Forged From Ash - Book #7 of the Skinners Series

by Marcus Pelegrimas

  “Yeah, but they got enough brains to take simple orders. When we’re driving through here,” Rico said as he swept his hand past the windows toward St. Louis, “what made you think it would be so great to live here?”

  “Because it actually looks something like a city instead of a ripped-up dump.”

  “And the lights are on. You said so yourself. If people ain’t home, the lights aren’t on. That’s always been true, but it didn’t make too much of a difference when there were lights all over the place and people crowding every square inch of real estate. But now that there’s fewer of us around and we’re trying so hard to keep hidden or behind closed doors, those mindless eating machines out there need a little guidance. At first, they could sniff us out without much problem, but we’ve gotten wise to that and doused everything in ammonia, vinegar or whatever else people can find to throw the packs off their scent.”

  “So if the lights stay on,” Haley ventured, “those animals just have to look for that to know where we are.”

  Rico nodded. “Yep, indeed. Kind of simple but effective. By allowing people to live in some comfort, the Full Bloods can take more time to…”

  “To what?”

  “That’s what I ain’t figured out yet,” Rico admitted. “I’ve been kicking it around on my own, though. Y’see, Full Bloods are more than just tough. They’re smart as hell. Since they’re so frickin’ old, some of ‘em have had decades, maybe even centuries to think about what to do once they were finally able to drop the hammer on us humans. Now that it’s happened, they get to put all them little theories an’ plans to work.”

  Although Haley was shaken, she was keeping her head up and focusing on the road well enough to keep the car moving in a straight line. Her eyes were wide open and didn’t show the first sign of glazing over in an attempt to block out so much bad news. That put her a few notches above a bunch of the Army commanders Rico had had to brief over the last two years.

  Since he’d already gone this far, Rico decided to spell it all out for her. If Haley was going to freak out about this sort of talk, it was best that he know right now. “But it ain’t just about the lights,” he said. “It’s electricity in general. If it wasn’t available, people would scatter or seek shelter in more remote places. Whether you know it or not, these things have been huntin’ us for a mighty long time. It just hasn’t been on the news until a little while ago. Cities are the easiest places to find humans, and the easiest way to find humans inside the cities is to look for their lights, listen for their music, smell their cooking food, that sort of thing. As long as the cities can provide a little shelter and some of those comforts, that’s where people will stay.”

  “You mean that’s where the meat will stay,” she said evenly.

  “As far as them animals are concerned…yeah. As long as the lights stay on, people will keep gravitating to the cities where they can keep getting picked off. With electricity, people can have a better chance of staying alive. To the Full Bloods and packs, that means their meat stays fresh for a whole lot longer.”

  “Hooo boy,” Haley sighed.

  “You all right?”

  “I guess.” She shifted in her seat, took a deep breath and said, “What was that other thing you mentioned? You talked about the packs and…the Mylar?”

  “Nymar. Basically vampires. They’ve been layin’ low.”

  “Too bad. Vampires are cool.”

  “Aw, don’t get me started on that shit,” Rico groaned.

  “So what’s going on with them?”

  “You doing ok with this?”

  “Oh, I’m freaking out inside,” Haley said. “But it’s under control. Like you said, I might as well know as much as I can. Sure beats hiding in the dark and holding my breath.”

  Rico grinned but didn’t let her see it. “With everything I just told you, I’m thinking the cities obviously ain’t the safest places to be anymore. Even if I’m wrong about the packs, the Nymar have always preferred city life. They’ll be hiding there, for sure.”

  “Shouldn’t we tell someone else about that?”

  “There’s the tricky question. And that’s the sort of stuff Skinners have always had to deal with. We could tell everyone what’s goin’ on just so they know, but all they can really do about it is panic and get all wound up. That leads to riots, and in the confusion, people get hurt. What little bit of civilization that’s been pieced back together could just get torn down again, and that won’t do anyone any good.”

  “Rioting?” Haley asked. “Isn’t that better than being set up to be eaten?”

  “We can’t tell everyone they’re fucked without having some kind of plan ready to go. Something else needs to be set up to give people a direction to go instead of just running wild.”

  “Letting people stay where they’re in danger isn’t right,” Haley said. “They need to know what’s going on. If everyone had known about the werewolves and everything else before things went so bad, there may have been some panic for a while, but they could have gotten a handle on the problem before everything turned into…this.”

  Rico looked out his window at the wreckage littering the sides of the road. Rows of buildings there were either gutted or converted into armed camps. “There’s another option,” he said. Looking at Haley so he could gauge her reaction, he said, “Skinners could bring people up to speed who can handle what they hear. We can look for people who got their heads on straight and might be able to do something to help solve the problem.”

  “You mean recruiting.”

  “That’s right. We used to keep the bar pretty high before bringing anyone else into the fold. But maybe that was the mistake. Or maybe it’s time to change somethin’ that ain’t been changed for hundreds of years. We can spread the word to form a wider network of folks who can do what we did back at that truck stop. Help where we can, show people how to do more damage and then move on.”

  Haley smiled. “Kind of like the Resistance from World War Two meets the wandering Samurai.”

  Rico nodded. “More or less. It’s a start anyway. We can teach people what they need to survive so they’ll have something to fall back on when they hear the rest of the story. Hell, for all I know this flea bag back there was just yankin’ my chain about the whole orders from Full Bloods thing,” Rico added while hooking a thumb toward the back seat. “With this much at stake we need to be damn sure before we start spreading any kind of news.”

  “And what if things get even worse before there’s a chance to recruit or prepare or anything else?” she asked.

  “I can always contact the IRD and spell it out for them. If they don’t take the ball and run with it, we go from city to city tellin’ people what they need to know and take our chances with the riots.”

  Before long, Haley shrugged. “That’s the one cool thing about the apocalypse,” she said. “We all get a big do-over. With everything wide open, we can take care of things however we like.”

  “I’ve always been a big fan of that sort of thing.”

  “When we were talking during the drive from West Virginia, you were also saying how weird it was that the internet is still going. Got any theories on that?”

  “A few, but it’s all just guesswork,” Rico admitted. “I never was much of a techie. What about you, kid?”

  “I always thought it was weird, but it was never really an issue. There was only one guy I knew of who could log on, and he was in Charleston. Charged way too much unless you were a girl who wanted to do favors for him,” she said, putting the word favors in air quotes. “Real perv. Don’t you know anyone who can help you out on that one? I thought the military was full of tech guys.”

  “It is, but when they’re dealin’ with Skinners, they want favors too, and they ain’t too far off from the kind of favors your boy in Charleston was after.”

  “Eeeeewww!”

  Rico laughed and settled into his seat. “There are some people I can talk to about that whole thing.”

&nb
sp; “Is that who we’re going to see in Colorado?”

  “Is it WE now? I thought you had family to get to.”

  “Third cousins and some aunt who never talked to me when the world was going along normally. I doubt they even remember who I am.”

  “Their loss,” Rico said.

  “Awww. That’s sweet. So is this dude in Colorado your tech expert?” Haley asked.

  “He knows more about that kind of thing than me, but I’m hoping he can put me in touch with another friend who knows all about computers and the internet and that sort of shit. Used to design video games back in the day.”

  “Really? What games?”

  “Some sniper thing, and then there was this other science fiction shooter thing with some fantasy thrown in.”

  Haley’s enthusiasm quickly waned. “Toss in a few zombies and you’ve described just about every game put out in the last ten years. Well…not counting the most recent couple of years of course. He’s in Colorado too?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know where the hell he is. I just hope he’s still alive.”

  “Is he a Skinner?”

  “Yeah,” Rico said.

  “Then I bet he’s alive.” She kept driving with her chin up and both hands on the wheel. Before too long, she declared, “We’ll find him.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because,” she said without a hint of sarcasm, “things have been going pretty well so far.”

  Rico leaned his head back and gave his eyes a rest. “Just another sunny day at the end of the world.”

  Epilogue

  Somewhere on the North Atlantic Ocean

  The waters spread out before Randolph’s eyes in a churning field of blues capped in foaming white. Below, there were beasts that knew nothing of the turmoil engulfing the surface, which was just as it had been since the very first time he’d sailed to the colonies.

  The world was poised to be remade again as fires cooled and smoke was swept up into the sky. Gripping the rail of the dirty cargo vessel that had been fitted with steel masts to fly sails when its fuel ran low, Randolph closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath of salty air. His ears detected the submerged heartbeat of a goliath rising up from a trench below the surface of the choppy sea. The Teller of Tides was stirring.

  “Do you smell her?”

  Randolph’s eyes snapped open, and claws began to snake from his fingertips in a reflexive response to the unannounced voice. He was so rarely surprised that he’d almost forgotten what it felt like. Borrek came up to stand beside him, wearing a heavy woolen coat and thick canvas pants that made him look like any of the sailors going about their duties. Even in human form, the gray one was burly and covered in coarse silvery hair. It flowed like a mane from beneath the knit cap on his head where it was gathered into a thick tail held together by three leather cords. His eyebrows protruded like caterpillars, and his beard was almost thick enough to keep his mouthful of chalky, pointed teeth from being seen. Almost, but not quite.

  “I smell all of the humans on this vessel,” Randolph said.

  “Humans weren’t what I meant, although I must admit, the scent of their females is much sweeter than I remember. I mean Tiddalik. The Water Keeper. Devourer of the Seas.”

  “She has more names than the other Mist Born. I was listening to the thump of her heart beneath the waves.”

  Borrek’s smoky white eyes were surrounded in deep wrinkles carved into his flesh. “Some legends say every speck of salt in the water of every sea came from the sweat of Tiddalik’s brow. When she is near, the air smells of a woman’s skin after a grueling night of fucking.”

  “You have been alone in the woods too long, old man,” Randolph said. “Did you already find the Dryad temple you were after?”

  “I thought I’d make the crossing to see how all of this recent excitement has changed the Puritan villages and the Mayan jungles.”

  “So this is merely a sightseeing trip?”

  “Maybe,” Borrek said as he slapped a heavy hand upon Randolph’s shoulder. “Maybe not. Let’s enjoy this voyage. Perhaps I’ll even teach you a thing or two about dealing with a Mist Born that doesn’t involve antagonizing them until you are thrown around like a toy and left for dead at the bottom of a river.”

  Randolph grinned. “I’m sure Icanchu has forgotten about me after all that’s happened since then.”

  “Not in a thousand years,” Borrek snarled. “You want to find the leeches that are hiding? I can help with that. You want to sniff out a few Dryad? I’m still planning on doing that just to sate my hunger for a woman with the finest samples of womanhood ever created. You want to use the Mist Born to set The Balance right again? That could be one hell of a way to break up the last few centuries of monotony. Just know that I’ll expect to get something out of this as well.”

  “So you’ve already mentioned. Trust me, you’ll be getting plenty.”

  “I’m not talking about the spoils that will be rightfully mine after the ash has been swept away. There will be a price that only you can pay.”

  “What price?” Randolph asked.

  Borrek stuffed callused hands into the pockets of his pea coat and walked away. “I’ll think of something. There’s still plenty of ocean in front of us.”

  Fixing his eyes on the water, Randolph drew a breath and sifted through the scents he captured. He searched for the musk of Tiddalik’s skin beneath the overpowering odor of rusted steel and brine but could not find it.

  Still so much to learn.

  Still so much to see and smell and hear.

  Still so much blood to spill.

  Still so many possibilities.

  There was never more glory to be had than in fields of ash.

  Same Author

  New Adventure

  New Universe!

  Here’s a sneak peek of Paris is Melting,

  First book in a new series by Marcus Pelegrimas

  CHAPTER ONE

  Cincinnati, OH

  1935

  “She’s a tasty little dish, don’tchya think?”

  After an hour of standing in one place, I’d barely even heard that question. I was so bored that my thoughts had drifted to one of the wide, grassy fields I’d visited during the war. One of the brainy scientists my unit had been assigned to protect had described those fields as “untouched by the sloppy, destructive hand of mankind”. I lifted phrases like that one in my own thoughts because, in order for me to be anything close to elegant, I’d need a library and a whole lot of preparation time. Or was it eloquent? Hell if I know.

  Of course, when I thought back fondly to anything from those days, I had to gloss over things like artillery shells exploding over my head, automated mines burrowing beneath my feet or tanks the size of Five and Dime stores stomping over whatever trench I was praying in at the time. The mechanical innards of all that dangerous machinery ticked in unsteady rhythms that still rolled through the back of my head on sleepless nights.

  I could still hear it clanging and rattling as I checked the time in a fumbling attempt to look like I’d at least been partially listening to the man beside me. According to my cheap wristwatch, it was around three fourteen in the afternoon of September 23rd.. Give or take. Like I already said, it’s a cheap watch.

  “Hey, Jake!” the guy said while snapping his fingers in front of my face. “Jake Gillis… the dope in the cheap suit… you seeing this?”

  Looking at the rows of Buicks marked with the Cincinnati PD shield parked along the curb up and down Pearl Street, the fields that had been drifting through my head a few seconds ago were replaced by hard concrete valleys of my home town. The man who’d broken me out of the trance I’d fallen into since settling in among the police cars was named Martin Lowery. The tasty little dish in question was just up the street; a dark-haired girl no more than seventeen years old with smooth features and bright red, cupie-bow lips strolled across Central Street. She was a looker but awfully young. “You talking about that k
id?” I asked.

  Marty was a big guy with wide shoulders, a barrel chest and light brown eyes set inside a head that looked too thick to be held upright. He blinked a few times, spotted the girl and swatted the side of my head with a folded newspaper. “Not her, you moron! HER!”

  The sun was high and at a slight angle, its rays reflecting off the shining faces of buildings across from us and almost directly into my eyes when I tried to get a look at what Marty was holding. After adjusting my fedora so its brim could provide some shade, I noticed what was printed on the newspaper in Marty’s ham of a fist. Unfurling it like a document from the Founding Fathers, he displayed the story splashed across page three. It was yet another photograph submitted for the public’s approval by Bonnie and Clyde as they blazed a trail through Colorado and the surrounding states. Those mad dogs got almost as much of a kick out of taking pictures of themselves as the papers did in printing them.

  Bonnie Parker was a little stick of a thing. In the picture, she wore a hat that had probably been taken from one of the men she’d robbed and was smiling wide enough to display sharp little teeth clamped around an unlit cigar. Her tattered plaid sweater clung to a rail-thin frame, and a long skirt hugged what I had to admit were somewhat nicely rounded hips. “Ain’t she somethin’?” Marty asked.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “What’s not to get? Look at them gams!”

  I took hold of one side of the newspaper so I could flatten out the picture to see if there was anything I’d missed the first time around. There wasn’t. “She’s just some skinny girl with bugs in her head. If she and Clyde hadn’t stolen them shield belts from that armory in Tulsa, the two of them would have been gunned down by that Texas Ranger last year. Hamer is the guy’s name.”

  “Right. Hamer. Maybe those clowns could get us his autograph,” Marty said while nodding toward a pair of cars that were too nice to have come from the city’s motor pool.

  The long black cars had arrived soon after I’d met Marty on the street, and they’d been driven by a group of pinch-faced men wearing suits purchased by the Federal Government. The badges clipped to their belts marked them as honest-to-goodness G-Men. Naturally, they were too good to associate with the likes of cops or a private detective and had yet to get out of their cars after introducing themselves to the ranking officer on the scene. Marty and I had been busting their chops all day long.