Smoke And Steel Novels & Stories

She foll⁠owed the‍m, b‌reath s⁠tea‌dying‌,‍ sen‍se‌s na​rrowing int‌o‍ something fer⁠al and precis‍e. The scent hit h​e‍r first faint b‌ut familiar. A mixt‌ure⁠ of s​teel, smok‌e,⁠ and somethin‍g rot‌ten.‍ H‌er jaw cl‌enched.⁠ He⁠ wa‌s close. ‌

Cooper glanced my way, eyes waiting for instruction. Whoever this bastard was, he had Mona running scared. And if she was scared, that meant something worse than war was coming. “Boss.” Cooper’s voice cut through the smoke like a blade. I turned. One of the last containers, the one that had burned hottest, was finally being doused. A wall of steam lifted from its surface, and for a moment the night seemed to go quiet. Then I saw it. Painted in a thick stroke of what looked like engine oil or maybe tar, black and bold against scorched steel. Sloppy, but deliberate.

Aristha was proud of his men who whistled firecrackers. But suddenly... TRANG! The steel factory door did not open. Instead, the hinges of the five layers of ten centimeter thick solid steel suddenly bent and then fell inward like dry leaves blown by a doomsday tornado. The two ton door hit Aristha's chemical rack until it fell to the ground. Various explosions of strong alkaline sparks lit up the night. Aristha and twenty of her mercenary mutant troops glared at the cloud of smoke from the ruins of the steel door.

She was coughing from smoke, her marked arm clutched against her chest. The hunters converged on her position. Kaden and Alina moved to intercept. Steel clashed. One hunter went down to Alina’s blade, head rolling across the dirt. Another fell to Kaden’s sword through the heart and a follow-up strike that removed its head. Two left. They stood back to back, bone masks reflecting firelight. Then they pulled out vials from their belts. Threw them at the ground. The glass shattered. Black smoke poured out, thick and choking. It spread fast, covering everything, making it impossible to see.

"You're right. I was nothing but a smokescreen—a scapegoat, if you will." My voice sent shivers down his stiffened spine. "However, it was never to shield you. Rather, I was the perfect smokescreen to shield the Carozza Famiglia from all legal risks in their takeover of the Zappa Famiglia." Anna stopped struggling on the ground as her voice shook in disbelief. "That's… That's impossible…" I stood up and looked at them again. "The game was already over from the moment you both decided to take advantage of me."

JAMESON The study smelled like leather, whiskey, and old money. Three generations of Connelly men had conducted business in this room. My great-grandfather had built the empire from this desk. My grandfather had expanded it, fortified it, turned it into something that commanded respect—and fear—across Chicago's underworld. And now it was mine.

“Touch it… go on.” My heart slammed against my ribs. This was really happening. I sank to my knees in front of him, hands shaking as I pulled his jeans and boxers down just enough. His cock sprang free — thick, heavy, and rock-hard. It bobbed right in front of my face, the head flushed dark and already glistening with a bead of precum. I wrapped my fingers around the base. Fuck, it was so warm. Burning hot, actually. The skin was silky smooth over steel. I gave it a tentative stroke, mesmerized by how it twitched in my grip.

A sheet of smoke took the threshold, peeled away. Beyond, the factory opened like a steel lung: catwalks stitched across high voids, fluorescents flickering like old gods refusing to die. Crates stacked to shoulder height ran in aisles that were almost corridors. Forklifts dozed with their forks raised like prayer. Jack raised a hand and they slipped into the maze. It was colder here, the kind of cold that clings to steel in desert nights. Somewhere above, something moved. He didn’t look up; he let the sound slide through his reference library and land where it should: ventilation shift, not feet.

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.

He knew Steve would not hurt her, but he did not know how to stay calm and bear the sight of his beautiful mate's blood flowing out of her body in such a way. The sound of the empty syringe dropping on the floor cut through, and as though it was a signal for the hazy winds to stop and the smoke to surround Jasmine's body the winds vanished in less than a mere second whilst the thick dark smokes surrounded Jasmine's body. Steve cautiously stepped back, the smoke began growing more till it totally consumed Jasmine in it, and nothing could be seen for the first few minutes. It was only the black smoke and darkness that shined under the light in an unnerving way.