Corrosion Read online

  "Sure as shit," Elijah said. He held up his empty glass. "You up for one more?"

  Chem shook his head. His excitement at nearly finishing devolved into excitement to actually finish. "Your cure isn’t going to make itself. I better hit the lab."

  “Wait,” Elijah spat. “You do chemistry after four beers?”

  Chem slapped him on the back. “Sometimes I go with an even six-pack. Let’s get out of here before my buzz wears off.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Elijah walked beside his friend, enjoying the night air. All things considered, his life was pretty good right now. He had a couple new classes lined up for the fall. He had friends he felt he could be honest with. And of course, he did have molten steel running through his veins, but that wasn’t so bad.

  Studying history had taught him that no time was truly perfect, so he might as well enjoy the good things.

  “You still dreaming about that woman at the bar?” Chem asked. “It’s not too late.”

  Elijah laughed. “And do what? Invite her back to your place? She’d take one look at that shithole and run.”

  Chem shrugged. “It’s a poor player who blames his pad.”

  “You’re a real font of wisdom, you know that? You should have studied philosophy instead of chemistry.”

  “Shut up,” Chem said.

  “No seriously. You could be crushing the self-help market. Of course, we’d have to call you Phil instead of Chem.”

  “I said shut up,” Chem said again, looking around. “Do you hear that?”

  Elijah stopped laughing for a second, and the sound caught his ear. A car horn blaring wildly.

  “What the hell?”

  His question was answered before he could finish asking it. A blue station wagon, easily two decades old, came barreling down the road toward them. It swerved back and forth, clipping cars parked along the street.

  It was moving fast and showed no signs of stopping.

  “Get out of the way,” Chem yelled. He grabbed Elijah’s shirt and pulled just as the car raced past. Smoke poured from under the hood, and for a split-second Elijah caught a glimpse of the driver’s face. She was terrified.

  Seconds later the car slammed into a telephone pole. All the lights on the block went dark, and Elijah could clearly see the flames surrounding the engine.

  “Shit,” Chem said. Hands started pounding on the glass.

  “What do we do?” Elijah asked, his heart racing.

  “Come on,” Chem said. He ran for the car, and Elijah followed.

  The flames had already taken over half the front end, and the driver’s side door was a mess of twisted metal. Chem grabbed the handle and tried to pull. He cursed, shaking out his hand.

  “It’s too hot. The door’s smashed shut.” He looked at the woman, whose legs were pinned under the steering wheel, then the fire, then back to Elijah. “She doesn’t have long.”

  “Maybe if we had a crowbar or something,” Elijah said.

  “We have something better. We have The Foundry.”

  “What?” Elijah took a step back. “What the hell can I do? I’ve never turned unless there’s a fight.”

  Chem placed a hand on his shoulder. “Look at her man, she’s fighting for her life. I know you can do this.”

  Elijah looked up and down the empty street. Chem was right, there was no one else.

  “Shit. Okay, stand back.”

  Elijah tried to focus, tried to imagine he was in a fight. But the woman kept pounding on the glass, and all he could think of was her burning alive if he failed.

  He found a gap between the door and the body, widened by the collision, and began to pull. The metal immediately began to burn his hands, but he refused to let go. He strained with what little muscle he had, but the door wouldn’t budge.

  The woman stared at him through the glass. He could see panic in her eyes.

  A fire erupted inside of him. The pain in his hands was replaced by something far worse. The heat pressing against his body paled in comparison to the heat pouring from it. He pulled again, and the door began to bend.

  He screamed as hot steel dripped from his eyes, and seconds later the door was in his hands. Elijah dropped it and grabbed the wheel, pushing it toward the windshield with all he had.

  “Get her out,” he shouted to Chem, his gravelly voice full of urgency. Chem obeyed without question.

  Once she was clear, Elijah took a step back, eyes locked on the car. It sat burning next to an abandoned building. By the look of the dilapidated wood paneling, the thing would go up in flames in no time. If the car blew there, the blaze could spread through half the block before the fire fighters arrived.

  Up half a block toward Voodoo, Elijah and Chem had walked past an empty lot. Elijah walked toward the front of the car, placed his hands on the burning hood and began to push.

  The car started to move.

  If he had turned Full Foundry, this would have been a piece of cake. He could lift the car and carry it. But as he was, half man, half steel demon, it required more effort. He ignored the heat beating against his exposed skin. He strained the muscles in his legs, adding whatever strength he could to his super powered arms.

  Inch by inch he made progress.

  “Elijah,” Chem shouted somewhere behind him. “Leave it. That thing is going to blow.”

  “No,” Elijah shouted. He kept pushing.

  The empty lot came into view, surrounded on two sides by brick walls and empty street on the others. It was as good a place as he was going to find. With one final surge, he heaved forward, pushing the car up over the curb.

  As he did the gas tank exploded, and he was wreathed in flame.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Normally, Bobby would refuse to let Ford push him, but as they left Voodoo for the night, the vet was too drunk to wheel himself straight, so Ford took the reins.

  Bobby sang a Zeppelin tune from the jukebox, but he garbled half the words. Ford smiled. “Come on rock star, let’s get you home.”

  They turned the corner, and it took Ford a second to register what he saw. A car covered in flames moved slowly toward them. While Ford’s mind fought to make sense of it, his body already reacted.

  He knocked Bobby to the ground and jumped on top of him as the car exploded.

  Seconds passed, and when fire and shrapnel didn’t rain down on them, Ford got to his feet. In the midst of the hollowed-out car stood a demon. It’s arms were wrapped in flames and metal. It’s eyes crimson. From its chest, a strange symbol glowed brighter than the fire.

  “What the hell?” Ford asked.

  He took a step toward the monster, but it looked up, turned, and fled. Ford almost considered giving it chase, but he couldn’t leave Bobby drunk on the ground.

  He stepped back and picked up his very confused friend.

  “If you’re gonna drive the chariot, you better learn how to steer straight, you bastard.”

  “Sorry,” Ford replied, picking the chair up and helping his friend into it. “But did you just see that?”

  Bobby giggled. “What? You haven’t heard about the Mighty Metal Man? He’s like, Bigfoot’s best friend. Or angry uncle. Or something. Where’ve you been man?”

  Ford stared at the burning car. He had been away from the city too long. He had walked through hell to come back here. But it looked like part of hell followed him home.

  And whatever that thing was, it threatened his city.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The air was thick with condensation in the dank, low-ceilinged basement. Three bare bulbs lit the space. The cellar was empty except for a Pittsburgh toilet in the corner, an old-time single-speed bicycle with deflated tires, and Willa’s new gear. She had set up a gym, small enough to fit the fifteen-by-twenty footprint, large enough to transform her into the woman she needed to become.

  I shouldn’t be here, she thought. I should be out with my friends. I should be asleep. I should be doing anything except this.

  But she pushed
those thoughts out of her head and renewed her attack on the worn punching bag hanging from a wooden beam, which was stained with coal ash from decades long past. She pushed away her exhaustion. Elijah had given her a work out already, but it wasn’t enough to get her where she needed to go. So, she left the boys behind at the bar to exercise on her own.

  She didn’t let up until her hands were raw.

  An old full-length mirror salvaged from the back-alley trash let her inspect the work she had accomplished over the last few months. The academic had always been rail-thin. Some might have mistaken her physique for fitness, but that was woefully inaccurate. She was simply built like a waif, a fact that had never bothered her. But Willa’s security in her body shattered, along with many other things, during the melee at PPG Place in the shadow of the tower. Soon after, the magician dedicated her time into shaping her frail body into a fighting machine.

  Fighting was always on her mind.

  May marked a pause in her nearly ten years of teaching. Her grandfather left behind his house, a small sum of money, and the key to his office. She had moved into the first piece of her inheritance and lived modestly without work on the second. She had yet to touch his third bequest. The key hung on a chain against the wall, a silent reminder of the world she once knew.

  Edwin’s tiny home sat in the alley on the back lot of a larger house. It was modest but reflected the old man’s tastes and temperaments. He had moved there soon after his wife passed away. Although Edwin was secular, the Jewish neighborhood of Squirrel Hill made him feel at ease and connected to his roots.

  Willa hoped it would do the same for her.

  The poet-magician squeezed her fists and tightened her thighs. Muscles appeared in places they had never been before. Flexing her right hand up to her chest, she felt the biceps tense up and burn. Patches of red, darkest on her elbows, bled up toward her wrists. Her knees and shins were similarly marked—an inevitable consequence of the training. She hurt, but it was better than death.

  And Willa should have been dead. She could still see the murder in Rex Bertoldo’s eyes. He had been a ghost since that night at PPG, but his memory haunted her. For some reason, that big bald bull of a man had it out for Willa. She could still hear his words.

  “For you. I did it all for you. Because I knew it would bring you out into the open, because I knew it would lead to this.”

  He spoke those words as he stood over her, knife in hand, ready to kill her and do it gleefully. She didn’t know Rex from Adam and could think of no reason for his hatred. Yet, he had murdered her student, Sean. He had stolen Chem’s serum and given it to Brooke. He was even there when Elijah first turned.

  “I did it all for you.”

  None of it made sense. There was no dishonesty in his voice, but she couldn’t fathom why he wanted to hurt her, why he wanted to rain chaos down around her family. Yet he had the strength to do it, the knowledge of how to manipulate her and her friends, and the will to withstand Willa’s power.

  No matter what she had hit him with, he got back up. Other men crumpled at the slightest poem, but Rex bore it all like a rock amidst the waves. Nothing that her grandfather taught her held any lasting impact.

  It wasn’t until she used Sean’s poem that she finally knocked him out of the fight.

  But in this place, I am stronger,

  under this town I thrive,

  through this city my reach grows longer,

  and with my home I rise.

  Those words filled her with power that she had never before known. With strength and confidence and a will to act. It allowed her to defeat Rex. But it also called her to go further.

  Her grandfather had warned her, begged her even, to never use new magic. The canon of acceptable spells was vast, but it also had its limits, limits imposed upon wizards like her by the Guild. Edwin commanded her never to cross that line, but she was too weak without it. She broke the Guild’s rules, broke Edwin’s rules, and in the end, it led to his death. Her grandfather had appeared in all of his glory to not only vanquish Brooke Alarawn, but also to cover Willa’s tracks. His massive attack veiled hers from the Guild.

  Willa vowed never to break that rule again. And she committed herself to never being weak enough where should would have to. So she pushed the poem away, put the professor side of her to death, and prioritized the warrior.

  She tested out Taekwondo first, but it didn’t fit. Its flair might have reflected an elegance she once appreciated, but her new desire transcended beauty. Then she moved to Aikido and one form of karate but found them both too passive. She discovered a match in Muay Thai—a martial art brutal enough to fit her purposes like a glove.

  It would take her years to truly master it, especially since YouTube and a few cheap lessons at the local YMCA were her only coaches, but she hoped relentlessness would help make up for lost time. Judging by the bruise on Elijah’s face, that wasn’t far from the mark.

  Her knees and elbows grew sore from the jutting attacks she performed day after day. The heavy bag took a beating, yet remained faithful to the task. The poet-magician enacted the progression again, grinding it into her bones: jab, spin, knee, elbow—turn for a spell. Her magic and her hate sustained her, along with some ancient wisdom: mens sana in corpore sano. A sound mind in a sound body.

  She practiced her movements over and over. With every hit, the punching bag looked more and more like Rex’s large bald head. She wondered where he was, what he was up to, and who he was hurting now.

  Every day he existed out there unopposed was a day Willa felt guilty. Part of her was glad she didn’t kill him. Edwin had warned her that new magic could shatter her inhibitions. It had turned him into a monster once, and it could do so for Willa. She managed to hold back that night, managed not to become the kind of thing she’d hate.

  She had let Rex go to save Elijah, to save the city, to save herself.

  But her self-control meant that Rex was still on the loose. And this time, Willa didn’t have her grandfather to rely on. More than ever, she missed his wisdom and his advice. How the hell was she supposed to do this without him?

  With a shout she finally broke down. Her body spent, pushed far past its limits. She fell to her knees and panted for air. And while she did, Willa looked up at Edwin’s key. She pulled it from the wall and moved for the door.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Few stirred on Oakland’s quiet streets. There were plenty of students left in Pittsburgh for the summer term, but on a night like this they were more likely to burn the midnight oil at a bar than the Cathedral of Learning. That was fine for Willa. She didn’t really feel up to chatting with undergrads.

  Willa slid into an elevator on the Cathedral’s ground floor. She pulled the key from her bag and ran her finger against its cold, jagged teeth. Fitting it into the elevator panel, she pressed forty-two and watched the number light. Few had access to the top floor of the Cathedral, and since the battle at PPG, its only permanent resident was gone. Edwin, who’d held emeritus status at the University for years, occupied a tiny hidden office at the end of the hall, nested at the Cathedral’s peak. He commanded that space for longer than she could remember. In Willa’s mind, he had always been an ancient man at the top of the old tower.

  Standing before the office door, she drew another key. This one was new, at least to her. Edwin had left her everything, including his office and personal effects. She had no plans for it, and wasn’t even sure what drew her there that night, but she needed guidance and old habits die hard.

  She touched the knob, feeling for the familiar tingle of magic. Cold brass greeted her. Edwin was gone. Though the office still smelled of his aftershave.

  Her eyes cut to the massive bookcases leaning in from the outer wall. She smiled. As usual, his library had a new arrangement. She wondered if Edwin had determined one last order of books before rushing out to save them. She tried to decipher it. Not chronological or geographical, and it certainly wasn’t alphabetical. She guessed the ro
ws of books conveyed some subtle theme, masked to even the most astute readers. She laughed, wondering if his constant reordering indicated pride or mere whimsy.

  Just another question without an answer.

  “What should I do, grandpa?” she whispered into the empty office.

  She ignored the books and turned to shuffle through the documents scattered across his desk. Her grandfather’s familiar handwriting filled reams of paper, mostly personal notes on books and poems. She sifted through the pages trying to find something, anything that could offer her advice. Not that she expected to find a note titled: Willa’s Future: Five Years Hence. Although knowing Edwin, it wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility.

  Willa moved on from the littered desk and began wandering the room. She stopped at a small patch of wall, the only space not covered by books, and took time to admire the photographs there—the aging professor shaking hands with the luminaries of the literary world. These photos were his pride and joy, and the size of his collection never failed to impress her. Her grandfather had gotten around, meeting as many authors as he could.

  Scanning the frames, she stopped at a picture she hadn’t previously noticed. Most of the portraits were of Edwin and the greats, but this one was a rare group photo. A young Edwin stood off to the side, his dour countenance in place even then. The others smiled broadly. She squinted trying to discern if any of the faces were recognizable.

  They weren’t. Or at least she didn’t think so.

  She lifted the frame from its shelf and collapsed into her grandfather’s chair. It was new—or rather new for this office. She was sure of it. He must have put it up after their last meeting—sometime before he ran out in his robes to fight Cold Steel. But why? This picture had been around for a while. Why place it front and center now?

  With shaking hands, she turned the latches on the back and eased the aged particleboard out of its place. Flipping the frame, she gave it a little shake. The backing and photo dropped out into her hand.