Chapter 46 Houdini.

Chapter 46: 46 Houdini.

The knights moved around the lawn in quick and swift unison. And when I said knights I meant knights.

Dressed in full body armour just waiting to be used, but along with them were also what seemed to be private security—men with rifles, black swat uniforms and an absurd number of tattoos.

"Nova one, do you copy me?" One of the men said into his comm repeatedly before another came to meet him.

"What’s going on?"

"Eyes up. The Comms are down for some reason." He said with a snide. Hand already hovering near the trigger of his gun. "I think someone is here."

The other did the same, move closer with his rifle pointed at the nothingness in the sky. "Who goes in to tell them?"

"Negative." He said, nudging his head to the knights standing inanimately at the side. "We have enough idiots to handle this before it becomes a problem."

Ahh, the confidence. Before I knew it more of his men joined him on that exact spot, and then I decided I’d waited enough.

See, when handling multiple high velocity projectiles I’d acquired a whistle helped me navigate them all better.

I started with a low whistle still completely out of sight as I felt the nails in the duffle bag take flight and weave through the air.

My whistle was still low enough that it could be mistakenly with the howling wind in the air.

That was until the first nail darted through the air and burst through one of the mercenary’s skull and their guns flared blinding lights into the sky.

The muzzle flashes strobed against the snowy lawn in harsh, blinding spasms.

Tracers zipped uselessly into the low ceiling of rolling dark clouds, illuminating the fat snowflakes drifting down through the dark.

"Target! Where’s the fucking target?!"

"Twelve o’clock—no, three o’clock! Fire, fire, fire!"

Idiots.

I kept the whistle going, a low, two-tone melody that sounded like a songbird with a death wish.

It was an old acoustic trick—syncing complex magnetic vector calculations to an internal rhythm kept my brain from frying on the math.

And right now, I had nearly a thousand little ferrous missiles eager to join the chorus.

With a twitch of my fingers, the rest of the nails erupted. A dense cloud of three-inch galvanized steel nails rose in a swirling funnel, invisible in the gloom until the lawn’s exterior floodlights caught their wicked glint.

I flicked my wrist, splitting the cloud into distinct, supersonic streams.

The air shrieked with a high-pitched hiss, like a thousand hornets tearing through canvas.

Two mercenaries went down instantly, their tactical vests shredded like wet tissue paper before their fingers could even slip off their triggers.

The knights—whatever fairy-tale bullshit Bookworm had ripped from the pages of a fantasy paperback—reacted with uncanny, inhuman speed.

Heavy iron greaves crunched against the frosted turf as they raised towering broadswords, trying to parry and shield themselves against threats they couldn’t even see.

Sparks erupted in brilliant, crackling showers as high-velocity nails hammered against plate steel, deflecting harmlessly into the frozen mud.

They were fast, rigid, and completely immune to panic. In essence, they weren’t human.

Unfortunately for them, full-body plate armor has a lot of structural compromises. Gorgets, armpits, behind the knees.

I dropped my whistle half an octave.

The nail stream swerved in mid-air, curving around the flat of a knight’s raised blade and punching straight through the exposed leather buckles beneath its shoulder.

The hollow suit shuddered, staggered back on its heels, and collapsed into a loud clatter of loose scrap.

After twenty seconds of pure, unadulterated meat-grinder acoustics, the whistling faded.

The nails had done their jobs—embedded in skulls, pinned into tree trunks, or buried three inches deep into the frozen dirt.

Fuck. My nails were finished. Oh well, points for creativity.

I leaned my shoulder against the hotel’s brick foundation, reached into my coat pocket, and pulled out my flaxseed bar.

I took a measured bite. No idea if it actually worked but two nosebleeds had taught me valuable lessons.

Out on the lawn, the frantic shooting stalled.

Steam and hot blood melted steaming craters into the frosted grass.

About four mercenaries and two intact suits of armor were left standing back-to-back—from the number of rifles and swords I still felt.

"Is it over?" one of the mercs panted, chest heaving, his rifle trembling in his hands. "What the fuck was that?"

"Hold your positions!" another barked, frantically wiping red mist off his tactical goggles. "Form a perimeter! Eyes on the treeline!"

I chewed slowly, watching them from the shadows. They really thought the scary part was the nails.

See, using loose projectiles is polite. It’s clean. It gives people a sporting chance to dive behind cover. Taking direct control of what a man is holding in his hands, however? That’s just rude.

I swallowed my mouthful of seeds, locked my magnetic awareness onto the heavy receivers of their assault rifles, and clenched my left fist.

The lead mercenary’s arms jerked violently upward as if yanked by invisible steel cables. "What the—hey! My hands!"

He tried to let go, but the magnetic field didn’t just grip the rifle; it clamped his gloved fingers tight against the receiver, welding his grip by sheer electromagnetic pressure.

His index finger was forced brutally backward against the trigger shoe.

A tight three-round burst punched through the throat of the man standing two feet away from him.

"Cease fire! What the fuck are you doing?!" the third mercenary screamed, lunging forward to tackle his teammate.

Oh, but I didn’t let him.

With a lazy flick of my thumb, the second merc’s carbine swiveled horizontally, locking dead-center onto the charging man’s chest.

"I can’t let go!" the shooter shrieked in raw terror, fighting with all his might as his own limbs betrayed him, shoulder muscles tearing as he tried to yank the barrel away. "It’s moving on its own! I can’t stop it!"

The rifle barked on full-auto. The charging merc was slammed backward onto the frosted grass, his chest ripped apart by a point-blank burst of rounds.

The last surviving gunman dropped his weapon instantly—smart man—and reached frantically for the combat knife strapped to his vest.

I take that bad. The blade was high-carbon steel.

The knife tore itself free from its sheath, flipped ninety degrees in mid-air, and buried itself hilt-deep into his collarbone.

He collapsed like a sack of wet laundry, groaning once before the freezing cold claimed him.

That left the suits of armor.

Two hulking, soulless constructs, Bookworm’s constructs came without souls and as such, without sentience.

Just a ton and a half of pure, magnetic playground.

I reached out with both hands, feeling the glorious, heavy mass of their breastplates, gauntlets, and broadswords resonate against my power like tuning forks.

The knight on the left froze mid-stride. Its heavy steel sword whipped out of its defensive stance, turning directly toward the knight beside it.

The animated armor fought back.

I could feel the mystic force animating its joints straining against my magnetic grip, the metal groaning and warping as two opposing wills tore at the same steel. But magic or not, everything respected physics.

I clamped down with a brutal magnetic surge.

The left knight launched forward like a guided missile, propelled by the magnetic thrust of its own iron greaves.

Its greatsword struck the second knight straight through the solar plexus, shearing through the interlocking rings of chainmail and punching out the backplate with a sickening screech of ruined metal.

Both suits tumbled into the snowdrifts in a tangled heap of twisted iron.

The second knight tore itself free, its hollow visor turning toward the shadowed alcove where I stood.

It raised its longsword with two hands, stepping heavily over the twitching remnants of the security detail, ready to bring the blade down in a righteous, storybook cleave.

I took the final bite of my flaxseed bar, crumpled the foil wrapper into a tight little ball, and slipped it into my coat pocket. Never litter.

The knight took two booming strides toward me.

I raised my right index finger and gave it a gentle hook.

The knight stopped dead.

The blade in its gauntlets violently reversed, the hilt forcing the armored wrists back against its own chest.

The tip of the polished steel aligned with the narrow gap between its gorget and breastplate.

The construct’s metal joints shrieked, shivering in a desperate, futile tug-of-war against the invisible vise crushing it from the inside out.

With one sharp pull of my will, the sword plunged downward, severing whatever Houdini held it together.

The blade punched clean through the armor, pinning the hollow shell to the frozen turf.

The unnatural glow behind its visor flickered and died.

The suit collapsed forward onto its knees with a dull, hollow clang, motionless in the quiet snow.

I stepped out from the deep overhang, my boots crunching softly over the frost as I adjusted the collar of my shirt against the bitter wind.

I walked past the impaled knight, paused just long enough to retrieve my magnetic bearings, and looked down at the ruined scrap.

"Thank you."