Havok Publishing

Thriller

S2 Thriller Thursday featured image (season 2)

Rainbow’s End

Death crept through the car park. Roddy rushed to the window, meeting his reflection in the pane. 

Sunset.

To the naked eye, all was as it should be outside the intensive care unit. Doctors, orderlies, and visitors went about their business with no particular urgency. Roddy, however, knew different.

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The Smell of Home

 “Alice, are you sure you properly calculated the accelerant?” Alpha set the custom incendiary at the base of the wall. “These were meant for breaching reinforced alloys. They’ll vaporize this wood.”

His AI’s smooth voice answered. “I performed a thorough study of the combustibility of wooden structures. The combustion should be appropriate

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Waypoint Guardian

The signal was weak but unmistakable: the rebel waypoint. They had made it!

Staggering through thick forest undergrowth, Sam and Tony picked up their pace as much as Sam’s mangled leg would allow. Even though Tony helped support Sam’s weight, every step sent a spear of pain shooting up his hastily bandaged leg,

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Silver like Grief, Black like Guilt

The king is dead.
I slump in my best dress on the pew at the back of the cathedral while the funeral bells toll overhead. Outside the church, villagers scream in protest at the leaving nobility, whose emotions stream behind them in trails of color. Amber irritation. Pale boredom. Sour, brown fear.

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Komainu

You have something special in you. A weapon no Komainu can wield. Father’s words echoed in Koji’s mind.
Sitting on the dojo floor, he glanced back, drinking in the beauty revealed through the glass wall. The black sea of space teamed with countless stars. Somewhere out there, a month’s journey from this space station,

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The Treasure Hunter’s Familiar

Ávila de la Mora peered between the trees of Inverness Wood with a pigeon perched on her shoulder. “You’re sure this is the best entrance, Atlas?”
Yes, the pigeon cooed across their bond. The trinket is not far from here.
As soon as she crossed into the wood full of magical creatures and artifacts,

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Zombies and Sloths

Six months into the sleep-zombie catastrophe, the survivors knew one thing: they were grateful for the winged, magic sloths.
One such survivor, Leesia, leaped over a crumbling stone wall marking an old boundary between fields. Gasping for breath, she dropped to her knees. Her brother-in-law Rayth joined her a moment later.

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The Hallowed Heart

Esther held Raphael in her lap and rocked him as he cried. Even at the age of eight, these trying times drove him to cling to his mother. She opened her heart, and his every fear and sadness poured into her.
She smoothed his hair with a trembling hand as the tension in his

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The Language of Sound

The iksomi opens his mouth, and his cry pierces the thick, morning air. All gloom and pain strips away. The noise is rigid like a lyre string, warm like honey, and I let it fill my being.
His mouth snaps shut, pointed teeth curving over black lips. He stretches, arching his back

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The Sea Spirit Whisperer

“How does one communicate with a sea spirit?”
High-pitched shrieks continued to reverberate throughout the vessel as I dropped the question on the engineer. My crew and I stood with plugs in our ears, but our methods to keep ourselves sane were failing.
“You’re asking me, an acoustical engineer, if I know how to talk to an invisible force

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Without Silence

The noise in Thomas’s head was getting louder.
Medical examinations came up empty. Doctors were stumped. It wasn’t tinnitus, they said, or brain tumors, or sinus problems, any other condition they’d diagnosed before. Nothing they attempted, from ear drops to oral meds, solved it. In the end, he just had to deal with it.

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Second Sound

My best customer had just left with a packetful of herbs when the man I’d seen in my dreams for years ran up. His deep brown eyes darted side to side. My breath caught at his beauty.
“You have to help me!” His second unspoken words gave a reason for his terror.

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