The door Rico chose was at the top of three steps. It was a normal sized entrance which, if his memory served him, led directly into one of the loading docks. There may have been an office or two as well over there, but the best way to find out was by taking a look for himself. Placing his back against the wall, Rico tried the handle.
It was locked.
He shifted his attention to the frame of the door closest to the handle. The metal was cool to the touch and covered in chipped gray paint. Layers of dirt were caked on after countless rains, a few snows, and high, dusty winds. Rico brushed away as much of that grit as he could until he found what he was looking for.
To the untrained eye, the blocky symbols he discovered beneath all that dirt would have looked like anything from partial lettering to random tags left by kids or bored workers carrying pocketknives with no respect for private property. Rico’s eye was anything but untrained, especially when it came to Skinner runes. Jonah Lancroft had either discovered or created those symbols. Nobody was quite sure which. After stumbling upon them some time ago, Rico had taken it upon himself to learn the art that tapped into earthly energies used by so many unearthly creatures. Compared to the tricks perfected by Dryads and shapeshifters, the Skinner runes were quaint. However, after painful years of trial and error, a few dedicated Skinners had put their quaint little tricks to good use such as keeping doorways hidden or locked.
One of the trickiest things to master where runes were concerned was figuring out the order in which they’d been drawn. Mostly, it was just a matter of knowing which symbols were used to produce a certain effect and what sequence was needed to activate them. Rico had a notebook with hundreds of symbols and combinations but didn’t need any reference material to undo a simple runic lock. There were seven symbols scattered along the frame. Only four were needed to unlock a door, and the others were there as decoys. Screwing up the process would set off a painful countermeasure. Since the door and frame were metal, the penalty for messing up would more than likely be an electric jolt of some kind. Once he was certain there weren’t any more runes intended to throw off an intruder, Rico traced his fingertip along four of the symbols in the correct order. The symbols let out a slow hiss as if releasing air that had been trapped within the frame for a day or two. When he tried the handle again, the door swung open.
It had been a while since Rico had worked with runes. Ever since he’d agreed to help the IRD, he did his best to keep those soldiers alive and do the exact opposite for the inhumans roaming all over the place. That did not, however, require him to show every trick in the Skinner arsenal to the Army. Crisis or not, keeping any sort of thing even vaguely approaching magic away from the military was always a good idea.
The door opened into a small office. Rico stepped inside and eased it shut while allowing his eyes to adjust to the almost total darkness within. The room felt small, and the muffled sound of his shuffling steps verified that. Eventually, he was able to pick out the dim square outline of a window covered by a shade. When he reached out to try and peel the shade back, he realized the glass was actually covered by thick paper that had been stuck to the glass by tape. Rico felt next to the window for a door and found one that was also locked. Unlike the one leading outside, this one was secured by a simple switch on the knob.
Easing the door open, Rico peeked into the larger warehouse space. Everything was pretty much as he’d left it except for the four-door car parked at one of the loading docks. After waiting for another couple of seconds, he saw one guy step out of the office where Drea had been hiding and another man emerge from between the crates where the dead Vigilant member had been found. They spoke for a short while and parted ways. One went back to the car, and the other stood in front of the back offices.
After the guy in the car got behind the wheel and drove out through one of the large garage doors, Rico felt a little more comfortable. He crept closer to the back end of the warehouse, watching for a sign that there were others in there with him apart from the one he’d already seen. As far as he could tell, the only one in the main warehouse area was the guy by the offices. There couldn’t have been a better time for Rico to try out one of his many pet projects.
Every Skinner contributed to the cause by applying their craft, improving it and passing it along. For Rico, the second part of that formula had become something of a bridge to keep his sanity. It was important work he could throw himself into that was much more relaxing than facing monsters. Having already put his runic knowledge to good use, Rico got as close as he could to the edge of a stack of shipping crates so he could trace a set of the blocky symbols into the dust on the floor. They were a series of runes that he’d put together himself. He was still relatively new to that aspect of the craft, but this little trick had tested pretty well. While not as flashy as the older, more complicated cloaking or defense runes, his were basically amped-up distractions; the equivalent of a shiny object that compelled people to stare at it. Their effect varied slightly so, just to be safe, Rico drew another set of them using a felt tip pen on the side of one of the crates. Now, for the acid test.
Rico backed up, drew his Sig Sauer, and tapped its grip on the cement floor a couple of times. The sound echoed through the warehouse, catching the attention of the man posted near the offices.
Like any good Vigilant, this one wasn’t about to be taken off his game so easily. He drew a hand cannon from the holster under his jacket and cautiously approached the crates. After getting about halfway to the spot where Rico wanted him to go, the guard stopped and waited. Then, he circled back around to the opposite side. Unfortunately, that was the side Rico was hoping to use to slip past him.
Suppressing a grunted curse, Rico retraced his steps to avoid being spotted. When he turned around, he glimpsed the runes he’d just drawn. The blocky shapes flickered like silver paint caught by a beam of sunlight for a fraction of a second and died away, illustrating one of his creation’s flaws: the trick would only work on somebody once. Standing slack-jawed in a New Mexico hotel room while transfixed by the runes when he’d first gotten them to work may have been embarrassing, but it saved him from being caught in his own little trap right now.
Rico had intended to wedge himself in between the wall and an upended shipping pallet, but the guard was on to him hurrying around the crates. Instead of trying to hide in the one or two seconds he had, Rico stepped into the open to stand within inches of the runes he’d drawn. The guard appeared even faster than Rico had anticipated and was ready for a fight.
“Who the hell are you?” the guy asked.
“I was here earlier and dropped my keys. They’re right here,” Rico said while looking down at the runes.
Since he wasn’t close enough to be kicked or punched, the guard glanced down for a split-second toward the runes and then looked right back up again. “Drop the gun,” he said.
Although the distraction was short, it should have hit the guy harder than that. Rico looked down again and discovered he’d scuffed away part of one rune when he’d been moving back and forth which was enough to break the entire effect. “Shit,” he grunted.
“That’s right. Now toss the gun before I drop you.”
Rico pitched the Sig Sauer so the pistol skidded across the floor to bump into some of the crates. The guard kept his aim on him as he moved over to retrieve the pistol. He bent at the knees, reaching out with his free hand for the gun without taking his eyes away from his target.
“I can explain why I’m here,” Rico said.
“Save it. What else are you carrying?”
“Not my keys,” Rico replied with an ugly grin.
“Lose the jacket.”
“Look, I left my stuff in the next room. Once you see what I brought, you’ll know this is all just a mistake.”
“If you don’t lose the jacket, I can always shoot you and pat you down afterward.”
Rico kept his hands up and started walking toward the back offices. “There’s gotta be someo
ne else here who can vouch for me. Are you new?”
The guard backed up a step and gripped his pistol with two hands. His aim was steady and his voice didn’t falter when he said, “Take another step and you’re dead.”
As he turned around to face the guard again, Rico sidestepped as if he meant to duck behind the crates. He knew he wasn’t going to get more than a few inches if he tried making a run for it. There was only one mildly safe play to make, and he doubted even that much with every second that passed. Finally, the guard twitched.
“What is…?” he muttered as his eye was drawn to the crates a few inches away from Rico. He must have only caught a glimpse of the runes that had been drawn there, but that was enough to do the trick. The symbols were made to captivate, and that’s just what they did.
Knowing he didn’t have more than a second or two, Rico lunged forward and to the side so he could get to the guard while also removing himself from the line of fire. The moment Rico’s grip closed around the guard’s gun hand, the Vigilant snapped out of the minor spell that had been cast and re-focused on his job. It was too late, however, and Rico shoved the gun toward the floor while snapping his head forward to pound the upper portion of his forehead against the bridge of the guard’s nose. Despite being the best way to deliver the blow, it still rattled both men. Rico took a step back, twisted the guard’s wrist to lock the joint and then brought his right arm around in a powerful clothesline. The solid impact pulverized the other man’s bleeding nose and sent him straight to the floor.
The guard was still twitching as Rico patted him down. He found some spare magazines for the pistol, a set of keys and a folded bundle of papers. Rico stuffed all of those things into his pockets so he could take the time to examine them after he’d cleared out of the warehouse.
On his way to the office, Rico couldn’t see anything moving. He didn’t get too optimistic, since all of the stuff that really needed to be guarded was in the basement. The Sig was ready in his hand as he made his way into the back offices and down the stairs.
As usual, The Vigilant were quick to act. Unlike the neatly maintained hallway that had been there when he’d gone down into the basement with Sayer’s men, the place Rico found looked every bit like something found beneath an abandoned warehouse. Every door was ajar, and stuff littered the floor. Obviously, the cleaning crew had found what they’d wanted and carried it away in a rush. Rico wasn’t too surprised. When he’d first signed on with The Vigilant a few years ago, he’d been assigned to a cleaning crew. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to find much, if anything at all, he checked the rooms one by one.
In the labs, every piece of glassware was broken and strewn on the floor. Shelves were knocked down, and graffiti was sprayed on the walls to give them that “vandalized by no-good kids” feel.
The occupied Nymar cells in the first holding room had already been taken by the IRD, and the empty ones had since been carted away to leave only blood-stained floors. Rico smiled as he approached one of the main items on Daniels’ shopping list. Grabbing a strip of torn material from his pocket, Rico swiped up as much of the blood as he could and then crumpled the material in a tight ball to keep the crusty, dark red flakes intact.
There was a bit more to find in the second lab. Again, the glass was shattered, but after sifting through the shards, Rico found some with flecks on them resembling marks left behind after a quick trip through a cheap dishwasher. Another curved chunk from the bottom of a beaker was blackened with a different crust, so Rico put that and the other one in his pocket.
Deciding to gamble on leaving by the ladder at the end of the hall, Rico climbed up and found himself within spitting distance of another side door. Apparently, The Vigilant were through with the building and hadn’t bothered leaving any traps behind. That was standard practice back when Rico had been a member, but the organization had changed a hell of a lot since then. Once outside, he started moving as quickly as he could along the most crooked path he could forge through Charleston’s ravaged streets. Almost immediately, he was aware of heightened activity all around. Battered cars and men on foot were combing the neighborhood Rico had passed through on his way to the warehouse. Stirred up by all of that commotion, the Half Breeds were closing in as well. Getting back to the phone he’d found earlier would be more trouble than it was worth, so he made his way back to the interstate and didn’t allow himself to breathe easy until he was safely out of town.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
St. Albans was just over ten miles to the west of Charleston, but the car he’d boosted on his way there managed to keep running for eight of them. It was a gritty little town built within sniffing distance of a massive chemical plant. Rico had passed through the area a couple of times back when the world was run by humans and he remembered the billowing towers of smoke being regurgitated by the plant to hang in the sky. That smoke was gone, leaving only a sprawling eyesore of concrete and smokestacks which were undoubtedly home to either a thriving community of survivors or a whole mess of Half Breeds. Rather than poke his nose in to see which it was, Rico kept walking in search of another way to contact Daniels.
There were some phone lines still hanging from a set of posts along the road, so he followed them into town and checked every place along the way that might possibly meet his needs. There was a gas station, a diner, a few signs pointing toward little churches situated just off the road, and another plant that looked like a factory of some kind. He checked all of those except the factory. While he might not have known about the chemical plant, the wind blowing in from the direction of the factory reeked of Half Breed dens. As the industrial structures gave way to little houses and small businesses, Rico’s hopes began to rise.
He only stopped to look in on the houses that were close to the telephone poles. There could very well be underground lines anywhere beneath his feet, but he had to limit his search somehow or he’d lose days by testing one dead connection after another. There was an art to scavenging. Whether the goal was to find food, supplies, transportation or communication, there were things to look for and instincts that could be honed to point a scavenger in the right direction. Most of those instincts were telling Rico that coming to St. Albans may have been a mistake.
The last thing he wanted to do was turn back, however. Not only would The Vigilant be on high alert, but he didn’t want to push his luck in splitting away from the IRD by showing up again so soon. That would only make both him and Sayers look like morons. All of those discouraging thoughts were going through Rico’s head when he spotted a little strip mall on the side of the road. The first thing to catch his eye was a tattoo shop that still looked like it might be open for business. There were a few other neighboring storefronts but without a single undamaged window between them. Not only was the tattoo shop relatively untouched, but its windows were boarded up from the inside. Someone had taken the time to fortify. That was always a good sign. The burning in his scars, on the other hand, was not.
Rico slipped his wooden weapon over his right hand and shifted it into its gauntlet form. Gripping the Sig in his left hand, he tapped the tattoo shop’s door with the barrel of the gun. There was no answer.
“Hey! Anyone inside?”
Still no response.
“I’m looking for a phone,” he said to the door. “You know if there’s any working ones around here?”
Just as he was about to walk away, Rico heard something inside the tattoo shop. It was a quivering voice, muffled and strained. He placed his shoulder against the door and shoved, but it was locked too tight for him to budge. Moving over to the front window, Rico used his gauntlet to punch through the glass and knock out a hole that was big enough for him to step through. As he shoved his way through, glass shards and splintered boards scraped against his shoulders and arms without piercing the Half Breed leather of his jacket.
Inside, the place looked like any other tattoo shop Rico had visited. There were a few chairs near the door, a small counter where the register
had been and a larger space in the back where the artists could do their work on customers who sat in barber chairs. The wall on the far right side of the room had been all but torn down, leaving a wide hole that opened into the neighboring store. A skinny girl with arms covered in dragons and Lotus blossoms huddled beneath one of the three big chairs in the workspace. A pair of equally skinny ink enthusiasts was lying on the floor. Rico couldn’t tell if they were male or female because their bodies were being ripped apart by a pack of four Half Breeds.
“C’mere, doggies!” Rico shouted. “I got a treat for ya!”
The werewolves were members of a newer generation. Although they might have looked as terrible as the rest of the packs to the casual observer, Rico had to be able to spot different incarnations of the creatures so he would know what to expect when taking them on. These Half Breeds had thinning coats and narrow bodies. What fur they had was short and bristly. Their snouts came to a point, and the teeth they bared were longer and more curved than usual. Two of the Half Breeds kept feeding on the dead bodies while the others moved toward Rico.
“All right,” he said under his breath as the pair of Half Breeds split apart to circle him. “You guys ain’t stupid. Let’s see how anxious you are to get your asses beat.”
Some Half Breeds would charge at anything that moved, regardless of whether it was firing a gun at them or not. Others kept more to their pack mentality and even used flanking tactics to get the drop on their prey. These seemed cautious as they placed their bodies close to the floor and stalked toward Rico. One of them even turned toward the other to give a few short, huffing barks as if it was some form of primitive language. As they moved, Rico noticed some peculiar things about their bodies. Their legs were longer than normal and their tails were barely nubs protruding from their hind ends. He didn’t have time to observe any more than that before he was forced to defend himself.
Forged From Ash - Book #7 of the Skinners Series Page 12