Title: The Hastings
Author: Harper Kingsley
Genre: superhero, family, genhet
Blurb: “Family drama of the superhero kind.”
EXCERPT:
They were on a call, a normal situation for their superhero family. A gang of bank robbers had tunneled their way through the basement of the vault and made off with a small fortune. It should have been no sweat for them to handle.
Except they hadn’t counted on the gang leader turning out to be Deadheat, who could create a current of heat hotter than the sun. He had a reputation for flash-roasting capes and no compunction about using his metability against kids. It added a level of danger to the situation they weren’t prepared for, and if she’d been given a choice Magda would have called in another crew to handle these guys. Unfortunately, they had already busted into the gang’s lair and there was no backing away from the fight without dying.
“I think we may have made a strategic error,” Gizmoid said, ducking away from a burst of heat. The top of his red headstocking smoked and turned black, but held up without burning him.
“You stay back,” Mr. Starlight ordered firmly. Gizmoid didn’t have the same heat-resistance as the other kids, not having inherited his own pyrokinesis. The teen jerked a nod and darted toward a rear position. He would set up the Safe Zone with his backpack of tech toys.
Magda pushed away the worry she had for her three children–there would be time for panic later–they had a job to do here. “Blazerella, Stratosphire, set up for a gamma blitz maneuver.”
If they had been in practice there might have been groans and rolled eyes, but here in the thick of it the young superheroes leapt into action without a single complaint. She was proud of them.
Blazerella went high while Stratosphire went low, flame wreathing Blazerella’s entire body as her brother let loose with a concussive thunderclap before dodging out of the way of her Flame Tornado. There were screams and the smell of burning hair and skin as the men knocked down by Stratosphire weren’t able to get out of the way in time. The brother-sister duo rocketed up into the air in a whipping pattern Deadheat was unable to follow and Magda sighed in relief to see them drop behind Gizmoid’s nuclear powered force shield. They were safe.
“You ready for this, dear?” Mr. Starlight asked.
“Always,” Magda replied. There was no time for fear, no time for anything but the mission. She latched onto Mr. Starlight’s offered hand and let herself be flung across the room toward the far wall. It was so fast that she barely had herself braced before her boots struck the wall and she bent her knees and bounced off, a Titanic Thunderclap rippling the air from between her hands.
She had a moment of satisfaction when she saw Deadheat’s surprised expression as she went past him, then she was tucking and rolling, a grunt escaping her lips as her shoulder hit harder than expected, but she was okay. She rolled back to her feet and ran as fast as she could out of range of any retaliatory blasts.
She was sure she’d hit him, but there was no reason to test it.
She saw the kids behind Gizmoid’s screen, watching as their dad took out the bad guy. There wasn’t a single doubt on any of their faces that he could handle a one-note wonder like Deadheat.
Then the line of Blazerella’s lips softened and time slowed down as Magda watched horror overtake what she could see of her daughter’s face. “Daddy!”
Magda turned and was horrified to see Mr. Starlight on his knees, his right hand pressed to the starburst scorched into his armored vest, a pained grimace pulling at his lips. Deadheat looked worse for wear, but the air rippled in front of him as he brought his hand up, focusing his powers for a killing burst.
Mr. Starlight–Dustin, her lover, her husband, the father of her children–brought his left arm up in weak protection, but there was nothing he could do to stop the kind of intense heat blast Deadheat could produce. Magda wanted to scream at Dustin to get out of the way, but the words wouldn’t come. She was too far away to help. There was nothing she could do but watch.
Then Blazerella was there, a high-pitched keening wail escaping her throat. The blast of heat struck her dead on, but she blazed up so hot that her flames were blue.
There was the dull whump of a massive backblast as Deadheat’s attack was forced up and away. A large circle was blown out of the roof of the warehouse and light visibly arched into the sky.
Blazerella collapsed, her body splayed across the floor. Smoke drifted from her blackened uniform. She didn’t seem to be breathing.
“No!” Magda heard her own scream echoed by her sons, but fear had become terror and rage and the world had gone strange around her. Her hands moved on their own to release a thunderclap, flinging Deadheat away from her family. Then Stratosphire was there, his lips curled back from his teeth as he punched the criminal with a flame-wreathed superpowered fist.
It sounded like a watermelon dropping on the floor, a wet shatter, then there was a sizzle of heat. There wasn’t even time for a choked off scream.
Magda ran to Blazerella, dropping to her knees next to her limp form. “Come on baby, oh god, please be all right. Please be all right.”
/EXCERPT
* * * You can stop reading here. The rest is just me babbling.***
I want to be able to work on my projects and put some books out there, but we need food and stuff. I mean, this house needs some kind of heating system better than a wood stove, we need a new roof, and I need a new pair of shoes. Which basically means I need a job — which I’m having a hard time getting because of my social anxiety.
Someone suggested that I should go for a grant, but I don’t think I’d get it. Plus I wouldn’t want to take one away from someone that’s more deserving. So instead I’ve been thinking about making a Kickstarter, but I’m not sure how to write it :/
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Read me at Kimichee.com.