Snippet - Nightingale Unleashed
“Oh,” Nightingale says, sounding put out. “Didn’t I kill you already?"
"No,” the technician says with gritted teeth, “you threw me over the side."
"Oh yes, because you were in my way and boring me. I remember.” Nightingale smiles and it turns Lark’s blood cold. “Shall we rectify my mistake?"
With a flash of purple magic, Nightingale is gone and appears right behind the technician, seizing them in a hold from behind that keeps their arms locked in place. A quick wave from her occupied hand and she pulls them both back through the portal that appears.
Lark cannot move fast enough to follow. Wren is frozen, and probably best so. Above them, the scream of the technician echoes through the chamber, an awful rattling cry as they dangle from Nightingale’s arm.
Nightingale laughs, holding onto a groove in the central arcane capacitor with a tight grip.
"Now, here’s the thing, honey,” she says to the technician, “arm strength? Not my best point. So how long do you think you’ve got before I drop you?"
"Why are you doing this?” the technician screams.
“Because four walls for three years is so dull. You can’t begin to imagine.” Nightingale groans a moment later, the strain of holding the technician’s weight now showing through the red flush across her skin, the tension in her jaw. “Oof. Not long now. Good try, kid."
This snippet is from the second draft of my novella The Chase (Begins), which will be coming out in 2023 all going well. It’s the first in my Catastrophe Incoming series.
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(Art by velveteenwitchy on Twitter)