Scutter Novels & Stories

"They aren't armored on the underbelly. Use the salt-crust! Kick up the dust!" The Silver Bane and Iron Claw warriors acted as one. They didn't lunge at the machines; they circled them in a frantic, rhythmic dance, their paws churning the brittle salt into a blinding white cloud. The Scrappers' optical sensors, calibrated for thermal tracking, began to glitch. The heat signatures of the wolves were being masked by the cold, caustic dust. Sela, moving with the lithe precision of a mountain cat, slid beneath the nearest Scrapper. She didn't use a blade; she used a heavy iron wedge from the forge. With a single, powerful strike, she jammed the wedge into the primary gear of the winch.

The Shadowed tendrils crumbled into harmless nothingness. My breathing was ragged. A fleeting smile touched Cassius’s lips. "Good work." His words died in his throat. My eyes widened in horror at the new shape charging from the shadows behind him. It was different. It was silent. A Silent Scourge. It moved with a terrifying speed that was utterly soundless, a blur of skeletal limbs and impossibly long claws that didn't even scrape the stone. Its eyes were like burning embers, locked on Cassius.

I tracked a vibration in the severed limb. "The Scrappers " Vesper muttered. Her grin faded. She adjusted her visor. "The Parliaments clean-up crew. They're not like the Blacksmith. They don't care about honor. They're drones that recover lost data and remove variables. If they clear this arm they clear the anchor. Your doorway. They erase this room." *Thump-thump.* The sound inside the piston casing changed. It was a clatter, like iron crabs on a metal pipe.

The scar was silver. Tomorrow we go home.

He engaged the magnetic bipod, locking it onto the rusted railing of the fire escape, and peered through the high-powered thermal scope. The digital crosshairs zoomed in on the plaza. Behind the barricades of crushed cars and steel shipping containers, the Scourge horde waited. Through the game's 100% graphical filter, they looked like a terrifying swarm of alien monstrosities. Jagged, chitinous armor. Glowing, hostile red eyes. They were huddled together in the pouring rain, holding crude, glowing alien staves and makeshift energy shields. "What's wrong with their pathing?" Ren asked, keeping his crosshairs trained on the largest Scourge Brute in the center.

In its beak, it held a pair of Silver Scissors, the kind used by a Master Tailor, but large enough to decapitate a man. "The Censor," the Correspondent hissed, drawing a thin, silver rapier that looked like a letter-opener. "He doesn't talk. He only cuts." The Crow snapped the scissors. The sound was a metallic clack that vibrated through my teeth. It didn't attack us. It lunged at the ground in front of Mina and cut the path. A literal rift appeared in the dirt, a black gap that separated us from the village. "My turn," I whispered.

Scarlett Axel tried to use her wolf senses to find Scarlett, but the scents were all too intense in the emergency room. Shouting and crying echoed through the space as health care workers sprinted to treat the injured. Scarlett turned a corner and there it was: her scent. Faint but recognizable. Scarlett followed it, pushing past patients and staff until she reached a set of double doors.

Then—screech. A shrill noise of skidding tires. I turned my head. An unkempt black SUV surged backward from its position, shaking like a beast in chaotic fury. The driver's head sagged agonizingly against the rolled-down window, a half-empty bottle glimmering in his impotent hand. I could feel my blood freeze. He is drunk. The headlights lit my way as they appraised me; the SUV roared backward, too fast, too close. I was frozen to the spot, fear cementing my feet to the ground.

There had to be something better than this one book in this decrepit pile of shit. “Because I know you’re not doing this for yourself, and I remember that sense of desperation,” His father commented knowingly. Well shit. He hadn’t expected the usually quiet man to just come out and hit him where it hurts. He acknowledged the words with a grunt and only a slight bearing of his fangs. He hated being called out, especially since there were so few who knew his intentions where Azrin’s was concerned at this point. “Then why are you here?” “Because the elders are going to perform a scry tonight. I’ve already erected a seal, they won’t see us here,”

Asher called but I can't find it in me to look away from Logan's nipple. "You know I was joking right?" Logan said but I just can't look at anything else. "Excuse me." He said and left and even though he is no longer standing in front of me, I still can't look at anything else... I can vividly see the scar staring back at me. "Nicole, are you okay." Asher called and tapped me at the same time and that's when I finally snapped out of it, it was like the scar held me in a trance.