BLUNT FORCE MAGIC: The Monsters and Men Trilogy-Book One by Lawrence Davis

Author:Lawrence Davis [Davis, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: WildBlue Press
Published: 2018-01-09T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

More Muscle

I didn’t have time to spend wrestling with the implications of the missing priest. While I didn’t believe in coincidences anymore, I didn’t have the luxury to sort through it. The sun was just now reaching for the sky, the fire of life starting to split the sea of darkness and gain a brilliant foothold on the horizon. I sucked down the sludge they were passing for coffee at a local diner across the street, along with some sugar-caked pastry.

I had an hour or so before the rough and tumble of the morning commute took off, so I got to work.

First, I took a look at the hammered-in truck, thankful that neither Grove nor I had been inside. From there I gauged the signature of the damage, where the Stalker must have launched itself from to impact the makeshift landing platform in that fashion. It was the very unsexy grunt-work that I spoke about before. It occurred to me that I wasn’t really sure just what this thing was capable of. Hell, the most I knew was that it stank, it was damnably fast, and it had a dozen or so names.

I got to the top of a three-story residential building and in the far corner I got my first break. There was distinct clawing—not your usual wear-and-tear of corrosion— but deep, unmistakable imprints.

A high ground perch wasn’t surprising. I took advantage of the still-rising sun to look over the whole scene from the night before. I hadn’t been able to revisit any other of the attack sites, so I was hoping that this would give me a better insight to how it operated. I read the summary of the Art of War once, this seemed to kind of fit the bill.

High ground. Pretty common practice, but the issue was that it couldn’t have been hunting us. It must have been here, lying in wait for Maria. We must have just made an easy target. I vaguely recalled the feeling of dread and how it bounced around the whole street before we’d been able to pinpoint it. Initially I thought it was because this thing was so agile that it was careening all around with such tremendous speed we hadn’t been able to track it.

Now I wasn’t so sure. An illusion could get you killed if you were committed, and while I wasn’t about to bank that this thing could wield any serviceable magic, living in a world of the dark arts, it had probably picked up on a few things.

I walked the line to the other end of the rooftop, where an alley split it from another three-story structure. Another kudo given to my day job while I take out a military grade flashlight. Actually, I am not sure who determined the grade of the flashlight, it might just be clever marketing, but it’s disturbingly bright. I searched the far wall of the adjacent building until I found what I was looking for.

Claw marks.

Trudging down the fire

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