Smoke And Steel Novels & Stories

I inhaled the sweet and smooth smoke, expelling all my tension on the exhale. "We start building an army." I say deliberately. "Then we go and scope out Mordor's territory, and see what all we are up against." I inhale some more of the smoke. I save these cigarettes, only for times when I really want them. They are a special blend of tobaccos and herbs that were salvaged from my father's land. I currently have a greenhouse were they are being incubated.

Flames, bright and ravenous, climbing the mountainside above us. The entire ridge is burning. Smoke rolls down in thick clouds, suffocating the battlefield. The fire is spreading fast, swallowing the pines in an instant, leaping from branch to branch, a roaring force of destruction. "Did those bastards light the mountainside on fire to trap us?" The sharp scent of sulfur and burning earth fills my nostrils, mixing with the copper tang of blood. Around me, chaos reigns—the stampede crashes through, wolves and prey tangled together in a frenzy of survival.

As if responding to his words, the heating vent near by began spill what first looked like vapor but quickly be came thinker, darker like smoke and the smell of burning jasmine began to fill the air. David's grip on her hand tightened as the scent intensified, his eyes widening as he witnessed what she'd tried to describe. The smoke didn't rise randomly—it moved with purpose, coiling upward in spirals that defied the gallery's air circulation patterns. "Jesus," he breathed, but his voice held wonder rather than fear. "Tali, do you see—" The smoke began to take shape, hood spreading wide, and those ember eyes materialized in the serpentine form. But this time, the cobra's gaze fell on both of

Flames licked the side of the building, centered two floors above hers, but the smoke had already spread throughout the upper units. She coughed violently, standing on the curb, wrapped in a neighbor's blanket. Her phone buzzed. Alexander. "Where are you?" he demanded as soon as she answered. "My building. There's a fire. I'm okay." "Stay there. I'm coming." Twenty minutes later, a black sedan pulled up beside the scene. Alexander stepped out, his coat half-buttoned, eyes scanning the crowd until he found her. Relief flooded his face. "Come on," he said, wrapping his coat around her shoulders. "You're staying with me tonight."

Vespera sat up slowly, clutching the blanket to her chest. On the screen, the night sky was choked with thick, black smoke. Against the darkness, a building was consumed by an inferno. Orange flames licked the sky, roaring out of shattered windows. Roof beams collapsed in showers of sparks. It was the District 9 Plant. The heart of Lysander’s operation. It was where the raw steel was processed, where the microchips were assembled, where the inventory was stored. "Fire crews are struggling to contain the blaze," the reporter shouted over the roar of the fire. "The heat is intense. We have reports that the sprinkler system failed to deploy."

His muscles screamed from their long restraint, but Clyde plunged ahead, spurred on by the rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins. His gaze flew around the warehouse, cataloging everything in it. That heavy metal pipe he had seen a little earlier was still within reach. He reached for it, the cold heaviness reassuring in his hands. The door that the guard had exited through was too much of a risk; they might well be waiting for him just outside. Instead, Clyde turned his attention to the back of the warehouse: a series of

"Greta hit the lockdown switch from upstairs." ​"Can you hit it hard enough to break the frame?" I asked, backing off from the table and keeping both hands pinned flat over the binder with my dad's papers. ​"Not from this side," he said, stepping back to check the iron frame set straight into the stone wall. "It's a bank vault door. It's built to take explosives without bending. If the panel upstairs stays locked, the pins don't drop." ​I looked around the small cellar room. Steel safety deposit boxes covered three of the walls, while dark server racks filled the back corner. No windows, no back doors, no fire exit. Just one way in and one way out.

The air inside the Red Valley tasted like sulfur, wet copper, and burning pine. Rain fell in thick, greasy sheets, turning the dirt roads into a slippery black mud. High above the valley floor, sharp red rock walls trapped the smoke from dozens of iron smelting fires, wrapping the entire Crimson war camp in a choking red haze.

Damien finished. The lights flickered once. The rear wall shuddered. A deep mechanical clang rang out behind it, something enormous unlocking on the other side. A thin line split down the center of the steel. It wasn't a crack. It was a seam. The panel slid open. Cold air poured in from the dark beyond it, carrying the smell of wet concrete, and underneath that, impossibly, smoke. Smoke that should have died twenty-five years ago.

*** James The sound of my heartbeat hammered in my chest, each beat a violent, relentless thrum that threatened to deafen me as I pushed through the choking smoke. My eyes burned, but they were fixed—locked—on Katniss. There, in the center of the inferno, her body motionless, consumed by flames that seemed to have a mind of their own. The fire wasn’t just destroying the house; it was alive, vicious, almost as if it were taking revenge, as if it had been waiting for this moment. The orange and red tongues of flame reached hungrily, devouring everything they could touch, twisting and flicking in every direction, daring anyone to come close. But none of that mattered. All that mattered was her.