Warbirds of Mars: Stories of the Fight!

by Неизвестный

  JOHN LUCAS, aka Joltin’ Johnny, has appeared in funny books published by Marvel, D.C./Vertigo/Wildstorm, Top Cow, Darkhorse, Image and Boom! He is currently working on Four Norsemen of the Apocalypse, out this year from the reconstituted First Comics. Carve another notch on the bedpost. Follow his work at joltinjohnnylucas.deviantart.com/, and http://www.facebook.com/JohnjoltinJohnnyLucas.

  PAUL ROMAN MARTINEZ is the creator of the dieselpunk-themed comic, The Adventures of the 19XX, which can be found at http://www.the19XX.com.

  NATHAN MORRIS is a freelance artist / illustrator living in Phoenix, AZ. He has worked on various projects including Philly for Arcana Studio, Pirate Heart Ninja, DNA and Alien Heart Bigfoot. Upcoming projects include The Midnight Judge and much more. Follow him at serialhero.deviantart.com and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/nathan.morris.526?fref=ts.

  DAN PARSONS is best known for his work on the Star Wars comics for Dark Horse. He is currently inking the new Star Wars 2013 and Dawn of the Jedi series, and he’s painting a new Sherlock Holmes graphic novel, Brothers of Baker Street. He has also recently completed drawings for HBO's Game of Thrones. Follow Dan at http://www.ComicArtFans.com and http://www.facebook.com/dan.parsonsart.

  NIK POLIWKO has been published by a number of indie publishers, including Monsterverse, A.C. Comics, Moonstone, Bluewater, and Main Enterprises, among others. Currently, Nik is working on several projects, including Jungle Tales of Tarzan for Sequential Pulp and Dark Horse Comics. Follow his work at niknova.deviantart.com & http://www.facebook.com/the.art.of.nik.poliwko.

  RICHARD SERRAO is an independent artist specializing in black and white artwork. He is mostly known for his creator-owned work, Memento Mori, almost 60 pages of which appeared as a part of a 144 page volume released from Optimum Wound Comics. The sequel, Memento Mori Volume 2, has sold out. He is currently finishing a multiple volume crime/grindhouse inspired opus Silent Scream, and illustrations for The Purple Scar Volume 1. Find him at www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Richard-Serrao/30276517438.

  JASON WORTHINGTON has appeared in comic books published by Viper, Arcana, Spazdog, and Moonstone. He is also an award-nominated sketch card artist, who has worked for 5FINITY, Bad Axe Studios, and Cryptozoic Productions. He can be seen currently inking covers and interiors for Zombies vs. Cheerleaders by 3 Finger Prints. See more of his work at eltoromuerto.deviantart.com and eltoromuerto.blogspot.com.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It seems strange in a way, just how many years ago I conceived of the basics of Warbirds of Mars. But when it came time to start my own webcomic—and therefore, time to really narrow down and refine the characters and concepts—well, fortunately, by then I had delved that much deeper into my love of all things early and mid-20th century. And it’s very much because of some great people that my passion for the era, its popular culture, look, feel, and influence, took on new turns and aspects. Others, such as Kane (who I pitched the idea to in the hopes that he would write the strips for me) were a constant source of creativity and inspiration toward bettering myself as an artist and a writer. I feel very proud of where all of this has led, and I’m so pleased that Warbirds could become a platform for the amazing talents collected in this tome. To that end, I wish to first and foremost thank the following:

  Kane for taking my ideas and running, sprinting, and leaping with them, as well as for always giving me new innovative venues and avenues.

  I also wish to thank my friends and family for their support, interest, and knowledge—especially the Hollywood Regency gang for being a constant source of insight, encouragement, and camaraderie.

  Bill Farmer for his time and stellar coloring abilities.

  The muses in my life for their beauty and inspiration.

  The Phoenix Comicon, for being another important venue that has brought so many amazing people into my life.

  Finally, I wish to thank the contributing writers and artists for their hard work, diligence, and the fun they have painted into the backdrop of our creation. You will find that a lot of the creative force within this tome is Arizona talent, so it seemed fitting to begin the opening short story outside of Phoenix, and go global from there.

  With all sincerity, I tip my fedora to you all, ladies and gentlemen.

  Scott P. ‘Doc’ Vaughn

  Glendale, AZ Jan. 2013

  BONUS CONTENT

  The following pages contain bonus unedited samples from existing and upcoming works from the authors in this collection.

  Excerpt from

  The Crypt of Dracula

  by Kane Gilmour

  “Covenant of the Green God”

  by J. H. Ivanov

  Excerpt from

  Season of the Wolf

  by Jeffrey J. Mariotte

  “Your Flame”

  by Alex Ness

  Excerpt from

  Masters of the Universe

  by Chris Samson

  Excerpt from

  Fable of the Immortals

  by Megan E. Vaughn

  Excerpt from

  Shards of Destiny

  by Scott P. Vaughn

  Unedited sample of The Crypt of Dracula by Kane Gilmour. Available 2013 from Quickdraw Books.

  PROLOGUE

  Southeast of the Borgo Pass, Hungary, 1897

  Lightning crackled horizontally across the sky, throwing the ruined castle into a stark contrast with the suddenly illuminated heavens.

  “Storms come on very suddenly in the mountains, I’m afraid,” the solicitor said, while struggling with the lock on the banded wooden door. The roar of the thunder, following the flash, drowned out the latter part of his apology.

  “No need to trouble yourself, setting our minds at rest, sir. We are familiar with the weather, and I can assure you, the climate will hold little sway over my decision whether to purchase the property. We are simply grateful you could take the time to show it to us.” Thin, and over six and a half feet tall, Dragos Petran exuded all the Oxford charm he could toward the reluctant solicitor. His lovely wife Alina, stood beside him and smiled widely, although she had privately expressed her reservations about Petran’s plans for the property. The crumbling castle on a crag some seven thousand feet above sea level was an unusual spot, and the nearest village was many miles away by coach. Still, she had agreed to come and inspect the site with him, and Petran was pleased at her willingness.

  “Ah, here we are.” The solicitor shoved the wooden door with his shoulder. It creaked inward. His grin looked sheepish at the sad state of the ruined grounds and the groaning door, but Petran was unperturbed. The solicitor slipped inside and before Petran and his wife were fully in the doorway, the portly man was returning from the interior gloom with a lighted candlestick. “Although the exterior needs some work, you’ll find the design work inside is top-notch, and the furniture and fittings are all well appointed.”

  Petran helped the slender Alina to shed her overcoat, and he hung it on a dark wooden coat rack just inside the heavy door. The solicitor moved around the room and lit additional candles. Soon the room was filled with a warm yellow glow, and Petran could see the fine woodwork in the large hall, and the long-since-faded tapestries. An enormous curved marble staircase swept up to a darkened second story. Short hallways led off in every direction on the ground floor. A thick Persian rug covered most of the floor, but Petran could see the black and white checked marble at the edges of the vast foyer.

  “It’s lovely,” Alina said, and Petran could tell she was sincere, as he had instructed her to be.

  “The castle was owned by a local Count for many years, and I believe it was in his family for a few hundred years. He was a businessman who traveled abroad widely, but he mysteriously disappeared on one such trip. As you can see, the grounds have fallen into disrepair.”

  “How long has the property been vacant?” Petran asked.

  “Well, we’ve had a caretaker on the grounds a few times in the last years, of course, but the Count went missing over seven years ago no
w.” The man spoke calmly, as he led them through the ground floor rooms, lighting candles as he went, to dispel the dense shadows. Petran noticed that the older man showed no more hesitation or awkwardness. Now inside the building, the man had slipped into a routine he had no doubt undergone countless times. Petran knew the castle had been on the Agency’s listings of available properties for the last four years, and that this solicitor had shown the crumbling estate to several prospective buyers who had passed on the opportunity. Soon there would be no more prospective buyers—but not because Petran planned to buy the castle. He had other plans.

  The man led them through the huge kitchen, one hand clutching the candlestick and the other mopping sweat off his brow with a fine linen handkerchief. Petran wondered if the solicitor could somehow sense that something was wrong with the castle, every time the man led his clients here. On the surface, the man seemed fine, but Petran suspected that deep inside the solicitor’s brain, some instinctual lobe that governed self-preservation was bursting with energy, trying to warn the sweaty little man. But after several visits to the secluded castle, he must have learned to ignore that feeling.

  “Shall we move upstairs next?” The man spoke to Alina, who had showed the most interest in the immense kitchen.

  Petran stepped forward. “Is there a wine cellar? I would like to see that first, I should think. Also to inspect the foundations of the structure.” Petran looked around himself as he spoke, acting disinterested. He was making the chubby man work hard for a sale that would never happen.

  “Certainly, sir.” The man led them to a painted white, wooden door on the edge of the kitchen that revealed a wide stone stairwell, which curved gently downward into a broad spiral. Each step was cut from a massive slab of smooth stone, and Petran wondered whether the rock had been hewn directly from the mountain. The solicitor led the way, lighting sconces as he descended the broad steps. Alina followed him, daintily crossing each step with three strides for every one Petran needed to cross the slabs, as he followed her.

  The rooms in the lower section of the castle were endless, but most were empty, standing solitary along the curving stairwell wall like dark prison cells. Petran simply popped his head in each as the rotund solicitor swept past them to the lower reaches, buried deep inside the mountain. At the bottom, the man moved into the wide room with a flourish. His candlelight jumped and leapt to the high stone arches of the chamber.

  “Oh my,” Alina breathed.

  Petran scanned the darker recesses of nooks and indents in the walls. Each was filled with rack after rack of dusty wine bottles. They looked French, but Petran was suspicious of the contents. Still, he would make no comment.

  “The wine cellar is fully stocked, as you can see, and would, of course, be included in the price, sir.” The solicitor looked pleased with himself. The arrangement of the multitude of wine racks formed a kind of labyrinth, with twisting alleys between the rows and rows of bottles.

  Petran strode past the man winding his way through the racks of bottles, acting as if he were appraising them and their potential value. He made his way toward the distant back of the chamber and muttered under his breath. “For so many Swiss Francs, I should hope so.” He was loud enough that the other man could hear him, but just barely. “And what is back here?”

  Petran stopped at a locked door at the back of the cellar.

  “I believe it is only a root cellar.” The solicitor was on his way back to the stairs to the kitchen. “Shall we move up?”

  “We’ve come all this way, sir. I feel I would be remiss if I did not inspect every room, else I would have wasted your time.” Petran smiled in the shadows as the solicitor reluctantly returned through the arches. By the time the man’s candlelight reached him through the maze of dusty wooden racks, Petran’s face had returned to a neutral and somewhat disinterested visage. Alina joined them, but she looked disappointed. Petran could see she had no interest in a potential root cellar, and she had been eager to follow the solicitor up the spiral stairs. Petran wondered if she could feel it, too. The raw menace of the place.

  He stepped aside to allow the sweaty man to unlock the wide door, with a key from his ring of metal keys. The jingling filled the dimly lit space with an outlandish and unwelcome cheerfulness. Petran gave Alina a reassuring smile.

  They stepped inside the chamber, Petran ducking his head slightly under the doorframe, and the solicitor drew a sharp breath. The yellow light illuminated a small space with a stone coffin on a raised platform in its exact center, its head toward the door. The room was otherwise empty.

  “It’s a tomb!” The man was clearly befuddled. Petran had suspected that the man would never have been in the room, but now he was certain.

  “A crypt, sir. Let us see who is buried here.” Petran stepped forward toward the coffin.

  “I don’t think we should—”

  Petran drowned out his wife’s tiny voice by demanding the solicitor help him with the stone lid. The small man harrumphed, but moved forward and did as he was told. The lid was heavy, but the two men were easily able to slide it aside, and then lift it and gently place it on the floor. Alina moved up with the two men as all three peered into the depths of the coffin. The flickering light made the small pile of ashes look golden, but Petran knew they would be gray in daylight. The thought was moot. They were about to become a different color.

  Petran stepped back slightly, and in one fluid movement, removed the large carving knife from his jacket. He had picked it up in the kitchen before they descended the spiral stair. One hand reached around the portly solicitor’s face from behind, and the other brought the silver blade sweeping across the man’s throat.

  Blood erupted from the man’s neck, spraying the ashen contents of the coffin, as the his body went limp.

  Alina screamed when she saw the solicitor’s life pool into the stone sarcophagus. She stumbled back, away from the blood and the coffin. Petran looked at her and saw in her eyes that she understood she would be next. He dropped the corpse on the coffin and stepped toward his young bride. Her eyes widened at his approach, but then they darted quickly back to the coffin, and the horror that waited there.

  When her eyes widened further still, Petran knew what was happening behind him. He lurched forward, but she turned and ran, darting left and right through the twisting maze of wine racks. But she quickly became lost and found hereself in a dead end, against a stone wall. Petran snatched Alina’s arm and tugged her back to the room with the coffin. He didn’t want to miss the sight, and he had already missed much of it. Under the solicitor’s flaccid form, a body now filled the coffin, where before there had been only ash. Although ‘body’ was a bit optimistic. Petran could see bone in places, and veins and arteries networking the form. Muscle was growing. Skin, however, was still entirely missing.

  Petran wasted no time. Alina fainted in his clutches. He grabbed her by her long hair before her body reached the floor. He yanked her skull up and over the lip of the coffin’s sidewall, then brought the blade smoothly across her neck, exactly as he had done with the fat man. More blood sprayed into the container, and skin began to grow over the skeleton’s muscles before Petran’s eyes.

  The process took less than half an hour.

  When the man sat up and climbed out of the coffin, Petran dropped to his knees.

  “Welcome back, my Lord.” Petran spoke now in Hungarian, instead of in English.

  The man in front of the sarcophagus stood slightly taller than six feet, with long, shoulder-length black hair on his head, but none anywhere else on his nude form. His skin was a pasty white, and Petran could see bluish veins through the transparent flesh. He was surprised how young the man looked. No more than thirty years, if a day. His eyes smoldered with a fire that spoke of years of anguish and a dire need for revenge.

  Petran thought of the being before him as a man, but he soon learned his mistake.

  The creature hissed at him and bared its teeth.

  “I still thir
st,” it said, with a throaty croak.

  Petran hung his head in stark disappointment.

  “I understand.”

  Petran, still on his knees on the hard stone floor, closed his eyes as the creature descended on him. It sank its teeth into his neck, long fangs puncturing the skin. As Petran’s blood began to flow, the creature sank its teeth deeper.

  And drank.

  Short story “Covenant of the Green God” by J. H. Ivanov. Originally appeared in the journal Canyon Voices 4, Fall 2011.

  The buzzing was intolerable. Martha frowned, lowering the magazine clutched in her hand. Like a wary animal, she kept her body unnaturally still as her eyes searched all the usual places a fly might occupy: the air above her head, the window sill, the garbage can. However, she could find no trace of the offending insect. And yet, the infernal buzzing continued.

  This was particularly irritating as she had only come to the kitchen in the hopes of carving out a rare moment of peace for herself. The baby had grown colicky again and no matter how much she had crooned, rocked or fed him, she hadn’t been able to stifle his desperate wailing even a fraction. Finally, on the verge of her own frustrated tears, she had left him to his fit and retreated to the breakfast table where the abandoned magazine had awaited her.

  All the same, even with the kitchen door separating them, the baby’s piercing screams had stabbed at Martha’s ears so that she had been able to do little more than stare blankly at the first word in the introductory paragraph of the article she had randomly selected to read. Under the reign of the infant’s increasingly shriller wails, her heart had beaten ever faster and some awful, airless pressure had enveloped her head. Seconds had spent like days, and her fingers had slowly twisted into aggravated claws. Not for her child, but for herself, she had sent out silent, aimless pleas that his shrieking end. Like so many other prayers, however, her entreaty seemed as if it had spun off into the boundless ether, doomed to aimlessly drift for all eternity through the dark without being fulfilled.