery out of whole cloth are labor-intensive.

I’ve now reached a point where each layer is crucial to building a cogent and engaging narrative. There’s no doubt that I’ll have to go back and flesh out some early scenes as I move forward. Still, I’d like to keep the narrative readable and understandable, even in rough 1st draft form. Don’t forget, I’m writing this book organically (by the seat of my pants) and, as such, I’m not using an outline or figuring out anything beforehand. I’m trusting my subconscious mind to fill in details between writing sessions. For now, I’ll consider this chapter finished and present it to you.

As it stands, I think this is shaping up to be a Dresden Files meets Monster Hunter International type of book.

BLACK MAGIC BULLETS

An Urban Fantasy

David North-Martino

BLACK MAGIC BULLETS

Chapter 12

Kenzi touched an access card to an electric eye. The locking mechanism clicked open, and then we were through a pair of blast doors and inside what looked to be a two-floor loft that housed a control center of sorts. Workers buzzed to and fro, some wearing shoulder holster rigs over button-down shirts or blouses, looking more like Government Agents than employees of Dreadstone.

Lit by natural lighting, coming from the frosted glass windows above the fray, as much as by electric lamps suspended from the vaulted ceiling, and with the addition of people moving about, created a shifting chiaroscuro, the light highlighting suspended dust particles, making the place appear fog-enshrouded.

“Welcome to The Body,” Kenzi said.

“What is this place?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“It’s an acronym. B-O-D-I-E. BODIE. The Bureau of Defense Investigations and Espionage,” Kenzi said. We’re like a private FBI for the Dreadstone Company.

“Like the name implies, we take care of the physical needs of the corporation—including but not limited to providing protection for our psychics, dedicated wizards, and recruiters like yourself.”

“I never would have guessed Dreadstone had its own private army,” I said.

“Oh, no. We’re not the army,” Kenzi said as she brought me over to a bank of beige cubicles. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

“This is Cybil,” Kenzi said.

“I go by Cyber,” the woman with the buzzcut and the black fingernail polish said.

“She’s what we call a BRAIN transplant,” Kenzi said undeterred, explaining that BRAIN was another acronym for Dreadstone’s Computer science and hacking division: Biologic Computing, Random Access, AI, Information Systems, and Nanotech. “She works here in the BODIE helping us expel viruses and track down baddies using the information superhighway both in Surface Web and all levels of the Deep Net.

“If not, the BRAIN wouldn’t know what the BODIE is doing,” Cyber said raising an eyebrow. “That’s just a little Dreadstone humor for ya.”

“We have some intel and clues from SPIRT,” and then for me added, Sorcery, Psychics, Incantations & Remote Viewing.”

“Who are we talking about?” Cyber asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Chavvi,” Kenzi said deadpan. I had no idea by her intonation if that was good, bad, or indifferent.”

“Oh, she’s really good,” Cyber said as if she was telepathic herself. Her response also seemed to imply that Dreadstone had employed one or more psychics of dubious reputation. “Lay it on me.”

“We’re looking for an abandoned building on the waterfront. A killer who is skilled with a garrot or at least has been accused of strangulation in the past, and a wide tie a man would wear that might be a homophone or an exact match for a lemure’s last name.”

“The property records search is the easiest. Do you know how long ago the lemure went missing?”

“I can’t give you an exact date,” Kenzi said. “Her clothing while reduced to rags looked modern enough. I gave a sample to Chavvi to get her impressions.”

“If Chavvi’s done, I’d suggest sending the sample to the lab,” Cyber said. “Even though most of the physical effects are just ectoplasmic facsimiles, for a period of time Dreadstone can determine what type of fiber was in the original garment.”

“Can do,” Kenzi said.

“Once we have an approximate time period, I can perform a record search for the perps MO through a backdoor in the local and federal databases. Then I’ll run a missing persons search for the same time period.”

“How much time will that take,” Kenzi asked.

“Too much,” Cyber said. Kenzi nodded. “Let’s work with what we have. You mentioned a wide men’s tie. Let’s see if I can get some terms we can search.”

Cyber made her mechanical keyboard sing, cherry blue switches rat-tat-tatting an echoey staccato rhythm throughout the loft.

“The first possibility that comes up is the cravat tie,” Cyber said. “What’s the first name?”

“Dedra,” I said before Kenzi had the chance to respond. If it bothered her, she didn’t show it. I was beginning to feel ineffectual just standing there.

“Nothing comes up under that name combination,” Cyber said, continuing to click and clack on the keyboard. “Let’s try Ascot.”

We waited as Cyber completed her search.

“Bingo!” Cyber said, jabbing a finger down on the enter key for emphasis and then swiveling on her chair to face us. “You’re in luck, Ascot is an unusual name and I only a few hits in the Boston Area.”

“Any Dedra Ascots reported missing?”

“We have one,” Cyber said, her fingers still dancing over the keys. “Reported missing back in 2004. Cold case.”

“Send me all the information on the case, along with a list of the abandoned buildings,” Kenzi said. “ Keep searching. I’ll still have Chavvi send the sample over to the lab. No time like the present to being our search.”

To be continued…

Seattle Red by Reb MacRath – Review