A few days ago…

  Outside the Alterkind bar, the night crackled. Literally.

  Thorvald the Stormcaller — shirtless, barefoot, and humming what sounded suspiciously like Thunderstruck by AC/DC — was a walking power outage. His long, blond hair stood on end, haloed in blue-white arcs of static. His beard was the kind poets used to start wars over. The streetlight above him flickered like it was trying to keep tempo. Lightning seemed to love him the way dogs love chaos.

  “Friend Daniel!” he boomed when he saw me. “You come seeking boon?”

  “I come seeking a charge,” I said, lifting the bat. “She’s a rune-wrapped, aluminum slugger, but she’s spiritually underachieving. Think you can help with that?”

  He snatched it from my hands, eyes widening like a kid at Christmas. “Ah! A mortal bludgeon yearning for purpose! And her name? Surely a fine weapon such as this has a name?” He asked.

  “Mjolnir… 2.”

  He nodded approvingly. “A fortuitously named weapon, friend Daniel!”

  “I didn’t want to overstep, but I named it as a kid. I thought it help with the smiting of baseballs at the time. Now I want it to smite some bad guys.”

  “I must needs assist you, as if fate herself has demanded it. Yes, yes, I can help. But—” He squinted, leaning closer. “This aluminum is too grounded. It will not hold my gift unless you… insulate it.”

  “How?”

  He pointed at me. “You are the Null. The dampener. Your spit will do.”

  “...Of course it will.” I was beginning to expect this. It was my only party trick, it seemed.

  “Put some on the bat and some in my cup here.”

  He held out the bat expectantly. I sighed, spat on my hand, and rubbed the grip like I was blessing it with Gatorade. Thorvald’s grin could’ve powered a city block. I finished with a nice gob of spittle in his cup as well.

  “Excellent,” he said. “Now, stand back. Lightning likes to wander.”

  He raised both hands to the sky. Clouds began to spin, a small storm birthing itself above the bar. Thunder rolled low, and blue veins of light threaded between his fingers.

  A drunk dryad stumbled out of the door, took one look, and turned around muttering, “Nope.”

  Then the lightning came.

  It hit the bat with a crack that tore the air. The runes flared white-hot, the metal glowed like veins of magma, and every hair on my body stood at attention. Thorvald shouted something in Old Norse — probably a curse or a prayer — forcing the power downward until the weapon hissed with its own contained storm.

  Sparks danced along the metal like angry fireflies.

  Thorvald grunted, muscles flexing as he forced the energy downward, pressing it into the bat with a growl that was half pleasure, half divine exertion. Finally, he stopped, chest heaving, smoke curling lovingly from his beard.

  He sagged when it was done, chest heaving, but grinning. “Three charges,” he said. “Maybe four if the gods are drunk tonight, and if you are very lucky.”

  “Three’s good,” I said. “I’m more of a budget hero anyway.”

  He clapped my shoulder hard enough to dislocate something. “Go! Smite the paper men and their filing king! Tell them Thorvald’s favor rides with you!”

  “Thanks,” I said. “And uh—why did you want the spit in the cup?”

  He winked, teeth flashing. “To keep my thunder gentle during intimacy. The mortal ladies of your town prefer not to be electrocuted by passion.”

  I blinked. “That’s… considerate?”

  “Storms are many things, Mercer,” he said, eyes twinkling. “But a good lover must always know when to ground himself.”

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  Now…

  The thunder still echoed (echoed… echoed…) in my ears three nights later as we charged.

  The little league diamond had become a battlefield: chain-link fences glinted like barbed halos, dugouts were stuffed with munitions and creatures sniping at the Collectors, and bleachers absolutely crawled with gargoyles and spell slingers of all varieties. Streetlights buzzed overhead, straining against the growing storm.

  We hit the outfield first. Zorka’s pack bounded ahead, fur bristling; Sélis’ mirrored selves darted between bases, blades already wet with ink. Lily’s glamour shimmered through the ranks like perfume turned weapon, invigorating our ranks with righteous fury tweaked to perfection.

  I ran in the center line, Mjolnir II thrumming in my grip. Thorvald’s captive lightning pulsed beneath the runes, eager to be used… released back into nature.

  Across the diamond, the Collectors waited—tall, angular silhouettes of burnished metal and parchment skin. Their mail-slot chests glowed faintly with symbols that made my eyes itch. And at home plate stood the Curator, immaculate as ever, bowler perfectly placed on his head, even in the gusting wind.

  He raised his cane and the front ranks unfolded and multiplied to fill the infield, like pages in books turned in unison. Hundreds of hollow faces pivoted toward us.

  I didn’t wait for him to monologue. After all, I am the one with the main character energy.

  “FOR ELLY!” I roared.

  “FOR CHAOS!” Zorka howled.

  “FOR GOD’S SAKE, DON’T DIE!” Lily shouted behind us.

  I took my first swing at the Curator’s ranks, and the sky broke open. Lightning exploded from the bat with a sound like the sky tearing in half. The bolt ripped straight through the Collectors’ front line, shredding them into confetti and slag. The concussive shockwave hit the bleachers, rattling the rats off the fences.

  “Hell yeah!” I bellowed. “Taste the wrath of Mighty Thorvald, bitches!”

  The field went silent for a heartbeat—and then our front line moved.

  The non-magicals hit like a freight train. Troll-blooded bouncers, gargoyles with my spit still wet on their knuckles, even a few other tanks with faint enchantment burns on their lips—all running on borrowed mundanity. They were immune to the Collectors’ grasp; paper collection slips slid off them like raindrops on stone. They slammed into the enemy wall and didn’t stop.

  One troll tackled a Collector hard enough to fold it in half; another ripped one’s arm off and used it as a club. Sparks and ash filled the air.

  AxeMaster’s voice roared over the din from somewhere behind third base: “YES! THIS IS HOW YOU RUN A RAID! FRONTLINE AGGRO, RANGE DPS BEHIND, TANKS HOLD THE LINE!”

  He swung his forge hammer like a madman, his cold-forged steel crunching through two Collectors at once. “YOU SEE THAT DAMAGE OUTPUT?! BEST. PATCH. EVER!”

  Lily’s laughter turned razor-edged. “I can’t believe he’s turning this into a game tutorial.”

  Eury shouted from the dugout, eyes still blindfolded but burning gold through the fabric. “Keep your formation! Let the null-kissed hold!”

  The trolls roared in unison, shoulder to shoulder now, forming a shield wall of muscle and grit. They took the Collectors’ hits, shrugged off their tags, and drove them backward one inch at a time.

  Behind them, our casters and snipers went to work.

  A harpy launched glowing talons from the bleachers. Dryads twisted the outfield grass into spears. Lily’s pheromones turned fear into frenzied rage, feeding the charge. The air itself pulsed with a delicious air of defiance.

  And in the shadows between dugouts, Zorka and Sélis hunted.

  Zorka darted low, dragging Collectors down by the legs with her pipe, her teeth finding throats that bled ink and light. Sélis’ mirrored bodies struck from multiple angles—one slicing, one distracting, one vanishing into smoke. When one of them was grabbed, another slipped behind and severed the Collector’s spine.

  It was working. We were driving them back.

  The Curator finally moved, cane tapping the plate. “So noisy,” he murmured. “Let us correct that.”

  A ripple passed through the Collectors. Their paper torsos folded, collapsed, then re-formed into something worse—something more humanoid, jointed, and precise. They began moving faster, like someone had taken bureaucracy and taught it kung fu.

  Sélis darted past me, knives gleaming. “Stay alive, Dumps!” one of them shouted.

  “I told you not to call me that!” I growled, fending off evil with the bat.

  Another lightning strike cut off my complaint. The bat screamed as the charge left it—the runes flared, then scorched black. The weapon warped, molten at the seams, but the discharge annihilated a dozen Collectors in a single flash. Thank God for gloves.

  I stood panting, smoke rising from the tired bat. “Okay,” I wheezed. “Maybe four shots was a bit optimistic.”

  A Collector lunged—paper blades flashing—but Zorka intercepted it midair, ripping its chest slot open and spitting out the glowing slip before it could tag her. “Tag that, you corporate bastard!” she roared.

  Despite our efforts, still they came. For each one of them we dropped, two more unfolded from elsewhere.

  I caught sight of the Curator again—calm, untouched, making small adjustments to his cane like a conductor managing an orchestra. So long as he stood, we could not win, and he knew it. His eyes glimmered faintly with amusement.

  “Elly’s waiting for you, isn’t she?” he taunted, voice carrying unnaturally clear. “Such loyalty. Such inefficiency.”

  “Come find out how inefficient!” I shouted back, raising the ruined bat.

  He smiled. “Oh, I intend to.”

  Behind him, a rent opened in the air—black and slick, like a paper cut through reality. The Collectors began dragging fallen bodies toward it, magical and otherwise, not tagged, just taken. Filing them under miscellaneous?

  “No!” Lily cried, voice breaking.

  The Curator stepped toward the rift, his cane pulsing. “You are fighting inevitability, Mr. Mercer.”

  “Yeah,” I said, breath ragged. “But I’m damn good at losing with style.”

  I lunged. The air vibrated. My rune-bat was warped, but I swung anyway.

  Bat met cane. The blow sparked bright enough to white out the field.

  The world shuddered. And just before the light consumed everything, I thought I heard Elly’s voice—faint, fierce, and furious—from somewhere inside that rift.

  “Took you long enough, idiot.”

  Then the field went white.