Apocalypse: Fairy System by Macronomicon (fox in socks read aloud txt) 📕

Jeb blinked. “Good plan.”

The keegan’s knee snapped up and hit Jeb just under the solar plexus, driving all the wind out of his body.

“Ugh.” Jeb doubled over, unable to move or breathe, his mind running full-tilt.

Gotta move or he’ll kill me. Meat suit compromised, use Myst. Backwards untenable, out of roof, and might still fall inside his reach. Same problem moving to either side.

Jeb grabbed himself with telekinesis and shoved himself forward, still doubled over in pain. Given that keegan were about seven feet tall, this put his head in line with his enemy’s groin. Jeb figured he could use his skull as a battering ram.

Talk about low blows.

He felt a warm palm seize his head, halting him in place. The gambit failed.

Shit, Jeb thought, trying to erect a last-minute barrier between himself and the coup de grâce, but it wasn’t looking good. His heart was buzzing in his ears like a goddamn hummingbird.

Yep, this is what death-terror feels like, Jeb thought idly as he tried to force his limbs to move through the paralysis of bruised organs and a runaway amygdala. It wasn’t going to be enough, but you should always make the effort. On principle.

“Hi-ya!” A squeaky voice made a karate noise before the assassin jerked away from Jeb, releasing his head.

“Fuck!” the keegan said, clutching his eye and staggering backwards.

Jeb drew a breath and spotted Smartass making a vaguely martial-arts stance in midair, her hands and feet wrapped in speckled blue Myst, her wings a blur behind her.

“My fairy-fu is unbeatable,” she said, floating like a butterfly.

How is that not a lie!?

Jeb didn’t have time to follow up on that, though. He dropped to the ground the instant before a blind retaliation strike cleaved the air where his face used to be.

Jeb hit the roof and sent a ball of force shooting out and up, catching the assassin in the groin for real this time.

The keegan’s eyes bulged as he was kicked in the balls so hard it made him airborne, and Jeb took the opportunity to wrap bands of force around the guy’s chest, holding him up and away from any kind of leverage.

“Maybe now we can have some kind of dialogue,” Jeb said. “Who are you, why are you trying to kill me, and why shouldn’t I kill you?” Jeb asked.

“Actually, scratch that second question,” Jeb said. He’d already confirmed being hired by G.G.

“My name’s Kol, I’m a courier who moonlights as an assassin. You shouldn’t kill me because—”

The assassin’s fist whipped toward his own chest and smashed the telekinetic bands, breaking them with brute force and a sickly crack.

Jeb used the last of the band’s cohesiveness to push the assassin backward, erecting a series of force defenses between the two of them.

For his part, the assassin simply dropped to the ground, giving Jeb the hairy eyeball.

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth,” he muttered, reaching into the dark interior of his robe.

Jeb tensed, expecting a throwing knife, or a smoke bomb, or even a gun.

“Here, some mail from a fan. I wash my hands of this.”

Instead of a weapon, the keegan withdrew a letter with Jeb’s name on it and tossed it across the distance between them. The letter fluttered to a halt at Jeb’s feet as the assassin drew his hood up and jumped off the side of the building.

Jeb leaned down to pick up the letter when something tickled the back of his mind.

He eyed the folded paper on the ground, frowning. His name was written in English, which was making alarm bells go off in his head. Why would any alien send him a letter in English? They assumed The System would translate anything. The only reason to write it in English would be if they knew he couldn’t read—which they didn’t—or it was simply to make the letters more familiar to his eyes.

More comfortable.

“Ooh, a letter! I wonder who it’s from!” Smartass said, zipping down toward the letter.

“Hold up,” Jeb said, grabbing Smartass in midair with his Myst. “Did you forget it’s his job to kill us?”

“No?” Smartass said, her brow furrowing.

Jeb took three big steps back and reached out with his strings of Myst and opened the letter. The envelope exploded, flinging white powder in every direction. Jeb created a concave barrier of force and none of the white powder got on him or Legolas’s coms device.

In a few moments, the wind carried the plume of poison away from them, allowing Jeb to relax. I hope there’s nobody in that alley, Jeb thought, wincing.

Other than the trap, the envelope was empty.

“Wow. What a meanie.”

“You gotta admire the professionalism, at least,” Jeb said with a shrug. The guy probably wasn’t coming back right away. It looked like he’d broken some ribs cracking Jeb’s hold on him.

“Jeb, are you still there?” Eddie’s voice came from the old man’s contraption, drawing Jeb’s attention away.

“Watch my back,” Jeb said to Smartass as he walked up to the battery-powered dish and lifted the receiver. “Yeah, I’m here. What’s up?”

“Well, I’m just sitting here, wondering why you didn’t feel like telling me about the six big fucking carriages surrounding the goddamn building!”

Jeb dropped the receiver and leaned over the side of the building, looking down at City Hall. From his vantage point, he could see two carriages, covered in shiny black lacquer with gold tracery.

Melas bodyguards were unloading from the carriages by the dozen, along with an example of a species that Jeb had never seen before. It was a slender, stooped over avian-looking creature with an incredibly smooth gait, dressed in its Sunday best: gold and vibrant silks, its slender neck lifting up an ornate headdress.

Even from this distance, Jeb could see the omnipresent grey Myst swirling