Please allow me to introduce you to phenomenal steampunk author Daniel Ausema. Dan has created Spire City and a world of entertaining characters that bring the serial to life. The latest addition is Mint's Arrival, Episode 13.

What can you do when a steampunk mad genius targets you with a deadly serum? Fight back.

Spire City is home to mighty machines of steam power and clockwork, and giant beetles pull picturesque carriages over cobbled streets, but there is a darker secret behind these wonders. A deadly infection, created by a mad scientist, is spreading through the city, targeting the poor and powerless, turning them slowly into animals. A group of those infected by the serum join together to survive, to trick the wealthy out of their money, and to fight back.

Despite all their caution, Mint has tracked down the residents of the Weave to their neighborhood. Mingling threats with subtle promises to anyone who will betray the infecteds, he is coming closer and closer to discovering where they live. And now he may have kidnapped an innocent, uninfected child. The time has come for a real confrontation, but who will prevail? Find out in the climactic finale of Season One: Infected.

EXCERPT
With the shovel over one shoulder, she approached the coal.

The lantern light played over a figure seated on the pile, pointing a gun at her. Chels froze.

“Hello.”

Chels’s muscles twitched as she stared at the cold eyes. No, not possible. Not here. His gun didn’t waver.

“My name is Mint.”

The voice made it real. All the terror, the fear she’d felt each time she’d seen him. The sickening twist to her stomach when she recognized him at the coal seller’s. The months of wondering where he’d be, when he might find her next. It all came together, at first keeping her frozen, but then triggering her into motion. Chels threw the shovel at his face and ran the other way. Expecting to be shot down. Expecting him to surge to his feet and run after her. The shovel struck something soft and fell with a clatter. Mint cursed her. If he got a shot off, it made no noise and missed her fleeing form. As she passed through the door, she pulled the wheelbarrow across the entrance and didn’t look back. Mint’s swearing shifted to laughter, laughs that followed her, even with no sound of footsteps to accompany the noise.

BUY LINK

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Musa Publishing - Amazon

Daniel Ausema is the creator of the Spire City serial fiction project. His short stories and poems have appeared in Penumbra, Daily Science Fiction, The Journal of Unlikely Stories, and many other places. He has worked as a journalist and educator and is currently a stay-at-home dad. He lives in Colorado, where May blizzards, September floods, and summer wildfires engage in a never-ending war.

Learn more about Dan on his website Twigs and Brambles.