Forged From Ash by Marcus Pelegrimas Read Free Book Online

next room. Before the explosive echoes could fade into the upper reaches of the warehouse’s rafters, Rico hopped past the window and smashed the door in using his shoulder. Inside, he saw a flicker of movement and fired another pair of rounds before he could make out any more details.
    “What’s in there?” Sayers asked through the earpiece. “You need any backup?”
    “Nah,” Rico replied as the wooden gauntlet flowed around his fist. “I did find another creeper, though.”
    “Next time, you might want to establish if they’re hostiles before you go in guns blazing.”
    Rico grinned as he walked over to where his moving target had wound up. She had a bit more meat on her bones than whoever had peeked through the other window and was definitely female. Her dark blond hair was chopped short in what was plainly a hack job done with dull scissors or possibly a knife, framing a face accented by a wide nose, large round eyes and dusky skin. Up close, she had a slinky quality which might have been attractive if she wasn’t petrified and bleeding from a gunshot wound.
    She’d been shot through the left portion of her stomach. Since he’d aimed higher when shooting through the window, Rico figured he’d caught her while she’d been standing behind the door. As he approached her, the young woman backed away until her shoulders were pressed against a wall. Dressed in a tattered gray jumpsuit, she drew in a sharp breath when the hot barrel of the Sig Sauer touched her forehead and one of the gauntlet’s spikes scratched her exposed midriff.
    Sayers entered through the door and did a quick sweep of the room.
    “Ain’t nobody else here,” Rico said. “Apart from the little one in the next room.”
    “I’ve got that one in sight and if they move,” the Lieutenant said with added emphasis that effectively carried to the ears for which they were intended, “there will be more shots fired.”
    Rico exhaled in a low snarl as he moved the pointed tip of the gauntlet to the girl’s bullet wound. He grinned as the wooden weapon touched the tender, bloody hole and the girl squirmed against the wall.
    “Enough of that,” Sayers said. “Secure her, and we’ll tend to that wound.”
    “No need.”
    “I won’t let you kill her without knowing who she is.”
    When Rico eased his gauntlet back, it appeared to be connected to a string of blood from her wound. The glistening strand became taut the more he pulled. Within seconds, identical strands pushed a .357 round out of her.
    “Don’t know who she is yet,” Rico said. “But I know what she is.”
     

CHAPTER THREE
     
    T hree minutes later, the blond girl sat with her back against the wall and her arms wrapped around her bent knees. Sayers watched her intently from a spot where he could see the rest of the room and react if she tried to spring at him. Although he’d been briefed on the vampire species infected by Nymar spore, he’d only seen two of them before now. For the most part, the bloodsuckers had kept so well hidden that some of the higher-ups in the IRD speculated that the shifters had wiped them out. He couldn’t help but feel a cold chill as he stood there and watched the inky black tendrils reach out from inside of her torso to stitch the bullet hole shut. When Rico returned to the room dragging a smaller figure along with him, the soldier felt like the lights had finally been switched on after he’d been trapped in a basement for too long.
    “This one’s Nymar too,” Rico said as he shoved the smaller one hard enough to bounce the prisoner against a desk covered in long-expired invoices. “I doubt she’s the one that dropped our friend with the smart phone, though.”
    “I ain’t a she!” the slender one said.
    “Is that so?” Rico chuckled. “I thought the whole pretty-boy vampire thing was over years ago.”
    The smaller Nymar straightened up and put on the fiercest glare he could manage. “If you think I’m pretty, that’s on you