Corrosion Read online

  “Agreed,” Chem said.

  “Screw both of you,” Elijah laughed. “Why don’t you make me some sort of flame-resistant shirt? That way I don’t need to buy a new pack of Hanes each week.”

  “If there’s a stylish fabric that can withstand molten steel, I don’t know it. Those welder’s mitts Willa uses are about as good as we’re gonna get, and I don’t think they come in tweed.”

  “They barely work anyway,” Willa said, shaking the gloves off. “If it wasn’t for my spell work, you would have torched my skin. Even with my magic, it hurts like a mother.”

  “Sorry,” Elijah said, suddenly worried he had taken his attack too far. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’d be a fool if I thought I could go toe-to-toe with fire and not get burned. But it’s nothing a stiff drink won’t fix.”

  Elijah nodded, then fell to his knees in pain. Chem and Willa stepped back. They knew what came next.

  When Elijah turned, molten steel pushed its way through his pores and hardened, covering him in an impenetrable armor. But the transformation went both ways. As he cowered on the ground, the steel melted. It dripped off his skin and gathered on the floor in steaming pools. First his face, then his arms, and lastly, his chest.

  Agony came quickly, but it didn’t last. He looked up at them and did his best to share a resolute smile as the cool factory air touched his raw skin.

  “So,” he said, “about that stiff drink?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Raucous energy poured out of Voodoo Brewery—rare for a Tuesday night. An old firehall turned bar, the building had double garage-style doors that opened up to outdoor seating. Chem went to buy a round while Elijah and Willa slid into a table built from recycled pallet wood—the only free spot in the crowded watering hole. Elijah liked it there. The place had a cool vibe while lacking the sense of pretense carried by so many hipster bars in Pittsburgh. Dark paint covered the wall behind the bar, and bright chalk outlined Voodoo’s extensive craft beer selection in blues, yellows, and greens.

  A Van Morrison song came over the sound system, and the crowd erupted into a drunken chorus. It was some kind of party. A huge, brute of a man with shaggy blond hair and an easy, welcoming smile stood in the center of the crowd, graciously accepting the drinks bought in his honor. Elijah assumed it was a birthday, maybe a homecoming. The man was local—it wasn’t hard to tell who fit in around here. Elijah, on the other hand, had a wardrobe and the hints of a New England accent that screamed out-of-towner.

  Definitely homecoming, he thought, as he looked at the man. Elijah figured him for a soldier by the size of his arms, and the confidence in which he carried himself. Someone who looked like he could laugh down gunfire and eat chaos for breakfast. A different breed from the historian whose defining adjectives were thin, soft, and weak.

  At least that’s how Elijah had always seen himself. Now, he wasn’t so sure. A thousand times since February, he asked himself why this power had come to him of all people. He had never been mistaken for a brave man. Hell, he had rarely been confused of being an honorable one. And yet, Gabrijel had merged spirits with him. But why?

  A thousand and one times Elijah had asked, and still no answer.

  “Everything okay?”

  Willa’s voice broke his reverie. Her smile was a reminder that at least one person believed in him.

  “Just peachy,” he said. “Thinking about a book I want to add to the syllabus next year.”

  “I sure hope every time you look like that you’re not adding a book to your syllabus. Students are going to hate you.”

  “If history is a good predictor of the future, they’ll hate me no matter what. What about you? What was your secret? You had a pretty good score on Rate My Professor last I checked.” Willa’s smile dimmed a little at the question—a look Elijah knew well. Ever since she quit her job at the University, she seemed to be missing something.

  “Just speak the truth,” she said. “Being likeable isn’t the job.”

  Elijah nodded. “I can nail the not be likeable part. As far as speaking the truth... that’s going to be a bit tougher. My whole discipline is grounded on the idea that history is made by men and women. Not by...” He hesitated, unsure how to continue.

  “Freaks like us?” Willa filled in.

  “Yeah.”

  “We’re still human, last I checked,” she said.

  “Barely,” Chem added as he dropped the drinks on the table and pulled up a stool. “No human could survive the trauma that Captain Kilimanjaro here puts his body through on a daily basis. Flesh and fire don’t usually mix well. Whatever is swimming around in his blood, it’s not human.”

  Willa took a sip. “It’s not our bodies that make us human, Chem. Maybe Elijah’s body doesn’t hold the answers you’re looking for.”

  Chem rolled his eyes. “Not this horseshit again. I swear, for someone so smart your head is sure full of nonsense. There is a scientific explanation for what happened to Elijah. To what’s still happening to him. Speculation about the soul or the spirit or whatever you want to call it is a waste of time. We just need more data. That’s all. We’ll get there. And then we can reverse course.”

  “What about Willa?” Elijah asked Chem. “I consider myself as rational as the next guy, but her poem powers make me feel like I’m stuck on the wrong side of the wardrobe. What’s the science there?”

  Chem considered this for a second. “Willa is...”

  She raised her eyebrow, warning him to watch his words.

  “Let’s just say that Willa makes as much sense to me as decaf coffee. Or vegan bacon. Or...or freaking poetry!” Chem smiled, obviously pleased with his burn. “That shit’s all nonsense. But you, man, you’re not a lost cause. We’ll figure it out. Research just takes time.”

  Elijah nodded then took another sip. Chem was a broken record when it came to his powers. It was a song Elijah had begun to tune out.

  “As weird as it sounds, I’m far less interested in my backstory and more concerned with my future,” Elijah said. “Where the hell is all of this leading?”

  Willa stared at him, questioning, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

  “Hopefully,” Chem said, “it ends with you being cured. Me winning a Nobel Prize. And Willa...owning less than a dozen cats. Then we can get on with our lives.”

  Elijah thought about it as he finished his beer. Time for another.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. I’d still like to write that book about the Alarawns. That’ll be easier without dripping steel all over my laptop.”

  “Trust me,” Chem said. “Once I find a cure for you, you can go back to burying your head in a book every night rather than letting the Big Dickinson over here kick your ass. That’s what you should be focused on—getting back to your old life.”

  He downed his drink then left for the bar. Elijah watched Chem as he wove through the crowd. There was truth in what he said. The scientist knew Elijah well, knew his weaknesses. Knew his demons. He was probably right.

  “You did well tonight,” Willa said, breaking the awkward silence.

  “What?”

  “Listen.” She leaned closer. “I know the fighting is just a means to an end, but I’m not exactly going easy on you out there. You kept your head, you reacted, planned for what was happening next. You’re getting better, and I’m not just talking about controlling your powers.”

  Elijah felt his face grow warm. Chem might know Elijah’s demons, but whenever Willa spoke, it was like she knew a part of him he didn’t yet know. A better version of himself.

  “High praise,” he said. “You’re not half bad yourself. Whatever MMA shit you’ve been studying really works. I think he would have been proud of you. How capable you are of handling yourself.”

  “Yeah. Or maybe he would have hated it.” Her smile dimmed again.

  Elijah knew that her grandfather was a sore subject for her, and he kicked himself for bringing it up.

  Before he cou
ld figure out a way to apologize, she got to her feet, her glass half empty. “I’m pretty tired. Gonna call it a night. Make sure you put some ice on that bruise.” She pointed at the sore spot on his cheek, which he imagined was starting to bloom purple.

  “Thanks for not pulling your punches,” he said.

  She smiled. “And I don’t know how much this is worth, considering I’m little more than an unemployed poet now, but I like Professor Elijah Branton just fine. When he’s not being a misogynistic ass, that is. If that’s who you want to be, then maybe that’s enough. Maybe you don’t need anything more.”

  Elijah nodded.

  “Or,” she said, “maybe you were called here for a bigger reason than The Alarawn Story: An Extensive History of Pittsburgh Steel, as riveting as I’m sure that will be.”

  Elijah laughed and tried to come up with a witty response, but she was already gone. He watched her walk past the party and out the door. Willa spoke to him like he was a better man. Her words made him want to live into them, believe that the universe had a bigger plan for him than giving half-assed lectures and grading quarter-assed papers.

  He found himself inadvertently staring at the soldier again. Their eyes met, and the man raised a glass toward Elijah. His eyes squinted as he smiled. Elijah nodded in reply, then looked down at his hands wrought with sores.

  Willa was wrong. Men like that guy at the bar, they made history, not guys like Elijah. He got up to find Chem and order another round of drinks.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tim Ford leaned against the bar with a shit-eating grin on his face and concrete churning in his stomach. Nearly every soul he loved in this world filled Voodoo, and all of them came out just for him. He was a hero, after all. That’s what every last one of them said. And he deserved this hero’s welcome. But even if the plastic smile fooled the horde, it couldn’t cover the tension in Tim’s gut.

  He was no hero.

  "Hey, everybody. Listen up" Bobby yelled over the jukebox. The crowd responded with a roar. The party was set to start at eight. By seven-thirty, everybody in the joint was already three sheets to the wind and working on the fourth.

  Including Bobby.

  "Shut the fuck up already!"

  The crowd fell quiet, and they all turned toward their host. Bobby looked out over them with his vibrant green eyes. They were sharp, even after several pints of Voodoo’s finest IPA. The drunken revelers shifted so they could see him from where he sat. Bobby, with a shock of dark hair hanging over his boyish face, looked far too young to have gone into combat. He definitely wasn’t old enough to be confined to a wheelchair—his terrible sacrifice to a miserable mission. His own homecoming party had come all too soon. But that didn’t dampen his spirit, or the joy he showed now that his best friend had come home too.

  "All right, all right," Bobby continued with a hint of a slur. "Simmer down just for one motherfucking second."

  The crowd laughed. "I think you invited the wrong jagoffs to this party," someone shouted from the back.

  Against all possibility, Bobby’s grin grew larger. "Beggars can't be choosers, Brett. Anyway, me and Ford here,” he pointed up at Tim Ford, a monster of a man with shaggy dirty-blond hair and the build of a juiced-up ballplayer, “we've known most you since elementary school. Hell, Vinny over there, he used to brag about getting to second base with my sister."

  "It was third,” Vinny shouted. “I just didn't have the heart to tell you." A scruffy looking guy just off work and still in his Dickies raised his pint glass.

  "Yeah, I always hated you, Vinny." Bobby took a second to give his friend from the old neighborhood the finger. "Anyway, tonight’s not about me, and it sure as hell ain’t for Vinny. We're here because the best damn friend any of us could have has finally come home to the Burgh. And it's about fucking time. So, raise a glass and welcome home Tim Ford. My friend, my fellow Marine, my hero."

  “And your lover,” a woman’s voice shouted from the back of the crowd.

  “Is that you, mom?” Bobby yelled in her direction, bringing the room back to laughter.

  Glasses were raised in a toast to their friend.

  Tim Ford raised his own glass back to them, almost to the level of his chin. His smile never wavered.

  After the drinks were downed, the crowd started chanting, “Speech, speech, speech.”

  Tim worked up a laugh and swiped his hand through his hair. His stomach flipped again, but he knew he had to put on his best for them. Especially for his friend in the chair. “Thanks, Bobby. And thanks to everybody who came out. I ain’t much for speeches, and you guys know that. But after years of travelling the world, there’s no place I’d rather be than in Pittsburgh. Especially since I hear Vinny’s mom is single again.” Laughs and shouts welled up, drowning out Vinny’s comeback. Ford raised his glass again. “Seriously though, nothing got me through the fight more than the thought of yinz guys back here, back home. Your thoughts and prayers meant the world to me. Each and every one of them kept me going. I felt them.”

  Ford patted his chest over his heart and then reached down and squeezed Bobby’s shoulder. A wave of emotion swept over him, and he wanted to drop his drink and run. “Now, enough with this sentimental bullshit. Let’s get hammered.”

  Another shout went up, just as the bartender cranked the music. Tim leaned down to Bobby, beaming up at him like some star struck fanboy. “Thanks, Bobby. Really.”

  “Nah, man. Thank you.”

  Without another word, Tim turned for the bar, hoping to get a pint and catch his breath. He nodded to the bartender, but before he could get his drink, Mike Solinski straddled up at his side. "Saw some shit over there, didn't ya?" Mike was never one to mince words.

  Ford shrugged. "Sure, I saw some shit. All part of the job."

  Mike leaned in. "Hell of a thing, Ford. I mean, going over there to do your tour with the Corps, I get that. I'm a pretty patriotic motherfucker myself. And if it wasn’t for this bad shoulder," Mike rotated his arm with a wince, "I'm sure I probably would've enlisted. But why the hell did you go back? That’s what I can’t figure. What was the name of that outfit? Blackbone? Blackballs?”

  “Blackbow.” Most folks back home didn’t know much about the mercenary unit—the news never reported on them—but people sure knew that name in Iraq, Venezuela, and Ukraine.

  “They sound badass,” Mike said.

  Badass didn’t begin to cover it, but Ford’s time with Blackbow was the last thing he wanted to talk about with someone like Mike.

  "Well, I don’t have your brains or your good looks, Mike. A guy’s gotta make a livin’ somehow." Ford grinned and clinked his glass against his friend’s.

  Mike wrapped his arm around Ford and pulled him into a half-man hug. "Well, I know it isn’t much, but thanks for serving man. And, you know, thanks for..." Mike glanced over at Bobby, who was impressing some young ladies by doing wheelies in his chair. A circle had spread out around him.

  “Nothing he wouldn’t have done for me twice over. We all know that.”

  “Hell yeah,” Mike said, his eyes still on Bobby’s acrobatics.

  Tim wanted nothing more than for Mike to stop talking. He nodded off across the room. “Hey, that’s Becca Shay over there, right?”

  Mike exhaled. “Sure is. She’s as hot as ever. Isn’t she?”

  Ford nodded. “Sweet girl, too. Well, she’s been making eyes at you ever since we’ve been talking.”

  “No shit?” Mike shot back.

  “I shit you not. You should go talk to her.”

  Mike smoothed his hair and checked it in the mirror on the back of the bar. “I’m going in, soldier.”

  “Oorah!” Ford shouted as he pushed Mike off into the crowd. “And watch that bad shoulder.”

  The night progressed just like that. One well-wisher after another. One free drink after another. And Ford smiled through his teeth for all of it. His crew was his life; he loved them, and he knew what they expected of him. But being in the spotlight mad
e his skin crawl, and the one thing he wanted more than anything at that moment was to get the hell out of Dodge.

  Things looked up when Liz took the seat next to him at the bar. Half-Korean and all hell-raiser, Liz had a face that could launch a thousand ships and a mouth that could sink them all. "What's up, hero?" she asked.

  Ford laughed. "Not you too? It’s like everyone here forgot my name or something."

  Liz smiled. "Fine, dickhead, I’ll go back to calling you little Timmy Shitstain." She gave a wink just to make sure he knew she was joking. "Seriously though, glad to have you home Ford."

  Tim looked around the room at all of his friends having a hell of a time, like they were all back in their early twenties—as if someone pushed pause on the city of Pittsburgh nearly a decade ago. He forced a grin, this one a bit more authentic than the others. "Yeah. It's good to be home. I’ve needed this. You know, get things back to normal."

  "The new normal is never the same as the old," she said, taking Ford’s beer out of his hand. Tilting the glass, she drew a long, slow, seductive drink. Ford’s heart drummed in double-time. He’d been pinned down by enemy fire, cleared desert holes of hostiles, and even got shot down in a CH-53E. But none of that affected him like her presence. She handed the glass back to him. "But enough about you, let’s talk about me."

  "Your favorite subject," Ford said. Liz gave him a slap on the shoulder. "What?” He laughed. “It's true."

  A silent moment fell between them. They sat, like two wax figures, as the party roared around them. Finally, he asked, “Still in your mom’s place?”

  “Sure am. Right where you left me, a couple of doors down from your old digs.”

  Memories rushed back of the neighborhood. Of he and Liz and Bobby getting into trouble. She was his first kiss, at the age of six, but he never managed to get a second out of her.

  “Those were the days.”

  “If only we could go back, right?” she said.

  Tim laughed and pulled his beer back from her. Liz couldn’t know how right she was. A laundry list of mistakes clouded his half-drunk mind as he caught Bobby out of the corner of his eye.