Kevin McLaughlin

Chapter 117 - The Choice

Hey! Quick note from the author. I discovered today when uploading chapters to Royal Road that, whoops, I'd left out chapter 70 altogether. Like, the story jumped directly from chapter 69 (end of book 1) to chapter 71 (beginning of book 2). I spent some time today editing the chapter titles for each chapter of book 2 so they're all correct, now. Sorry for any confusion! - Kevin.

Marion's hands glowed white as she pressed them against the gash across Harold’s ...

Chapter 116 - Desperation

Cerberus and I crashed together again, fists and claws flying in a blur of violence. I blocked a savage right hook and countered with an uppercut that snapped his head back with a spray of blood. He recovered instantly, driving a knee into my gut that folded me forward. The impact drove the air from my lungs, but I powered through it, grabbing his fur and yanking him into a head-butt that shattered his nose.

We were locked in close quarters now, too close for technique or strateg...

Chapter 115 - The Alpha's Gift

Cerberus and I clashed again, trading blows that would have pulverized normal humans. I got in a solid hit to his ribs, but he just grunted and kept coming. His claws raked across my chest, not piercing my Natural Armor but leaving deep bruises beneath. We were locked in a deadly dance, neither of us able to gain the upper hand.

The main thing I had to watch out for were those teeth. He hadn’t managed to sink a fang into me yet, and I was working hard to keep things that way. T...

Chapter 114 - Counting On Her

Maggie ducked her head as another shockwave rocked the building, knocking a spray of dust down from the ceiling above. She wanted to scream, to cry out, maybe even to go find a quiet corner somewhere to hide out. But she couldn't. Her patients were counting on her. If she panicked, it would surely spread to the rest of them.

"You doing okay over there?" Marion asked.

"As well as can be expected, I guess," Maggie replied. "This sucks."

"It absolutely does," Marion repl...

Patreon Membership Discount Code!

Hey, all!

Wanted to let you know that between now and midnight, December 2nd, I've activated a discount code for the annual membership, dropping the price to 50% off.

That means if you sign up for a year, you'll only pay $60, or $5 a month, instead of the standard $120 a year.

This will work for existing paid monthly members as well as those who are currently not paid.

What will you get for signing up?

Well, you're going to continue to get great science fiction a...

Chapter 113 - Rising from the Rubble

The first thing I felt, coming back to myself, was pain. Sharp, intense pain that seemed to be coming from everywhere. My head throbbed. My ribs screamed. My legs felt like they'd been put through a meat grinder. But I was alive. Somehow, impossibly, I was still alive.

When I’d passed out, I’d been terrified that this would be it, that the werewolves would just come after me and finish me off. That would make sense, right? A helpless target was certainly easier for t...

Chapter 112 - Steel and Lightning

Alex flew through the night sky, his eyes scanning the ground below for any sign of his strike team. He'd left Marion behind at Harvard, left her exhausted and vulnerable, and every second that ticked by made his chest tighten with worry. The howling from Harvard Yard had intensified in the past few minutes, and he could see flashes of combat along the walls even from this distance.

Hold on, Marion. I'm coming.

There—movement on the street below. A tight formatio...

Chapter 111 - Cerberus

The pack leader’s opening strike was devastating. His massive claws raked across my raised arms, and even though my Natural Armor held, the force behind the blow made my bones grind against each other in a way that hurt like hell. I slid backward another three feet before I could dig in my heels and stop the momentum.

Before I could recover, he was on me again. A left hook came at my head. I ducked under it. A right cross followed immediately, and I barely got my arm up to bloc...

Chapter 110 - Alpha Strike

The pack hit me like a furry freight train.

Three werewolves struck simultaneously from different angles. One came at me high, one low, and another from the side. I caught the high one with a straight punch that sent it tumbling backward, but the other two made contact. Claws raked across my chest and legs. Teeth snapped at my throat, my arms, anywhere they could reach.

My Natural Armor held, mostly anyway. The tier five and six werewolves couldn't bite through my magically...

Chapter 109 - Battle Lines

Alex and I streaked our way back south again. We spotted Reynolds and her guards near the north wall and aimed for them. We set down just a few feet away, and she started toward us at once. All around us, the howling continued, a chorus of inhuman voices that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

“Glad you’re back. What did you see?" Reynolds asked, her expression grim. “Those howls are starting to freak everyone out.”

“With good reason! We’ve definitel...

Chapter 108 - Blood Curdling Howls

We made our way back through the second door, into the hallway where Reynolds and her guards were waiting for us. Her men locked the door behind us once we were all out. One of them stepped in with a chair, and Alex set Marion down gently onto the seat so she could rest.

“What happened?” Reynolds asked. “I gather it didn’t go well, but do we know why?”

"I failed," Marion replied. "That man is still trapped as a monster because my magic wasn't strong enough."

Chapter 107 - The Limits of Magic

We stopped outside the inner door, the sounds from beyond making everyone tense. Deep, guttural growling echoed through the small space, punctuated by the scrape of claws on stone. Something heavy slammed against the door from the other side, making it shudder in its frame.

I moved to the barred window and peered through.

The cell beyond was maybe fifteen feet square, with walls made from heavy stone blocks and no windows. They’d picked their holding cell well. I could ea...

Chapter 106 - Cleansing the Curse

We touched down in Harvard Yard, the impact of our landing sending up small clouds of dust. They’d been busy since I left. Where before there had been scattered defensive positions, now there was organized chaos. People were everywhere, hauling stones, reinforcing walls, and building barricades. Torches and magical lights illuminated the work, casting long shadows across the historic grounds.

Catherine Reynolds waited for us, standing with a small group of armed guards. She mus...

Chapter 105 - Rally the Troops

There! Now we're caught back up on chapters. Hope everyone is enjoying the ongoing adventure! -Kevin

The flight back to City Hall took just minutes, but every second felt like an hour. My mind kept racing through worst-case scenarios. What if more of the patients transformed while I was gone? What if Redhead and She-wolf attacked someone else? What if Cleanse didn't work at all?

I pushed myself faster, the cold night air whipping past me as I streaked ove...

Chapter 104 - Breakout

The werewolves hit the guards’ line like a furry battering ram. Redhead went low, ducking under the first spear thrust and slamming into the legs of two guards. They went down hard, weapons clattering across the floor. She-wolf leaped high, clearing the defensive line entirely and landing behind them. Toothless, still nursing his injuries but healing fast, circled around to the left.

The guard leader thrust his spear at Redhead, but the werewolf twisted away with inhuman agilit...

Chapter 103 - The Jaws That…

Hi all! Hoping to get the chapter I'm behind caught up tomorrow. Been a bit hectic the past few days, but I'm working on it for you. There's a bit of a ret-con in this chapter. Earlier, Cam got a Cleanse stone in the dungeon. That's being removed. He just had the three Heal stones now, no Cleanse. Cleanse is going to be more rare. -Kevin

Before it could launch itself across the room at Maggie, I moved. The werewolf was fast, but I was so much quicker o...

Chapter 102 - Here Comes The Change

Maggie moved to the first bed, her hands already glowing with a soft white light. I followed a few steps behind, watching as she pulled back the curtain to reveal a middle-aged man with deep gashes across his chest and shoulder. The wounds were ugly, ragged tears that looked like they'd been made by something with very large, very sharp teeth.

What caught my attention more than the wounds, though, was the handcuff securing his right wrist to the metal bed frame. What the hell was...

Chapter 101 - Gifts of Life

Sorry, folks! The writing conference I was attending this week caught up with me and I didn't have a chance to do much writing the past couple of days. I got this chapter done waiting for a plane during a crazy long delay, and I'll get the other chapter caught up for you tomorrow! - Kevin

Bonfires and other flames lit up the space around both Harvard enclaves. There were far more sources of light than I was used to seeing even after full night had fallen, which...

Chapter 100 - A Warning from the North

The flight north to MIT took me over the Charles River, its waters reflecting the deepening twilight like a ribbon of molten copper. Below me, the city continued its slow transformation. More buildings had collapsed since the last time I'd flown this route. A few had burned down, while others showed clear signs of damage, probably from monster attacks.

MIT's campus was easy to spot from the air. Like Fenway, they'd begun the serious work of fortification. Walls were going up arou...

Chapter 99 - A Distant Howl

Alex might disagree with me about distributing the Heal spells, but I was going ahead with it anyway. People were suffering and dying out there for lack of modern medical care. A few stones weren’t going to fully resolve that crisis or end our lack, but I figured it would at least be a good start.

I flew over to Fenway first, where MacGregor was doing a terrific job of knitting together a large band of the refugees from deeper in downtown Boston with those who’d lived near th...

Chapter 98 - Finally Free

It took us more time than I liked to gather up the crystals from all the monster bodies littering the place, but the effort was worth it. When all was said and done, there had been one hundred and twenty of the pods, each containing a fungus monster of one sort or another. That got us a wild collection of crystals in a mixture of clear, white, grey, and black colors.

The clear ones were for every stat, a solid mix of all of them. The white stones came in only a handful of types. ...

Chapter 97 - Fall of the Architect

Sorry about no chapter yesterday, but as promised, I've got two done for you today to catch up! Enjoy! :) -Kevin

The realization hit me like a thunderbolt. The Architect had screwed up. We had a way to win this after all!

"Alex!" I screamed over the chaos below. "Has your mana recovered yet?"

I saw him look up, squinting through the haze of spores and smoke. He raised one hand, fingers trembling from exhaustion. "Barely! Maybe one Bolt! Why?"

...

Chapter 96 - The Flood of Decay

Our attacks sped toward the column in almost perfect sync. Two lances of Lightning arced through the air, one from me and one from Alex. Dara added a Fire Bolt to the mix as well. Our attacks crossed the glowing green haze that filled the cavern, all aimed straight for the column that I was increasingly convinced was the architect of all this rot.

The boss reacted fast and raised new defenses. A quick pulse caused a wall of pods to burst open in a synchronized bloom. The fungus c...

No chapter today!

Sorry, folks - had an attack of life today, and I didn’t get the chapter finished for you. I’ll finish it off tomorrow AND get the regular Friday chapter to get caught up, no worries! Just wanted to drop a note so you knew. :)

TTYS,

Kevin

Chapter 95 - Cat’s Out of the Bag

The creatures rushing at our front line were only tier three, thank God. Even a casual glance around the room told me that if the column managed to release all of the pods, we’d be facing a hundred or more of the monsters. We were good, but that was too much. Especially since we didn’t know what other attacks the column fungus might have.

Even as I had those thoughts, the column pulsed twice more, and a pair of pods on the walls, one on either side of the entrance, swung open...

Chapter 94 - The Architect of Rot

Whatever was making that smell, it couldn’t be that far off, because the stench was getting stronger, fast. Each step I took seemed to amplify the reek. It had moved from being mildly unpleasant to seriously disruptive. I felt like I wanted to gag a little every time I inhaled.

Most of the party was shielded from the stink. They’d all donned their gas masks already, which were apparently doing a terrific job of keeping out the stink. Alex and I weren’t so fortunate. Our mas...

Chapter 93 - It’s What’s For Dinner!

I barely managed to wrap myself around Alex before the creature’s bulk smashed down atop both of us and the world went dark and wet. Pressure slammed into me like the whole ceiling had dropped at once. The impact knocked the air out of both of us, and for a second I couldn’t tell which way was up. Everything was motion and pain and an awful, grinding sound as the creature’s teeth tried to gouge through my skin.

Then we stopped, wedged tightly against each other ins...

Chapter 92 - To Save Humans

Cerberus had hated being alone. When George died, he’d thought he would be that way forever. No person to love and feed him. No one to pet or hold him. No more walks. No more gentle, quiet talks. He still missed George a lot, and thought about his human friend often. More than anything else, he wished George was still alive, because if he was, then Cerberus could save him.

He’d discovered his ability to save humans soon after the Wild Magic struck him and changed his form. Si...

Chapter 91 - Terminal Velocity

The monster surging toward me was about fifteen feet in diameter and looked for all the world like a massive pile of rocks with bits of fungus rising through the gaps between the stones. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what I was looking at. This was another fungus monster, one that had one hell of an armored shell.

I couldn’t tell just by looking at the thing whether it was rock all the way through, with fungus threaded between the stones to move them, or if it was mos...

New Release: Flight of the Intrepid 1: Ambush

Hey all!

Something new that I've been gearing up toward for a bit now; each of you (the Advance Readers) are going to begin getting free copies of everything I launch as part of your rewards.

I haven't been launching as many books lately. A lot of stuff has been in flux, and I sold the "Accidental Necromancer" trilogy to a publisher. That trilogy will be coming to you as well, before Aethon publishes it publicly, but I wanted to test delivery on something short and simple first. 2025-10-23 19:20:44 +0000 UTC View Post