Released November 11th, 2008
Prague: July 2006
“Angela,” Johann Weisz shouted over the roar of the wind that shook the rock he was hiding behind, “I need you to get up and over to Cass.”
“I’m kinda busy right now,” he heard back in his head, Angela Newman relaying her mental response through Tommy who sat safe and sound away from the fight.
“Well I need you to be busy over with Cass.”
“Damn it, Weisz.”
“I can do it,” came back a reply from elsewhere.
“No, Sal, I need you here.”
“Johann!” Cassandra now interrupted.
Weisz cursed out loud, not caring whether or not Tommy relayed his words to the rest of the team.
Since the moment they set out everything had gone south. This was supposed to go down seamlessly, a simple snatch and grab a weakened Erlend Romanov. Instead they ran headfirst into this other gang, something that shouldn’t have been there, and nothing had gone right since.
Weisz cursed again, reached into his pocket and pulled out the damn stick he was embarrassed to ever use but needed now more than ever.
“I fuckin’ hate magic,” he said, standing up and spinning toward the enemy, arm outstretched, wand ready.
Released October 27th, 2008
He adjusted his jacket in the mirror for the fourth time in as many minutes. His appearance not quite right in these eyes, nevertheless the magician practiced another crooked grin.
“How American of you, Johann”, he told the reflection.
Running his palms over a shock of his hair, Johann spun on his heels and spied a welcome sight…
Legs that went on for miles, hips covered by his bed covers, an equally brazen bust, full pouting lips, deep green eyes and an arched eyebrow that spoke volumes.
“Gods, I love being me”, the young magician spoke as he sauntered over to the bed.
Released October 13th, 2008
Artifice Albion #3
By Jacob Milnestein
Becky Calohan had worked for Cale Corporation since graduating from Cambridge several years previously. She had schooled extensively in the mechanics and theoretical theory used for adapting alien technologies and had worked on her master’s degree whilst apprenticed to Elisabeth Fate, designer of the original thirteen Senshi Machines used by the Intergalactic New Mages Corps.When Cale Corporation had been approached by the British government to construct derivative machines, later known as Kaiser Machines, for the protection of the Commonwealth of Nations following the disaster in Australia, there had been global outcry against what was seen as a decisively aggressive and decidedly modern form of arms building.
The morning after the official joint statement from Downing Street and Cale Corporation, American newspapers in New York and Los Angeles had gone to print with headlines such as ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ The Ant Bully move .
The attitude of Cale Corporation and its renowned founder, Sir Leon Cale had been bullish to say the least. The elder statesman gave no ground, pulling on every heartstring and striking a resounding note of patriotic pride with his retort, so much so that no one was too concerned that Elisabeth Fate was in fact Australian and much of the technology used in the production of the Kaiser Machines had been derived from SUNNY Corporation. She looked up from the open access panel in Lion Kaiser’s side, staring at the sheer scale of the machine. Sometimes she found it difficult to remember that these machines, colossal as they were, were in fact human creations.
A faint smile crossed her lips and she lovingly patted the giant’s cold metal. Read the rest of this entry »
Released October 7th, 2008
Prague: July 2006 Slow Burn dvd One Fine Day trailer The Ant Bully on dvd
The spirits fanned out, the pack of dogs flowing like a fog down the street, around corners, through walls, through doors, through the city.
Eldritch walked in the middle of the pack, a casual pace, taking in the senses of a thousand spirits picking up a thousand scents. Sounds of fighting roared behind her, the rest of the team tangled with an unexpected foe, but her goal remained unchanged.
“Eldritch!” she heard in her head, Johann Weisz calling out to her, interrupting her focus, her thoughts.
“Tommy,” she thought back in a tone that, were spoken, would have sounded like a hiss, “silence.”
And she was alone with her thoughts.
She stopped, standing in the middle of a cobblestone intersection, closing her eyes and leaning her head back, the ghosts flowing around her in every direction. She thought. She searched.
She found.
Her eyes snapped open and the ghosts all disappeared but one beside her that turned and ran down the street. Eldritch followed, running, then crouching, then reaching all fours, keeping pace, her teeth bared, her hair falling behind her as she went. The ghost turned a corner, she turned a corner, and she didn’t need it anymore to pick up on the scent.
He was close.
The ghost dog halted in front of a door and arched its back, growling as a sign but out of fear.
This was as far as it would go.
Eldritch stood upright, brushed the hair from her face and took a deep breath.
The building was a shop, a bookstore who’s sign claimed in English that it dealt in antique books. She could smell not only him but the aging pages inside, the musk of antiquity.
She tried the door and found it open and walked inside.
He sat at a table in the middle of the room, a book in his hands, turning a page when she entered, not bothering to look up. They stayed like that for a moment, her standing in the doorway, tensing slightly as the door closed with a chime of its bell behind her, him sitting, reading.
“I had a feeling you would be the one to find me, Estella,” he finally said, startling her as he spoke. He looked to her as he closed the book and set it on the table. “As much as Weisz likes to fancy himself a grand player in the scheme of things, he really doesn’t measure up. You on the other hand…”
She braced herself as he placed his hands on the table and pushed himself up. He seemed older beyond just the years since she had last seen him. Weaker. But she knew looks to be deceiving.
“You should have killed me on Churchill,” Eldritch said with a growl.
“Yes, I should have,” Erlend Romanov said. “But there’s no time like the present.”
Released September 29th, 2008
“NO!”
The scream defiant and unmistakable.
Rule released the pink, hardened nipple from his teeth and looked into a stare of green rage.
Sheila’s forehead connected with her husband’s nose. Blood spray found purchase on her face and bare chest as he snorted in surprise and pain. Sheila Rule shoved his aching form off her frame and in the same movement a swath of shadow wrapped itself about herself, cloaking her no longer in a form hugging robe but a scarlet and onyx armor.
“I am no MAN’S WHORE!”
Released September 15th, 2008
Artifice Albion #2
By Jacob Milnestein
Detective Inspector JumpMan fell to one knee, his face drenched with sweat beneath the angular helmet he wore.
His uniform was torn and stained by dust and blood; the circle at the centre of the costume’s design all but obscured by grime.
With disgust, he lifted himself up, slowly raising the featureless masque that covered his face and looking beyond his opponent to the horizon and the pale blue planet far beyond. His head swam with pain, eyes blurred as he tried to focus on the rising planet.
It had been a mistake to come here, he reflected sadly. He should have known that with his armour so weakened in the fight against the bodyguard, Ahmedabad, he would never have been able to overcome Xero-X. It was a futile battle from the very start.
Beneath the ruin of his masque, his teeth chattered and the blood ran freely down his bruised face. In his hands he still clutched the Tolc .45 pistol that had earned him his reputation in the Next Mage Academy and, as he slowly lifted it up, bringing the sight level with his enemy, he felt a fresh rush of adrenaline surge through him.
He could do this, he was a Detective Inspector of the Next Mages, he could still win this fight despite how wounded he was.
“It’s no use, Inspector,” the other man whispered, his words slicing through JumpMan’s confidence, “I can see your movements slowing down. Before you can even pull that trigger I will have defeated you.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Released September 1st, 2008
There is no television where I’ve been. No phone, no Internet, no radio. Nothing about the outside world has been made available to me. Confined for the last few years in laboratories, examination rooms, and an darkened gymnasium; my hair is longer, my body is lean and fit: taut, pale flesh pulled over toned muscle free of blemish, atrophy or decay.
But my soul…
Blackened, faded to nothing but shadow.
In isolation I am kept, prepared for what is to come by people who tell me they love me. People who wear bits of my features like a mask.
The darkness envelopes me when I am alone. My eyes go unshut but still I see nothing. The moment the technicians or masqueraders depart from my immediate presence, the shadows coalesce before my sight. The warmth of the halogen examination lamps, the barely perceptible flicker of the fluorescent lighting, turns to a muted cold and my sight gives way to dark.
The weariness that comes of timeless days allows me to welcome the comfort of slumber as it takes me and I welcome the knowledge that my eyes shut of my own accord as dreams spirit me away. In the arms of sleep I can still feel his cold, dry lips on my own. Weisz, my former master, my equal, my memory. He cannot redeem me nor love me. His heart is not my own.
My mother, dead and gone, for which I am thankful. Paul, a daydream of a daft girl. But it is is the perceived screams of Aunt Nicky and Mikey that haunt my slumber. A city died, and they with it.
My home is gone. Forever a scorched earth.
My heroes, dead. Or gone. Or both.
Released August 26th, 2008
Prague: July 2006 Basket Case video
She lost her footing as the ground shook, another explosion throwing rock and debris over her as she fell flat and covered her head.
“Weisz!” Cassandra Trellis shouted, knowing it wasn’t necessary, that Tommy, far away from the chaos, was passing their thoughts around. “Where’s the backup?”
“Just a minute,” Johann Weisz’s voice came back in her head.
“I don’t have a goddamn minute!”
“I’ve got Angela on her way.”
“I don’t need Angela!” Trellis shouted as she lifted her head and squinted to see through the smoke and dust ahead of her. “I need Bobbi or someone that can knock this son of a bitch out.”
“What… hold on.”
“Weisz!”
“HOLD ON!”
Trellis started to push herself up but the ground shook again and she collapsed, gritting her teeth as rock skinned across her shoulder.
“How does that feel?” a large man down the street shouted. Even his laughter was heavily accented. “Are you comfortable?”
Trellis strained to get to her feet as the large man laughed.
She didn’t know this man or his associates that seemed to be tying up the rest of her team. As far as The Seven knew, these people weren’t supposed to be here.
This one seemed to have some sort of control over rock. The others wind, water, fire. Like elementals, Weisz had said.
Whatever they were, they were beating the hell out of The Seven.
“Where’s Erlend Romanov?” Trellis shouted as she massaged her right shoulder, trying not to wince, trying not to show how much it really hurt, hoping that she could throw a worthwhile punch with it.
“Who?” rock man asked, cocking his head like a dog might.
“Erlend Romanov!”
“You repeat yourself, girl.” He lifted a hand, rock rising from the ground as he moved his arm, and Trellis braced herself. “I think you shut up now.”
Released August 19th, 2008
Shadestalker #2
By James J. Queally
Blood. 20 dollar bills. A haze of gun smoke. His best friend smiling the way killers do.
This was the whole scene, but Reggie Evans could only see it in fragmented, distorted little pieces. The color black still held dominion over his field of vision, existing in small shadow-like pools, censoring the things he didn’t want to see.
Chief among them, the corpse of a man named Earl.
“$180.00,” Devon Lane said, flipping through the roll of 20s again.
“What?” Reggie asked, still catatonic, unsure of how his lips had even moved.
“That was in the register,” Devon muttered. “Couldn’t find the safe.”
“$180.00,” Reggie replied as his muscles thawed out. He moved his right arm slowly to his hair. Something pressed against his finger. Something sticky, warm. Something that had been alive moments earlier.
It was a piece of Earl’s ear. It was a wake up call.
Released July 28th, 2008
Victoria inhaled a deep breath, which she made a conscious effort to enjoy. ‘From Superheroine to Corpse in ninety days,’ that was the headline that kept crossing her mind as she struggled with her arm to not go completely numb from blood loss.
Get up… You stupid… wannabe hero…get the hell up… now!
Victoria’s world did laps around her brain as she struggled to rise to her feet. The blood she was salivating from her normally full plush lips was creating a puddle that leaked onto her crimson stained manicured fingers.
That’s bright Vic, get up again… so he can keep knocking you down.
Talking to herself may have been a result of the concussion, but right now it was the only thing keeping her conscious, and there was no telling how long that luxury was going to last.
She could hear his footsteps as he walked towards her. His calm soothing breaths. She was almost envious. How could he still be so calm after such a fight? Her answer was simple. She’d been playing punching bag for the last ten minutes or so.
His warm breath hit her face as he crouched down beside her, the look in his eyes eerily similar to that of a viper right before it moves in for its kill. His clean-cut exterior revealed a twisted, but glowing smile. The kind you see from a rapist after he’s found innocent due to lack of evidence. The kind of look that makes you know this wasn’t his first time.
Mysteria struggled to shake the cobwebs out of her head. Before she could even attempt to develop another plot for round two she needed to be sure the man she was swinging at was the right target and not just a double as a result of the head trauma she was desperately trying to fight off.
The maniacal man stroked her hair. His hands were dry. She could feel him digging his nails into the scalp. Even that felt like torture right now.
“You see my lady… This is why you never send a woman to do a man’s job,” he said to her as he pressed his fingers harder against her scalp. Once again, he rose to his feet and pressed one of his limbs against her head. Only this time it wasn’t his hand.
