Masked (2010) by Lou Anders Read Free Book Online

up toward me. The last Verlainesque sensation is the fading voice of a reporter shouting, “Jesus Christ,he just bit off that thing’s
tongue
!”
    I hit the earth hard and roll, wet sand clinging to my fur. My rough skin and claws kick up gouts of sand. Hunger swells up in me. Raw hunger, desperate hunger, and hatred. Nothing has ever felt as good or as satisfying as this. I stand, turn, and regard myself above me, floating downward, sensing my own confusion.
    The Ghoul King snaps into place inside me and I know that I’m me and that he’s him, but I don’t think that he understands that. He’s reaching out toward me, recognizing me, wanting me. I think maybe the Ghoul King is actually a Ghoul Queen. There’s something motherly in its gaze. No, yes, I am female. I am reaching out.
    I jump off the ground toward her. We connect and I slash with my claws with every ounce of strength I possess. There’s an infinite well of potential energy behind my motions, powered by hunger and hate. I catch my self/enemy by surprise. She is reaching out to embrace me and her blood spills out and turns to spray in the wind.
    She is cunning and bold. She is brilliant. She somehow intuits what has happened, that she has been copied. She swipes at me with a look of purest rage, but her strength has already begun to fade. I’m digging, digging inside her exposed abdomen, slicing up everything I can touch. She becomes deadweight in my arms and we fall together in a tangle. The fall is so slow—her sense of time is not human; we seem to be falling forever together. The two seconds of our descent are smeared out over what feels like minutes.
    I turn my head to look down and the soldiers and reporters and bystanders and the few remaining Leaguers are all looking back at me with varying degrees of mixed hope and horror. They know. The smarter ones are putting it together already. The Wildcard, his powers, dead heroes, a bitten-off tongue. Maybe somebody’s already dispatched a camera crew to Verlaine’s grave, where Jeanie may still be waiting. I have no idea what she’ll tell them. It doesn’t really seem to matter.
    Lights pop. The whole world flares up. Flashbulbs and impact.Time returns.
    The ground rises to meet me for what feels like the hundredth time. A dragon is dead in my arms and I have become it and I have slain it.
    James Maxey is the author of the Dragon Age fantasy series:
Bitterwood
,
Dragonforge
, and
Dragonseed
. A graduate of the Odyssey Fantasy Writers Workshop and Orson Scott Card’s Writers Boot Camp, in 2002 he won a Phobos Award for his short story “Empire of Dreams and Miracles,” and has since published numerous short stories in
Asimov’s Science Fiction
and elsewhere. His first novel was the cult-classic superhero tale
Nobody Gets the Girl
, which was ahead of the current curve when it comes to superheroes rendered in prose tales, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that he knocked this story out of the park.

Where Their Worm Dieth Not
    J AMES M AXEY
    Atomahawk took a pack of unfiltered Camels from his utility belt and popped a fresh cigarette between his lips. His fingertip glowed like a miniature sun as he lit it. Acrid smoke curled toward Retaliator.
    Retaliator, squatting on the edge of the roof of the long-vacated factory, said nothing as he continued to stare down at the docks of the darkened warehouse. It was two in the morning; it had been at least twenty minutes since the last goon had furtively slipped inside. Despite Retaliator’s focused silence, something in his posture must have changed imperceptibly.
    “What?” said Atomahawk, sounding defensive.
    “What what?” Retaliator answered, keeping his voice gravelly and neutral, still not looking at his long-time ally.
    “You flinched when I lit up,” said Atomahawk. “You’ve got a problem with my smoking.”
    “I’m not here to pass judgment,” said Retaliator, who recognized the irony of the statement. The whole reason he was a