The typing goes on, as is so often the case when I start a new project it becomes all encompassing and I’m getting a lot of words down on the story, I just finished chapter eight tonight. Ideally I will keep it up and have the book finished in another month. I still have a whole other book to edit and get out in the world too, more on that when I finally settled on a title. Here is chapter two from Outshined, enjoy!

Chapter 2 – Necro

Wally pulled into his garage, then walked out and around to his front porch. “Not here to fight, agreed?”

The kid, who looked like the fourteen-year-old version of himself again, nodded, “I figured out what you can call me. A shiner nom-de-guerre, so to speak. Call me Necro.” The kid smiled it was rigid and cold, but a smile, “I never needed a shiner name before.”

“Necro.” Wally thought about it, “Suit you. We don’t…I don’t have you figured out yet, but I guess this isn’t a social call.”

Necro shook his head, “No. I need your help. You probably need my help too.”

“You drink coffee?”

Again, a head shake, “I don’t, just makes things messy.” He gestured, “But if you need something, I won’t stop you; I like the smell of coffee.”

“Come on in then.” Wally shook his head as Necro moved to the front door, “Nah, I don’t have the key for that, come through the garage.”

Inside he put on his coffee maker, knowing he would regret drinking a pot before he tried to sleep. Necro was interesting and maybe solvable, unlike the rest of the world.

“They couldn’t use you, in the fighting?”

“I opted to stay in my territory, or ‘in my lane’ as the kids call it these days. It’s getting more difficult for me to keep up with the changing slang as I get older.”

Necro looked him over, “You’re only about eleven years older than me.”

“You’ve aged well.”

He laughed, “I don’t think so. My shine has been all downhill for me. I’d prefer not to be shiney at all.”

“Want to talk about it? I am curious how you got out. We identified Michael Davenport.”

“Who?”

“The body in the cell, how did you make the swap.”

“I didn’t. I don’t want to talk about my shine, it’s gross. I want to talk about the other guy. Or guys. There may be more than one.”

“That bad? I thought you had a handle on him. Them. Did they make you, erm, spot you?”

“I don’t think so. I just don’t know what I can do about them. You seen Dracula? That’s what were dealing with.”

“Oh, thank fucking God!” Wally breathed out a heavy sigh.

“You’re relieved? Do you know these guys?”

Wally shook his head this time, “No, I don’t I was afraid it was the Ramos Clan. I’m glad it’s not them.”

“The drug cartel?”

“The drug cartel currently waging a world war with seemingly endless shiners at their disposal. Yeah, those ‘minor’ inconveniences.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess. I don’t follow international news much. My concerns are more local.”

“Tell me about them. I’ll see what I can do to help.”

Necro hesitated, prompting Wally to say, “You know about me, Necro, at least I think you do, when have I ran away from a fight?”

“Invincible, 2008.”

“Goddamned right! He lives up to his name!” Wally calmed down, “Yeah, okay point. Are you saying this faction is Invincible level?”

“Maybe. It is a possibility. In a different way.”

“Stop beating around the bush, you came to me for help, so tell me so I can see if I can help.” Wally raised one hand, “If I think the threat is beyond us, I will run it up the chain. That’s not a threat, it’s a promise. I’m on the side of the good guys, at least I try to be, if something is a threat to the locals, I will do whatever I can to keep them safe.”

“You’re right, no more being coy; I did come to you. I do think there is a threat. I think it’s vampires or some shiner very much like a vampire. Dracula was real, you know.”

“I know. There have been many with similar power sets since he was destroyed. This is probably another one. What do you know?”

“They are in the hospitals. They can charm people. I think, I only think, mind you, that they can create others like them.”

“Shit, that’s bad. You were right to come to me. I wish you had explained this a week ago while you were in custody.”

“Why?”

“Have they been converting people, or turning them or whatever?”

The man in the teenager’s body rubbed his chin, a very abrasive rubbing, that distorted the flesh around his jaw and teeth to an almost grotesque amount, “I think they are keeping things small. I don’t even know if the guy has changed anyone, but I am pretty sure they have.”

“Why do you think they can create more then? Why do you think they are spreading the contamination?”

Necro stared off into space for a long moment before slowly answering, “It’s the bodies.”

“Bodies? Have they killed someone?”

“I’m not explaining this well. Let me start from the beginning.”

“I think you better.” Wally poured himself a tall coffee, he kept it black, but poured in artificial sweetener before taking a tentative sip.

“Okay, here it goes. A couple years ago I was more around Golden, just staying out of the spotlight and existing, you know?” Wally nodded, “Well I, I don’t create bodies, just so you know, but I do need corpses to exist. I don’t eat them or anything, just use them. Any of them I take end up looking like this.” Here he waved a hand to encompass himself form head to toe, “Takes about three days. Unless it’s like a cat or dog or something, then it just stays an animal.” He held up one hand to Wally, “I can’t explain it, don’t ask me how, it took me years to figure things out. Anyway, I borrow bodies so I can get around easier, no one wants to be a cat forever.”

“Years, this has been going on for years?” Wally asked.

“I think so; at least that’s the first one I came across. A body I couldn’t use.”

“Where do you get these bodies from?”

“Used to be graveyards, but now I tend to grab them from crematoriums. You know those processes are automated in some places? They just toss the bodies in containers, run them through the incinerator and gather up the ashes on the other side. I can find people who won’t be missed, like…okay, too much information. Some people are unclaimed, if the ashes come out a little light on the far side, no one blinks an eye. I exchange my old suit, uh, body, for a new body, sometimes I add a little filler. I was doing that, had a sweet thirty something lined up and tried to take it, and I couldn’t.”

“Why do you need bodies? Can’t you just keep one?”

“It gets worn, I’m not cruising for a new body every day, that would be annoying, but every once in a while I like to change clothes. Pull on a new, fresher flesh suit. Really the newer the better, kids are ideal, doesn’t much matter what they died of or how they lived before hand. Quadriplegics? Not an issue. Everything turns into this, eventually.”

“Three days.”

“Yeah. About. I took a really fat guy once, that took four. I am getting off track. I couldn’t take the body, I chalked it up to just being a once-off, I didn’t and don’t know everything about what I am and maybe there are some bodies I can’t take. Except I started running into more of them. I had to leave Golden, the place got so lousy with bad bodies I thought my days were coming to an end. I drifted east, Lakewood, Arvada, dipped into Westminster. Occasionally I’d run into another dead end. Then I started noticing a pattern. None of the bodies were particularly old, some had trauma, like a car accident, most had died of heart failure.”

Wally nodded, “Yeah, that’s a killer.”

“I have learned a few things; the heart failure is brought on by blood loss. Nearly a hundred percent of the time in those defective bodies. Something is doing a Dracula on these people.”

“You’re telling me know one had noticed this? I think there are safeguards in place to watch for shiners feeding on people, vampires, zombies, whatever you are.” Wally’s voice trailed off. No on noticed Necro and he says he’s been around since ’94…

“I know, I looked into it. I don’t know how they are getting around the system, but I think they are. Like I said, it’s the bodies. A few months ago, I moved to Aurora, I ran into a whole lot of very dead-dead bodies. Looks like they aren’t actually following after all. I took the train up to Golden, back to the old neighborhood, figured if the guy had moved East, then Golden should be ripe picking again. Only it wasn’t; most of them were contaminated too, unusable. By ‘most’ I meant half the bodies I checked. Old people now too, pretty much a fifty-fifty shot, no matter who I checked.”

Wally took a deep pull of his coffee. “I get it, if it were one guy, they wouldn’t be deplete bodies everywhere. Did you go north? Boulder? South? Littleton?”

Necro shook his head, “Not yet. I plan to, wasn’t going to say anything to anyone, but your guy, whatsisanme? Dispatch? The teleporter? He got lucky and caught me, you talked me up a little and I decided maybe this is bigger than I can handle on my own.”

“You handle a lot of bad shiners on your own?” Wally asked, only half joking.

“I have. It’s like, a hobby. A lot of shine doesn’t work on me the way it does other people and if I can be a squirrel, well no one looks at a squirrel, that really helps me find the bad guys.”

“You’re a vigilant! You’re, the, the ghost!” Wally said, thinking back on the rumor that there was a ‘black hat’ vigilante working in the Denver area. Sometimes bad things started happening…then just stopped and no one ever knew why. Wally had access to some case files and the victims didn’t all fit the same profile; different offenders with different files. How many guys had Necro taken down? “Wait, you lied to me.”

Necro tilted his head a bit sideways, “About what?”

“You’ve killed people, you told me you didn’t kill the bodies you took!”

“I never said that. I said I never killed any small people.”

“Dullers you mean, you haven’t killed any norms, but you’ve killed shiners?”

The kid shrugged. “Only the ones who deserved it.”

“Necro, no, you…I can’t you know I work for the feds, I can’t affiliate with someone who murders people!” Wally stood up, jostling his coffee mug. Necro reached out and caught it before it spilled. He brought it to his nose and took a deep whiff before offering it back to Wally.

“I live in the real world. Not one where we can let a bad apple go years killing people until the authorities find out and put a stop to it. This is my town; I protect these people. Just like you do.”

“I don’t kill people.”

“Except once in a while when you have to.” Necro said. The way he said it gave Wally a cold chill up his back.

“What do you mean?”

“Most of you shiners out in the light have things you’ve done in the dark. I know at least one of yours, so don’t bullshit me from the higher ground you think you’re standing on. Hailey Gonzales.”

He knows. “Are you blackmailing me?”

“Ha!” Necro laughed, “I’m a good guy who does some bad things, not a bad guy who does some good things. You’re just like me; you wouldn’t do that and what could you possibly give me that I would want?”

Wally was now fully away, a range of emotions were flashing through his mind, including a brief thought about if he could kill Necro, ultimately he decided the kid was right. Not a kid, not a kid, I wouldn’t be having this conversation with a fourteen year old. “What do you want?”

“Help in finding out if these guys exist, what their plans are and how to stop them. I don’t kill small people; these guys do. That is, if I can prove they are killing anyone at all.”

Wally just stood there for a moment, before taking his seat, “About Hailey..”

“No.” Necro thrust the coffee cup back to Wally, “I’ll never bring it up again. I just needed you to know I know more about you than most people. I was infatuated with you, I told you I was a fan when we first spoke. I’ve kept tabs on you and a lot of the other Shiners in the area. Not Dispatch, he was a surprise.”

“Got transferred in to help us out, he’s from Florida. I’ll not talk about Hailey again, except to say I regret it so much.”

Necro said nothing.

“Good guys who’ve done a few bad things, huh?”

“Yes. You know I’ve killed a few bad shines, I know you’ve killed a few people, small and dull shiner. Some of your career is in the open, most is obscured. With great power comes great opportunity to abuse it.”

“How have you abused yours? Hell, I don’t even know your abilities, are you going to fill me in on any of them, you know all about me, knowing who I am climbing into bed with would be helpful.”

“I killed a few bad people, who deserved it. Extra judicially. Mostly I haven’t figured out a way to really abuse my shine yet. I don’t know what I want; until I do, I keep the assholes in line. I’m dead, Wally, my bodies don’t feel things the same way as I remember I did when I was alive. I can’t be poisoned, get diseases, I don’t breathe, oh, I can tunnel through the ground, not very fast, but I don’t leave a trace of my passage.”

“That must make it easy to get into the morgues.”

“It does. I can pass through walls that way too, if that helps.”

“Can you bring someone else with you?”

“Never tried. I’m not exactly ‘buddy-friendly’ these days. I believe I have an odor about me, puts people off, some animals too.”

Wally took a deep breath through his nose, “Nothing. You smell fine to me.”

Necro shrugged. “How does this help us find these people? I imagine you opened a case on me now, so my days of operating anomalously are probably over.”

“I did, but it’s marked pending. It will be reviewed and someone above my pay grade will decide what to do with it. Maybe nothing. Do you have any idea on where this guy, the Dracula could be?”

“No. I was hoping, with the information I gave you, you could find him.”

“Me? Ha…” Wally stopped, “Well, heck. Maybe.”

“What did you think of?”

“I know a guy. A gal, she is great at compiling information and connecting the dots of seemingly unrelated ‘incidents’.”

“I don’t know about bringing more people into this.”

“You brought me in. I won’t bring you up to whomever I want to use. I’ll just claim credit for breaking the Dracula ring myself and leave you out of it.”

“They will ask how you figured this out.”

“Me? Nah, I’m the old man of the team, fifty-seven, passed my prime, they will figure I just got bored and connected a few dots on my own. You okay with that?”

Necro nodded. “I am okay with that.”

“Let me make a couple calls.”