Forged From Ash - Book #7 of the Skinners Series

by Marcus Pelegrimas

  “Well if this don’t take me back,” he said while looking at rows upon rows of comic books lining the wall to his left.

  The racks were littered with scraps of torn paper covered in layers of dust. Still, enough comics had survived to give Rico a glimpse of several scenes drawn with varying degrees of skill. At the front of the store were a few recognizable faces like Batman and Spider-Man. As he moved further into the place, Rico saw others he didn’t recognize. A few more steps and he spotted something that brought a smile to his face.

  “Hello, beautiful!” he said while reaching for a comic that was curled at all the edges and stained from a water leak from some time ago. On the cover was a green face contorted in rage and buildings that were being smashed to pieces by flying fists. “Wonder if there’s any more of you around?”

  The aisle was cramped, and Rico barely had enough room to turn around. When he did, he was treated to the sight of rows of long white boxes stuffed full of comics wrapped in individual plastic bags. Rico went to the one marked with the appropriate letter of the alphabet and started flipping through. He’d never been as big of a comic collector as some people he knew, but seeing the bombastic artwork and larger-than-life heroes that had filled his youth was like opening a bottle and smelling clean air from simpler days. He didn’t find as many issues as he’d hoped for, which didn’t stop Rico from perusing some of the other bins. He was glad to find a pile of volumes that collected storylines featuring Wolverine and Jonah Hex, but when he tried to remove them from the box, they came up as one pulpy brick.

  “Son of a bitch!” he growled. Looking up, Rico saw a huge brown stain on the ceiling marking a spot where water must have dripped down to ruin the books below. Dropping the mess and wiping his hands on his shirt, he moved toward the front of the shop’s single room.

  There was a glass case there that doubled as a sales counter. A clunky cash register was at one side along with stacks of advertisements, a cup of pens and a solar powered calculator. Inside the case were stacks of trading cards from everything that wasn’t a sport. As much as he wanted to look through scenes from early 70’s science fiction shows and the pile of cards highlighting Buck Rogers girls, Rico stepped around the counter to look for the phone he’d been promised. It was near the cash register, sitting on a pile of old Yellow Pages.

  He picked up the receiver, heard a dial tone and then pressed the buttons that would connect him to Daniels.

  “Yes, Rico,” Daniels said hastily. “Be quick. I’m working.”

  “Did you somehow find a way to get Caller ID?”

  “No. I just don’t get many phone calls anymore. What is it?”

  “What do you think? I got some of that stuff you wanted.”

  Glass vials knocked together, and the Nymar grunted as if each of them weighed a ton. “You got all of it?” Daniels asked.

  “I said SOME. I got some samples from them labs, some of the beakers or whatever was in there, some crap off the floor…”

  “Do you mean stuff from the floor or actual crap?”

  Rico let out a breath as he wondered how a Skinner’s life could still sometimes revolve around so much shit. “Actual crap,” he said. “And stuff from the floor.”

  “Excellent!”

  “Then you’ll like this even better. I found some pretty strange Half Breeds. They looked different and healed a lot quicker than the others.”

  “That’s not much of a surprise,” Daniels said. “With all the attacks, there have been so many humans turned that the generational cycles for that species have been getting closer together.”

  “I know all that,” Rico snapped. “But these were different. They seemed to be feeding on more than just meat. They drank blood. Sucked it down like some assholes you’re real familiar with.”

  “You’ve seen a Nymar-Half Breed mix?”

  “You know about these things?”

  “Other Nymar scientists have been trying to breed them throughout various points in history,” Daniels replied. “Not our brighter moments.”

  “As opposed to using sex clubs as a front to feed off of people like leeches? Yeah,” Rico said. “You guys have laid down a real rich historical tapestry.”

  “Do you honestly want to compare the sins of our forefathers? I can think of some atrocities committed by Skinners new and old alike.”

  “Fine, fine. Do you want this stuff or not?”

  “I do. How long will it take for you to get to my lab?”

  “I’ll need a few days to get to you,” Rico said. “Maybe a week.”

  “That works. I’ll use that time to gather anything I can find on our research in this field and put together the necessary materials for experimentation on the samples you’re bringing.”

  Active phone lines weren’t easy to find, and they were getting rarer as time wore on. Most people stopped asking why some lines of communication were open and others weren’t. The government took some responsibility for the technical achievement, but that story didn’t fly with much of anyone. The world governments couldn’t even keep the wolves from ripping the infrastructure of their nations apart, so maintaining any semblance of a functional communication network seemed well beyond their grasp. Skinners had forgotten more ways to be paranoid than most conspiracy theorists would ever know, so they never stopped questioning the whole phone and internet conundrum. Even more, they all assumed someone was listening to any conversation lasting more than a minute or two. The how’s and why’s of such an operation would be figured out later, but Rico felt the eyes of the nameless overlord shifting toward him the longer he spoke.

  Lowering his voice and glancing around as if he might spot a shady figure trying to look inconspicuous while reading a water-logged issue of Doctor Strange, Rico asked, “Why would anyone want to cross Nymar and Half Breeds, anyway?”

  “I can only speak about what I heard from a few Nymar historians,” Daniels replied. “The last documented experiments took place in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. There were other experiments done much earlier, and they all boiled down to one thing. Siege weapons.”

  “You mean like attacking a castle with battering rams and catapults and shit?”

  “Basically…yes. Instead of trying to break down walls or march against an army, the Nymar wanted to use the Half Breeds to attack the soldiers themselves. By putting them under Nymar influence, it was thought they could be controlled or at least directed.”

  “I’ve seen what happens when a Nymar latches on to a shapeshifter,” Rico said. “It ain’t pretty.”

  “Insanity was the least of the side effects,” Daniels told him. “Henry’s spore only survived in a Full Blood body because Mishonyk was a master of his craft. Half Breeds are another matter entirely. They’ve never been successfully seeded. They’re already crazed, and the spore drives them even further off the deep end. Even worse, they seemed able to sense the spore inside of them. They could smell it, possibly, or maybe hear it. That, combined with the spore’s tendency to move about as it settles in, drove the Half Breed subjects into gnawing at their own bodies to get it out. And once the hunger kicked in, they also fed on any blood they could find. Even their own. By all accounts, it was horrific.”

  “I don’t know. Something that makes Half Breeds rip themselves apart sounds pretty damn good right about now.”

  “That’s because I didn’t mention what happened to the human populations of the places where those experiments were set loose. Or even the animal population for that matter. When the Half Breeds finally did die, it was only after launching into a frenzy of epic proportions. All that was left for miles in any direction was bloody carcasses.”

  “Miles?” Rico asked.

  “That may have been exaggerated in the written records, but I don’t have any trouble imagining a crazed Half Breed ripping thorough any living thing to drink their blood while something inside them drove them even more insane than normal.”

  Reluctantly, Rico said, “Yeah. I
see your point there. So could someone else be trying to come up with a way to control the Half Breeds?”

  “You’re the one looking into it,” Daniels replied. “You tell me. But not over this line. It’s probably not secure. Where are you calling from, anyway? Is it safe?”

  “It’s just one of the phones that happens to be connected to a live wire,” Rico said. “In some old comic book store.”

  He didn’t need to be able to see Daniels to know the excitement in his voice had to come through a wide, goofy smile. “A comic book store?” the Nymar gasped. “Are there any undamaged books around?”

  “Yeah. Some.”

  “Get some for me! OH! What about Green Lantern? Are there any issues of Green Lantern there? I don’t care if it’s Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern, New Guardians, Justice League…are there Justice League books there?”

  “Don’t get all worked up,” Rico said. “I thought you were more of an X-Men guy anyway.”

  “Does that mean I can’t read anything else? I’ve been craving Green Lantern lately. So what?”

  Rico looked around at the boxes and shelves. “I’ll see what I can find. But…what’s it worth to ya?”

  “After all we’ve been through together…you can’t pick up some comics and bring them to me without something in return?”

  “Not when I gotta bring them across the damn country! This comic book deal is more of a Cole thing anyway. I barely know what to look for.”

  Just mentioning the name of their mutual friend created a sharp drop in the conversation. Rico filled the conspicuous silence by asking, “You heard anything from him lately?”

  “Just a few emails. Nothing worth mentioning, though.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Didn’t say. I was just glad to hear anything from him after what happened with Paige. He took that pretty hard.”

  “We all did,” Rico said tersely. “And we all gotta move on. She wouldn’t have wanted any of us mopin’ around feelin’ sorry for ourselves. Especially him.”

  “I doubt Cole is just moping.”

  “What the hell do you know about him?” Rico snapped. “If you got more to say on the matter, then spit it out! I don’t give a damn what went on between me and him before. Things have changed!”

  “Don’t yell at me!” Daniels said. “I don’t know anything specific about what Cole’s doing. Last I heard, he was somewhere…let’s talk about this in person when it’s safer. Suffice it to say, I just meant that Cole isn’t the sort of guy to sit around feeling sorry for himself. He was in a bad place for a while, but that’s just because he and Paige were so close. I highly doubt he’s in that same place any longer.”

  “Yeah…well I wish my doubts were that high.”

  “So…does that mean you do doubt it or…?”

  “Bye, Daniels. See ya in a few days. Give or take.”

  Rico hung up and walked around the counter. Once again, he dove into the archives of comic books kept in all those long, dusty white boxes. While he might not have shared Daniels’ enthusiasm, Rico could appreciate how long it might be before he had anything new to fill his down time. After drawing from a liberal assortment of Green Lanterns, he selected some issues of The Punisher and GI Joe for himself. If anyone asked, he could always tell them the books were for kindling. And if anyone tried to use them as kindling, Rico could knock them flat onto their ass.

  As he made his way to the door, Rico thought about how soon he could scrounge up some transportation and when he could get on the road. He rarely had occasion to think about specific timeframes anymore, and when he did, something popped into his head that he’d almost forgotten about. According to the planner taken from one of the men in the warehouse the IRD had raided, there was a meet of some kind set to happen at 8:15 the next morning.

  “Shit,” he grunted. The IRD already knew about it and wouldn’t let him tag along with no strings attached. Also, since Rico had already paid that warehouse another visit, which would surely be discussed at that meeting, he would have to explain himself to the higher ups. By the time he opened the door to step outside, Rico had come to his decision. He’d gotten plenty from that place already and couldn’t afford to try for more if he wanted to get moving anytime soon. Hopefully, Daniels would find out more than a bit of eavesdropping could anyway. If The Vigilant were cooking up anything worth worrying about, Rico was sure he would hear more about it later.

  Outside, the sky was darkening, and the wind had taken on a chill that gave teeth to every passing gust. Rico pulled his leather jacket around him tighter and walked parallel to the street running past the strip mall. “I thought I told you to find somewhere else to be,” he said without looking at the slender young woman who sat with a backpack that was almost as big as she was.

  Haley stood up, hefted the straps of the pack over both shoulders and picked up her shotgun. “You torched the only place I had around here.”

  “Don’t you know anyone else?”

  “My brother’s dead, and my only other family is in Missouri.”

  “What about the guy you were with in that tattoo shop?” Rico asked without breaking stride.

  “He’s dead too.”

  “Does he have any family? Any friends? Jesus, he just died. Don’t you want to…”

  “To what?” she asked sharply. “Cry over him? Bury him in flowers? He was a dick, all right? The only reason I stayed here was because he was my brother’s friend, and there was nowhere else to go.”

  Rico stopped and looked at her. Until now, she’d been just another civilian in need of rescue from a Half Breed pack. Even before the monsters took over, there had been no shortage of those in his life. It didn’t do a Skinner any good to grow attached to everyone who needed help. The best thing he could do was help when he could, move on and let them get back to their lives. Now that he took a second to see her as something more than just another screaming face, Rico saw more than just someone desperate to survive. She had the look of someone determined to live. It was a look that was as rare to the world as it was familiar to him.

  “So what’s your plan here?” he asked.

  Haley laughed and held out her arms to encompass the filthy streets around her and then let them drop to her sides. “Plan? What kind of plan am I supposed to make? All I can do is try to keep from getting torn apart one more day. The best way for me to do that is sticking with you.”

  “I ain’t exactly headed anywhere safe.”

  “I know. You’re a Skinner. But if anyone can give me something to hang on to that’ll last more than a week, it’s you.”

  “There’s an IRD base not too far from here,” Rico told her as he continued walking along the street. “Get to the interstate and head northwest.”

  “No,” she said defiantly.

  He stopped and turned around to face her again. “No? What do you think this is? In case you haven’t noticed, this here is the end of the world! If I don’t like the look of yer face, I can put a bullet through it, and there ain’t exactly any cops around to come to your rescue.”

  Haley approached him with solid steps that pounded against the concrete as loudly as they could considering the skinny legs to which they were attached. “I’m not going to the Army. They’re dicks too.”

  “Watch yer goddamn mouth! Those particular dicks fight and die to keep this whole place from being overrun!”

  “I guess the soldiers are ok,” she admitted. “But there was this sergeant or captain or whatever who came along and told us we had to fill out requisition forms to get some food, and when we did fill out the forms, they said there wasn’t any food left to hand out and that we should try back in six months.”

  “Was that Staff Sergeant Canbold?”

  Her face lit up as she said, “Yes! You know him?”

  “Yeah. He’s a dick. That still don’t mean you can come with me. I got a lot of ground to cover and not much time to cover it in.”

  “Where are you going?”

 
; “Colorado.”

  “How are you getting there?” she asked.

  “Enough with the questions, all right? You want shelter? There’s a whole town in front of us and an Army base nearby. You want food? Scrounge for it like the rest of us. You want company? Find a dog.”

  “Dogs aren’t exactly man’s best friend anymore,” Haley said.

  Rico smirked but didn’t let her see it.

  After a few more paces, she spoke in a voice that reminded Rico of another young girl he’d known who’d also had one hell of a stubborn streak. “I heard Skinners were recruiting.”

  “What the fuck do you know about anything where Skinners are concerned?” Rico snarled.

  “I know you guys are doing a lot more good than anyone carrying a gun and that you need all the help you can get. I also know you don’t have many people who want to be the ones to help you.”

  “And what makes you any different?”

  “What does it matter?” Haley asked. “I would think you guys would let anyone sign on. Even if it was just to put a stick in their hand and throw them in front of a few werewolves.”

  “You see? Right there. That’s the reason why we couldn’t say a damn thing about werewolves, bloodsuckers or any of the other stuff to anyone for all these years. Because nobody gives a shit until it directly affects them. And when it does, they expect everyone else to just step in line and bend over backward for ‘em as if theirs is the only sad story out there. Now that it’s too late, you decide to open yer eyes and lend a hand.”

  “That’s why you couldn’t talk about werewolves?”

  Since everything else that came to mind for him to say was just another rant, Rico waved her off and started walking again.

  Haley followed him without hesitation. “I want to fight.”

  “Then pick up a goddamn stick and swing it at the first Half Breed you see. Have fun.”

  “It’s a war, right? I want to do my part. What else do you want me to say? What else do I need to say? I’m sick of seeing people die and watching these things wipe us out. You probably think I was just some chick who got tatted up and partied before all of this happened and you’d be right. So what? If you can teach me how to kill at least one of those things, at least I’m doing SOMEthing to win this.” When she didn’t hear anything from Rico, Haley added, “If every person just kills one of those things, we’ll be hitting them pretty hard, right?”