Havok Publishing

S13 - Encore

Icebird vs. the Dinosaurs

If there was one thing that Iris City had in surplus, it was abandoned buildings. In his Icebird guise, Houston Haas circled over a block full of them, trying to localize the lady’s cries for help. At last, he pinpointed a rusting building that had once been a warehouse, surrounded by a graveyard of other similarly decrepit structures.

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Burn Out

Brad clutched his rooster, Leopold, by the neck as he trudged up the steep mountain path.
As a farm boy, he was used to long days of hard work under the elements. But the trek up Flaimen Peak always winded him, and he wasn’t looking forward

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Ink and the Illusionist – A Dreaming Machines Story

“Come one, come all.” Erizan waved to the bustling crowds passing before his small circus tent. “Dr. Erizan Aziz’s world of mystery awaits those who dare tread the waters of the lost deep!”
He’d tailored this pitch for the ocean people of Leaslin. They were born in water, lived on water, died in water,

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Master of the Tide

I floated nervously, trying to hide my twitching tail. To my left, my twin brother Ellion swam proudly, confident—perhaps too confident—that he would be the next Master of the Tide, King of the Merpeople. His soul-bonded shark swam in menacing circles beneath him.
My soul-bond

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The Toad Prince

In her pink dress, with her golden hair, the girl looks like a rose—if the flower was human.
I stepped behind a pillar edging the palace portico as she approached. Dashed inconvenient, but I don’t want to shock her when I turn green and slimy.
She paused on the other side of the pillar.

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A Taste of Lightning

Although she’d finished smoothing soil over her seeds and was growing wetter by the second, Gerda was in no hurry to leave her garden. She savored the rain. Too little had fallen the year before, resulting in meager fare ever since.
I’m lucky to have that much. She smiled. Well, I do have a good luck charm.

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All the Comforts of Home

“It’s dangerous to stay here.” Lili gazed at me with red-brown eyes. “We should go.”
Leave the comfort of Steve and Talia’s house? I had to calm Lili’s fears before she ruined the good thing we had going.
“We’re house flies,” I protested. “If we weren’t meant to live in houses, why call us that?

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Made of Metal and Morality – A Dreaming Machines Story

Tin Eyeswell stood on the precipice of immortality. The only obstacle between him and a hefty cache of Caerulum crystal was a group of peddlers down in the ravine.
Collateral damage.
Tin nodded at his partner, Merek, and caught his scruffy and sunburnt reflection off Merek’s metal

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Multiplied

The market was usually the loudest place in Tabgha, full of fishmongers waving their latest catches, servants haggling over the price of oxen for their masters, and preachers on street corners trumpeting the end of all things. Yosef didn’t mind. The louder and more

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A Mathematical Story Problem

Hunched over her desk, Snowfall shielded the fairy with her hands. The fairy perused the math problem on the sheet of paper then tapped a tiny hand against Snowfall’s palm.
Tap-tap-tap.
Snowfall wrote the number three.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
Snowfall added the number six.
Tap-tap-tap-tap.

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The Last Laugh

The floorboards of the psychiatric facility creaked beneath my feet as I followed Dr. Kelvin down the hall. All the other residents either stared at me or looked through me like I wasn’t there. I wasn’t sure which was creepier.
“Does she still

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The King’s Birthday

The kingdom shimmered in anticipation of the king’s birthday, and Blackguard grimaced at the iced cupcakes, foil balloons, and dragon bobble-heads in shop windows. Beneath his stealthy feet, the cobblestones glistened from a recent scrubbing; around the castle’s main courtyard, the lampposts with

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