From Oblivion's Ashes

by Nyman, Michael E. A.

  “Yeah?” Vito repeated, sounding confused, “well I’ve come down in the world. Fucking undercover cops and shit. Do I fucking know you?”

  With the glitter of his anger still sparkling harshly on the edges of his smile, Luca looked up at him. “Yeah, you fucking know me. Luca Sabattini. We met in a meeting between Antonio and Big Vinnie.”

  Vito’s jaw dropped. “Luca Sabbatini? You’re that Luca? Jesus fucking Christ!” His eyes flickered to the corpse of Chugger. “Are… are the Sabbatini’s still in business?”

  “What, are you stupid?” Luca waved a hand, as if to encompass the world in general. “There’s a fucking apocalypse going on! Hello? Sabbatini’s are extinct just like everything else. The only ones left are me…”

  He gestured to Marshal. “… and him. Marshal’s my adopted brother, and the boss of our whole community. You’re looking at the man in charge.”

  “Him?” Vito blinked, his eyes filled with confusion and doubt. “How is he the boss? Or a fucking Sabbatini? He’s not even Italian. No, wait… yeah. Now I remember hearing how Antonio adopted somebody. A Swedish kid or something. He was supposed to be a nothing guy, a nobody.”

  “Nah,” Luca said, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “He wasn’t a nobody. He was the son of Antonio’s best friend, who died in a hit a few days before the adoption. You might know his dad better by his nickname, Dr. Winter.”

  The silence that fell was like outer space.

  Angie stood waiting for Danny’s attack. She knew that he was stronger and faster than she was, and that he would probably take the knife from her, but she didn’t care. She wanted to get at least one good cut in, one good stab at least in exchange for the things he had done to Jackie. Whatever else, she wanted him to have something to remember.

  A scrape behind her caused her to turn.

  A third black man now stood about twenty feet away, holding a fire axe. He was young, maybe early twenties, with a lean, athletic build, muscled arms, and broad shoulders. Prominent cheekbones, intense dark brown eyes, and a frown on his thick lips gave his handsome face a hardness that matched his tense, ready posture. He wore black jeans, white sneakers, navy blue hoodie, and a Toronto Maple Leafs cap.

  Three other men, all pale and sick, stood behind him, holding melee weapons of their own, their eyes watchful.

  “Jerome!” Danny said, and Angie whirled back to see the man had moved closer. “Just in time. Maybe if you could...”

  Danny paused, looking past Angie with an irritated expression.

  “What the fuck are they doing here?” he demanded. “Stan said that all the auxiliaries were supposed to be tied up for the duration! Are you trying to get your black ass killed?”

  “Auxiliaries?” Jerome called back. “Uh... you mean ‘slaves’, don’t you Danny? Stan says that they’re part of the gang now, but it ain’t so, is it? They’re locked up at night, they get shitty food, they gotta do what they’re told. Only difference between them and the ones you call animals is that they don’t gotta put out for the perverts. Ain’t that right?”

  “What kind of shit you spreading, Jerome?” Danny snapped. “Is this some kind of black thing? Unless you want Chugger to pay you a visit tonight, you’d better fucking do what Stan says.”

  “What do you want us to do, Jerome?” asked the black man to Danny’s right. Tall and lean with a shaved head, he raised his shovel meaningfully. “Shovel or spear?”

  “Use the shovel, Derrick,” Jerome answered. “We ain’t the ones who get to decide if he lives or dies, bro. We leave that up to the people he hurt.”

  “Whoa!” Danny snarled, whirling around and backing away from Derrick and the other man. “What the fuck is going on here? Fuck, Jerome! You’re one of us!”

  “Actually, shithead,” Jerome answered, “we’re not one of you. See, Derrick, Cameron, and me... we were small time. I only got nailed for shoplifting, Derrick, for drug possession, and Cameron, for pushing Ex at a rave he was DJing. The only nigger in the house who belonged with you psychopaths was Mitchell, and Chugger tied him to a post for Stan to spill his guts all over the floor. We hated Mitchell, but when white starts talking shit, black’s gotta stick together. It’s the only reason Stan didn’t line our asses up along with all the prisoners. We’ve been waiting ever since for a chance to lead the revolution against you sick bastards, dog.”

  “Stan’s gonna kill you!” Danny shouted, dancing back away from Derrick and Cameron. “Chugger’s going to.... aaaiiiee!”

  His knee buckled from where Angie had stabbed him, and he crashed to the floor. He lashed out with one long, muscled arm, but the little girl dodged back out of range.

  “Shit!” Jerome exclaimed in surprise.

  “Fucking bitch!” Danny shrieked, touching his calf and pulling away a hand covered in blood. “What the fuck...?”

  “That was for Jackie,” Angie said, her eyes hot.

  Danny’s eyes goggled in rage, and he opened his mouth...

  Clang!

  Derrick’s shovel put an end to whatever he’d hoped to say.

  “Now, who’s the bitch, bitch?” Derrick said, standing over the unconscious man.

  “Let’s tie the motherfucker up in one of the pens,” Cameron said.

  “We don’t got time for that,” Jerome said. “The only hope we got is if we get as many people free as possible, and keep ‘em safe from Stan and Chugger. Start going from pen to pen, and arm anyone that can hold a weapon. Get anyone else into the loading dock offices. That’s the only place we can make a stand.”

  His eyes came to rest on Jackie and Angie. Sometime during the altercation, Jackie had sunk down to the floor, just managing to prop herself up against a fence post. Her eyes were closed, but the gentle rise and fall of her chest showed she was still breathing.

  “First, though,” he said, stepping forward, “give me a hand getting-”

  “Stay back!!” Angie shouted, brandishing the knife. “Don’t you touch her! I’ll stab you too, if I have to!”

  Perplexed, Jerome stopped short and began to back away.

  “Just want to help, little girl,” he said, holding up his hands palm outward to show he meant no harm. “But it’s cool. Derrick. Cameron. Take these guys and go get the others. I’m going to stay here and talk with... what’s your name, girl?”

  Angie scowled. “Angie,” she said as Derrick and Cameron moved away.

  “Angie.” Jerome crouched down, but keeping his distance. “My name’s Jerome. I promise, I ain’t gonna hurt you. I know you got no reason to trust me, so I won’t try to convince you, but you don’t gotta worry.”

  Angie seemed to relax a little. “I still don’t want you coming near,” she said. “Not until Marshal and Uncle Luca, or one of my own people say it’s okay. You seem nice, but you could still be lying.”

  “Yeah,” Jerome said, “I guess that’s true. Well, don’t worry. I ain’t going to try nothing. But if it’s all right with you, I’m just gonna hang with you for a while, just in case anybody else comes along and tries to mess you up.”

  Angie considered this. “Okay. I guess. Thank you.”

  Jerome smiled at her, and instantly, the stone cold, hardened face was replaced by a friendly charisma that put Angie at ease and seemed to light up the room. He shook his head, as if amazed, and looked at the little girl, his dark eyes twinkling with amusement.

  “All right then, cool,” he said, shifting to sit more comfortably. “You... you’re a pretty brave little girl. When I heard that they caught a girl who was wandering the wasteland all by herself, I thought that Amber had to be lying.”

  “Too brave, maybe,” Angie whispered, looking at Jackie with sorrow. “This is all my fault. Thanks to me, my friends may not survive. I... I thought I was too sneaky to be caught. Instead, Amber caught me easily, and now my friends are hurt.”

  Jerome shrugged. “If you say so. But I doubt we’d have our chance at taking down Stan if it weren’t for you. I’m sorry about your friends. Your gir
l there looks bad, but if we can get her to safety, I think that she’ll be okay. And I saw your other friend.”

  “Albert?” Angie asked, looking up. “How is he?”

  “Oh, he’s beat up too,” Jerome said, smirking, “but he was still hard enough to tell Radek to suck his balls. That’s a direct quote, by the way. Funniest thing I ever saw. I tried to get them to hand him over to me, maybe help him out, but they weren’t going to let that happen. Anyway, two of your people - a skinny white dude and this big Italian guy - showed up at the front door with guns, and everybody went to deal with them. They took Albert with them as a bargaining chip, then sent Amber and Danny to get you two.”

  Angie continued to tend to Jackie.

  “It’ll be okay,” Jerome assured her. “Your friend... Albert? If he’s a bargaining chip, they won’t hurt him.”

  “I know,” Angie said, not looking up. “If they took him to where Marshal and Luca are, then he’s safer than we are.”

  Jerome laughed.

  “I like you, Angie. I tell you that your boys are surrounded by everybody else, and it doesn’t even faze you.”

  “It does faze me,” Angie said, pushing some hair out of Jackie’s eyes. “It tells me that everybody else is in deep trouble.”

  Jerome opened his mouth to laugh, but hesitated.

  “Shit,” he said. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “If Marshal and Uncle Luca are here,” Angie answered, “then I’m serious. And that also means the others are here too, and should be moving in soon. I just hope they get here in time to save Jackie.”

  “Will they help us too?” Jerome asked. “I mean, we gotta lot of injured-”

  “That won’t matter,” Angie told him. “Marshal wants us to save as many people as we can. That’s why we came here in the first place. We have a doctor and plenty of stuff, medicine, food, and electricity. They’re going to be mad, but they’ll still want to help.”

  Jerome looked startled, but switched his attention when he saw Derrick and Cameron approaching. Their hands were in the air, and they looked unhappy.

  “What the hell, man? Where is everybody? You and everybody who could walk were supposed-”

  “Sorry, Jerome,” Derrick interrupted, with a look of chagrin. “We couldn’t do it, bro. Mainly, it was because all the paramilitary guys creeping around with laser-sighted assault rifles wouldn’t let us.”

  Coming up right behind them, dressed head to toe in black, body armor and blast helmet, a slender figure carrying an assault rifle strode into view.

  Suddenly, Jerome found himself looking down the barrel of a gun.

  “Oh,” he said, raising his hands. “Fair enough.”

  “Just keep your hands up,” said a voice that Angie recognized immediately. “I will shoot you. On the ground, face down, with your hands spread out. ”

  “You serious?” Jerome exclaimed, moving to obey. “Fucking apocalypse, and cops are still giving me a hard time? Motherfu-... Yeah, okay, fine! Whatever. Just do what you’re told, guys.”

  With a glance at each other, Derrick and Cameron complied.

  But Angie jumped to her feet.

  “Krissy!” she shrieked, ducking under the gun to hug the newcomer. “Thank goodness, you’re here. You have to help Jackie! I think she’s dying.”

  The masked figure touched a button on her helmet and spoke into a microphone.

  “Team B, report in. What’s your position?”

  “Down on the floor,” came Cesar’s response. “Near you.”

  “I’m here too,” answered Elizabeth.

  “Paul?”

  “Still patrolling the perimeter, Krissy,” Paul said. “Did you want me to come in?”

  “Negative. You keep on patrol in case we need you out there. Cesar and Elizabeth, I have Angie and Jackie. Jackie is in need of a stretcher to get her back to base. Code red.”

  “Got it,” Cesar said. “I’ll have it there in a minute.”

  “I’ll come help,” Elizabeth said.

  Krissy tapped another button.

  “Eric? We have Angie and Jackie. They’re alive, but Jackie has sustained severe injuries. We have prisoners, though they appear to be non-hostile.”

  “Roger that,” came the reply. “We’ll leave the round-up to you. Team A will move fast to provide Marshal and Luca relief.”

  “Hope we’re not too late. Krissy out.”

  “This is Jerome,” Angie said, pointing. “He says that he and his friends, Derrick and Cameron, were leading a revolution. I think I believe them. They were letting people go and giving them weapons to fight with. And they did just save me and Jackie just now.”

  One hand reached up, and removed the helmet with a flourish of long, blonde hair.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” Jerome said, his eyes goggling.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Krissy said to him. She reached into her belt. “Please, don’t take this the wrong way. Angie seems to vouch for you, and normally, that would be good enough for me. But this isn’t normal, and I can’t afford mistakes.”

  She tossed him a pair of handcuffs, which Jerome caught easily.

  “Put these on please. Hands behind your back. I promise we’ll remove them as soon as we get this all sorted out, but for now...”

  “What?” Jerome looked down at the cuffs in confusion. “Oh. Yeah, sure, I guess.”

  He grinned his spectacular smile at her, putting his hands around his back and clicking them into place. He twisted to show that they were on.

  “I like it when a hot lady puts me in handcuffs,” he said.

  Krissy offered him a faint smile for his trouble.

  “They’re gone!” Angie shouted.

  “What?” Krissy’s gun came up. “Who?”

  “Danny,” Angie shouted, clearly upset. She poked her nose into one of the pens. “And Amber’s gone too. Both of them. They’re the bad people who hurt Jackie and me, and they escaped!”

  “I wasn’t watching either of them,” Jerome admitted.

  “Well,” Krissy said, frowning. “They won’t get far.” She put a hand up to her communicator. “Kumar. Put the word out to all sentries. We have two fugitives on the run. Both are extremely dangerous. Make sure everyone is on their guard.”

  “Roger that.”

  “How is Eric’s team doing?”

  “Moving in on the front door now,” Kumar reported. “Belatedly. That problem seems to be taking care of itself right now. For the record? Luca’s a beast.”

  “Roger that. Krissy out.”

  Jerome looked up at her. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he said, “is there a ‘Mr. Krissy’ somewhere in the wasteland?”

  Krissy smiled faintly. “There… is. It’s complicated though.”

  Jerome sighed. “Oh well. It’s still a pretty good day.”

  Her gaze flickered away as Cesar came running up to them, followed closely by Elizabeth. They had their masks off, and their expressions revealed their mixture of horror and outrage. Elizabeth’s face, in particular, was a mask of stone.

  Cesar, with a stretcher tucked under his arm, crouched down beside Jackie.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus,” he muttered, gazing down in horror at her ruined face. “Those fucking pendejos! Jackie! Can you hear me?”

  “She was conscious and walking just a few minutes ago,” Angie said.

  Cesar started laying out the stretcher.

  “You came all the way here carrying that?” Jerome asked.

  Cesar turned a dark, malevolent stare in his direction. “The doctor made me strap one to my back. Who the fuck are you?”

  “He’s... okay,” Krissy said quickly. “I think. He and his followers were starting a revolution when we got here. They were helping people, and Angie said they even helped save her and Jackie. I handcuffed him anyway, until we could figure everything out.”

  Cesar let out a deep breath, glanced over at Elizabeth.

  “Then I say we take off the cuffs and put him to wor
k,” he said. Turning towards Derrick and Cameron, he added, “and let them up too. There’s a lot of people other than Jackie that need help fast, Krissy. This guy can help me get Jackie to safety first, while the other two can help Elizabeth. We got a long day ahead of us, and not enough people as it is.”

  Krissy hesitated, then glanced over at Elizabeth.

  “I’m not really built for carrying stretchers,” Elizabeth admitted.

  “All right, then,” Krissy said, pulling out a key. “Please, don’t make me regret this.”

  Jerome grinned at her, and twisted around to offer up his wrists.

  Vito stared down at Marshal.

  “That’s the son of Dr. Winter?” he said.

  “No way,” Stan snapped. “Him?”

  “Wait a minute,” Brock broke in, lowering his gun so he could point to Marshal with a free hand. “You’re telling me that this guy… his dad… was the guy even the Russians were scared of? The same guy who single-handedly broke one of the Columbian cartels over his knee like a breadstick? The Hell’s Angels spent millions trying to recruit Dr. Winter. They steered clear of Toronto just so they wouldn’t piss him off.”

  “They didn’t stay out for long,” Vito challenged.

  “Yeah, well,” Brock said, staring at Marshal, “the cartels finally got him, didn’t they? And bikers had their own politics to worry about, politics that had fuck all to do with the mafia.”

  “This is the son of Winter,” Luca said, grinning at Marshal, who did not look pleased. “You’ve all seen him shoot under pressure. You know Antonio adopted him. Didn’t any of you wonder why? But most of all, you’ve got me telling you it’s true. Do any of you really doubt that he is who I say he is? And if that’s true, are any of you starting to wonder if you’re on the wrong side?”

  Stan perked up at this, shaking off his own fascination.

  “Fuck that,” he snapped. “There’s only one man-”

  “Whatever you were guilty of before the outbreak,” Marshal called out, shouting over top of Stan, “won’t be held against you. I can promise you that much. As for crimes committed after the outbreak, there will be…”