Alastor Microphone Novels & Stories

It wasn’t fear that gripped her; it was anticipation—like waiting for a wave to crash when you know it’s coming, no matter how still you try to be. — Across the city, Alex stood in front of his bathroom mirror. He had just finished shaving, and his cheeks felt smooth while his jawline looked sharp. After rinsing his hands, he dried them with a towel and took a long look at his reflection in the mirror. The man who looked back at him was familiar, but his eyes weren’t. He looked too calm for what he was planning. On the counter beside him, a small case lay open. Inside, four micro audio transmitters and cameras no bigger than shirt buttons. Rico had tweaked the signal boosters just that morni

His face was pale, his eyes bloodshot, but a terrifying, triumphant smile broke across his face as he looked at her. "You're late, Anaya," Alistair said, his voice echoing with a strange, multi-tonal resonance that filled the glass structure. He held a massive, glowing master controller device linked directly to the subterranean foundations. "The calibration is at ninety-one percent. The Eastern Node is mine. Hand over the cylinder, or watch me erase the country you fought so hard to return to."

he muttered, his voice low and sharp. He pushed aside a row of his structured black jackets and shoved me into the far corner of the closet. He didn't stop until we were pressed against the back wall, surrounded by the scent of his cologne and leather. "The microphones in the hallways are high-frequency," he whispered, his face inches from mine in the dim light. "Marcus has the sensitivity turned all the way up. He can hear a whisper from across the foyer if the house is quiet enough. But back here? Behind the stone and the shelving? He can’t hear a thing."

A deep voice spoke, and I froze. I turned my face to the side to see a man, staring out the window, his back to me. He was tall, blonde hair brushed back, and long sleeve shirt that hugged his body tightly. But what caught my attention was his physique— he looked oddly familiar, even though his voice was not. "Who are you?" I managed to ask. "How long have you been here? Why am I drugged?" I heard him laugh, and the sound send chills down my spine. "How many questions do you have for me, sweetheart?" Now he turned sideways. "If you must know, I am Alastor."

heir was grainy, but his eyes were sharp with a terrifying new clarity. "The Fifth Signature is the anchor," Alistair’s recording repeated. "But a world in harmony is a world that invites curiosity. You have secured the Earth, children. Now... the stars are listening." "What did he mean by that?" Killian asked, leaning over Elena’s shoulder. Elena zoomed into the background of Alistair’s workshop. Behind the brass Difference Engines, a new set of instruments was visible—long-range radio telescopes tuned to frequencies that shouldn't exist in the terrestrial spectrum.

Alastor sees River and switches direction, grabbing River by the throat. Alastor squeezes River’s neck and he quickly begins to turn blue. River claws at Alastor hand, trying to get him to let go but he’s not letting up. I rush up behind Alastor just as Aspen cuts off Alastor’s arm. Alastor shifts while I am midair and I latch onto a piece of flesh on his shoulder. Alastor tries using his tail to hit me and turning his neck to grab onto me but I am in a good spot that he cannot reach me.

Fascination. His grin slowly faded as he watched the frenzy worsen. Then suddenly, a slave collapsed foaming at the mouth. The laughter stopped. Just for a second. Alpha Kaito’s eyes widened slightly. Then another slave dropped, twitching. The giant caretaker stepped forward on the platform immediately. “My lord....” But Kaito abruptly snatched the strange microphone upward. And screamed into it. “STOP!” The sound BOOMED unnaturally across the grounds. The microphone crackled violently with strange western time-traveled technology.

Without sequence, there is no music. The Silences were smaller than the first one. Much smaller. The size of dust motes. But there were many of them. And they were patient. "Boss." Aaliyah's voice at 4:17 AM was the whisper of a woman who had been monitoring her instruments for three hours and had watched a number climb from zero to a figure that made her want to vomit. "I am detecting micro-degradation in the choir's relay structure. Fourteen points across the network. Each one is a fractional loss of harmonic coherence -- less than point zero zero one percent per instance."

The only thing left in the center of the open floor was a pair of high-fidelity Shure SM7B microphones mounted on iron desk stands, their black cables snaking across the grease-stained wood toward a portable four-channel digital recorder that was currently running on six AA batteries. "The volume's dipping, Sie," Sophie said. She was standing by the massive four-meter-high windows, her back pressed against a raw brick pillar that still carried the charred scoring of a 1912 textile fire. Her fingers were wrapped around a paper cup of stale black coffee, her eyes tracking the movement of a pair of unflagged black utility vans that had been idling near the corner of Varick Street for forty-five

Added one more line, because the evidence demanded it even if I wasn't ready for what it meant: Which means they knew I was coming. Before Alastor did.